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system-architect · 9 months ago

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The Price of Enlightenment

Wracked by nerves in the days before the scheduled date of her Ascension, Zojja receives a nighttime visitor.

content warnings: lots of talk about death + dying (including some parts describing corpses and some analogies to suicide), implied bad childhoods, nausea/people nearly (but not full-on) getting sick

author's note: wanted to write a fic that makes zojja's soto arc make.. more sense... and inspire more realistic doubts into her character about it. this fic contains some fanon-- namely, the idea that kudu and zojja both briefly apprenticed under snaff at the same time before kudu's departure. also, please note that this fic is explicitly not meant to read as shippy whatsoever despite any banter ✌️

The sun had long since crept below the skyline of the Archipelago, but Zojja found herself unable to attain solid rest– she seems to flicker in and out of sleep, sparse fragments of dreams flitting through her brain like fireflies rising from a field. She finds herself shaken between them, roused by a small sharp breeze flowing through her opened window, and would turn in bed, futilely trying to attain a comfortable pose despite her eyes seeming to be glued wide open.

The date of her ascension was drawing closer, and she had been absolutely adamant throughout the whole process– Yes, I want to do this. I really do want this. I know what it costs. Now that she was nearly at the peak, it felt as though the veil was beginning to fall from her confidence, and she felt half-formed doubts worming their way up through her body like nausea.

She flips herself over onto her back, fingers clutching at the sheets as her head sinks into her impossibly hard pillow. Her body felt heavy, so heavy, and achey. She lays there, staring at the ceiling, feeling every acute twinge of her soreness, when a shadowy presence creeps into her periphery from near the window.

“Zojja.”

Something within her ruptures– she knew that voice. It incenses her. She felt every muscle in her body spasm in a sort of shiver as she shoots half-upright, her face scrunching up and lips peeling back. She squints over in the direction of the figure.

“Kudu.”

The man was… posing in an uncharacteristically flamboyant manner, leaning up against the wall with one leg bent. He seems to have a wine glass in one hand, and just to the left next to him was… bizarrely, a cardboard cutout of Snaff, with features poorly drawn on in marker. Kudu appears as she remembers him– dark brown hair tied up in a tight bun, two little pinpricks of pale yellow glaring out at her from the shadows of his face.

“It’s somewhat incredible, you know, that you manage to make my name sound like a curse every time you utter it,” he swirls the wine in the glass. “I’d ask how you’re doing, dear, but I fear we both know that the answer is ‘terribly’.”

Kudu’s manner of talking set something berserk in her, like hearing claws on slate. Oooh she could not stand it. She had stopped taking it personally a long time ago– it had taken several run-ins with the man for her to understand his modus operandi. Once she did, it became apparent that the man simply dished out flamboyant little remarks like he exhaled carbon dioxide. Whether they helped manipulate or woo anyone was a near-unintentional byproduct. Still, something about him felt simply slimy, and thus every time he opened his mouth she felt like a bull seeing red.

“What is it you want, you little worm? Why are you here?” Her ears pin back as she squints over at him– taking the time to notice his shifting posture, which had spontaneously changed so that he was sort of draped against the wall. “...And why are you… like that?”

His brows raise as he taps the wine glass backwards against the cutout of Snaff. “I suppose, in a strange way, you could consider me as checking up on you at the behest of the old man here. Ah, but no, I suppose it’s more likely that I just still swim around in your head after all these years, yes? …And it’s not my fault that your brain has decided to render me as some sort of eccentric pervert.”

“That’s because you are an eccentric pervert.”

“You see?”

Zojja couldn’t help but let out a small, frustrated squawk. She feels the urge to grab her pillow so that she could scream into it, but stops herself so she doesn’t remind him how easy it is to get a rise out of her. She replaces the urge with a vision of her shoving the pillow down his throat in a cartoonesque manner. While she’s entertaining various other murder fantasies, she takes a second to study the facsimile of the man in front of her. It was definitely Kudu, but…

“What are you, anyway? A ghost? Some sort of kryptis trying to eat at me– or inspire doubt?! Hm?!” She punctuates her sentence with a triumphant humph, as if she surely had sussed him out.

