Chapter Text
Finding ground after years of the rubble is a treacherous slope where soil most likely is either unearthed and rotten or completely unknown. A breakthrough where after it is a mountain of paper work, peak by peak with no chance to summit nor to ascertain whichever other roads to go since the map relies on feeling, or rather the lack thereof.
Death has taken too much, a lot, and so did he, masquerading as a god, striking what needs to be stricken, under the notion that this – all of this is for world peace. A blind soldier with a map that is as much as corroded as is the corrupt fixations and belief that conquering equates to peace and liberty. A corruption that had stealthily, of course, stolen the air in his lungs and replaced it with ammunition, and the blood that he has skittered amongst a canvas of once pretty, pretty landscapes and replaced it with rubble.
If they were to ask him, he shouldn’t be alive in the first place, even after years dispatched and forgotten, adorned as a man who helped aid bridge the gap between Westalis and Ostania, even when the bridge had been bodies upon bodies, and the nerves he had burned in order to feel nothing during ruthlessness. He should have been in a casket, underneath wildflowers and bodies upon bodies, bathing beneath the rubble and the sin of taking what was not supposed to be his nor anyone’s for the sake of world peace.
He should not be here, basking in sunshine, and evergreen, the viridian the only home he now knows, in the heart of isolation, no less, towered by trees and forestry. He should not be tasting caffeine, and loathing life, and the chances he had been given, opportunities that do not belong to a fallen soldier who took more than he earned, who fought but for what cause.
He had said it multiple times, even as Sylvia had endorsed him to many, many, any job orders every single time that this veteran has fallen into rage and lost another dime. She says it’s just her job as his handler, as the ever eternal caretaker assigned to this man who is as close as putting the barrel of the gun in between his lips (not that he never tried), but even with the words carefully picked, nitpicked, he can hear the care in each inflection.
He hates it as much as he hates himself.
But even so, with all the hatred, he stopped fighting it, and decided to plant his feet onto this soil in the heart of Berlint’s forests, and call it a day, and days, and days, and days until the days have become months. And then the months have become a year as a recluse with his path still unknown even though it had been, essentially, painted evergreen.
He still gets the occasional check-ins – the calls, the assessments, the therapy that goes on for hours, and of course, the colleagues; the talkative ones to ensure he does not drive himself off a cliff, and the ones who pander towards him with bright lavender eyes no matter how much she tries to hide it.
And some days, it’s alright – being held on a certain pedestal as though he deserved each credential, each medal, as though he was god himself walking amongst the living, even when all he wants to do is join god and the multiples on certain days. He does not blame them, though; they had been sold with an idea, and the decorations spoke for himself than he can ever get any words out of himself to say that they are nothing, but, well, decorations.
But sometimes, he wishes, that they see him as one lone tree, rotten and hollow after years of keeping itself upright, erect; through lightning and rain, and barely hanging, leaves petrifying. Yet, all they see is something shiny, something new, and isn’t that tragic?
To have this desire to be seen, yet not wanting to be perceived entirely – keeping a front that is as much as for himself than for them. A mask, that is what this is, as though he is a man with a compass, spending his mornings on trail runs in order to feel something, and reading the next book in order to relate to something as existential as he is.
And sometimes he believes it – when days are not gloomy, and the sun is less menacing. The mask is his face sometimes, and it reminds him of this sociologist’s warning when he is aware, when he sees his reflection clearly for what he is – to be careful in choosing his self-presentations lest it becomes truly himself than something he upholds to avoid perception.
But, ah, what can he do?
He does not want to be perceived, even when the mask is suffocating, even when the tap, tap, tap of his therapist’s pen against the notebook is begging him to break. He does not want to be perceived, not when perception equates to pity, and pity becomes funeral flowers that should not be for him. The war was terrible, and so had he – he took because someone took from him, and during then, during the taking, he asked for more than what was taken from him. And what kind of man who selfishly carried out justice deserves their grievances?
