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[ This is going to be an interesting, terrifying experience. He agreed to give this man his fear to let him have a taste of his own inner weakness - all so he can live or at least function without harming other people around him. How could he do anything else? Even if he doesn't quite know him, it's something idmitri is more than willing to do. People deserve a chance. So he arrives in this isolated little park, this speck of greenery, a bit reserved. Unsure of what comes next.

But he's ready.

It takes him a moment, but there's another man lingering. Waiting. He turns toward him with long steps. ]

Hello. Are you...?

( john — or, rather, the Eye, if one wants to be technical, though the boundaries between the two get more and more ambiguous with each passing week — may feed on fear, but what he really preys upon is heroism. by its very nature it is a heroic and self-sacrificing act, to reopen mental and emotional wounds that one might prefer remain dormant and untouched, all to potentially save a stranger that selfsame internal harm. he does not take them for granted. he doesn't want to. he wishes he had something more to give him, and especially those in Meridian who took more of a risk giving what some might perceive as personal vulnerabilities away to the "enemy."

very few of the people who had given him their nightmares knew what it would do to them afterwards. would it have changed their mind if they knew? would it change his mind? should he tell him? he — he should. he knows he should. but whenever he considers it, the scenario that plays out in his mind grows indistinct; trying to imagine how it might play out feels like trying to grasp sand.

the Eye doesn't want a potential meal to escape. and... as much as he feels a guilt for his partial obfuscation of what his first volunteer is agreeing to, he doesn't want him to change his mind either. even though the acknowledgement of this sits heavy in the hollow of his chest, inert as a leaden weight.

there are few around and even fewer passing by the park with any intention of staying there, so when dimitri arrives and approaches, john feels relatively certain that this is his man. he stands (perhaps a little too quickly, a little too eager), and — Christ, this young man is tall. ) I - yes. Jonathan Sims, but, please, John is fine. A pleasure to meet you.

( he extends a hand to shake. it's not something he particularly likes doing, and one reason might become apparent enough if dimitri decides to take it: his palm is marked with a deep burn scar, and the shape of it perfectly matches the curve of a shaking hand.

but this is his first volunteer, and he wants to be polite. ) I, ah, only realized just a few moments ago that I was remiss in asking for your name, before...

( he's trying to ignore the eye-patch. they always make the Eye nervous — so they make him nervous as well. )

[ Dimitri feels as if he knows what he's getting into - that he's offering up some of the worst moments of his life to a stranger. But he also knows that if this helps someone, he won't turn away from it. If someone can learn from what happened to him or if it prevents the suffering of another... he'll do it. It's how he is. What he believes in. The thought that it may come back to haunt him is there. It's a risk. But it's one he takes on willingly, without hesitation. Some would certainly call him foolish for that, but it's how he lives his life. How he intends to move forward. He can't simply turn away from it and pretend it never happened.

To do so would be to betray who he's become. Who he wants to be.

He offers a smile and shakes the offered hand. Pleasantries can come first. ]

A pleasure, Jonathan. You may call me Dimitri. Dimitri Blaiddyd.

[ He leaves out the title. It seems a foolish thing to bring with him to something like this or to use here, when he is king of nothing. ]

I also failed to introduce myself earlier; please, think nothing of it.

( john gives dimitri a firm handshake, but he can feel the strength in it. if the sight of him didn't make it obvious enough, the young man is no stranger to fighting, like so many here seem to be. there's a part of him that he can't stop from beginning to make wild and circuitous guesses about what sort of fear he might harbor, which of its facets had already reached out to impress their mark upon him in the years that he's been alive. in an academic sense to john, it is fascinating, to wonder whether the same archetypes of fear might represent themselves across different universes. perhaps they would not fit as exactly as they did his own — or perhaps the nature of humanity is consistent enough that they would manage to find purchase in such foreign, alien soil.

he nods. ) Dimitri, then. ( he gestures to where he had been waiting a moment before. ) Please, join me.

( receiving statements is certainly not new to him. this manner of searching them out is. when he had been ensconced within the Institute, much as the pupil rests within an eye, he hadn't had to search for them; with the Institute's reputation, they came to him. most were dry, old statements left behind, but occasionally those had come in to him that had wanted to tell their story to him in person. and then, those few times he had compelled statements from those he'd come across in the city... he would claim he hadn't planned on seeking them out, on taking them by force. he hadn't. but he had done it regardless, so perhaps his intention didn't matter so much in the end.

meeting up with someone for the selfsame goal, having requested it upfront, is new, and he finds it an awkward situation. even after he sits, he fidgets because of this, eventually speaking up once more, ) Usually I wouldn't be so rude as to cut to the chase, but...

