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alwaysbeenasmiler) wrote2019-03-14 08:11 pm
alwaysbeenasmiler) wrote2019-03-14 08:11 pm
Entry tags:
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-Title: Perfect Symmetry
Fandom: Tales of Vesperia
Character: Raven/Schwann
Word Count: 1453 words - worth 140 pts
Notes: Every day he wakes up-- but the man inside determines what side it is on.
Sometimes Schwann Oltorain didn't know exactly 'who' he was when he opened his eyes in the morning, and to be perfectly honest he had felt exactly this way for the past 10 years of his existence, ever since the Great War had robbed him of any sort of due normalcy of life. There were days that he woke up and he was ready and waiting for the world to show him the endless possibility that he wanted to believe existed, then there were mornings where his soul lay dormant at his feet and the years stretched on like a never ending purgatory, rows and columns of endless doors that led to the void.
When it bore further thought he absolutely loathed the way that he was tied between this dichotomy of darkness and light. One moment he was up dancing in the stars- carefree and blithe and with no care in the world except for what guild mission he was sent on that day, the next he was shackled to the very fact that he was Alexei's pet dog and prey to any sort of whims that the man was capable of and which more oftentimes than not cast his soul into the very dregs of darkness, not even true darkness. Oh how he longed for oblivion on those days.
No perceivable sense of self, only abject and total loneliness when he was courting the eternal void. In his position he had no real time for friends, the subordinates that he did have looked up to him so completely that he was put up on a pedestal. That still left him with no human interaction which evidenced itself in a slow ache where his heart 'should've' been; or maybe that was just the Blastia strumming along with the cries of his own internal psyche. He would of felt weird to have gone up to Leblanc and offer to go bar-hopping with him. 'Raven' would of done that, but not him.
Ah, 'Raven', his alter-ego and everything that he wished that he could be all the time; free of cares and free of worries. Everyone liked 'Raven', enough to schmooze up to him or at the very least enough to poke fun at him. Good ol' Raven didn't care about what people thought of him, he just was like the desert wind blowing through the sands of Desier and Schwann just wished hope beyond hope that he could be like that all the time, not just a few days out of the week. There was too much of a struggle now in returning to the darkness, it is hard to be relegated to that when one just got done dancing with the stars.
But even in the moments where he did channel Raven, he couldn't truly live authentically behind that mask. He was always aware that when he came back down from his high, he would be Schwann once again-- he would return to the netherworld and to his barely alive existence.
Good ol' Raven, loved by few, liked by all and annoying to many.
It had been so easy to keep that divide in place. that was until he started 'caring', not just as Raven but as Schwann as well. It was the group that had done it to him, fed him hopes for the future and what could be possible. He started to feel like when he woke up as Schwann, that he was channeling Raven if only a little bit. One could say a lot of maudlin things about the power of belonging but it was legitimately the truth and mattered in so many ways; Yuri's indifferent off-comments, Estelle's enthusiasm, Karol's almost-too-honest-to-be-real questions about Guild Matters, Rita's prickly words and remarks, the way that Judith put him off over and over again and yes, even Patty's precocious statements over skewers, all of these served to make him feel like a word that he hadn't used in the past ten years.. family.
And every day it ate him up inside, that he was going to have to do exactly what it was that Alexei wanted him to do-- betray their trust. It would be Schwann who stuck the jitte in their back, but it would be Raven that they would forever associate it with. A name that had been merely a persona was now something else.. something greater.
And the figurative hole that lay there just on the horizon threatened to overtake him and everything he'd created.
Man, it was going to hurt when his feet touched the ground.
--
Raven was very rarely alone when he woke up. No matter how sober or drunk he was or what had happened the night before. Now, it could vary from night to night, some nights he was in an inn room with a lovely lady (or man, Raven don't discriminate), other mornings it was a bedroll next to a Karol who happened to be snoring much too loudly; on those occasions stuffing some cotton bolls into the mouth was effective, either for waking him up or for stifling the god-awful noise. Either he was never alone, and he avoided that state as if his life depended on it.
Here in this state, he liked to pretend that Schwann didn't exist, it was easy to become Raven and easier still when he had a reason to cling to it. He felt real in this skin and every morning when he looked into the mirror, the slightly drooped eyes that looked back at him seemed full of life and purpose, the jaw that he rubbed with his hand was a tell tale shadow of the passage of time. Schwann always shaved at exactly 6:05 am like clockwork, starting at the jugular and working his way up until the hair was efficiently removed. After all who needed shadow on your face when you were a walking, talking and breathing shadow?
