mogget_cat | Visiting Svava

It's been nearly a week since his nightmare.

Some time late in the afternoon, Yrael pads on bare feet down the corridor to the familiar door of Svava and Archie's home.

Yrael knocks the same way he always does, two evenly-spaced knocks at chest-height. Never too loud, in case Moira is asleep.

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Moria is asleep- or just barely. Svava has just put her down when Yrael knocks, so it is a few moments until she reaches the door.

Or so Edielwiess is informing Yrael, as she is at the door moments before Svava reaches it- though it still does not take her too long to open the door.

"It had to be you- Edielwiess wouldn't come to the door for just anyone." With a smile.

"She is berating me for not coming by often enough to suit her," he says, smiling lopsidedly. Or else the calico is just trying to trip Yrael up by coiling around his ankles.

"For which I apologize, of course How is everything?"

Edielwiess can be doing both, of course. If Yrael is tripped up he is at a level to pet her, of course.

Svava chuckles, stepping to the kitchen to get something to drink- she has at least figured out how to heat up water in the kettle for tea, and there is milk in the fridge. "Moira just got to sleep for her nap- she still hardly wants to close her eyes but the moment she does she's asleep. Archie's on his shift, mine isn't until later tonight."

"She's growing well," he smiles. "Soon enough, one of the six impossible things one might see before breakfast might be you or Archie trying to catch her as she runs about the bar."

He remembers children at the age they learn to walk well. They run everywhere, just because they can.

"I don't know if I'd call it 'impossible'." Svava laughs quietly, setting down a glass of milk for Yrael while the water heats for her tea.

"Actually catching her, however..."

"That's what I meant," he grins and thanks her for the milk.

"But, everyone is all right? There don't seem to have been many more patrons struck with nightmares, but I wanted to make sure."

Wanted to make sure that his people were not harmed.

"There's been a few others, but... nothing that bad. At least compared to what I've seen before." She shakes her head quietly.

"Merlin dreamed his memories of his little brother torturing him, and awoke with his back in shreds and his wings cut off," Yrael says, sipping his milk. "And Asher, a vampire, relived being burned with holy water. All of his scars across his right side were reopened."

"I thought, for a while, that it was like before." It's natural, when faced once again with nightmares that cross into the waking world, to think of other Nightmares.

Svava remembers the Nightmares. She nods slowly at Yrael, toying with the small canister of herbal tea.

"All our worse fears, and things that happened before."

"I had told Teja that I could possibly put an end to it, since it seemed as though a Dead spirit was causing it. I went to sleep hoping it would find me, and take on more than it could handle."

"It is a cowardly spirit, I should think. I went into my nightmare to face it, and it made sure never to come near."

It only hid behind the faces of friends, against whom he has little defense.

"... did that work?" Svava bites her lip, carefully pouring the cup of tea.

"Was it a dead thing, or... Something like before?"

"It never showed its face to me, only hid in the guise of those for whom I care the most," Yrael replied, quietly.

And sipped his milk.

"I've thankfully never had to deal with that." Quietly, as she puts the kettle back onto the stove.

"That sort of thing, happening in a nightmare." Svava takes a deep breath.

"I'm sorry it did happen to you, Yrael."

"So am I. It was..." he blinks, shaking his head, "surreal, but... terrifyingly realistic. I am not used to being terrified of anything, but that..."

"... it made me fear myself, and made me fear my trusted friends. I mainly wanted to apologize for being distant to you, after I awoke, and to thank you for taking care of the couch."

"Taking care of the couch was the least I could do. It wasn't your fault." She gives Yrael a faint smile. "You're not being charged for it."

Svava sits down next to Yrael, setting her cup of tea on the table. "You were rattled, and needed space. It's alright."

Yrael rests his elbows on the table, covering his eyes with a hand.

"I was more than rattled; I half thought you were going to stuff me into a spelled-shut box for another century, for my own good."

Svava winces, then sighs quietly and carefully touches one of his arms with a hand.

"... they rather know what to get us with, in these nightmares, don't they?"

"Indeed, they do," Yrael says, covering her hand with his.

He does not move away.

... that does answer that.

Svava moves to put her arm across Yrael's shoulders, and lean against him.

He leans his head on hers, feeling her heartbeat in her fingers under his hand, in her arm across his shoulders.

"You know me, Svava. There are very few things I fear, but this nightmare sought to give me another: myself. I have... never been afraid of what I can do."

"It made me fear what I might do, through accident or neglect or plain misunderstanding."

We can't trust you with ANYthing!

Yrael's hand tightens slightly, on her own.

"Bright Shiner dear Yrael." She softly runs her fingers through his hair. "My dear friend." Quietly.

"You are powerful, yes. So very powerful. And I trust you with my daughter because I know you will not harm her, even though you could. That is trust- and your care and love for her. You've just now realized what you can do, and why others may fear your power without knowing you."

"It isn't even that," he says, gritting his teeth. "I don't know enough to warrant that trust. I could harm and not even know it."

