un: falcogrice (accidental memsharing, feel free to pick one or two or all!)

[grice]

➤ 1. ᴄᴏɴғᴇssɪᴏɴs
cw for: mentions of war crimes & impending child death.

[ a girl cries softly: you even came to help me . . . i'm sorry. falco feels his heart clench and his stomach drop, his hand squeezing his arm as a reminder of the black fabric tied around it to signal danger— he wouldn't have another chance to say something to her again, if the worst happened. he didn't want to waste this chance, and begins to confess. that his attempts at help haven't always been helpful. they've been detrimental. he helped enemy soldiers to ambush his home. he was the reason so many people were dead. he let them in. unknowingly, but he still did, and that guilt rakes at the back of his mind until it has clawed its way to the forefront. 

“and also—!” falco swallows tight, and with a sudden surge in his voice: “i'm in love with you!”

shock widens the girl's eyes. she doesn't look at him. startled, she stares at her lap— but falco leans forward on his hands and knees and runs his mouth, turning several shades darker: “i only became a warrior candidate to keep the armored from you. i wanted us to get married so i could make you happy forever— i wanted you to live a long life!” the silence afterward is stifling and his heart is practically pouncing into his throat, beating too fast, tumbling his stomach right along with the ride until it felt uncontrollably fluttery. “I— might become a titan, so . . . I wanted to let it all out, before I'm gone for good.”

falco’s trying hard to hold his tears, clenching his jaws— gabi retorts by ripping the fabric tied to his arm off in defiance. no— let's go. 
his older brother, colt (who watches the entire thing, which was— embarrassing), makes a comment as he gets up: mister zeke likes you. if we tell him what happened, he won’t scream.

“. . . right,“ falco replies, but subdued, frightened and doubtful. ]

[ when the memory ends, despite the tragic context— falco quietly hugs his knees and hides his deep green cheeks underneath the hood of his cloak, embarrassed and flustered but: ]

I miss her. 

➤ 2. sᴄʀᴇᴀᴍ
cw for: war imagery, violence, gore, cannibalism, child “death”, forced transformation, burning to death

[ don't do it! falco drank your spinal fluid— please, don't scream!

two brothers stand in this playing memory, in front of a massive, hairy beast resembling an ape— brutally injured across his back and on his arms and belly, the expression that pulls on the skin of the beast titan's face is distraught and plagued. nearby, gunfire and weaponry are still being exchanged, over a battlefield of abandoned houses and three other struggling giants— one is downed, with its skull broken in and steaming. the other has the pointed ears and exposed jaws of a devil, and pinned over him, one that is armored.

the older brother pleads with his titan predecessor, cries and shouts with his words at a desperate crack. he doesn't care how many people he needs to kill after this, but he wrangles falco's arm next to him— who has already told him to let go with escalating panic: “brother, you need to let me go! run—!“

one didn't need too many details or context for what was happening. one thing was gravely clear as colt cries:

—please! just don't turn my little brother into a monster!

a brunette, young and fierce, arrives on horseback and yells for falco. he does the same to her: “get away, gabi!“

the beast titan eventually speaks: oh, colt. you care deeply for your little brother, as i do mine. i understand. and for that . . . . i’m so sorry. what bursts from his mouth next, and to the brothers' horror is a powerful, earth-trembling roar. colt grabs onto falco, despite the boy's frantic attempts to push him away through violent sobs.  colt is strong than him, so much bigger than him, hugging his little brother to his chest and cradling his head. falco shrieks enough to lose his voice to terror: “colt, let go!! get as far away as you can get!“

but colt tearfully bellows over him: it's okay, falco— your big brother is right here with you. gabi is the last person falco sees, reaching for him and he reaching for her as he lit up— and like most of the battlefield pawns, went supernova. explosions litter the district, and not long after, brief stillness becomes the terror of enemy screams, being swallowed and chewed on by various, grotesque giants that move and act erratically, mindlessly. all they do is eat.