( he reaches up to draw his hand down the side of his face. perhaps his demeanor speaks louder for him than his words can in this moment. )

Do you have any more questions about this — the process, or what's going to happen?

[ Dimitri shakes firmly and then settles onto a bench, peering up at John with a curious expression. He's a little nervous, he has to admit. Giving out some of his own fear... well. It's hard to do, isn't it? But it's fr a good cause, ostensibly. He leans back a little, his expression thoughtful. What does he say to that? How does he ask the question that comes to mind? ]

That's quite alright.

[ He purses his lips for a moment. ]

...I suppose I should double check that there won't be any longer term impacts. Or rather than any lingering effects will be temporary. I'm not entirely sure about how this will work - do I just speak aloud and will that be enough? Do we touch?

( as soon as dimitri asks, john knows that he's going to have to lie.

he doesn't want to. if he had full control and capability, he would look to dimitri right now and tell him exactly what the consequences might be — what he suspects might happen, though he has good reason to believe that they, as Shard-Bearers, might have ways of mitigating them (even if this is likely feeble self-justification). but that's what he would do, as a human being with fairly average conceptions of decency and morality. that is not all there is to him anymore. as the Archivist, as an avatar of the Eye — and not to mention being basically the Eye's vessel, at this point — he feels as though telling dimitri the full truth would be just about as possible as stopping his own heart with sheer concentration alone.

as in: it's not. not when he's this weak, when he — when it — feels so starved and so desperate. he perceives it as a threat to the offer of a decent "meal," and so he can't endanger that.

the absolute best he can manage is a partial truth, omitting that which he believes is the most troublesome consequence of all of this. ) In a way, that's difficult for me to say. I... have heard that it can dredge up the feeling of the memory, and some have learned to - to cope with that better than others, in the time that's passed since the event occurred. It - should be temporary.

( no, he's not lying. some are particularly ill-equipped for what giving a statement can do to them, but they are usually not the ones who volunteer. the most relevant contribution he could say here but omits is that of the dreams, but... )

No - that's not going to be necessary. ( to having to touch, that is. usually this is around the time he would walk him through a certain amount of script — statements submitted to the Institute had a certain format after all. but he's no longer in or associated with the Institute, so he can't see that as necessary. )

Whatever it is that you have to share - start at the beginning. Once you do so, you should answer your own questions.

( it's a hypnotic quality to his voice, a sort of enthralling aspect of the Eye, that facilitates it. many accounts might be jumbled by the subject's memory, fragmented by the panic of the moment and the erosion of time, or the individual just might not be a very good storyteller themself. the Eye's power intercedes, does what it can to make up for shortcomings. it's rather like tapping a tree — once he starts telling the story, the rest should flow out — whether he's prepared for it to or not. )

[ It's a good thing Dimitri is willing to trust. No matter what it might cost him. He nods slowly as he listens, turns the idea over and over in his head, and then takes a deep breath and settles. Even if he were aware, he might do it anyway. It's in his nature to want to help. To self-sacrifice for the sake of those around him. His survivor's guilt is too much for him to do anything but. So he turns to face him a little more fully, his expression serious as he casts his mind back to the past. ]

...my greatest fear. My greatest fear is that I will lose myself again. That I will once again descend into the madness of the beast that gripped me for so long - where I will kill without thinking, where I will be willing to slaughter armies, all for a mere taste of vengeance against those I thought had wronged me. It was a dark, terrible time - one I cannot - do not - wish to revisit.

[ That's the beginning, anyway. ]

( it's a trust that very well might feel violated by the end of all of this.

and whatever consequences might arise from that will simply have to be dealt with later! it certainly wouldn't be the first or the last time for john. daisy had threatened to kill him once she realized the active role he played in visiting her dreams, night after night. ultimately her joining the Institute officially had solved that problem — those under the auspices of the Eye were protected from such continued scrutiny.

he does, however, feel moderately confident that Shard-Bearers would be able to recognize what was happening and block him out if they wanted. manon had. well, either that, or he is now dead. john isn't sure which.

