SPRING TEST DRIVE

[thespaceopera]

THE SPRING TEST DRIVE MEME
(Or Fall Test Drive for you Southern Hemisphere folks!)

Got someone you want to try out before you app? Well this is the post for it! Feel free to use anything that fits in the setting of Drift Fleet! Want to play bumper shuttles? Want to go wild in a med bay? Play around with the current plot? Have at it!

Threads from the Test-Drive may be made game "canon" but DO NOT count toward AC!

FOR NEW PLAYERS: You DO NOT NEED an invite to participate in the TEST DRIVE! If you decide to APP into the game, ONLY THEN will you need an invite from a current player!

Helpful Info for Ideas!:

March's Star System

Game Details

Test drives are posted SEASONALLY, so the next one will be in June!

Comments

[rockily]

[ It's different because Eizen already knew, because he had long since come to terms with his eventual fate, with the certainty that Zaveid would be the one to put him down. He promised he would and Eizen trusted in that, trusted in him, with every fiber of his being. As difficult as it would be Zaveid would not let him down, he would not go back on his promise, it's that thought that helps he live as he does, to continue knowing full well what will one day come to pass. To learn that it has, that Zaveid succeed, it would do the opposite of what the other seraph fears. It would bring him some measure of peace. Because it at least it was over, at least his sister was safe, at least Rayfalke was free from him.

Eizen sighs, eyes falling closed briefl, arms crossing across his chest. It's annoying this problem and he's tired of it, of Zaveid being constantly just out of reach. He's here, now, and showing no signs of fleeing... What better time than now to address it? To pull him in before he has a chance to escape. ]

And you do? [ Eyes snap open, focused in an irritated scowl. ] What reason could you possibly have for running away? Or have you become a coward in your old age.

[airily]

[ There's something that snaps inside Zaveid for a moment and all he can do is stare at Eizen, an intensity that he can't even begin to hide. The word rocks him and he breathes in deep - even knowing that he doesn't really need to. Something burns inside him and he clenches a fist, wanting nothing more than to reach out and throw a punch, to slam a fist into Eizen's face or chest or stomach and show him the intensity of his emotions, the depth of his anger and his hurt and his pain. It's not that simple, and there's no way for him to get it to make sense.

He can't just stand in front of Eizen and bare his heart because he feels so twisted up by the other man being here that it makes words almost impossible. He's sickly and irritated and something makes his teeth grind together - and Zaveid can do no more than stare at him, eyes dark and expression stormy. He's a tornado living up to his name, nails digging into his skin. ]

I think we both know the answer to that. [ He takes a step closer, furious. ] Don't you dare call me a coward, Eizen! We both know what I've done!

[rockily]

[ If the only way to get him to talk is to make him angry than Eizen will make him angry, he'll taunt the veritable storm underneath Zaveid's skin until it explodes. He'll weather it, dig his feet into the ground and let the winds rip into him, bearing down with a ferocity only a wind seraph knows.

It's why he scowls in the face of Zaveid's anger, why his expression twists with his own anger, his own irritation. It's not simple, but he's tired of all the dodging, he's tired of the avoidance, of the way Zaveid looks at him in those rare moments he does not immediately turn tail and run.

As much as Zaveid might want too, they can't avoid it forever. Eizen won't. ]

Then stop running away and face it! Face me! [ He snarls, hands curling into tight fists. ] All you have been doing since I got here was run, avoiding me like I would fall apart if I learned the truth! You know me better than that, you know I wanted it to be you!

[airily]

[ He doesn't want it all to be about anger and rage and pain but that's where this is going. It's the same thing that happened with Dezel and the same thing that happened with Sorey - it all builds up and snaps inside of him. He's not really prone to anger like he had been when he was a few hundred years younger; he'd learned to keep it in check, to let things go, to have it all roll off his shoulders. Having Eizen around, though... It makes it all flare back to life and he feels twisted and tainted by it.

This isn't fair. Eizen looks at him and expects him to stand there and say it all as if it wasn't one of the most painful things he'd ever had to do. Theodora, Silva, Eizen, Mikleo... Dezel... All of them - they all meant so much to him and he had lost them. He wants to embrace the fact that Eizen is back with him but at the same time he feels completely out of his reach.

He squeezes his eyes shut, choked off and desperate. ]

I can't! You don't understand! [ He lifts his head. ] You died, Eizen, you were gone, and since then... So many people... [ And Zaveid survived. Why? ] She didn't cry for long. I couldn't stop it, stop her from - from being there, from seeing it. I tried to do it myself but I wasn't strong enough. Nothing was good enough.