from the closest puff of smokey mushroom clouds is a gangly legged, long-necked titan. its arms were too small, horribly disproportioned and bizarre. its belly is puffed and potted. the sound it makes is unholy and skitters beneath the skin. underneathe the smoke is the corpse of the brother who refused to let go: carbonated and smelling of acrid, burnt flesh, black and kindling. the beast titan speaks to the disoriented thing: get him, falco.

the titan unhinges its jaws and lolls its loose tongue, its neck bends in a way too disturbing, that looks like it may crack with the next unsteady swing, its eyes focusing, savage and hungry— and it does just that. it tackles the armored titan into the ground to free the other pinned beneath him. ]

➤ 2.1. ʜᴜɴɢᴇʀ
cw for: war imagery, cannibalism, gore, restraining of a child. in the clip there are child soldiers using firearms and a beheading.

[ falco— or the shell that remained of him— gives the armored titan an exceptionally hard time. it flails when it’s on its back, snaps its teeth so hard the bones chip. it shrills like a suffering animal living a nightmare that doesn’t cease, its shrieks are a devastating cry while its actions are reduced to an order and primal instinct. it relentlessly chews into the plated nape of the armored once it manages to throw itself on top. the armor creaks, and cracks, so do the mindless falco's mandibles in just how relentless it was to eat him. the armored does nothing. he even makes it easier, it seems, undoing what was difficult to bite through. it breaks from the pressure and from the release. he's given up. he wants to die.

something has diverted the mindless titan's attention before it manages to claw through: a man with half of his face crushed clean off, bleeding and steaming, but standing— smiling. 

it took everything i had to heal even this, but . . . now, i can make my death count.

porco galliard was a much easier target. walking toward them. defenseless. there. on a platter for a starving beast to consume, and it takes no more than a second for the mindless falco to charge perversely, mouth wide and so endlessly famished that it dives headfirst, uplifting rubble.

galliard is snatched between teeth, swung upwards in a way that snaps his spine and throws his legs in a bend that is sickening— in a few more ugly cracks of bone and pops of flesh being crushed of its gore and allowing it a place to burst through the belly, the ribs— the mindless titan devours him, chews at his legs as the slush of blood and viscera slide down its throat and hit his stomach with a loud gulp.  
the mindless titan disappears sometime during the ceaseless chaos, in a short burst of light and a dismantling collapse. who reemerges from the corpse is falco, disoriented and barely conscious. he's handled carefully and gagged by a soldier and taken to the roofs of the homes that have yet to be destroyed— the marks scarring his face and jawline that were once on galliard tell them he's an important keep.  that's how shifters are made. ]

[ but falco had not remembered the last two memories. gaining inheritance meant you forget what happened shortly before and during. no shifter remembers. they’re not supposed to, especially not their time as a pure giant, said to be an endless nightmare for those stuck within the body. he knew how both colt and galliard went, but to see them, to hear them, to see himself—

he feels sick. his eyes swell with tears and his expression contorts, getting as far away from it as he could, cupping his mouth. the vessels in his sclera darken into ugly purple hues, and perle, worried and remorseful, flutters to his shoulder, but he bats her away, violently and uncharacteristically before she could land, squawking and fluttering back to the closest roost. his voice is tearful and seething— it hardly even sounds like a likely reaction. coming from anyone, certainly, but falco? his voice even cracks in a boyish way: ]

Go away—

[ he storms from the room into another, with a loud slam of the door behind him. left baffled as much as startled, the eyes of the pygmy falcon omen stare around an empty room, at an egg clamped shut in a bed on the floor, and leaves one last message before going after him: ]

It was an accident. How do I reach him?

Comments

2 + 2.1 | voice | un: younghuman

[terriblepurpose]

[With gentleness strained at the edges by horror, Paul answers, already halfway out of the house:]

Hold tight. I'm on my way.

[grice]

Thank you, Paul. [ perle waits a moment before following through the door as silently as possible— only the tiniest clicks and flutters come through the audio as she swiftly hops from room to hallway. ] He is in the garret. I do not wish to slight him further.

[terriblepurpose]

It wasn't your fault. I'll tell him.

[In his pocket, Sophia twitches. In a rare burst of communication directed outward, she sends a soothing pulse of assurance to the other Omen.]

This happened to ones other than you. It's all right.