the fear that dimitri presents is a sacrifice laid on an altar. what he does now — presenting a statement of fear to the Archivist of the Eye — is a minor ritual that has been performed likely for as long as humans were able to classify their own fear to different sources. as he speaks, john turns to look at him, and it's an odd sensation. it's not just that the Archivist's gaze is piercing and unnerving, the depths of his pupils seeming to have their own gravitational pull, drawing the words and everything else around them down towards their crushing and infinite depths — though, yes, this is also the case. it can also feel like attention alights on him from every angle, even though they are largely isolated here; as if there were eyes and ears hidden everywhere, all jostling and jockeying with one another to learn of that which he typically keeps hidden.

as he speaks, several thoughts — several sensations — occur to john. a knifelike finger stabbed into his chest; the feeling of being hunted by those bent on his chase; the white-hot and wild fury of a scalpel plunged into his shoulder. the Spiral. the Hunt. the Slaughter. they do not exist in the actuality that the Eye continues to do so now, but they lie dormant in john, inscribed in the Marks that he was specifically set up to bear. now, they react towards dimitri, resonating with both the source of his own fear and how he could provide a source to others'. )

What happened, which caused it to begin? For you to - lose yourself, like this, ( he prompts. )

[ Dimitri sways slightly in his seat; he feels as if he's sinking into that gaze and he doesn't know why. There's nothing he can say. Nothing he can put his finger on. It's simply as if his world is shrinking - or the eyes are growing - but that's nonsense. He blinks slowly, tries to consider his own words. There is a lurking nervousness and apprehension now; that shuddering fear of being hunted. The slide of a knife, the bite of a blade. The scent of blood.

His throat works and he shifts in his seat and takes another breath as he tries to focus on the question.

On what he's saying.

Memories stir; blood and fire and death and the haunting apprehension that he's losing everything. That it's all slipping through his fingers. ]

...my father was killed, along with all of our companions. Dear friends of mine... in the Tragedy of Duscur. I was but a child at the time and I - I alone survived.

[ His fingers curl into a fist. He can almost imagine the whispers again. The sharp pain behind his eye. ]

And vengeance was asked for. Or so I thought.

Edited 2023-05-02 02:11 (UTC)

( it's not that john is ignorant of the effect that Beholding has on others. it's not as though he gathers what he wants from them and leaves their lives, putting whatever lasting negative impact it might have on them behind him. some of the ones who had shared their nightmares with him had been those he'd been close to, those he saw often enough to see the effect of lost sleep — and even the ones he had no reason to see again in person, he still saw them desperate and tormented in their shared dreams. begging, pleading, crying, screaming at him... but there's nothing he can do. at one point he had even thought his actions weren't his own when he was like this — that perhaps the invisible strings of the Web had found him once more, puppetting him through monstrous motions.

but he knows that isn't the case. it is him doing this, making these decisions, reveling in their satisfaction. he just doesn't know how much of him is actually him anymore — how much he actually recognizes and how much has been changed into something else.

john is beginning to realize something now, though perhaps he had started to realize it when he had Communed with set shortly after arriving in kenos. up until this point, statements have to him been limited to written or spoken word. there is much the Eye can dredge from these channels, but how much more can he gain about this fear if he has a direct connection to the mind who has felt it? to dimitri, john shares the Marks — these are the ways that the Fears have changed him irrevocably and personally. in return, a vague and murky picture begins to form in the passive channel of Communion between them, bolstered by the Eye as much as it can possibly facilitate. it's just as much an image of the past as it is a feeling of it.

john's hands clasp in front of him, fingers weaved together. )

...I'm sorry for your loss.

( he doesn't need to say that it's a dreadful thing to hear. he can feel it. the Archivist is less an archivist and more of the archive itself — each pain and fear he inscribes, he does so upon his own metaphysical substance. as dimitri feels the memories return, like water fast-rising in a cistern, threatening to drown... john feels much the same. )

Which is it that you think you fear more now — the tragedy that you suffered, or what it called you to do afterward?

[ Dimitri is doing his best nt to feel overwhelmed; instead, there's a creeping sense of... what? Dread, perhaps? He doesn't know how else to describe it. A sensation of crawling skin and creeping memories. Whispers in his ears that almost catch his attention. He shudders and tries to draw in another breath. He can feel something through their communion and he can't describe that. He clears his throat. Tries to focus. ]

...I think I fear losing control the most. Of becoming little more than a bloodthirsty beast, set solely on killing.

[ His fingers tighten against themselves. ]

Of becoming little more than a killer. of having all of my days reduced to nothing but the scent and taste of blood.