He whistles out a sigh, and it’s bone deep, riddled with the emptiness, the hollowness within him. Sylvia told him then to find something to fixate on rather than this unravelling he keeps on provoking, but how does one do that when the ground he stands on is made of whispers and pointed fingers and faces that are faceless with blood?
How can he find anything in routine, in the same conversations over and over, the same ground to cover where his days are mostly lonesome unless he comes across a bear, a squirrel, or the occasional hiker? He’s tried to break it – and then, of course, like a machine, adopted a new routine to work with. The same tune, but different lyrics – a jog down, into the city, then back before his shift starts and Franky complains about Fiona’s questions that are seemingly rhetorical.
Then he broke it again – went out running during his lunch break, and tried to be sporadic, until the sporadicity has also, well, become, infuriatingly routine. A cycle, that is what this is, and sometimes, when the days and nights are extra cruel, he wonders, if he does jump off a cliff, would anything change?
It’s not that he is as he was before when he first came back from all of the chaos – actively seeking death, tried, and tried, and tried, only to wake up staring at a ceiling, whether that be his own or a hospital’s with a stomach that is now sputtering coal after too many pills, too many things it should not digest. He is different this time, yet somehow, emptier. Content, but hollow, like that rotten tree in the fork of a path, stricken too many times by lightning, yet still standing, still stubborn despite no life within it. Resigned that he is in this never ending limbo of living, and not minding if death comes knocking at his door at one point in the day.
Lobotomized, that’s what he had called it once in jest when Sylvia called for no particular reason. He told her about it – how it’s empty in between the cavities of his chest, and also where his brain resides. No thoughts, head empty, no words that curved over the other, over the other. How, sometimes, most times, he thinks about not thinking of anything, then tries to think of something that is rather mundane – like the number of leaves on a tree, the number of unturned stones, or how many hikers have worn the same damn thing from Lululemon.
“You sound like you’re losing your mind,” he recalls Sylvia telling him one day over coffee when she asked if he had been seeing his therapist lately – Henderson, who ended each session with: absolutely, elegant, Mister Forger!
“I have lost it,” he told her then, swirling, swirling, swirling the coffee that was now as white as milk with the amount that he had put in order to quiet his stomach’s protests – ulcer, ever quite the friend who dismissed anything that is unkind. “Help me find it.”
“Buddy,” Sylvia said as she picked apart the croissant she had no mind of finishing – a habit she did every time, if not inhaling espresso as though she was trying to speed through time. “I gave you several maps – you just ignored them.”
Loid rolled his eyes then, frowning and waving her off, even though, he knew, he still knows, she was, is right. She had no business meeting with him like this – like a friend, and yet, she still does, still will. It’s the only reason why he had not jumped off a cliff yet – that, and the fact that he cannot trust Franky to look after Bond if he does pass.
“How did you do it?” Loid remembers himself asking as he takes a piece of the croissant that she had torn off, and eating it, much to her chagrin. “Move on. I know it’s different, but how did you wake up one day to everything suddenly being okay?”
Sylvia shook her head as she had then decided to eat, to stuff herself with the pastry she had been using as a stress ball of some sort. “I just woke up one day, and I realized it doesn’t hurt as much as it did when I lost them,” she paused, and then she was looking at him with that look of hers that always told him that he was being read. “It’s not magic or anything. Sometimes it still hurts. Some nights, I’m still there, looking at my husband and my daughter in the morgue.
Look, healing isn’t linear, and what worked for me might not work for you, but one thing that helped had been allowing myself to feel. I know you have a penchant of fighting off your emotions or latching onto something to distract yourself – I’m saying is don’t, even if it’s self-hatred or self-blame. You have to give yourself grace.”
He made a joke then, about how grace was something that was never required of a soldier, and that if he does feel and pulls the trigger, he would make sure that she was on his will and testament. She socked him – a punch to the ribs, some sort of wake up call when he was becoming too difficult, or when the jokes just weren’t funny as he thought it was.
