#spirestar : suzaku.

[necrosin]

inside knightmare frames, the world narrows. they're stuffy, annoying things, as far as she's concerned —— uncomfortable to say the least, but effective. until they fall from the sky and crash to the ground and other inconvenient things, only good for breaking a fall, at that rate. she's gotten used to falling / gotten used to a lot of things, really / death and dying and drowning and burning and exploding, imploding, everything in between. none of it has any effect on her, really, other than the fleeting idea that oh, if only, but the thought is there and gone again, as ineffectual as a butterfly caught in a spiderweb.

still : climbing out of wreckage is time consuming and annoying. and also necessary. immortality does not come with an easy and convenient way of getting the body out of situations that could destroy it, if given time and patience, so she always has to do it the hard and arduous way, shoving aside bits of wreckage and filth, palms splitting on sharp metal, sighing to herself all the while —— but, look at that, amusement has arrived in the form of a KNIGHTLY MAN / well, not quite a man, but not quite a boy, either. always carrying himself with straight shoulders and a halfway stern expression, ready to rescue at any time, and there's that look on his face : that expectant one, that furrow to his brow, an outstretched hand.

it threatens at being funny and she smiles humorlessly, ignoring his offer as she picks across the wreckage. something in her body hurts, maybe it's that her leg is in a strange position, but oh well. it's nothing that won't be fixed in, hmm, a few minutes or so. ❝ i can take care of myself, you know, ❞ she says lightly, glancing down at her leg with intense disinterest for the blood and weird positioning and lack of ability to bear weight on it and whatnot. ❝ go on, now, shoo, ❞ she waves him off, bored but not that bored.

a sigh, as if pulled from @spirestar's soul, a shake of his head. ❝ just take my arm, at the least, ❞ so persistent !! she supposes that knights in fairy tales are always quite persistent / how else would they ever get the girl, after all?

she glances at him, head tilting, hair falling around her / his arm is still outstretched because he's deeply predictable, almost laughably so. he's such a bleeding heart, always willing and ready to throw anything and everything aside to play at being the hero, even if he doesn't see it that way. conviction and determination have little effect on her unless it has anything at all to do with her own goal, passion and drive lost on her entirely if it doesn't suit her needs. not a one of kururugi suzaku's traits moves her, stirs her, brings her long dead heart to motion ; but that's hardly something she can expect of him.

❝ you should learn when to take no for an answer, ❞ delivered with a sigh, a sway of her head, her leg moving slightly and hurting. hurt is always so far off, distant, remote. still : her hand settles in the crook of his elbow ; a curiosity moreso than anything else / she reaches up to gather heavy hair in her free hand, lifting it from the back of her neck, twisting it / strands falling heavy. ❝ some people don't want to be helped. ❞ like you, she doesn't say aloud / the implication heavy in her tone / in the way her gaze settles only to move away once more.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.

[heartinhands]

@spirestar said: ❝ do you remember who you are ? ❞ ( suzalulu )

"Don't bother," Lelouch spits out hatefully. He moves as if to cross his legs, but with the restraints it makes it difficult to do much of anything--so he turns his head away from Suzaku to press it to the cold metal of a bar in the transfer vehicle they've unceremoniously thrown him into. It reminds him of when they'd shuffled him and Nunnally off to Japan all those years ago. "I am Lelouch vi Britannia, hated and abandoned prince...Lelouch Lamperouge, student and council member...and Zero, the terrorist who has torn the world apart." He can't help himself, he tilts his head up just slightly to grin menacingly at his friend--no, his enemy--who is more a glowering silhouette than a figure.

"Do you remember who you are? Are you Suzaku Kururugi, the last surviving member of the Kururugi clan? Or are you Suzaku the traitor--the one who willfully served Euphemia li Britannia, who commanded all your people to die?" He might struggle with his restraints more or appease to Suzaku's better nature, the dim line of panic in his chest thrumming at the thought of Nunnally being hurt, or worse--but there's no point to it now. Suzaku is the most stubborn person he's ever known, and that steely look in his eyes tells Lelouch enough. Fair enough. Zero deserves his ire. Not even Lelouch can argue with that. His head slumps back against the metal, eyes closing. His breath leaves him in a disgusted scoff. "So...which name are you going to use to introduce me to my father with, Suzaku?"