[rockily]

[ He knows it wasn't easy thing to do, knows how cruel he was being expecting Zaveid to keep his promise. If they hadn't gotten as close as they had things might have been different, he might have been able to treat it as revenge like he had originally promised. But things changed, they changed, they traveled together for too long, formed too close of a friendship. Eizen placed an impossible task on the shoulders of his friend, making him promise again to kill him, knowing it could very well tear him apart to do so. But as cruel as it was, he couldn't bear to entertain the thought of what would happen if he wasn't killed. He couldn't.

Eizen watches with clenches fists, hears the desperation seep into his voice and something sharp pierces his chest. The sickening taste of guilt sits in the back of his throat, bitter and thick, twisting up his stomach. He doesn't regret it, any of it, he'll make no apologies for the pain he caused. Zaveid was the only one he trusted to get the job done, the only one who could do it.

He flinches as Zaveid speaks, nails digging through leather to press into the palms of his hands. She was there, she saw it, Edna was there to see him as a monster, to see him die. He feels sick just thinking about it, tearing his gaze from Zaveid. ] I went back to Rayfalke, didn't I? [ He huffs out a bitter laugh. ] Of course I did.

[ Eizen looks back at him then, expression steeled. ]

You were sentimental. [ Got too close, cared too much. ] Tried to save me, didn't you? Tried to find a way to reverse it. Idiot. [ He knows how Zaveid is, knows how desperate he is to not lose the people he cares about. ] I don't care how many times you failed, it doesn't matter. You killed me eventually, that's all I care about. You killed me and saved my sister from having to suffer like you would have.

[airily]

[ It might well have been brutally unfair for Zaveid to be left with the task of killing Eizen, but he had taken it upon himself years and years before his friend finally turned. He had promised it as his vengeance, as the last thing he could do to honour Theodora, and he had kept his word - because that was who he was. It was a part of him, something intense and real, as deep as his own name, and there was no ignoring it. It's who he is, after all, and how can he shrug that off? It's what made the struggle all the more real.

Was he meant to just go and do it? Was he meant to just go and find Eizen and put him down, all by himself? Probably, and he knows it, deep down. He tried, so many times. He climbed the mountain so often that Edna started trying to turn him away, recognising him but refusing to let him get close to the dragon they both knew was her brother. She couldn't see Eizen die and, really, neither could he - but it was his duty. His promise. He had to do it, and she wasn't going to stop him.

That doesn't mean he didn't try, and Eizen is right. Zaveid looked, for years and years, for some way to bring a dragon back. That's why he had been so sure when he had met Sorey - so sure that there was no option, no means for him to bring Eizen back from that edge. He had done the searching, running across the world on his own. Nothing would work.

Bowing his head, Zaveid closes his eyes. ]

You think I wasn't gonna be? That it'd be easy? [ He closes his eyes, letting them sting with unshed tears. Turning his head away, Zaveid leans back against the side of the door again, trying to manage his emotions. ] I tried. I searched for so long, ever since that day. She and I didn't have time, but you - there was... You had only just turned into a dragon. [ He's close to walking out the damn door again - this hurts, too damn much. ] The Shepherd helped. I couldn't do it alone, and Sigfread... There was nothing left.

[rockily]

[ He won't apologize, he won't, and yet that does not stop the bitter taste from filling his mouth and sliding down his throat. The promise was like a noose around Zaveid's neck, slowly strangling him with each passing day. And he can only imagine how difficult Edna would have made things. She would have know it was him, even as a dragon, and done the very same thing Zaveid did all those years ago with Theodora - turned people away, fought any who tried to strike him down. She would have tried so hard to find some sort of cure, unable to accept the truth they all knew deep inside. Just like Zaveid.

Part of him knew it would happen, that his death wouldn't be so clean and simple, but still he wishes it had been. He wishes it had been easy, that it didn't hurt the people he cared about as much as it has. That he didn't have his bitter feeling twisting up his guts, nor the sharp press of something against his chest.

Knowing each step might cause Zaveid to bolt he moves closer, slowly at first as the other seraph talks, his pain sharp against his ears. He won't apologize, he has no apologies to give, but he has to do something, balm the hurts if he can. Zaveid shouldn't have to live with this, thinking he wasn't good enough, that he somehow failed him. He didn't, he had done exactly what Eizen had wanted, even if he had the Shepherd there to help, he fulfilled his promise, he had freed him. Eizen's life had never been a truly content one, between his curse and the malevolence that built up inside him for all those years... Dying meant he could finally rest. ]

Zaveid. [ There's little warning when he does it, a hand reaching out to grab Zaveid and pull him in, arms wrapping around him in a hug. He does not know if this will help or make things worse, but it's all he can think to do, the only balm he has to soothe his wounds. ] Thank you... For trying. You knew there was no way to turn me back but you tried anyway. [ A hand rests on the back of Zaveid's head, guiding it to rest against his shoulder. ] You're an idiot, but thank you. Thank you for being there at the end, for me and for Edna. Thank you for keeping your promise.