He took her advice, or at least is, trying to. He had been doing alright lately, except for the fact that contentment came with hollowness, and the occasional nightmares that shook him awake at nights. There’s still that irritation, somewhere underneath his skin, towards everything and everyone, and the map that is still askew and unknown. But, he is getting by, day by day, step by step.
Little by little, to the point that he no longer minds being in an infernal routine no matter how hard he tries to change it. At least, at the very least, now he is not constantly overwriting it, and just allows it to flow freely, past his fingertips and through to his bones, and tells himself, when the thoughts catch up, that he is just living.
For now, for now, for now.
A third step at least, that does not include losing himself one way or another – just a restart, a refresh, another map that he holds on to his left hand with the other waiting, and blurred, yet not forgotten. A foot forward, even when it feels that the foot forward comes with a mask that he wears, sometimes wearily towards himself, and those around him.
Ink black hair catches his gaze, a silk of midnight in the middle of the morning’s ceruleans, highlighted by the red beneath it. There is song within the bird song – words mumbled, yet sweet, and only for herself, and he thinks, is she a Disney princess of some sort?
She moves with grace, with finesse despite the sweat that is making her red jacket maroon. A hiker, he thinks, or maybe one of those trail runners that occasionally wander down this path that was then only his. He briefly wonders if she will ever give it up – this traitorous path or will she be a regular occurrence, something, he understands, he does not, quite, mind.
Loid watches her from behind the oak tree as she raises both hands, and takes a photo of some yellow flower he has never bothered to name. Her song shifts into humming – happy as though she is not carrying anything from the world, light, and a part of him envies that.
The woman brings her phone down to her eye level, quiet for a second as, he assumes, she studies the photo she has taken. She runs her finger against the screen, and before he can think of saying hi or anything normal at all, she’s running away from him, no doubt carrying on the rest of the path, the rest of the run.
Huh.
He sees her again – multiple times, multiple days, on multiple occasions. The same red jacket, the same habit, though her camera then is focused elsewhere, somewhere – another flower, another bush, another moss, another grass or anything that is botanical.
He wonders if she’s one of those – trail runners who document everything, affixing each photo to a Strava post as some sort of medal, or an Instagram story to tell the world that she is here, conquering the world step by step. But, as he looks on, he thinks, she does not seem the type, even though, his assumptions are purely just that, and he is just a stranger watching her and making up stories to have something to do.
Creepy – and he tries to break it, the habit of seeing her in the paths he had claimed his. He would turn around, grant her privacy, and run somewhere, anywhere that’s nowhere near her. Franky had noticed one day – the change in pace, the change in time, the change in paths.
“It’s nothing serious,” Loid says as he drinks from his water bottle, sweat dripping from his forehead to his face in quick successions, the path he has decided to take, taking a toll on him.
“Just a change of routine?” Franky asks with a raised brow, knowing how much, how quickly he changes routine sometimes, so much so that he can barely keep up.
“Not really no,” he shakes his head, and lowers down the water bottle after he has exsanguinated it from every drop of liquid. “It’s just that,” he pauses to run a hand through his tousled, flaxen hair, matted to his scalp. The action brings some sense of relief, air from the breeze. “There’s this girl who’s running my usual route, and I don’t want to scare her or anything.”
“A girl? Running here?” Franky snorts. “You might just be seeing a ghost.”
Loid groans. “She’s not a ghost,” he tells him, tone inflected, a little bit defensive. “I just – if you’re a woman, you wouldn’t want to be alone with a guy on trail in the middle of nowhere.”
“Touche,” Franky relents. “Although I do know someone who would actually prefer that,” he says, pointing over to Fiona, who just gives him a glare.
Loid rolls his eyes.
When the routine is built, when uphill paths are his new normal, something breaks it once again – and it breaks like glass breaking, shattering, so much so he almost jumps out of his skin when he passes by her, and she is looking at him with bright red eyes, and an accommodating smile.