"I have knowledge enough of the power of Yrael, the Bright Shiner. I have existed with that knowledge for as far back as I can remember. But, I am still learning the power of Yrael, the friend and brother and... caretaker." He still doesn't know what he'll be to Moira.

"And one tends to make mistakes when one is learning. Mistakes could be irreparable." Trust doesn't even come into it.

"And if we do not trust you to to give you the time to learn- then you do not have the opportunity to learn to be able to hold our trust." She shakes her head with a faint, sad smile. "It only works one way, and it depends on one important thing."

Svava bites her lip, quiet for a moment.

"It is if you want to learn enough to feel worthy of that trust, Yrael."

"And I do!" he says, frustrated. He nearly upsets his glass of milk. "I do want to be worthy of trust, but I don't want to lose who I am in the process."

That is what he fears the most.

"It goes against my very nature to put so much power over myself into the hands of others. It has led to nothing but pain for me in the past."

Yrael shakes his head and looks away, as though he could set the toaster on fire by scowling at it hard enough. "There are those I don't want to see harmed, especially by me." The rest of the universe can go hang. "I would have them be able and willing to trust me not to harm them, either by intent or by accident."

She only moves far back enough to give him room- otherwise Svava is not leaving.

"If I had a way to go back to deal with those who harmed you- I would. You didn't give them that power, they took it and abused it. They made you a prisoner, which no one deserves." She sighs quietly, shaking her head.

"You're not a prisoner, Yrael. Not here, not anymore. No one here will take anything from you without your consent. Friends wouldn't take anything anyways."

A careful nudge moves his glass of milk next to her cup of tea.

"Have you ever thought about how much power you have over me? And other people who are your friends?"

"Then why does it feel as though I can't move?" He grimaces. "It is as though I am being changed again, despite myself. I must be spending too much time in these shapes that are not mine. This is my home, but I sometimes feel as though I cannot breathe here, if you follow the metaphor." After all, he doesn't breathe.

"I felt it when I was making Axel's heart, the chains that one wears on one's heart, connecting one's heart to the hearts of others... I am not a creature fashioned to wear such." So he balks under their hold, like Free Magic under the hold of the Charter.

The making of Yrael's own heart is a much more organic process than the making of Axel's heart, but is no less painful.

He looks up at her, head tilted, the frustrated look still on his face, tempered with slight bewilderment. "Why should I have power over you?" Yrael has never had power over anyone.

Svava raises an eyebrow at him.

"You are my friend, Yrael. We talk, I listen to you, I think on what you say. I do things, it affects you, and how it does also then affects me. You get upset, I worry. You're happy, so am I. And I would bet anything- anything that the same goes for all the rest of your friends." She smiles wryly.

"You see having friends as people having power over you- because you care and are affected by them. But it isn't just one way, if you must think of it as 'power'. You have power over us as well."

He blinks at her, lost for a moment, then smiles slightly. "That was my first clue, when I felt myself being affected by others, you know. That other people being happy made me happy. I couldn't stand the thought of others controlling my emotions."

That... seems like a long time ago, now.

"I never thought of the reverse being true."

Svava chuckles quietly, and reaches up to ruffle Yrael's hair.

"That's friendship. Its not control or power- at least, it shouldn't be. It's give and take. Or don't you think I haven't been worried about you, specially with that nightmare?"

"I thought you would be concerned, yes, but I did not think about it any further. I wanted to come by and apologize for causing you to be concerned about me."

He sighs, relaxing against her hand and looking oddly old. "I don't want to cause my friends concern or harm. I would much rather help avert harm from them. What do I have, besides my friends and my home, after all?"

She reaches for her cup of tea, leaning back against Yrael. "You can apologise, but there's nothing to apologise for. I'm always going to care and worry about you- its too late to change that."

"And you'll find that's all we have, really. No matter where a person lives."

"It worries me, sometimes," he admits, resting his head on hers, "to think that, were I forced to choose, I would choose my friends over the freedom I sought so long."

Yrael continues, quietly. "But... I think I've realized, now. To be completely free is to have nothing left to lose."

"No home, no friends, nothing." She shakes her head.

"You're not free, and those things aren't free- they all have a price. But I know that I for one am willing to pay it, over and over." Quietly. "And its not a choice they ever let you have, before."

"I..." he starts, but pauses. Deciding this does not stop him from hurting. It only sets him on the path.

"I am glad to have that choice, now."

"And for the chance to learn how to make that choice."

He has been set on the path, but it is up to him to walk it.

Svava smiles faintly, putting her arm back around Yrael. "It- its not something you'll figure out overnight. They cheated you of it before- but now, you have friends and family and a home. You have that chance, now."

She finishes her cup of tea, then grins at Yrael. "... You also have the chance to watch over Moira tomorrow?"

After a moment, he smiles at her. It's still hesitant, and not his automatic, relaxed smirk. In a way, that hesitation makes it a truer smile than what it would have been.

"I would be glad to, my friend."