#is anyone even still here........... howdy ny'all

[bala-xiv]

protocol;

For all his time in the wider world so far, there yet remain some emotions Robyn has not had the chance to practice: emotions which can only be found in the company of others; emotions which cannot be known to any other, not for so long as he wants to survive.

Grief. He thought he had known grief once, in that village by the sea, when he had still thought he had a home to return to — when he had found only an empty house, an empty hearth, long abandoned for horizons unknown. There was a heavy ache inside him then, one which could not force its way out until the village was long behind him, until a wail of despair tore up from his throat with such strength as to catch even his own self by surprise. No pain he had ever felt since, he had thought, could ever compare.

He wonders if grief is what he feels now. The ache is there now, the weight of it nigh unbearable, the itch of something threatening to claw up from his throat ever present... But that can’t possibly be right. He had grieved for the man who saved his life, the man who had given him his very reason to live, and he felt certain that none could question him for it. These men who had failed to return to the Voyage, though — he had met them, worked alongside them, exchanged names and pleasantries with at least one of them... But was that enough? He sees the tears, hears the howls and wails of those who truly mourn the fallen, and he thinks — no. No, of course not. His place here was not to grieve, no matter how heavily the pain weighs upon his heart. No, this cannot be grief; there must be another name for it.

Regret. He has known regret before, but never in such spades, never with such dire consequences as before he joined the expedition. Father Salem had comforted him once, had encouraged him to see the meaning in his life beyond the bounds of where he had expected to find it — but those words ring hollow now, in the wake of his party’s return from Azys Lla, in the face of such monumental loss. Robyn was brought aboard this expedition to fight — to fight, and to see that the hubris of Allag would never again fall into Garlean hands. If he couldn’t achieve even that... If only he had been chosen to join them in Azys Lla, then he...

The memory returns to him as vividly as though he were living it in the here and now: alarms blaring, chimeras roaring, gunner drones raining death upon him and his fellow adventurers. “CONTAINMENT BREACH,” the alarm wails. “ANDRISKOS PROTOCOL ENGAGED,” scream the very walls around them. “CONTAINMENT BREACH—”

Fear. He knows fear, knows it all too well, lives it in every waking moment when he fails to forget what he’s running from. “CONTAINMENT BREACH.” The mechanical voice drills into his head. “SYSTEMS FAILURE IMMINENT.” Seawater floods the space surrounding him, spills into his mouth, chokes the breath from his throat. “CONTAINMENT BREACH—”

Robyn finds himself doubled over on all fours, throat hoarse but very dry, while the umbral winds of the Sea of Clouds dry his dampened cheeks. It takes only a moment to come back to himself, to regain his bearings, to remember his surroundings; it takes a moment longer to verify that he is alone, to remember why he is alone, to remember the patrol route he had volunteered to take alone, to find some space, some quiet, away from the others and their mourning.

That’s right, he thinks; the others, they all need their own space to mourn. He needs no space to mourn, he thinks — and that will be just fine, so long as he can bring what emotions he does feel, whatever they may be, under a tighter grip. So long as no one can see, then no one has to know.

And so long as no one else knows, then he can keep on surviving. He can keep running. No one has to know.