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The noise doesn't stop. When this form is young and he is still unknowing and ignorant of the truth of his nature, it is impossible to not notice the constant noise, from the whipping wind to the jangle of coins in pouches and to the silence (and oh, how loud the silence is!) that permeates his every waking hour, but he does not know any different. The noise has always been there, and he cannot conceive of a world of true, blissful quiet.
Despite the ever-present noise around him, this body is strong, not as strong as his actual form, of course, but he was born into this mortal life with a natural aptitude for the manual labor that comes with being born into a family of shipbuilding firbolgs, and when he works, the noise around him is deafened, however temporarily. He takes to creation with strong hands that, admittedly, are not particularly dexterous, but he works hard in his youth, has been taught from birth that a strong work ethic is key to success in this life, and in a way, it is. He works hard, and the noise abates; it is that simple for him, at first.
He does not talk much, for he does not see the need to when he is young. His mortal father often tells him how he does not talk until well-after he is walking, but when he finally talks, it is already in full and clear sentences. His lack of speech nowadays is not for a lack of love of words, especially as his mortal mother often swears that he should be a librarian with how he devours books, but he seeks the exact words that will unlock the point of the conversation, for every conversation is a puzzle that he needs to solve and only the exact words will do. If he cannot say what he means, then he is better off not speaking at all.
When he is thirteen and on the cusp of falling into manhood, the memories start to return, but it is not until he is fifteen that he realizes he is not just Kiefer Mantel of the Copia Wildwood, born to Fletcher and Cordelia Mantel, younger brother to Ollios Mantel and older brother to Cyrene Mantel; he is Asmodeus, Lord of the Hells and Betrayer. The line between Kiefer and Asmodeus is not thin or blurred or even existent, for they are one and the same, but instead, they are different facets of the same jewel. Turn it there, and find Asmodues; turn it again, and there is Kiefer. Look at the jewel in the light, and see all that he has been.
But it is when his memories fully return to him that he realizes just how loud the noise of the world truly is. Kiefer Mantel is not his first new life post-Catatheosis, that title belongs to the late Hamartia Wyllow, but Kiefer is different from even those other past lives reborn into an impermanent body. The world is louder within Kiefer, and when he searches through his memories of his former selves, he cannot mistake the current noise for a mortal complication but instead as something unique to Kiefer. There is something different with Kiefer, because he now experiences the world raw.
He wonders how his siblings would handle this. Luz would be gracious and grateful, perhaps, and Coru would undoubtedly be delighted with all of the sensations to experience anew in this overly sensitive form, but anger boils in his large chest, anger that he is like this, anger that he cannot fix this, anger that there is nothing he can find to fix.
Not that he doesn't try. He has never been a healer, not, even when he was only Imri, no, back then, he was something approximating a shield. Luz was the healer, Luz was the one who knew how to fix broken things, but even Luz at her full might had not been able to fix whatever was broken in him.
(Not that he would admit that, of course. Not that he would ever acknowledge that something inside him had severed when he had stood against chaos and become something born out of love that no longer resembled its home. Not that he regretted his actions, because regret was for mortals and other lesser beings, and he was beneath no one.)
(No one.)
But the world is loud, and his ears are keen, and the world hurts, and he does not know who else to turn to. It is not a matter of his physical hearing, the healers and druids and clerics that he seeks out all tell him. His ears are fine, and there is nothing perceptively wrong. But he has lived many lives now, and he knows that not all experience existence as he does now.
So he hunts answers instead of the worshipers that anxiously await his return and undoubtedly engage in petty squabbles in his absence, and he burns with the anger of this indignation, but he needs answers, for this is not tenable. He leaves the Copia Wildwood as Kiefer and does not tell the Mantels who their son has become when he does, not out of mercy or anything so trivial but because he needs a safe place to come back to if he cannot find one out in the world. He needs support, and he has it in the Mantels, from the work on their homestead to the love they hold in their hearts for this body; he will not squander the opportunity their love poses.
He leaves the Copia Wildwood, and his heart aches as he travels the continent, seeking out healers who could answer what was wrong with him. He fashions plugs for his ears out of wax that shield the worst of the noise away and almost allow him to breathe in silence, and he goes into the world.
In Nicodranas, the salt of the air and the crash of waves soothes in the same breath that the crowds agitate, and he grits his teeth as his heart races for stupid, silly reasons. Nicodranas is home to ships and travel throughout the continent, home to opportunities for answers, but being in a city for the first time leaves him curled up on the bed he rents most nights with anger trembling wetly in his chest.
In the most bitter twist, it is Luz who finds him. Because of course it is.
He finds her just outside a ship while he walks the docks, and, like a predator recognizing another predator amidst a herd of prey, their eyes connect immediately, instinctively sizing each other up. With a sense that is not mortal but vestigial from their former existence, he knows the moment their eyes connect that she is one of his siblings, and from the way her mouth puckers, he knows that she knows who he is, just as he knows who she is.
In any other form, he would do anything else. Attack, flee, scheme, anything else. But he is in Kiefer's body, and already, the heat of the day has drained him, and he lowers his gaze not out of shame or anything so grotesque but because this body cannot stand the pressure of intimate eye contact, and he feels his sister pause.
Luz sets down the crate she holds and, without so much as a jerk of her chin, she bids him to follow her. He does, trailing behind an appropriate distance as to not taste her aura in the back of her throat as she leads him wherever she intends. Maybe she is taking him somewhere to die, he thinks bitterly, but he knows better; Luz would never.