[grice]

I thought he'd known that.

[ sophia is greatly thanked; it does not clear away her worry for good, she certainly feels the agitation at a wing's length, vibrating in her chest with the thrum of angry drums— but it helps. ]

As a warning, he may not be himself. But he respects you, and trusts you. So do I.

2 + 2.1

[fogsong]

[ The memories are too hard for Sharon to watch to completion, and she purposefully looks away from the Omni and lets the rush of blood in her ears drown out the sound of pure horror, tears at the edges of her eyes. With most of the other memories on the network, she was curious—curious, and too nosy for her own good. These, though, felt wrong in ways the others hadn't. This was a trauma that should have been left alone, especially when she sees what it does to Falco. ]

I'll... I'll be there soon, okay?

[terriblepurpose]

Sometimes it's hard to know what we know when we're in pain.

[He tells Perle, as gently as he would (will) her Sleeper. Sophia remains, a low but steady presence

It's not long before Paul arrives at their door, following a network of lanterns he knows well. He lets himself in, not standing on courtesy, and Sophia does not either as she springs forth, seeking out her fellow Omen as Paul seeks out, first, a balled up egg he takes gingerly into his arms.

(They respect him. They trust him. It is a privilege; it is an obligation; it is a heartbeat throb of emphathetic ache; it's Falco, and he has to get it right.)

He taps on the door that slammed shut, lightly, a familiar knock, Confetti cradled in the crook of his arm.]

Falco? It's Paul.

[grice]

[ if perle can send gratitude through the omni, she damn well does. this is still the bird speaking, of course— ]

I won't lose sight of him. Would you like to try and speak? Perhaps he will listen to you, too.

[grice]

[ if it's too quiet, it's because falco is holding his breath at the creak of the floorboards, the knock on the door and the call of his name. it's a short-lived attempt at hiding from paul that is outed with a bang— not literally, but with the shuddering snorts of a sob choked past his teeth. he's behind a dusty stack of boxes of equipment and books that didn't fit in his room, crouched and withdrawn.

he's never cried so deeply, he's never had the time to really mourn his brother or his superior— he's never actually remembered, always in a way distant from the reality despite knowing the fact. he's sure he doesn't want to remember it. it was better, that way. it had been better that way. there is an anger that is not his that surges in his silence, so angry at perle for digging so deep, the beast for screaming, at colt who didn't listen to him and at galliard who saved two birds with himself—

he's too fragile to talk himself out of it, to pin the source of the dark irrationality to the thing that made his eyes purple. he responds eventually, but it surges wet, constricted and cracked: ]

—I'm not coming out.

[ the door leading up isn't locked, at least. ]

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul flattens his hand on the door, his head dipping to rest his forehead against it as he closes his eyes. The sound of Falco's choked, impossiby sad little voice grabs something in his chest and twists.]

I'm going to come in.

[He would ask permission under any other circumstances. He'd respect the urge to self-isolation in the face of recollected horror. But he can't bear to do that here, not now, not with him. So Paul opens the door and leaves it open behind him, makes his way into the garrett and then to the source of the miserable hitching breath hidden behind boxes.

Paul doesn't say anything at first. He sits down next to Falco instead, Confetti still in the crook of one arm, and is still.]

I'm sorry. [He says, quietly.] I am so sorry that happened to you. To all of you.

[grice]

[ there's a long while where falco doesn't turn his head, nor his body toward his visitor. a friend and an elder and someone who reminds him too much of what he's lost at times. he doesn't make a peep in words, only in short hitches of breathing— at most, his vision darts to the corner of purple-hued sclera to see that confetti was there, but he does not raise further to meet paul.

the egg still hides. whenever the air around falco grows cold and viscous, he always hides— despite having done such a good job of keeping it at bay for so long. the boy himself, he needs to clarify the mesh he was feeling before putting it into words, when he was ready. he doesn't exactly feel ready, still hot within, still on an edge that can tip poorly, but still, he speaks: ]

I don't— remember it, I don't remember any of that. [ it's been burned into his thoughts now, though. he can't tuck it away, or make it disappear. he can't be at arm's length from it anymore. ] Why didn't he listen?