“Oooh. Externalizing our locus of control already, are we? I’m certain you’d love it were I anything but the product of your… what was it now, fourth day of sleep deprivation?”

Her claws poke through the sheets and begin to pull at the mattress. Unfortunately, it was true. This wasn’t the first night she’d been in this predicament, it’s just that her stress dreams were usually bereft of morally bankrupt middle aged men.

Kudu’s pupils flick towards her stressed motion, weaving little light trails in the dark. The wine glass has mysteriously disappeared, and he folds his arms behind his back as he takes a small step towards her. “And… doubts? Who said anything about doubts? Aside from you, of course…”

“What?! No, I–”

He’s drawn closer. “What sort of doubts could you possibly harbor? Are they about your ascension, perhaps?”

“Th–”

Kudu wasn’t actually a particularly tall man, only having a couple of inches on her at most, but from his position next to her bed, he seems to tower over her. “What’s there to fear? Dagda seems fairly well-adjusted now. You trust her, don’t you?”

“Well– of course I do, but–”

“But?!” The man’s expression was like a jackal seeing a wounded gazelle, and he draws a claw up to pick at his chin. “...Mmm, actually, I suppose this is typical of you. The trust issues and whatnot.”

“What?!” She barks at him, face contorting as she bares her teeth. Her body feels incredibly heavy all of a sudden. “What do you– mean…”

Kudu peers down at her as if he were observing an experiment, stony faced. They both knew what he meant. He removes the claw from his chin, and waggles two fingers in a sort of walking motion across the air, as if miming people frolicking through a field of daisies.

“You haven’t reached back out to your little friends, have you? You know, the ones you still have, anyway.”

There’s a cascade of tiny popping sounds as Zojja’s claws fully puncture into the mattress. “Y– you’re in no position to talk, you don’t even have friends!”

He ignores her little jab, tilting his head to the side as he begins examining his cuticles. “Loathe as I am to compliment you, I have got to say, Zojja, I do somewhat admire your talent for burning out on people and treating them like chopped liver. Or, of course, simply getting them killed. Frankly, I understand it.”

“Understand?!” She spits venom. “I never– How dare you suggest– We are not–”

Alike? He splays out his fingers, waggling them one last time as he finishes studying his hand, before drawing it behind his back once again. He leans over Zojja just a little more, a halo of light from the window lining his silhouette.

“Another little thing that we both know, my dear.”

Zojja flinches, abruptly aware of the sensation gripping her entire being– she’s sinking almost painfully into the bed, as if there were iron weights piled upon her chest. Words are able to hiss past her teeth despite it.

“No way. You’re the only one to blame for your problems, you… you…” She can feel his eyes boring into her, the figment waiting with bated breath to hear which insult she chooses. “--poseur!!”

Kudu’s brows raise, and his jaws hangs open slightly. A little scoff escapes from his throat. “Poseur? Now that’s a nostalgic one.”

The room seems to flicker as scraps of memories waft through Zojja’s brain– a messy workroom table, three coffee cups nestled amongst the documents and tomes. Herbal tea in her’s. She had too young for caffeine; the old man insisted as much, anyway. The sounds of muffled conversation– debates, questions, revelations– swirled around her ears whenever she let sleep grip her on a late night, arms and crumpled velum pressed against her cheek in lieu of a comfy pillow.

A small spasm ripples down her body, jostling her out of her reverie. To her disdain, Kudu is still there, fixed in the exact same pose as he was before her eyes had closed. If they had closed, anyway– it was difficult to tell. The world felt like it was beginning to unravel and warp around her.

“Oh, good, I thought I lost you for a moment there. Where were we?”

You leaving.

“Ah, right. How we’re devastatingly incomparable people without a lick in common.”

Yeah. You said it. There’s nothing there. Just give it up. Stop thinking about it. A young man towered over her, a fresh undercut framed his ponytail, and a few stubborn pimples dotted his face. He shrouded himself in dark clothing and curled into himself when he moved, as if he might be able to shrink from existence, but his ego filled the room. Bitter, insatiable. She had been pulled from muck and fog and brought into a new world, she spat out sparks when she talked, her skull overflowed with ideas. She felt like she wanted to fly up to the sun. Tenacious, bull-headed. A thick layer of desperation to make something, be something under it all; they hitched themselves to the same star.