[necrosin]

dealing with these boys is a trying sort of thing, but she could argue that about dealing with anyone at all. sometimes life does seem easier in isolation, far and away from others / she's tried that a spare handful of times, going to the furthest reaches of the planet for peace and quiet and to be far, far away from any living, breathing creature who could speak to her —— it always gets BORING after a time, however, and isn't worth it for the borderline insanity that threatens to descend upon her after too long without other people / IT'S IRONIC, REALLY : the undying witch who trails death and destruction in her wake can't even be without people.

not being able to die was bad enough !!

sometimes she's not wholly sure of her own intentions / only the trivial things, of course, she's fully and utterly intentional about nearly everything she does, but things like this : POKING AND PRODDING THAT KURURUGI SUZAKU for the purpose of ( ... ) because she can. perhaps she shouldn't antagonize him, he's an essential part of their plans, forced to live and forced to continue to live in some sick repentance of existence / at least he'll die naturally, eventually.

probably.

silly c.c., jealous of people for being able to die again.

lelouch is intertwined with him and she supposes that in some twisted, hilarious way, she's intertwined with suzaku, too. ❝ i'm functional, ❞ she is, actually, leg whole again as she drifts, ever gracefully, from reclining on the rubble to standing once more, tossing her hair over her shoulder in a downpour. ❝ it's impolite to keep him waiting ( ... ) but, far more amusing. ❞

he'll sigh and roll her eyes at her later, probably, when they're alone or even when they're not and she'll recline and smile at him LAZILY and so on and so forth. FOR NOW she walks past suzaku / she can see it in his face / in his eyes —— what a silly boy. ❝ if you have something to ask, then ask. i'm not a mind reader, ❞ she doesn't GENTLE HER VOICE / can't / thinks fleetingly of mao and discards him again. / instead of gentle her voice is melodic and reaching, begging at being cloying

Suzaku feels his teeth settle on edge, wills his face to remain a careful mask of appropriate friendliness. Frustration always gives itself away in his brow and the narrowing of his eyes — He can't keep his sharper edges from cutting all around him to the quick. Call it self-destruction, perhaps. To Suzaku, it's only a defense. He's a poor manipulator of most, but not of himself.

"I'll take that into consideration," he says, as pleasantly as he can muster. Which isn't very. Orders are more than suggestions for a soldier, though Suzaku isn't sure hems ever qualified as a real one before now. A little toy figure in the hands of a player. But, really, would it be any better to choose everything for himself? Good soldiers follow orders, sometimes even make them worse. He watches her stretch her knee and props a hand on the gun at his side as he looks over the surrounding area again / Kicks some debris out of the way to clear an easily-walkable path down. "I don't think your lack of opinion was ever in doubt, C.C."

It's the one thing Suzaku truly knows of her. What she and Lelouch see in one another is a half-mystery to him. He's seen them save each other, yes, but their attachment is something he knows he'll always be outside of. Here, too, he can be a good soldier still: Suzaku is polite to a fault, until pushed, until crushed underfoot. Sometimes he finds blood under his nails that can't be there and he wishes he could convince C.C. to destroy the Geass on him somehow — She knows, she has to, please, if anyone could kill him ——

"Are you ready to leave?" Lelouch is still waiting, however much Suzaku would prefer to stare at the horizon and escape his body for a bit, and there are things to be done. Latent curiosity scratches at the back of his neck and twists in his throat. There's a question blatant on his face, too, all his attempts to conceal it a failure: If you see it, then what am I?

[necrosin]

❝ orders are just suggestions, aren't they? ❞ he refuses to give reactions unless under extreme emotional duress, she's known this of him, watching him from afar / from nearby / from all of the distances possible. always so affable and kind to those around him, and when that's peeled away there's his bleeding heart, rotten and begging to die. funny, how the only commonalities between them are an overtly dramatic and overwrought teenage boy and the OMINPRESENT NEED TO DIE. it would be morbid if it weren't so funny, if she didn't treat death ( and lelouch ) with outright irreverence, never bothering to give either much notice or care beyond absolute expectation. alright, she treats lelouch somewhat better than DEATH, but he is her gateway to the latter, after all.