“Good morning, officer,” she tells him, and even through the loud music that is Bruno Mars through his earphones, he hears her – loud and clear like a storm rolling in.
He blinks at her, obviously startled, and then the smile she is wearing is broken into worry, and then apologetic, her hand flying to her mouth. “Did I startle you? I’m so sorry.”
Loid feels like a stray cat being coddled, and he smoothens his expression as he takes off his headphones. “No, it’s okay,” he says, and it does little to ease her expression. He furrows his brows, suddenly aware of the situation, of the change in paths. “Are you lost?”
She shakes her head. “No, I just decided to take this trail here,” she says with a roll of her shoulders in a shrug. “The path I was running in – I think I’ve seen every flora and fauna, so I wanted to check other routes.”
Flora and fauna – who talks like that?
Loid nods, and then, “okay, don’t let me keep you, then,” he tells her as he puts his headphones back.
She nods, smiling, and there’s something sweet there, something that tugs at his heart as if it is asking it to beat in a different way. “I’m Yor, by the way. I just recently moved from Nielsberg.”
Yor – and he tucks it in, somewhere, beneath, where it’s her red eyes and midnight hair. “Loid Forger – ranger. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”
It’s dismissive, he knows, but what else can he do, what else can he say, but that? He doubts she wants anything to do with him, so he moves, and goes about his day even when he feels rooted. He hears her footfalls, the same direction as his, but he does not pause, does not look behind to see if she’s keeping up, and continues head on, eyes pinned towards the horizon.
He turns just as she passes him with a wave, and then he’s by his lonesome, ever considerate.
He wishes he could have asked for her number or ask if it’s okay to run with her.
The next time he sees her, she is sitting by a rock, cradling a bad ankle, a frown encompassing her usual smiling face, brows furrowed. There is no indication that she is in pain, more so annoyed than anything as she picks up her phone from the ground in a crawl. He sees a scratch, and then some bruising, and before Bruno can stop singing about talking to the moon, his headphones are off and he is crouching beside her.
“Hey,” he says, gently, quietly, yet, she startles nonetheless, and almost falls off the rock she has chosen as her chair if it had not been for his steady grip on her arm. “Are you okay?”
“Officer Loid,” she says, bathed in crimson, no doubt from the scare he had induced.
“I’m sorry for scaring you, but are you – that’s a dumb question,” he shakes his head, suddenly sheepish, as he takes in the swell on her ankle, and the bleeding. “Can you walk?”
Yor shakes her head, her lip caught between her teeth as she reaches for her foot to touch it lightly. “I don’t think so. I did try, but then, I think I made it worse.”
“What happened?” He asks her, concern burgeoning as he glances towards her and to her phone, where an odd looking fern is captured in a still. Huh – weird photography choice.
“Well,” Yor releases her lip, and Loid watches it before looking back into her eyes. “I was trying to take a photo of this fern, that I think is a Conium maculatum,” she pauses when his brows furrow, “or a Poison Hemlock Fern,” she pauses again when the furrow deepens, “which isn’t a fern but a very, very poisonous wildflower, but I didn’t see the hedgehog – was it a hedgehog? – or that something that passed by me, and I tripped, and I fell, and well, I won’t be running anytime soon, and I think I have to crawl down this hill to get home?”
Loid shakes his head, and lets out a sigh – whatever she’s just told him is lost to him, even though he knows it’s somewhere in the manuals: Things To Look Out For As A Forest Ranger For Mt. Disappointment. “I can carry you on the way back,” he says – all this for an Instagram story? “What was the photo for anyway?”
Yor perks up, smiling brightly as she shows him the fern as though it answers his question directly. “I took this photo because I’m writing an article about the wildlife in Berlint, specifically, the plants. You know, research. I’m a phytochemist, or like, a botanist, but specializing in poisonous plants or the chemistry of plants, and how it affects ecology.”
