Tales of the Abyss (Asch) [Week 1 - Prompt 1] Title: Author: Aviy Rating: PG Warnings: ToA endgame spoilers Word Count: 302 Summary: n/a Author's Notes: Maaaaaaaybe lessbad?
Asch isn't there as he bleeds out. Isn't on marble tile, limp and tired and still victorious, trapped like fish on three blades. He's not even in pain after a minute. The part that hurts leaves him, along with the glowing remains of his strength, along with the handful of fonons making up the identity that was his and had always been only his and was none-the-less returning unerringly to the dreck that had still, of course, bested him. But that isn’t his idea, it goes its own way like any true piece of himself, and Asch goes his.
His way is back. Like a skipping stone, he hops across translucent time and space. Lessons with Van, back when he too still said 'Master', aren’t noticed. Daath and all its frustrating holy halls are never remembered, and the loss of self and the construction of the lie he moves on from as soon as the image lands. For a heartbeat, his skipping stone stops over the painful first glance of what he might have looked like if he smiled more and worried less, and then that too is gone.
Back where he isn’t really, there's a warmth that leaks out and covers him instead, and his skin feels hot while his veins feel cold, and it's not-so unlike a circle of grass, a summer day, and a girl only two years older than himself who very seriously crowned him with flowers stolen from Pere's garden.
He's not in that circle of grass either, or six years old again. Not with friends or family or future. But it's warm almost like that, better by far than the stone white statue he'd found to mark his grave with, and his eyes close first and then his mind as well long before the blood cools.