2 + 2.1 (+ 1 too maybe who fuckin knows)

[dirtdevil]

[ the omni is... interesting, he thinks, and certainly convenient, but even though it's simple enough to use, he hasn't quite gotten the hang of the communication aspect yet. maybe it's not surprising considering his communication skills in general range from mediocre to fucking abysmal depending on the situation—of course he's going to be inept at using a network. it's not that he ignores it, exactly, it's just...

well, okay, he kind of ignores it. not when it looks like Serious Shit, of course, but most of what pops up on there doesn't really concern him.

this catches his attention immediately and somehow doesn't let go even after the memory is over.

hearing Falco's name is enough to send him rushing to grab his largely-neglected omni, and then the first thing he sees when he looks into the crystal is—

he hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about him since his rebirth in this place. Erwin is here, alive, and so his full focus is there—he hasn't forgotten about his vow, but having Erwin back gives him the clarity to let go of the obsession in a way only a miracle like this could ever allow.

and yet seeing that thing's ugly fucking face still immediately brings his blood to a boil. its voice makes him want to crush his omni in his hand just so it can never transmit the sound again.

maybe he hasn't let go of this as much as he thought.

he's not so blinded by rage that he misses every other horror in this memory, though. hearing the beast titan's scream again makes his stomach churn; he knows all too well what it does. the ensuing chaos is hard to follow, but what he learns from it is more than enough.

he didn't think it was possible to hate that piece of shit even more, but it only takes one fragment of Falco's memory to prove him wrong.

when the gem in his hand goes dark, he's stunned for a moment, and then he hears Falco's voice. a door slams somewhere in the house, and by the time Falco's omen sends the message, he's already pocketed his omni to go look for him.

it's not a big house, so it doesn't take him long to eliminate all the possibilities but one: the attic. he's not good with kids, or good at comforting people, but he can't just leave Falco up there alone after that. so he takes a deep breath, trying his best to set aside his own feelings of anger and hatred for the moment, and climbs the ladder to the attic door. ]

Hey. Can I come in?

[ it's a trick question: he's going to come in either way. it wouldn't be the first door he's kicked down. ]

[terriblepurpose]

[The world takes. It takes, and takes, and takes. Exhaustion traces a path in him that feels older than his own body, a sorrow-carved riverbed of millennia. Why didn't he listen? How can he answer a question that no philosopher or mystic has ever answered, in all the eons of time past its first asking?]

I don't know.

[He shifts, setting Confetti at his hip after he shifts closer, leaning against his hip as he does not quite brush against Falco. The taste of apples is gone from his tongue. He still imagines it's there. He draws up memories, a whole teaming school of them, to the surface, golden fish flitting in a storm-flecked pond.]

But I think it was because he didn't want you to be alone. Because he loved you. [His voice is soft and mournful, understanding a bitterness on his tongue.] That doesn't make it better. I know.

I want to try to give you something. Do you trust me?

do los tres

[grice]

[ to no surprise (or perhaps it is a surprise, there's not another peep out of falco. the attic is silent and there's no answer rejecting him, nor granting him entry. it possibly wouldn't come from his mouth, now— but it does come from the best aspects of himself.

perle, falco's pygmy falcon omen, whisps into form with a flutter on the last windowsill before the short climb to the attic, and tells him, with a gentle press of thoughts: yes. part of him was saddened and reacting, the invading part too busy in consuming it— and the remaining half was aware that he needed people. ]

[grice]

[ it was a question he'd never get an answer to, and perhaps falco knew this— but he denies, and denies, in hopes that understanding would balm the hurt. he was good at that, he's always been good at that. he's understood strangers, enemies, and gotten an entire city into trouble by empathizing. but his mind was muggy and thick, hard to think through what was already feeding off his misery. it even causes him to think, irrationally and painfully: it makes it worse and stupid because i'm still alone. that was wrong, he wasn't alone. perhaps he would indeed never see his brother again, but. paul was proof. gabi, despite their distance, was proof.

avoiding eye contact and pressing his lips together, pausing to breathe and blink through the insistent burning in his eyes, falco eventually speaks, his his hands to himself, and hugging his knees, his voice nasally and still wet when he asks: ]

What is it?