or, would have been.

so why is she still here? a fascinating question. a pressing question / one easily ignored for the time being / lelouch will not take her code and therefore she CANNOT DIE, but what is a pond to a raging ocean? ❝ you can ignore them should you wish, ❞ the key to living, the trick to surviving with shreds of insanity like scattered stars in the night sky, is that you can ignore anything, should you wish.

kururugi suzaku is a pitiful sort of boy, helpless in the throes of misery, the reality of the world, the horror conjured by his very own heart. c.c. doesn't pity him, really, she has no room for pity / or rather, pity doesn't exist inside of her. a worthless though, useless emotion. ❝ no, not really, ❞ loyalty is another one of those worthless, useless things. what good has loyalty done her, in the past? ( the irony, of course, is that loyalty stays her hand, halts her feet, keeps her steady in spite of it all. ) loyalty is for the worshipful who want to give themselves over, their lives over, for a person or cause or otherwise. she smiles at him, a pretty thing, a charming thing, muscles moving in a well remembered way, the sweet honey that attracted love / the tilt of her head and the dip of her chin / her leg is almost healed, now, she lifts her knee to make a show of it, propping her foot on the wreckage, healing skin stretching, a vague discomfort. ❝ you don't need to prove anything to me, suzaku, ❞ lighthearted words, not delivered to gentle or sooth, a sharp edge to her voice, something half-concealed. ❝ i see you for what you are ( ... ) ❞ lashes lower, just so. ❝ i've found that people chase approval to soothe their own sense of self-doubt. ❞

Suzaku glances about to check their perimeter before glaring back at C.C. They both know he'll wait for her: Lelouch and C.C. are something together that goes far beyond the stupid titles Britannians used for them before. What had he called them once? Accomplices? A king and a witch. Only one is a chess piece, but the two of them are both the true players. What does that make Suzaku — Their smoking gun? Surely nothing so important. He grits his teeth to keep from biting back at her immediately, the martyr in him dying to push back against the slightest suggestion that he might have had enough. Gino used to call him a glutton for punishment more times than he could count. Suzaku never bothered to correct him. How can he explain himself in a way that makes people understand? He can't. Only Lelouch seems to see through him — Just as they're the only ones who know Nunnally's smile.

He mutters, soft but sharp, brow furrowed, "Noble?" Reason for living. So she's making fun of him. Or, at least, prodding at him to see if he'll react. C.C. always seems so bored. Maybe that's all it is — He knows she has little interest in his perspective. Suzaku drops his wrist into his other palm / His heart is never a quiet thing to touch, even as he wills it to die. He watches her sweeping movements with only a dash of perturbation; She'll be fine, of course, Suzaku's already seen her die. A bloody leg won't last long. He clears his throat. "You'd suggest I ignore my orders?"

No, he wasn't told to follow C.C. That doesn't change anything, though. Lelouch needs her. Suzaku would risk much more than his life to keep everything in its right place for their future. Not that he has to worry about dying either. He has his own Geass / wish to thank for that. "You've never been very loyal," something Suzaku resents ( so hypocritically, oh, and how he knows it ), "but I don't think you'd want that. From me, at least." If he ever turned on them, unthinkable impossible, but if, then he might destroy the foundation of Requiem. Neither of them can force him to do anything. He already has to live. It's enough of a punishment. "When you're not yet trustworthy," pointedly, he gives a flat sort of smile, one that used to make him look young, happy even in the face of so much misery, but now only leaves his features stretched and tired — Lelouch may depend on him, but Suzaku knows C.C. will never forget what he's done / Will never trust him, and she shouldn't. "There's nothing else to do but prove it."

[necrosin]

❝ i said no, didn't i? ❞ naturally he doesn't rise to the occasion or even nip at the bait. she hadn't expected him to, really, she may have even been disappointed if he had, in some morbid, morose sort of way. even the slightest of confrontations in regards to suzaku's outlook on life and constant need to die is similar to taking a stroll through a minefield on a sunny sunday afternoon —— it may be amusing for her, may even bring her joy and contentedness and happiness for the time being, but only wit that constant threat of the world imploding all around her. not that the threat of explosions are especially terrible by any means, but still.

