Work Text:
A solid, glossy cover. Pristine white pages, all bound together with thread of shining gold.
Eunie raises a brow when Taion presents it to them, alongside the handful of brightly coloured pens he’d bartered for. “What’s all this, then?”
A shrug, close to bashful, as he fidgets with the notebook and avoids their gazes. “I got the idea from Mio,” he says, “and Leeane, too. We don’t know what tomorrow may bring. I’d like it…if we could leave something of ourselves behind. Something that says not only ‘we were here,’ but ‘we were together.’”
Eunie’s eyes widen, before she takes a pen in hand with a smirk. “Well, then,” she says, and twirls the pen. “I guess I call dibs on yellow.”
It doesn’t take much longer to get the others on board—they like the idea of a record of their journey, and just as much dislike the idea of trying to share ownership of Mio’s own private sanctuary.
Sena’s the first to sign her name in front cover, in a bright and happy blue. Noah—who’d called dibs on red, not that anyone had been trying to take it from him—is quick to follow. Before anyone else can take up too much room on the page, Eunie muscles her way in and writes her name at the top of the page in giant, loopy text. Lanz rolls his eyes at her when he leans in to add his own in green; she flashes him a peace sign. Taion scrawls his name in orange next to hers, and finally Mio claims the bottom of the page—the ink of her pen a deep, purple-pink.
“That’s us, then,” she says quietly, twirling said pen between her fingers.
Eunie looks down, at the rainbow of their names painted across the paper. “Yeah,” she says, and shuts the journal with a snap, “that’s us.”
“You know,” Taion says, conversationally, “you really should have waited for the ink to dry before you did that.”
“Ah, come off it, Taion,” Lanz says, grinning bright and fierce. “If it smears, it’s just adding character!”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Noah adds, smiling at them. “It’s meant to represent us, after all.”
“Oi. What, you saying we’re not perfect?” Eunie raises a brow at him, crossing her arms.
He knows her too well to think she’s actually upset, simply shaking his head. “Of course we’re not,” he says, eyes cutting to Sena for just a second, “but we don’t need to be. And neither does what we leave behind. It just needs…to be better than what we have now.” Than what we are now, Eunie understands.
Mio laughs, eyes gentle. A moment’s pause, and then Sena follows her. Once they’ve calmed down—the mood lifted—Sena asks, “so, who's putting it in their Bladespace?”
A series of grimaces are traded back and forth. Since becoming Ouroboros, and unlocking more space for more weapons, it’s become easier to shove non-weapon things into that place meant just for her Blade, but it’s still not pleasant. There’s a reason Mio carries her own journal on her person, instead of tucking it away there.
“Taion?” Lanz suggests. “He should be pretty used to it. His Mondo are paper, yeah? So that’s just like a journal.”
“It absolutely is not,” Taion says, sounding a little offended. “Besides, I see no reason as to why we should have to have anyone store it, anyway. It’s a single journal—it isn’t all that much of a pain to be carrying it around with us.” He gestures to Mio, making clear the same point that Eunie had just thought.
“It’d make it easier to write in, too,” Noah points out. “If we’re not having to constantly ask for someone else to pull it out, that is.”
“We’ll just take turns,” Eunie says, simple and final. “I’ll hang onto it first, yeah?” After all, it’s already in her hands.
“Sounds like a plan!” Sena says, and shoots her a thumbs up.
From there, their conversation breaks off into smaller groups and different topics. They’re on the verge of finally embarking and making for Agnus Castle; just waiting on some last minute maintenance on the boat they’ll be using, as well as some final checks on their supplies.
It’s two days on from when they’d signed their names in the journal that they finally head out—the six of them, and the City’s Ouroboros candidates as well. Eunie’s not quite sure how she feels about them. They’ve not been outright hostile so much as just sparking rude, but they get her feathers all ruffled. Especially that Shania. It’s discomfiting, to realize she’d been following them all that time and all that way and they hadn’t noticed.