[ perhaps that wasn't his best response, either, but his best is not at his forefront. but perle had said it, and falco implies it without a concrete objection: he does trust him. ]

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul can't help but to remember other battlefields. One much like the one Falco had just dreamed (the same? was it then? was that the day his world ended, and Paul hadn't know?), where he'd first held him protectively close. The other a black sand beach, where Falco first showed him that massive, bestial form.

The same beach, after. Falco's hand small in his, his eyes that virulent purple, and now he finally, terribly, understands.

He lets the memories come. He lets them slip away. He returns to the calm pool, and the fish, and the first shape of a different dream.]

A memory. One of mine. I think it could help.

[He holds out his hand, palm up, like it bears an offering in its empty expanse. It does. It just won't be there until Falco reaches for it.]

It's something my mother taught me.

[grice]

[ there’s a still moment where falco’s arms fold enough around his knees to hide half his face, lowered to dry his stinging before peering out from the faux protection it provided— the purple in his eyes were a ripple that came and went, would at moments seem darker than others. the silence peeks in and out from the wild emotion this has caused, ebbing for more, in fact—

but falco’s darkened gaze slides between Paul’s face and his offered hand. the hesitation there was either from doubt or an inkling of instinct that wasn’t his, that wanted him to stay this way and whispered, grimly: don’t take that hand.

his brows, furrow and relax at the “thought”, wrinkling his nose and adding a thick sniff into the mix. falco is lucid enough to make his own choices, nonetheless. after a moment more of searching through the elder boy’s offering stare, a hand slacks, rises, and slinks into a palm much larger than his own. ]

[dirtdevil]

[ aaand speaking of things he's still getting used to: omens. birds (or whatever) just poofing into existence out of nowhere. his own omen is a bird, too—just a little one, the kind you might see having a snack of seeds in a birdhouse.

actually, it scared the shit out of him the first time it appeared, but nobody needs to know about that.

he nods once at Perle in understanding, only slightly weirded out by having magic birds talk to him inside his own head, and climbs the rest of the ladder. at the top, he carefully pushes the door open and slips inside, closing the door again behind him. ]

It's just me.

[ that... probably doesn't help at all. Erwin would almost certainly be better at this. fuck. sorry in advance, Falco. ]

[grice]

[ there’s been, perhaps— hardly any time to calm, really. falco’s silence is heavy and building heavy underneath. hot. angry. not natural. his, perhaps, but fueled and born from something else entirely. that thing was scratching the surface through falco’s downcast eyes and heavy heart.

when he finally opens his mouth after what felt like the longest time, it’s dry, creaking— and his nose is heavily congested, making his voice nasally and wet through the wetness trailing down his cheeks. ]

What’re you . . . Trying to do?

[fogsong]

I can try. [ Sharon offers. If it were her, she knows she'd be be desperate to block the world out, ears plugged as she hid away, but Falco isn't like her. She swallows stiffly. Her voice sounds a little distant and it's clear she's moving, doors opening and closing, and followed by quiet echoes of the world outside. ]

Hey, Falco... I, uh... I can't imagine what you're feeling right now and I won't pretend to. I just want you to know that I'm here for you, that I'm coming over even if you don't want me to, because whatever you're going through, whatever you're feeling, you don't deserve to go it alone.

You're not alone in this.

[terriblepurpose]

[This might not work with anyone but the two of them.

Paul knows that, even while Falco offers up his hesitant little hand, Paul's fingers curling around it at once as gently as he'd enclose a feather. There's a chance of nothing, or a chance of a mistake, but he doesn't let himself contemplate that.

He thinks about a lullaby. The first rising notes, the hushing fall that follows them, as soft as moonlit waves rocking the sides of a ship, and he can almost - he does -

- the memory opens up like a bloom.

He is little. Not much larger than Confetti is, unshelled, a drowsy, warm self that has only just begun to coalesce into a self at all, separate from the world around him. His cheek rests on the gentle swell of a chest over a placidly beating heart, one whose rhythm his own heart still dutifully echoes. He can feel her singing as much as he hears it, the sounds she shapes beyond his understanding of words.

