Falling Angels Like Falling Stars

[Zero]

@Kiri de Kismet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sensation of falling would never come to an end, Gregori was trapped in what seemed to be an endless void – there was no light, no sound, and nothing but that singular sensation. How had it come to this? There was nothing for his mind to do but drift in a sort of perpetual dream, or rather a nightmare. Nothing could rid his mind of those incoherent flashes of half-remembered visions; smoke, fire, blood – the screaming and the dying and those already dead, and the pungent stench of charred flesh.

And somewhere...somewhere...

Daddy?

There was a flash and an explosive sound as he broke through the barrier between the spirit and the physical. He looked like a falling star – blazing a path across the night sky before impacting with the force of a plummeting meteor, causing a shockwave that would be felt faintly even a few miles away. There in the very center of the overgrown ruins of a town he once protected, in the very spot he once held his silent vigil, Gregori opened his eyes, truly opened his eyes, for the first time.

After falling for so long laying still was disorienting, but that was not the only thing confusing, for he did not recognize this place. Or maybe he did? It was so hard to tell, there was a familiarity about it, and yet it was certainly not the same as he couldn't quite remember it. Then again, if he couldn't remember it maybe it was the same and he simply didn't know it.

This was all too confusing. This was wrong. He was supposed to be falling in the void, why was he here?

Sitting up took an effort, but he somehow managed it, looking around slowly to try to get some grasp of the situation. Next to him was a weapon, it seemed to be a sheathed sword. He thought he recognized it. As his fingers reached out and grasped the hilt he gasped softly, closing his eyes. No, he was sure he knew this sword, and yet he didn't know it. It had looked different the last time he saw it.

Fury.

Yes, that was it. This weapon belonged to him, and it was called Fury. He could remember that.

With one hand keeping a death grip on the sword, he used the other to move over his own body, somewhat confused. A man, yes, and everything seemed to be intact. The impact had not shattered his bones as he thought it probably should have. That only brought another observation – he was lacking in any adornment. Why was he not wearing any clothing? That seemed illogical, but he couldn't remember owning any clothes, so maybe it made sense.

There were many strange sensations assaulting him; the feel of the dirt and rubble beneath him, his own hands moving across skin that actually felt something, the gentle breeze, the cool air, and this odd wrongness in his chest. Could this be pain? He had heard screams of pain, or thought he had, but could not remember ever himself knowing pain. Should he know pain? Gregori didn't think so.

Suddenly an overwhelming thought, a burning desire, overtook him. He wanted to go home. Everything was wrong here and nothing made sense. Where was home? Gregori didn't even know, and if he didn't know where home was, then he certainly didn't know how to get there. So he sat there in birthplace, unmoving and unsure what it was he was meant to do.

[Kiri de Kismet]

Contrary to popular belief, Diana didn't normally take many days off. She took them as they were given, content to the one or two days a month that she was allowed to sit by a pier and stuff her pipe, blowing smoke rings at the sunset. Even though Di's eyes might flutter open ever so slightly as she knelt before an altar, no one could say she didn't pull her weight during the priestesses' missionary work.

So when she bowed before the High Priestess, asking for a week off, she was quick to oblige her. As the youngest priestess of Usoi, the High Priestess tended to treat her like a little sister, especially since it was she who scooped Diana out of the wilderness, who gave her a home. Keep this coin by your person, the High Priestess offered, pressing a hefty sum into Diana's hand. Write back if you meet any trouble..

You could say Diana wasn't one for days off, anyhow. When she wasn't working, her mind was left idle, and was left to reminiscence on that day. However, today was a different story... It had been twenty years since the priestesses had found her roaming around the Niahi Woods... twenty years since the village of Aria had been destroyed. On the tenth anniversary of her demise, she'd been but fifteen years old— too young to travel by herself, too young to even face the memories of that bloodsplattered day. The priestesses had advised against visiting, and no one wanted to take her. Understandable, she knew.

But today, she was a woman grown. Today, she'd leave flowers for her father. She held a bouquet of them in her hands— white spider lilies, a favorite of her favorite— that blew in Aria's winds, petals dancing in the breeze.