[airily]

[ Eizen moves closer and Zaveid doesn't want to face it - he's kept his distance for a reason. He can still remember the way the other man's body had been wrapped up and twisted in malevolence, the way he had fallen prey to it as the Lord of Calamity swept forward, how his jaw had opened wide and he did no more than devour him. He can remember the twisting panic he had felt, bearing witness to it, unable to pull himself away as he watched his friend become something that he would never be able to come back from. Eizen had been replaced by a monster, and...

Zaveid snaps a little, shaking as he leans close and presses into Eizen's body. He's warm and solid and real, no scales or dragonfire to stop him from embracing him. It's been such a long time, it feels like centuries upon centuries, and yet... Here he stands, as if born again. He hates it, hates it so much, but he loves it all the same. It's twinned with how he felt when he found out that Dezel was around, too; the same burning guilt, the same desperation and panic that makes him want to break from the inside out.

There's no relaxing into his body, no resting against him, but he's held all the same. The pain is sharp and real and he knows that, soon, he's going to flee and wrap himself around his vessel or find Dezel and find some comfort, something to ease the ache deep in his chest, but for now... He takes shuddering breaths, swallowing the panic, the hurt, the suffering, and he squeezes his eyes shut. He refuses to cry, he won't cry, not again. He can't let himself.

Instead, he thumps Eizen's arm. ] You asshole. [ It's broken and quiet but at least it's there. ] You're not supposed to come back and thank me. You're supposed to come and beat the hell out of me for not doing it fast enough. Jeez... [ He sniffles. ] Pain in the ass...

[rockily]

[ Eizen doesn't expect this to fix things, to make everything between them suddenly good again. All he can hope is that it somehow helps, that a pressure lift from Zaveid's shoulders as well as his own. Maybe now he won't have to avoid him anymore, won't have to flee at the sight of him, wont have to coil away at the sound of his voice. Maybe they can live in the same space without the tension, without things unsaid bearing down upon them like heavy rocks.

Eizen still doesn't know what exactly caused him to turn, why he became the monster they knew he would one day become - but that's okay, he doesn't need to know right now. He knows his end, knows his life was taken by someone he trusted, knows that his sister is safe. It's enough for him. The rest? That can come when it comes.

Staring up at the ceiling Eizen exhales, gently stroking Zaveid's hair the same way he used to Edna's when she'd cry. He'll give what he can in place of the apologies he does not have, little things that don't even come close to making up for it all. He can only do so much but Zaveid has other people he can lean on, people he cares about, people more able to support him than Eizen. When he runs this time the blow won't be nearly as bad.

He chuckles, barely reacting to the hump against his arm. ] I still might kick your ass for being slow. [ Truthfully he doesn't know how long he was a dragon and, at the moment, he doesn't need to know. ] Some other time, we'd need more space to really let loose.

[airily]

[ The problem is that Eizen being back here, like this, is going to be more than painful. Zaveid had done his best to work through what he had done with Eizen, how hard he had fought and how desperately he had tried to make things good and right between himself and the dragon, but none of it had ever felt close to enough. It had felt as though he was on a timer, desperation clouding every single thing he did and every single move he made and it just didn't work out the way he planned. He ended up getting wrapped up with a Shepherd and Edna and the others and he just...

It's not as though he abandoned Eizen. He never stopped fighting for his friend, for the man who had walked beside him for so long, who had stood up and drunk in malevolence and risen tall enough to devour a Lord of Calamity whole. He had never turned his back on that promise - vengeance that had become a solemn duty over time. It was simply that he had been so desperate for some scrap of hope that he clung to anything he could find, any whisper on the wind... But there was nothing.

He learned it with Theodora and he learned it again with Eizen.

Now he feels a soft hand against his hair and it makes him want to rebel - because he's not a kid that needs comforting, he's not really crying, but he is breaking from the inside out. He's shattering, and Zaveid isn't sure how to keep the pieces of himself together at all. It's almost impossible, and it makes it harder to breathe air that he doesn't necessarily need. He wants to run, to flee to Sorey or Mikleo or Dezel, but he doesn't have the strength and his wind flags around him.

Scoffing, he tries to find some kind of humour, as pathetic as it sounds. ] There's a training room on another ship. I'll beat the crap out of you there. [ Or the other way around; he's sure a punch to the gut would sort them both out. ] Idiot...