Raven's modus operandi was to (when he chose to shave), shave at varying points in the day, unidentical to the last one. Shaving at 3 pm? Well then, maybe he'd shave the wednesday after next at approximately 11:22 pm, give or take a few hours. The same old- same old was boring, and Raven wasn't boring at all. Viva la spontaneity! He'd do exactly what he pleased, when he pleased and no one could tell him any differently.
As Raven, it was also easier to deal with Alexei. It was easier to unquestioningly follow orders and he had a suspicion that Alexei did not interact with him as much because he wasn't so much a dog as a cat. It was easy to command a dog to loyalty, much harder to stay a cat. There was freedom in that-- and in that freedom, Raven had found a special sort of life, a will to live that was compounded by the ragtag group he traveled with; Brave Vesperia.
But still, even in the light-- the shadows could still touch. Sometimes Raven lay back on his pallet and stared up at the ceiling, or the sky and he thought about all he had been through, all that he had left of his life; the Blastia heart that beat ceasing to be a ticking timebomb and becoming a vessel of life and all because of his point of view. How was it that two parts of the same whole could think so differently and yet come to join firmly in the middle?
Was he Raven, or was he Schwann? Some mornings he woke up feeling like death, and other mornings it was as if he was life incarnate springing down from the heavens-- and yet he was the same person, wasn't he?
This was a truth that he couldn't answer, and perhaps he never would be able to successfully answer it. Life was hectic and it was strange, putting you in alliance with strange bedfellows and causing you to call the bet before you even knew what hand was being dealt to it. In those moments as sweet clarity of introspection settled over him, he could believe that perhaps everything would turn out a-ok in the world, that he could push Schwann back into the darkness to dwell there with all those regrets and memories of the love that was lost; a pantomime of tragedy that he wanted no part of. Raven wanted to remember the good memories and renounce the bad all with one singular breath.
Funny thing with life was-- you couldn't just up and do that.
Raven had his whole life in front of him, he could worry about that later though. No sense in dwelling on something that would only cause you pain.
Fandom: Tales of Vesperia
Character: Raven/Schwann
Word Count: 1453 words - worth 140 pts
Notes: Every day he wakes up-- but the man inside determines what side it is on.
Sometimes Schwann Oltorain didn't know exactly 'who' he was when he opened his eyes in the morning, and to be perfectly honest he had felt exactly this way for the past 10 years of his existence, ever since the Great War had robbed him of any sort of due normalcy of life. There were days that he woke up and he was ready and waiting for the world to show him the endless possibility that he wanted to believe existed, then there were mornings where his soul lay dormant at his feet and the years stretched on like a never ending purgatory, rows and columns of endless doors that led to the void.
When it bore further thought he absolutely loathed the way that he was tied between this dichotomy of darkness and light. One moment he was up dancing in the stars- carefree and blithe and with no care in the world except for what guild mission he was sent on that day, the next he was shackled to the very fact that he was Alexei's pet dog and prey to any sort of whims that the man was capable of and which more oftentimes than not cast his soul into the very dregs of darkness, not even true darkness. Oh how he longed for oblivion on those days.
No perceivable sense of self, only abject and total loneliness when he was courting the eternal void. In his position he had no real time for friends, the subordinates that he did have looked up to him so completely that he was put up on a pedestal. That still left him with no human interaction which evidenced itself in a slow ache where his heart 'should've' been; or maybe that was just the Blastia strumming along with the cries of his own internal psyche. He would of felt weird to have gone up to Leblanc and offer to go bar-hopping with him. 'Raven' would of done that, but not him.
Ah, 'Raven', his alter-ego and everything that he wished that he could be all the time; free of cares and free of worries. Everyone liked 'Raven', enough to schmooze up to him or at the very least enough to poke fun at him. Good ol' Raven didn't care about what people thought of him, he just was like the desert wind blowing through the sands of Desier and Schwann just wished hope beyond hope that he could be like that all the time, not just a few days out of the week. There was too much of a struggle now in returning to the darkness, it is hard to be relegated to that when one just got done dancing with the stars.