Still. With a mission on the line, they're civil enough. For all that the City isn't a Colony, it raises its soldiers well. Jansen is a colder squadmate to be working beside than she's used to, but once they're out on open water, he's professional enough about it that she almost forgets how he'd been sneering at them. Piled into this tiny ship, though, there's nothing else to do if one wants to avoid bloodshed, she supposes.
All conversations carry, in such a small space, and so they find themselves making more frequent, casual use of their journal than planned—when Taion had suggested it, Eunie is sure he meant for the entries to be meaningful, and well thought out; not just like they were passing notes in basic training.
But, well. It's that, or have to put up with noise.
Do you think they'll make us stay on the boat longer if I say I need to stretch my legs, Eunie writes, her friends crowded around her to peer at the words over her shoulder.
Eunie, they're not evil, Mio responds, hand swift and deft with her pen, and though it is impossible to pick up intent through text, she's sure the words are meant to be chiding.
They probably need a break as much as we do, Noah points out, gaze flicking up to where Kryto sits across from them, blankly staring into nothing as his feet tapped a restless rhythm.
You ask, then.
Why is this on me, all of a sudden?
Don't YOU want to stretch your legs?
):
Don't you ): me, Noah.
I don't mind asking. Some fresh air would be nice!
Aw…Mio, no, you're meant to bully him WITH me.
:)!
:(!
Taion snorts. At the sound, Kryto remains immovable, but Cyma turns to look at them curiously. "Something funny?"
Of all the City's Ouroboros candidates, Cyma had seemed pretty friendly, so far—but Eunie was pretty sure she'd been meant to partner with Jansen, and even if they can't Interlink, that bond still remains. She follows his lead, and keeps a chilly distance.
There's only so long a person can keep up walls like that, though, when they're all confined in one tiny room for a very long time.
"We're just going a bit crazy," Sena says apologetically. "No fresh air, you know?"
The pure suffering that flashes across Cyma's face says that she knows, intimately. No windows and eleven people (and two Nopon) has created a very warm, stale, and slightly (grossly) damp space. And they just all have to live in it.
Chasing that expression of misery, though, is a thoughtfulness that reminds Eunie of Noah. Cyma brings a hand up to her temple, and Eunie can't see the light of it under her eyepatch, but she's sure that she activates her Iris. "There's an island pretty close by," she says. "It's nearly nightfall, too—so I'm sure I can convince Jansen we should make landfall. Unless you guys don't want to camp on the beach…?"
Eunie grasps onto the idea with a deathgrip. "I," she says, "would love to camp on the beach."
Nodding, Cyma drops her hand and lets her Iris deactivate as she shakes Jansen awake. Sitting still and quiet, Eunie and co. pretend like they had absolutely nothing to do with this idea.
Though even if they had owned up, Jansen still might have gone for it, from the relief on his face when Cyma suggests a break.
You think he was just waiting for someone else to break first?
Oh for SURE ;)
;)
With a sigh, Taion yanks the journal out of their hands. Eunie scowls at him, and Sena blushes, chuckling nervously, but he remains unaffected.
"Oi," she says.
"Sorry," Taion says, totally unapologetic, "but I'd like to pen an entry of my own." An entry, he says—not just a scrawled out conversation like they'd been having, but actually inserting something into the journal that they'd want to keep. Eunie lets it go, turning her mind towards the beach.
'Pretty close by,' as it turns out, is the better part of an hour away—but once they've anchored at the shore and she's standing on solid (if sandy) land, Eunie can forget all about her annoyance at that, because she's off the sparking boat.
"Queen's wings, but I thought I'd never see the sky again," she mutters, tilting her head back to take in the dusk.
"You'll be seeing a lot of it tonight," Jansen says, moving past her with his arms full of supplies—just enough for the one night. "Too risky to light a fire, out here in the open; too risky to go looking further inland for somewhere less open, too."
Eunie frowns. "We're not all that close to the castle, are we?"
Jansen frowns back at her. "No," he says. "But both nations patrol around this region, and we know of at least one semi-permanent Colony somewhere about these parts."
It's a fair point, so with a sigh, Eunie doesn't argue it. Just adjusts her eyepatch, and goes to find something to do with herself.