They wind up at a tavern, and as they approach, he braces himself for the raucous crowd and endless rustling, but in the middle of the day, the tavern is quiet, and Luz breezes into a back booth with the approximation of privacy. He sits down across from her, still not meeting her gaze, and he feels the weight of her eyes on him, trying to make him look her in the eyes, but he can't.
He can't.
Luz exhales, and she touches her fingertips to her temple in a rubbing motion. "What do you want?" she asks, and her voice in this form, a half elf of middle age if only judging by the streaks in her hair, is rougher than he remembers, but there remains a lyrical quality that directly transports him back to hearing her true voice. He swallows thickly, searching for the words, and her gaze attempts to pin him in place, but he still can't look directly at her, staring at his hands.
It takes him longer than he wants to find the words. "This body is wrong," he says quietly, his voice rough and gravelly from disuse. Luz frowns, and he feels her look him over, feels her magic bursting at the edges to scan him for wrongness, but he holds up at a hand to stop her. "I have seen healer after healer," he continues, his voice still as stone despite the roughness in his chest, "and none know what is wrong with me."
Luz tilts her head. "Is there something wrong?" she asks, and he bites back a snarl and swallows it down into himself.
"This is not my first life," he says. "I know what to be mortal is, and this is not right." He wishes his voice sounded more insistent, or at least less calm, but his voice remains as it always has, low and singular in intonation.
"Be specific."
"The noise-" This is when his flat voice finally, inevitably, falters, and he looses a breath that hurts his chest, it is so sharp and bitter. He feels Luz looking at him, her gaze transforming as he struggles, and he hates her pity, even as he is left to her mercy. "The world is loud, and it hurts," he clips quietly. "I want it to stop hurting."
Luz is quiet, and he dares to look up at her, however briefly. Her expression is as smooth as settled water, but he knows the tempest that undoubtedly lies beneath, and he lowers his gaze again. "You do not need to help me," he says, his shoulders hunching over himself before he straightens up and juts out his chin, like a defiant child. "It does not need to be you."
"Of course it does," she dismisses bitterly, angrily, and he straightens his mouth into a thin line as she studies him, as her magic examines him at a distance, as he feels her warmth upon him for the first time in longer than he wishes to recount.
He closes his eyes, and he waits for her prognosis, but no words come out, not even when her magic finally ebbs away. "Well?" he asks flatly, opening his eyes, but Luz is already staring at him, staring into him. He shifts in the disquiet of her gaze, but he does not flinch away from her scrutiny; he refuses to.
Luz opens her mouth, and he already can feel the heat of anger building on the back of his neck as she says, "There is nothing wrong." He grits his teeth, but she isn't done. "There are ways to ease your suffering, but there is no actual, physical wound."
"How can there be no wound?" he demands, and Luz stiffens, narrowing her eyes. He does not allow himself to swallow his words or to apologize, as he knows she wants, maybe even deserves, but he raises his chin and forces himself to stare her down. "How can there be suffering without a wound?"
Luz shrugs, but he can see in the glint of her eye that she knows the answer. "How can a bee sting kill a strong and hale soldier?" she asked. "What decides if you prefer pork or chicken for your dinner? What decides the color of your eyes when you are born?" She shrugs again, but her eyes are brightening. "There are forces beyond us that steer the course of mortals. You may be more vulnerable in some ways, but I do not doubt that you are stronger for it in others."
"You don't have to live like this," he spits, crossing his arms.
But he doesn't leave, and he can see that Luz fully expects him to. When he doesn't, when he stays, she continues, a touch softer, "No, I don't." Quiet settles over them again, and Luz sighs. "There are options to help, some not even requiring magic. Wax plugs for the ears that filter the noise, certain weaves of fabric to not scratch the skin, they can help."
"But nothing fixes." Nothing will fix me.
"Nothing fixes," she agrees, "but there are things that make better." Luz eyes him up again. "The noise may always be there," she says, "but you are not the only one who lives with it."
"I do not care if I am the only one, I care-" He shakes his head, turns his attention in toward the wall and averts his gaze from her. "So what do I do?" he asks.
Luz tilts her head. "You haven't restarted this life," she observes, and he narrows his eyes at the wood paneling.
"Obviously not."
"You don't want to restart this life."
He huffs, but his shoulders slump, and he closes his eyes. "Not particularly," he admits through gritted teeth, because this pains him, this confession to her, of all of them, hurts.
"Then you continue." Luz leans back in the booth out of the corner of his eye. "You find what works, and you make do."
"What a terrible conclusion," he mutters, and he expects Luz to leave then, but she only lets out a light scoff.
"Life can be worth living, even with pain."
He hates how her words settle down into him, how she soothes him, even now. Even after everything, Luz still accepts him in this brutal way.
The part of him that is Kiefer, who has been raised in a family who loves him and still loves him, looks her in the eyes and nods. "Thank you," he says, and the part of him that is Asmodeus rages, so he lowers his gaze back to a more comfortable place and allows his hands to form fists.
But Luz nods, and she jerks her chin, a clear dismissal. "See you around," she says dryly.
But he won't. Not in this life, at least, because that next day, Kiefer Mantel starts the journey to live his life with wax in his ears and a downcast gaze, and he still starts the journey.
He has a throne to reclaim, after all.