❝ i was managing well enough on my own, ❞ loftily and honestly —— c.c. has time and time again dragged herself from repetitive mockeries of death, anything and everything that could feasibly be concocted or considered or imagined by the terror that is the human mind. she's rather an expert at it, really, whether half her body be torn away or none of it / and A BROKEN LEG is nothing to her, in the grand scheme of things.

still, she acquiesces, makes something of a show of it as she goes, a put upon lingering sigh, the tumble of her hair as she releases it from the piles she had created, cascading all around her as she turns with nothing less than absolute grace half innate and half learned. what was it that priest had said to her so long ago, something about stillness for the sake of modesty and avoidance of temptation? forgive me father for i have sinned, or whatever. hand slides from suzaku's elbow to his wrist, maintaining a dainty ( almost princess-like, and isn't that an ironic thought? ) grip upon his wrist as she perches herself lightly upon a piece of wreckage, broken leg stretching out in front of her, well in the throes of healing. ❝ he's always waiting for me, ❞ a cant of her head, a whisper of an amused lilt, a crooning coo, an implied i'll always go to him. she holds lightly onto his wrist, still, tilts her head back to glance up at the clear skies / feels his pulse beneath her fingers, a muted thing, muffled by the silly flight suits they wear.

a brief glance again, noble profile considered, before she lets her head fall back and back and back ( a metaphorical beheading ; not the worst way to die, really ) tracking the sky and wreckage as she leans and leans. a distant breeze, far off birds, scared away by the sounds and detritus of battle after battle after battle. a witch and a knight —— now that is a tale that never ends well / though c.c. has never been skilled at crafting happy endings. ❝ is it not tiring to only exist living in service to others? ❞ a rhetorical question / she taps her fingers against his pulse before relinquishing her hold on him / wiggles her half healed leg, amused in a distant, macabre, ghastly way by the flash of pain.

❝ —— hmm, i guess it wouldn't be, to you. the ever noble raison d'etre. even coming to my rescue. ❞

C.C. exists as someone / something / what does he know / to set his teeth on edge and force his hand. Or, that's what he thought before — As a Knight of the Round, she was his enemy, the reason for everything beginning again and again no matter how hard he tried to cut the cycle short. Suzaku isn't sure he's ever believed in fate and, unless someone finally tells him he was fated to be a murderer, that will remain true even in the face of a being like her. One that outlives and outwits and outlasts. And it's because of her that Lelouch is——

"Clearly not you," is all he says in reply to her comment, jaw clenching as he bites back any other words that might linger in his throat. No, he doesn't want help. What has he ever done to deserve it? Helping him / Wanting to help people / is what killed Euphie. Who else would even offer him any anymore? He's been offered a future of nothing for himself and peace for all other people. It's enough. Will have to be enough. Suzaku has been hated for so long, he's almost happy, in a morbid way, that he'll 'die' that way too. Ever a pawn and puppet to some grand design. But it's Lelouch's this time, of course — There's not another living person / plan he'd offer up his swan song to so willingly.

Green eyes narrow to a knife's edge. "You won't be walking like that," he glances back up to the mostly calm skies, his own knightmare not far beyond the wreckage of C.C.'s and her prey's. Battle is battle and Suzaku is alive in it — Finding C.C. was easy, he didn't even have to wait for the dust to settle, and peeling off from the main force when the battle is practically over is child's play. He's changed. Geassed soldiers are a necessary sacrifice; If his life has any value, it's only been allotted for these circumstances.

"Can you sit?" For a moment, he almost sounds like his old self: Suzaku tenses his arm to give C.C. a better surface to lean on and starts kicking away debris surrounding her crushed cockpit. Something in him goes on alert when people need him. A flipped switch — His cold heart is a fragmented, almost-nothing, and yet. "I can fly us back once we have the all clear." His gaze flicks back up to the sky. Mostly clear of ships now, but the odd one passes over, scanning for hostile aircrafts. "When we saw you go down—" Suzaku glances back at her, hoping to pull C.C. along with him to at least rest her leg. He almost seems concerned, but the sentiment quickly veils itself under his usual mask of focus, of intent, and underneath the words that he enunciates more clearly than any others, "He'll be waiting for you."