The island they’ve touched down on is much the same as many of the others they’ve passed or camped at on their journey so far—untouched by human hands, and always with Agnus castle looming large in distant view. Eunie tries not to look at it too much as she takes the rest of the island in; the pure white sand bleeding onto verdant green, the cool grey stone fractured by spires of crystal that burst out of them, reaching skyward and glowing a soft and warm gold under the light of the setting sun. Squinting, Eunie’s sure she can also pick up shades of green in the undertones.
She spies Taion, sitting further up the shore, and considers going to poke at him—but he's bent over their journal, focused wholly on whatever he's writing; she sidles up and squats down next to him carefully, so as not to startle him.
Startlingly, there's no telltale orange on the page. Instead, soft grey and stark black blend into the creamy off-white—in charcoal has Taion painted the horizon.
She whistles. "Wow, impressive," she says, and Taion—clearly flustered—sniffs and looks away from her.
"The Cadensia region," he says, haltingly. "It is…beautiful."
And it is, is the thing. Cramped boat aside, end goal aside, the everlooming Agnus Castle aside…there's a tranquility to this region that Eunie doesn't think she's ever found anywhere else. Maktha came close, maybe, but bled a melancholy far too strong. If she were anyone else and their circumstances anything else, Eunie'd like to imagine she'd be happy to stay here, amongst the crystal waves and crystal rock formations.
"Hey," she says, "give it here."
With a sideways glance and warnings about smudging his clean charcoal lines, Taion hands the journal to her. With a roll of her eyes, Eunie flips to a blank page, and promises his precious drawing will be fine.
He leans against her as she draws up her knees as a table and uncaps her pen. "What will you write?"
A thoughtful hum. "You're not the only artist here, you know," she teases.
Coming to the City had taught her a lot—opened her eyes to not just many truths, but many things she'd had no idea ever existed; had no chance of ever even dreaming that the concept of them existed. Taion had named Leanne, when he'd mentioned his inspiration for their journal—and yeah, fiction and novels and all that are still things Eunie has a hard time wrapping her head around, but she does find herself thinking about them, because she loves them so much.
As an early-termer, more red on her marker than black, she'd spent as much time training as she had daydreaming. It had been limited to her understanding of the world, of course—but those memories of dreaming up the great hero Eunie who had fought all the Agnians and won, before leading all her friends to their Homecoming…well. It's all a bit morbid now, looking back, but there's something there, she thinks. A spark between that younger her and the way Leanne had described literature.
Once upon a time, she writes, painstakingly neat, Ouroboros fought the world.
A pause, as she glances over at Taion, before nudging the journal his way. A lingering moment, before he uncaps his own pen.
Under her words, he writes: And they won.
Eunie snorts. "A bit soon to be ending it right there, don't you think?"
"Of course," Taion says. "But it's not an ending, Eunie. It's just the beginning."
Laughing, Eunie stands, and reaches down a hand to hoist him to his feet. "C'mon, you dork," she says. "Let's head back to the others. See what they think."
When they peer over the page, they agree with Taion, of course. "You don't want to add your piece?" Eunie asks, and they shake their heads.
"It's a bit disingenuous to be writing the ending just yet, don't you think?" Noah asks. "We have to get there, first."
"Right," Mio says. "Don't worry, Eunie. We'll all write our parts when the time comes."
(Later—locked in a cell, with Mio apart from them, through tears they write their lines.
Once upon a time, Ouroboros fought the world. And they won. Or so they thought. And so they HOPED.
What's the point of this
Leaving something—
Something behind?? You think N won't just burn this??
The ink trails off into scratches that bite through paper; the only red laid on those pages the tallies Noah strikes out with each passing day. They are nearly at the end.
And then—
They reach the end.
(But it is not the end)
Hair freshly cut, ghosts newly put to rest, and purpose reforged, Mio turns a new page.
Once upon a time, Ouroboros fought the world.
And they won.
Because the strength of those that stand alone can never match those that stand together.
And they stood together, and they'll STAY together.
Not forever. Never forever. Just for now. For as long as they can.
And for as long as they can, they'll keep fighting. Fighting the world, and for the world. For the future, and for hope.
Always, always hope.)