“Is that gardening or something?” He asks, intrigued despite the tone in his voice that she cheerfully ignores.
“Close!” She says, almost hopping off the rock she is sitting on. “The research facility I work for is called The Garden.”
The Garden – he’s heard about it, has seen it; a towering thing in the heart of Berlint, filled with foliage it’s barely a building. He passed by it in his runs when he was still a clerk at WISE, and out of curiosity, stood in front of it as though he will figure out if it was a mansion, a castle, or facility.
He nods, taking it in, placing her in that mansion filled with foliage – and he can see it, her in a laboratory coat, doing what scientists usually do, and writing in her tiny notebook. He almost imagines how illegible her writing must be.
“I’ve heard of them,” he says, even though he has not actually divulged into it – just the building, the myth that Franky has affixed it to: a mansion for assassins, and as a botanist studying poisonous plants, it isn’t far off, is it?
“Cool – although, I don’t expect that you’ve read any of our research, but yeah, that’s me and my work,” she tells him in a rush, and then she is using him as a crutch, which he puts a stop to, immediately.
“You’re not walking back,” he tells her, stern.
“I’m not?”
Loid shakes his head, and then he is positioning his back in front of her. “Climb on my back. I’m carrying you.”
He doesn’t see it, but he can hear it – in her voice, the way no words actually form, and she is swiping at the air he hears it with every gesture. “I – I am fully capable of walking!”
“No, you aren’t.”
“You don’t have to carry me – you can just, uh, hold me,” she says, stubbornly, and Loid rolls his eyes.
“Look, you either climb on my back or I princess carry you,” he tells her, and then when he hears her suck in a breath, he sighs and softens his tone. “I’m not letting you hurt yourself any further; besides, it’s also my job, you know, as a forest ranger.”
That seems to do the trick as he feels her climb on top of him. Loid settles his hands beneath her knees, and hears her yelp as much as she tries to suck it in, and muffle it. He quiets a laugh as he stands, and makes their descent.
“So, when did you move?” He asks her when the quiet stretches too thin, as he tries to ease the stiffness that her awkwardness had brought on. She is shaking like a leaf.
Yor’s hold around his shoulders tightens, and then loosens reflexively as she rests her chin on top of his head. It warms something in him, something akin to butterfly wings spreading throughout the cavities in his chest. He ignores that.
“Two months ago – assignment in Nielsberg ended, so I had to be shipped back,” she says, and there’s something funny about the way she has described herself – like a flower being shipped, plucked, and maybe there’s some truth in it; she does look like a rose.
“How are you liking Berlint?”
“Just like how I left it,” she replies with a shrug of her shoulders, and he wants to pry, but he doesn’t know if he should.
They carry on the rest of the walk with Yor talking about the Hemlock fern she had taken a photo of, and provides him an overview of the article she is planning on writing. It is apparently, a textbook, a lengthy one at that, that will be used at Eden Academy, where she is mostly the contributor, apart from the cited resources from her predecessors. And it’s impressive, really, he told her as much, for someone at twenty-seven seemingly having their life together.
“Let me patch you up,” he tells her as he settles her by the settee of the office, garnering attention from Fiona, and of course, Franky. And just like the warm feeling in his chest, he ignores that, too.
He procures a first aid kit from the cupboard, quick enough so Franky doesn’t say anything compromising, and gets to quick work.
“Thank you, although you didn’t have to do that,” she says, that sweet smile on her face that makes her eyes shimmer like rubies. “And before you say it’s your job, I mean it.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, and there’s no sarcasm there, just a soft smile that’s a first, that’s new from someone so hollowed. “I’ll drive you home, too – “
“ – And maybe I can thank you over coffee?”
It’s straightforward, and takes him aback, but instead of declining, he’s laughing, and laughing, and laughing – a soft chuckle, more so made in disbelief he strings along with an affirmative that she receives with a smile of her own.
She is a disruption, and Loid allows it. He doesn’t know why, but he does, he does, he does – oh, how he does.