Stepping into the ruins of the town, Diana realized that she'd never stopped to look back at what the stone sentinel had done. Ocean blue eyes roamed over the devastation; it was hard to tell that there had ever been a town here in the first place... Just being here, in the edge of town, was enough to make her nauseated; she could almost remember the cries of terror, the sound of a sword slicing through her kin... She pressed a hand over her mouth, wondering if she'd made a terrible mistake— when a strange sight caught her eye, kept her rooted still.

Was that... a man in the distance?

She stepped toward him, realizing that she'd been right. A naked man— disoriented, by the looks of it— sat strangely in the center of Aria. She had seen naked people before, due to her relief work in other countries, so this case reminded her of many others. Perhaps he had been mugged, or perhaps he was so sick that his sanity was starting to slip...? Either way, her duty as a priestess made it impossible for her to turn away from him. Carefully, she stepped towards the man.

"Sir...?" she called. "Are you alright?"

[Zero]

With no concept of time, Gregori could not even remotely guess how long he sat there naked, cold, and helplessly lost in the ruins of a half-remembered nightmare. One could argue that doing something, anything, was better than simply sitting, but where did he begin? Something horrible had happened here, something that he was part of but couldn't quite remember in anything more than confusing flashes. All he knew was that he needed to go home, but with no idea where home was or how to get there all he could do was shiver in a sort of fear-induced paralysis.

Daddy?

The word thundered through his mind, causing his head to throb painfully as he reached up his hands to tangle in his hair and pull lightly. The tingling pain along his scalp sobered him. It felt so strange. Everything felt strange.

Daddy?

Like a crashing wave it hit him again, drawing forth a shudder and moan of agony that he couldn't possibly understand. Why did that voice torment him so? Who was calling for their father? Was that voice speaking to him? That couldn't be. Gregori had no memory of being a father. Surely if he had a daughter calling to him so piteously he would not have forgotten her. Would he?

Daddy?

He bent over double, clutching his head and letting out a choked sob.

Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!

The voice did not call again, instead there came another voice, still feminine, but mature. Somehow it seemed...familiar, but he could not know it. Slowly Gregori lifted his head to stare at her, blue eyes intense and wild with a primal fear and confusion.

"Are you real?" He managed to whisper out hoarsely.

[Kiri de Kismet]

Are you real?

The priestess could not help but frown deeply at the sight. The man, naked as the day he was born, had eyes that were filled with fear, confusion... like a doe staring down a crossbow. She had seen people down on their luck before, true, but this one was another case entirely. He was naked, for one, with naught but an old sword on his person, and was stuck in the middle of a town that had been destroyed for at least two decades... How did he get here? What had happened to him?

"Of course I am," was her quiet response, offering him a hand. "Do you know where you are? Or your name... anything?" She hoped so— amnesiacs were perhaps the hardest people to care for, she'd learned. Without a sense of identity, how could one ever return to "normal"? You couldn't, not really; you had to rebuild a sense of normalcy yourself.

Already, she was building a mental checklist of things that he'd need. Clothes, perhaps food and water, a place to stay, and hopefully, she could also figure out where his relatives were. If he even knew where they would be...

[Zero]

Even as she tried to reassure him of her existence his mind raced with doubts. Was this just a trick of his fevered mind? That little voice had stopped calling as soon as she had spoken. Gregori stared at her outstretched hand for a long time, not answering at first. Finally he drew his eyes from her hand back to her face, examining her carefully and again feeling that flicker of familiarity that had so disoriented him when he'd first heard her voice.

"I don't know if I know where I am. I think I do, but then I don't." His brow furrowed as he looked around again. A flash through his mind of laughing and dancing children, of incense that he could not smell, a gentle breeze he could not feel. He shook his head to try to clear his mind. This couldn't be the same place. There was nothing here but ruins and rot.

"My name..." He raised a hand to his head again, it hurt to think too hard, thinking too hard brought the dizzying flashes of things he couldn't remember. "I think it is Gregori." Was that his name? Really? It was the only name that really came to him, so it must be.

Hesitantly he turned back to her and took her hand. She was trying to help. He needed help. Maybe she would be able to jog his memory somehow. Surely she knew more than he did at that moment. He stood unsteadily for a moment before finding his balance, not seeming concerned with his nakedness in front of her at all.