But even in the moments where he did channel Raven, he couldn't truly live authentically behind that mask. He was always aware that when he came back down from his high, he would be Schwann once again-- he would return to the netherworld and to his barely alive existence.
Good ol' Raven, loved by few, liked by all and annoying to many.
It had been so easy to keep that divide in place. that was until he started 'caring', not just as Raven but as Schwann as well. It was the group that had done it to him, fed him hopes for the future and what could be possible. He started to feel like when he woke up as Schwann, that he was channeling Raven if only a little bit. One could say a lot of maudlin things about the power of belonging but it was legitimately the truth and mattered in so many ways; Yuri's indifferent off-comments, Estelle's enthusiasm, Karol's almost-too-honest-to-be-real questions about Guild Matters, Rita's prickly words and remarks, the way that Judith put him off over and over again and yes, even Patty's precocious statements over skewers, all of these served to make him feel like a word that he hadn't used in the past ten years.. family.
And every day it ate him up inside, that he was going to have to do exactly what it was that Alexei wanted him to do-- betray their trust. It would be Schwann who stuck the jitte in their back, but it would be Raven that they would forever associate it with. A name that had been merely a persona was now something else.. something greater.
And the figurative hole that lay there just on the horizon threatened to overtake him and everything he'd created.
Man, it was going to hurt when his feet touched the ground.
--
Raven was very rarely alone when he woke up. No matter how sober or drunk he was or what had happened the night before. Now, it could vary from night to night, some nights he was in an inn room with a lovely lady (or man, Raven don't discriminate), other mornings it was a bedroll next to a Karol who happened to be snoring much too loudly; on those occasions stuffing some cotton bolls into the mouth was effective, either for waking him up or for stifling the god-awful noise. Either he was never alone, and he avoided that state as if his life depended on it.
Here in this state, he liked to pretend that Schwann didn't exist, it was easy to become Raven and easier still when he had a reason to cling to it. He felt real in this skin and every morning when he looked into the mirror, the slightly drooped eyes that looked back at him seemed full of life and purpose, the jaw that he rubbed with his hand was a tell tale shadow of the passage of time. Schwann always shaved at exactly 6:05 am like clockwork, starting at the jugular and working his way up until the hair was efficiently removed. After all who needed shadow on your face when you were a walking, talking and breathing shadow?
Raven's modus operandi was to (when he chose to shave), shave at varying points in the day, unidentical to the last one. Shaving at 3 pm? Well then, maybe he'd shave the wednesday after next at approximately 11:22 pm, give or take a few hours. The same old- same old was boring, and Raven wasn't boring at all. Viva la spontaneity! He'd do exactly what he pleased, when he pleased and no one could tell him any differently.
As Raven, it was also easier to deal with Alexei. It was easier to unquestioningly follow orders and he had a suspicion that Alexei did not interact with him as much because he wasn't so much a dog as a cat. It was easy to command a dog to loyalty, much harder to stay a cat. There was freedom in that-- and in that freedom, Raven had found a special sort of life, a will to live that was compounded by the ragtag group he traveled with; Brave Vesperia.
But still, even in the light-- the shadows could still touch. Sometimes Raven lay back on his pallet and stared up at the ceiling, or the sky and he thought about all he had been through, all that he had left of his life; the Blastia heart that beat ceasing to be a ticking timebomb and becoming a vessel of life and all because of his point of view. How was it that two parts of the same whole could think so differently and yet come to join firmly in the middle?
Was he Raven, or was he Schwann? Some mornings he woke up feeling like death, and other mornings it was as if he was life incarnate springing down from the heavens-- and yet he was the same person, wasn't he?
This was a truth that he couldn't answer, and perhaps he never would be able to successfully answer it. Life was hectic and it was strange, putting you in alliance with strange bedfellows and causing you to call the bet before you even knew what hand was being dealt to it. In those moments as sweet clarity of introspection settled over him, he could believe that perhaps everything would turn out a-ok in the world, that he could push Schwann back into the darkness to dwell there with all those regrets and memories of the love that was lost; a pantomime of tragedy that he wanted no part of. Raven wanted to remember the good memories and renounce the bad all with one singular breath.
Funny thing with life was-- you couldn't just up and do that.
Raven had his whole life in front of him, he could worry about that later though. No sense in dwelling on something that would only cause you pain.