( these could be considered two different Fears, though as dimitri continues, he paints himself most vividly for one in particular.

fear of control is the domain of the Spider — of the Web, of the Mother of Puppets. this is the Dread Power that marked john first, when reading a children's book marked as an artefact of the Web at age eight had nearly led him to an early grave.

but, no, if any of the Fears were to pose the greatest threat to what dimitri feared most for himself, it would not be the Spider. )

...In my world, there are individuals like what you describe. Avatars of the Hunt, or "Hunters"... they exist only for the thrill of the chase. They weaken when they're denied it.

( ironically, he had been appointed a Hunter as someone to help keep him safe from threats outside of the Institute — the selfsame Hunter that had once nearly taken him into the woods and executed him, certain of the threat he posed. his relationship with daisy is very complicated. she had marked him deeply for fear of the Hunt, but he had since gotten to know her — gotten to feel responsible for her getting entangled in the Institute's business. he had willingly walked into the heart of the Buried, into Choke, into the Crushing Dark itself to pull her out... and then he had had to watch her wither away as she tried to deny the Hunt's hold over her.

it's the same fate he would have faced if he had refused to feed the Eye, as he does now. )

...It's a cruel existence. For them, and their victims.

Dimitri. I know it's difficult — dredging up fear always is. But if you were to tell to story about what led you to this point, where you stood upon the precipice of losing yourself to your anger... What is the scene that you would set? Where were you, and why — who were you with, and how did it all seem to you? How did you feel?

As... ghoulish as it is — this is what I need. A moment of fear, frozen in time.

I... it was nothing like that. It just... I was so caught up in my own despair and hurt and anger and guilt that I felt that the best way I could resolve the vengeance I felt was to hurt the people I thought responsible.

[ Sharing this hurts, too. It's a vulnerable sensation - but that's the point isn't it? He shifts his weight a little in his seat as he considers. How does he describe it? How does he really convey how it felt and what happened to him? ]

...we were in the tomb beneath the Academy. We - my classmates and I, the professor - we were trying to prevent what we believed were unknown assailants from making off with powerful artifacts that could be misused.

[ His gaze goes a little distant. ]

They arrived. We fought. There was one called the Flame Emperor who I believed, at the time, to be responsible for so many ills. And... during this fight they were unmasked to reveal the face of Edelgard. A... girl I had known once from my childhood, but who did not then seem to remember me. And the idea that she was responsible for so much suffering, for the death of my own family... it made me laugh. Now, of course, it seems foolish. She was a child as I was. She couldn't have been responsible. But at the time...

[ He trails off with a frown. ]

( he can sense the pain inherent in admitting to it, and he mirrors it — not just out of a reflexive sense of sympathy, or at least not only because of it. john has felt similarly despite not really being a man predisposed to violence (and certainly not one really capable of it, or at least not usually). it is a natural response in grief and hurt, he thinks, to lash out; a sort of animal instinct residual in them, despite what sense would otherwise dictate. some even do so blindly, so the fact that dimitri had at least focused his attention on those that had initially done the harm to him was already at least one step in the... "right" direction?

he listens, passive, receptive. both Communion and the power of the Eye leech information from dimitri that he doesn't even necessarily give outright, painting a picture of the scene that he describes; the dark and quiet of a grave, sharp apprehensive and anticipation of the situation they had been responding to. the shock of betrayal that such a sudden revelation might elicit is certainly something that would impact someone deeply, which might even push them to such a vicious response as dimitri had committed — which he to this day is concerned about repeating. )

There is little room for logic in times such as that.

( he has certainly had his share of blind emotional responses to high-intensity situations — ironic enough for someone so aligned with sight.

he considers what dimitri has told him for a moment, what he has shared — though he doesn't doubt that it's true that he fears most what he had become, what he very well might become again... he can't help but think that the underlying factor is what is written more deeply into his psyche. it is, after all, what he has to assume is the reason why such a thing had occurred. )

Though... the primary reason you reacted so strongly was because of this - tragedy that occurred, which resulted in the death of your family. This memory is the threshold to what you fear most, yes... but do you think it's correct to say that what happened when you lost them has shaped your life more as a result?

...I would say so. It all... stems from the Tragedy of Duscur, of which I wsa the only survivor. My father, my step-mother, people I had known my whole life - all were slaughtered and I somehow lived through it.

[ Survivor's guilt is a hell of a drug. ]

It's why I felt I needed to find justice for them. Even if what I ended up doing was merely feeding my own bloodlust.