His voice toyed with her, sarcastic. “There’s a clear line between us, of course. I was simply born bad, and you, good. You have an unshakeable grip on everything you are and want. You’re infallible.”

Old arguments, coated in cobwebs in the recesses of her gray matter. She never understood where all the animosity came from. It wasn’t her fault that Snaff liked her iteration of the diaphase arcanic separator better. She couldn’t be blamed for being brilliant. He sat as far away from her as possible on the worktable bench; she’d slide closer and pester him on purpose. The way his weird puggy lips contorted when he was trying to stifle his upset was funny to her. He’d ��fix’ her mystic diodes and leave them a smoking pile, she’d throw a tantrum. He’d look smug until he got reprimanded for it.

The edges of her thoughts melted together in the muggy heat of the eternal Maguuman summer. The smell of ozone and solder would hang heavy in the air for hours. Everyone got along best when occupied by some sort of project. There wasn’t a single inch of wall space in the lab that wasn’t plastered in sketches and blueprints of prototypes and small epiphanies. Snaff liked to hover behind them as they worked, arms folded behind his back. His presence always felt warm, not judgmental. She was glad she was here now, clean, a fresh start. She refused to ever go back, she wanted to do this– had to do this. Muffled voices across the lab kept her up at night. She knew she shouldn’t listen in, but she couldn’t resist. A voice of guidance and reason, and a voice that cracked, crushed under monumental pressure, always choked something back. You should really give him a chance. A concerned hand clapped on her shoulder. I’m trying to convince him of the same…

Arcs of lightning and smoldering fires set off a chain reaction of fights. It’s always your fault, not mine. When things don’t go my way I want to grit my teeth and scream through them and beat my fists against things. I just need this one little thing to work out. I feel so full of concepts and questions I feel like I’m going to burst, it hurts, I have a headache. Stop getting in my way. I can’t hold myself back when I get mad or excited. I love the thrill of the chase when I’m on the trail of an idea, a theory. Small game isn’t enough. I crave more. Every part of me feels sore and weary. I would never admit how much a deep part of me wants comfort. I miss Snaff. I miss Eir…

A hypnic jerk wracks Zojja’s body, the force knocking her bedframe into the wall with a clatter as she’s pulled back to reality once more. What passes for it, anyway. Kudu is still looming over her, and had leaned closer– she could see through his pupils, to the layer of yellow and green nightshine that stares back out at her from behind his retinas.

“A pity that there will be no one left to remember it all.”

Zojja’s ears pin back, pressing against the pillow entombing her head. Her voice picks up a desperate tone. “Wh– everyone loves Snaff! No one’s going to forget him! And you… you’re… infamous, you know–”

Kudu’s head tilts to the side, considering her like an owl watching a mouse. “Being a celebrity is one thing, but it’s all about the details. They’ll never know about Snaff’s sweet tooth. How I had to teach myself to stop biting my claws…”

Their mentor stuffed wrapped candies into every stray desk compartment and container like a skritt hoarding coins. He never seemed to mind if she pocketed them– she thought he’d tuck them into her console’s desk on purpose, actually. The other apprentice had cracked, bloodied cuticles when she first met him. Some sort of nervous habit. He’d pull an angry and embarrassed face if he caught himself doing it, as if anticipating being scolded.

The specter clasps his hands against his chest, digging into his ribcage with his nails. He doesn’t give her time to reply. “Those memories die with you, Zojja. I’m a dead man. You remember that, don’t you? You introduced me to my butcher. Snaff’s dead too, in case you already forgot…”

Zojja feels herself shiver. A painful memory, perfectly clear, worn in from how many times it had been on replay in her mind. A hand, wreathed in purple crystal, going limp. Dangling from her arms, or splaying out against the tile. Twitching with postmortem spasm. She senses a bit of sick climbing up her throat and tries to shake herself out of it, despite the amount of weight on her chest.

Kudu is relentless. A clawtip sinks into the center of her sternum, prodding her like a scalpel. She wants to writhe and scream, but she can’t. His lips peel back to reveal rows of violet teeth as he grins at her in a sadistic manner.