(It's a lullaby of the rain. Every lullaby was.)

All he knows that they mean is mother, and mother means all is well. It is the most perfect safety he can remember. It's a gift he could give no one else but the boy next to him, whose dreams he knows, whose fingers have curled around his heart this way, unlike any other.

(In the Waking World, he hums with her, unknowing.)]

[grice]

[ words are given to the boy. he hears them, but feels— he doesn't know. numbed and and ways disconnected, unsure and confused about what he's feeling. there's no response from him, directly, but sharon receives a return regardless. ]

If you are up̴͉̪̺͆̐̈́s̵̢͔͓̽̐͑et̸̝̺̿̽̚, Sharon
You should come. You will be welcome.

[ nevermind the . . . glitch in the omen. perhaps it's nothing. sharon won't have to search in the home falco stays in, at least. by now he's been coaxed outside, out toward the back of the small cottage and wandering into the first crenshaw street the house settles on. perhaps not as angry or spiteful, but still feeling a heaviness in his need to sniff once in a while, listless, and— a little hungry. ]

[grice]

[ the first look upon falco's face is a scrunch of disgust, but not his. it's that— thing, that does not want this soft intrusion, this world that felt safer and warmer. it repulsed the thought, but falco let it in. he needed a push to break through and allow the memory to pool, but when he finally did, when he tore through the thin layer of the entity wanting nothing more than to feed— it rushes into his mind's eye. it fills the cracks and dark, cold spots with an embrace that coddles and soothes.

it's the first time through the standoffish meeting that falco rests his temple against paul's side, seeking more contact other than what was asked of him (and "begrudgingly" accepted). the sweet lulling with the ups and downs of two different hums, a young man and an older woman, rise and fall in a perfectly synched duet. falco's eyes have closed somewhere before, or during— and they have remained that way even as his chest squeezed his heart so tight and rushed a hot flow of tears down his cheeks. for a different reason, not so much pained as it was emotional.

in his most early memories, falco remembered little of his parents, but they were never negative. in most of the nights so far away from home, it was colt that would be his shelter, his caretaker, his light and warmth in those cramped bunk beds. he doesn't know if he'll see his mother again, either. they've always been so distant, and not because they wanted to be. the distance between them was in the work and duty put into keeping their family safe. it was a sacrifice both eldest and youngest wished to give— falco also had more reasons, to want to become what he was. extended protection. a married life one day, perhaps, as short-lived as it would be.

he needn't a hand to hold at this point; falco only slips his palm and fingers away from paul's only to compress his entire side, face included, into a spot of fabric and frame that allowed him to hold and be held. he even tries not to make too many sounds to interrupt— apart from the thick sniffs and sharp release of breath from holding a shudder in for too long. he may have been far from home, but paul was one of the closest people to home for him.

he didn't want to let him go, either. ]

[dirtdevil]

[ most attics are dusty and cluttered, but not this one: he saw to that himself, probably immediately after finding out there was one in the house. so he doesn't have a problem just plopping down on the attic floor, far enough away for both of their comfort but close enough to have a quiet conversation. ]

Not really trying to do anything.

[ a pause. he's not very good at being delicate, so this might be a bit of a challenge. ]

That was your first time seeing that too, wasn't it?

[grice]

[ after the lift of his eyes and may be perceived as quite the long stare— falco slowly nods into his arms. his voice seems so dry when he tries to speak up, but he does so anyway through the cracks. ]

I knew. I just never remembered.

[fogsong]

[ The glitch catches her off guard but, at the moment, she's more concerned about Falco than whatever else may possibly be happening. And, with no response from Falco himself, she moves more quickly. It only takes a few more minutes to find the house and to find him and her heart crumbles in her chest at the sight of him.

She crosses the distance between them without a hint of hesitancy. ]

Hey. [ She says lamely. She wants to wrap him up in her arms and offer him whatever comforts she can give but she knows how raw he must feel and she knows that no words she could say could ease his pain or the suffering brought forth by those memories. ]