[ He tried to keep control. It didn't work. Eventually the pent-up anger and resentment and sorrow and guilt had all come pouring out of him. Nearly being killed, the sense of betrayal - it had all led him to spiral and to do nothing more than hunt and kill and become little better than a wild beast. ]

( he has a picture of it now, and it intersects in several places with his understanding of the Fears. but john knows better than most that it's a mistake to think of them as wholly separate entities — it is more accurate to think of them as different facets cut from the same gem, each reflecting a slightly different archetypal understanding of terror. the Hunt, whose psychological Mark is something that still haunts him now in the echoed memory of perfect helplessness he had felt when daisy tonner had taken him out in the woods to execute him, single-minded in its fixation on the satisfaction of the pursuit. the Slaughter, which is Marked on him as a small, nasty scar on his shoulder left by a scalpel, representative of wild and senseless violence. in dimitri and the experiences that he recounts to john now, they exist in a tangle, each feeding into the other.

the fear there is genuine, and it presents a unique enough picture of such an interaction. with these fears written with their reverberations onto john, the Eye can feed, and they are both sated.

though even if that psychological pressure lifts from his mind and his vision "clears" (so to speak), it brings him little happiness in this moment. he can sense the pain, fear, and reproach seething within the young man because they're reflected back onto him, temporarily linked as they are. he wishes he can offer some sort of help, but... that's not what he's intended to do. the Archivist is not meant to help those with their fears, but rather to help himself to them.

he is no more able to help dimitri than he had been able to help daisy. yes, he had pulled her out of the Buried, and they had starved themselves of fear together as avatars of the Eye and the Hunt both, but it was a useless defiance. john had eventually served his purpose to jonah magnus and the Eye, and daisy... what was it she had said? "can't outrun it forever." she had used it to allow them time to escape, but she had still given herself back to the Hunt all the same.

leaving basira behind with the promise to deliver her judgment later. for a moment john's throat constricts, and then he speaks. )

When you feel as though you can't trust yourself to make the decisions you should make... you have to entrust it to those you have faith in. You equip them with what they need in order to handle you in that eventuality.

( it sounds very much like he speaks from experience. )

[ To be fair, Dimitri had come here with the intent to help John. Even if it cost him some peace of mind. Maybe he hadn't understood - or underestimated what it would take. For the moment, he's still in a bit of turmoil. Trying not to relive those horrible days and the fallout that had come with it and left him as he is - brittle, but trying to be better. Strong, but fragile in some of the worst ways. There's nothing else for it at this point.

And at least he takes a bit of comfort from John's words. ]

...I had people like that back home. And I have a few here. But I miss all of the ones who are apparently gone.

[ This is close to the divide between them; the gulf between restoration or creation. ]

I want to bring them back.

( even still. he is most accustomed to reading the statements of those who have already come and gone from the Institute — some of them so old that when his assistants tried to reach out to the original statement-giver, they can't seem to find them. when he had been Head Archivist of the Institute, he had ruminated often on the survivor's bias that reading these statements had given him, but that wasn't always the case; sometimes they were given in a narrow window between a Dread Power's fixation on them and when they were finally claimed by it. helen was one of those, among many. he'd just had the misfortune of seeing her claimed by the Distortion right in front of him.

when someone is presenting their fear and their pain to him in person... it's harder. he knows logically there's nothing he can do to help, that there's not really anything anyone can do (least of all an avatar of a god of bloody fear), but still... the yoke of an Archivist is a heavy one, especially upon a soul as generally sympathetic as john's is. )

Good. That's good.

( he doesn't speak on those that had been left behind. how can he? it's not that they are completely at odds here; there are those that he is serving Zenith in order to retrieve. one, he already has, but he hopes yima will continue to fetch the souls of those he feels most responsible for. there are four left... even if he can't go to the world he creates, he wants them to be able to. with martin.

john stands. he feels that their time is coming to an end — he needs to get back to highstorm, and... typically those that give statements to him don't really want to hang around him for too much longer afterward. but he does pause there a moment before looking back to dimitri, sidelong. )

I'm not without a heart. If it were so easy for me... I would want to do the same.

( the obvious indication here is that it's not. but he doesn't want to discuss that now. that's a conversation they have later. )

Thank you very much for your time, Dimitri.

( and for your fear. even looking at him now, one could see that john already looks much haler; he stands up straighter, and there's less of a nervous jitter to his movements. )

...you're quite welcome.

[ It's been... what? Harrowing? But he thins he would do it again. He's helped someone and that's important. Even if he has had to dredge up memories he would almost rather leave buried. He cannot turn away from this. He never can. ]

I hope you stay well.

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