“That’s another thing we have in common, you know. The self-destruction. You just can’t stand it all, can you? You sink one little tooth into something you feel you want so badly, and the world just becomes a big blur…” He twists his finger around, burrowing the claw in deeper. “You should tell them to make your robes purple. Adorn them in stones. We’d all match.”

She finally manages to shake her body out of paralysis, squirming as she bucks his hand off. He withdraws back towards the window in one smooth motion, expression unchanging.

“Shut UP– I would never– I won’t forget–”

Kudu wraps his arms around what was the cutout of Snaff, which is now very real, very physical, very limp. The moonlight casts their skin in a clammy lilac hue, striped and stained with black stone and indigo crystal that splits open their hides like rot. Snaff is unmoving, devoid of life, propped up only by Kudu’s hand at his back. His head has rolled back; she can’t make out Snaff’s face anymore.

“You would– and you will.” His lips tug impossibly upwards, his eyelids crinkling at the bottom. “You don’t even have her twin anymore, do you?”

Zojja growls as he hunches one shoulder, indicating the silvery metal device strapped to his left arm, pressed in between himself and Snaff. “Of course– I– She’s just in storage–”

He pounces. “Storage?! Oh, oh, oh, Zohhh-jjaa, you may as well just throw it out! Even I hadn’t realized how much you had given up!”

“I haven’t given up– I’m just–”

Kudu grips onto Snaff’s body tighter, his claws starting to pierce through their mentor’s coat fronts, the sides of their cheeks pressing together as if he’s giving him some sort of painful embrace. “I carried on his legacy better than you. Did you know that? Have you ever thought of that? Doesn’t it burn? I was the one ripping open dragons’ brains, you abandoned us. And you don’t even care!”

She snarls through her teeth. “Worthless liar! I– I had the Pact, of course I care–”

He begins to lower Snaff out through the open window, dangling him precariously over the sill. Snaff remains limp, arm waving slightly in the night breeze. “You care?! You’re throwing us out. Rendering us down to useless garbage!”

Her body just barely pries itself upwards. “I’m NOT– I might still remember– I just, I have to do this for–”

Kudu lets Snaff slip from his grasp even more, and his own body begins to tilt towards the window, as if pulled by the other man’s weight. “I’ve told you enlightenment always comes at a price, dear! I suppose I can’t judge you! I did the same!”

Zojja can barely choke out anything through the tears forming on her face before he continues. They both look like they’re about to topple out, off the edge of the precipice. “Since you want to destroy everything so badly, just bite the bullet! Let them rip you apart! Let’s die together, Zojja!”

She rockets upwards, her throat instantly rendered hoarse by the scream that flies out of her mouth. “SHUT UP! STOP IT! SHUT UP!”

She’s met with silence. Blinking hard, she does a double take at the window. No Kudu, no Snaff. The wind whistling through the opening rattles the frame quietly, and stings at her brow with an icy feeling. She hadn’t realized she was coated in sweat until now.

It takes only a few brief seconds for the sound of running echoing down the hallway to burst forth into her room– a panicked Dagda, who throws her door open hard enough to make the metal of the handle emit a sickening crunch as it hits the wall. The jotun seems just as sweaty as Zojja is, wide-eyed and bewildered.

“Zojja–! What’s wrong?! Are you hurt?! Are we being attacked?!--”

She slows down a bit as she scans the room, before finally setting her gaze on Zojja– the only person there. Zojja’s ears twist back as she tries to gain something resembling composure. She turns to look back out the window again.

The horizon shifts outside, a deep navy tint beginning to break up the dark. High in the sky, the stars still hang overhead. She stares tiredly at a particularly bright one as it shimmers. A binary star, flickering rapidly between red and blue as its twin stars rotate around one another. As she watches it, her hand crawls up to feel at her chest, which is unscathed, unwounded.

Finally, she turns back to Dadga, forcing a small chuckle. “N– Nothing. Just… dealing with some demons.”

It takes her a moment to notice Dadga’s widening eyes and the panic not leaving the woman’s face. The asura panics for a moment in turn, waving her hands dismissively.

“Not– not literal!”

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