Ezio Auditore da Firenze (ex_assassino897) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-01-01 02:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, ezio auditore da firenze, lara croft |
Who: Ezio Auditore and Lara Croft
What: Lara's latest therapy session
When: Dec. 29, afternoon, before Sam's surprise
Where: Ezio's office
Rating: PG13 for violent imagery & generally being heavy as hell
Status: Complete
It was Lara’s first session since her blissful week without dreams. It had been a particularly stressful dream that preceded it, but now that people seemed to be returning to normal she was increasingly paranoid that they’d return. That probably wasn’t healthy, and as she sat waiting to be called she wondered if she should leave before that. She had more scars, and she was sure her face and eyes were more weathered. She wondered if Ezio had dreamed too, and if he’d look different. A few weeks was a long time in Orange County.
Ezio had indeed dreamed, but there was only a scar near his eye in terms of long-lasting effects. Alex had helped quite a bit; he’d only had a few dreams since they’d begun dating. Whether it was her influence or just the world’s, he didn’t know, but he was managing.
Lara, however, looked like hell. “Dio mio. Come in, signorina.” He gestured her into his office.
She smiled at him and stepped inside the office. "Morning. How were your holidays?" She sat in the usual spot and crossed her legs, her shoulders squared. It would take her a few minutes to relax and let her defenses down.
“Well enough. What of yours? You look as though they were quite full.” Hopefully that was a diplomatic way of bringing up her appearance changes.
Lara chuckled. "There were a bad series of dreams before the holidays, but they've blissfully been gone for over a week now. I'm sure it won't last..I'll get to those, but most of my current frazzlement has to do with Sam's parents unexpectedly dropping by and us getting outed in the second most embarrassing manner possible." Compared to the rest of the things they'd probably talk about that seemed refreshingly...normal. "They were a headache from the day the snow came."
“Oh? I am sorry for the outing; that must have been difficult.” Lara was a creature who needed everything just so. “Have you good coping skills for the rest? If not, perhaps I can help in this regard.”
"They...uh found one of our..." Lara twirls her hands around, completely unable to say 'strap-on' out loud. She eventually gave up.
"Her father told me to 'do right' by Sam, and her mother made me get a make-over." Lara made a face. Clearly getting a make-over wasn't very high on her list of priorities. She let out a breath. "But it was hard to be polite. They've all but ignored Sam most of her life, then show up out of the blue like that. And her mother is such a bitch. Rarely without some biting comment. I don't..understand them. At all."
Ezio wrinkled his nose. “I am sorry,” he said again. “There are some people who should not be parents. They treat a child like a status symbol instead of a living being, and it sounds as though this is so with her parents.” He thought for a moment. “Were you - if you even know - angry on your Sam’s behalf? Uncomfortable on your own? Both?”
"Status symbol, yes, and Sam always falls short of the status they want. I mean she doesn't but they act like it and...I don't even have any parents and Sam has them and she can't even have that thing I crave..." Lara sighed, and picked at a nail. "Both. I might have yelled at them, especially when her mother wanted to call it all a phase. I don't usually get like that but it really got to me." She snorted. "You know the first thing her father said was he always knew that Sam would corrupt me."
Ezio wrinkled his nose more. “That is very rude of them. Whomever you are attracted to is not a phase. It is just a fact. You may find yourself attracted to other people, of any gender, but right now, you are attracted to your Sam. This does not make you a lesbian, incidentally, unless you wish it to - only you have the right to label yourself.” He sighed. He disliked bigots, and it was hard not to speak harshly of them all. “I will compliment you, though; you actually did one very good thing. I think that once upon a time, you would not have spoken up. You did now.”
Lara had agonized over that in her head quite a bit. She was pretty sure she generally leaned towards women for the most part, but Ezio was right. Labels were just labels. "He was right about one thing. I should do right by Sam. I just have to find the time and place at my own pace." Her cheeks colored and she ducked her head. "I just... I couldn't let her just... take that. And...maybe the dreams helped, a little. I realized I loved her in them, and nearly lost her in the last one, so...really, wasting time and not standing up for us is bollocks."
“What do you mean by ‘do right by’? It is perhaps too soon to visit a church.” Ezio teased gently. “But nonetheless, love is a wonderful motivator for finding one’s confidence. And I hope you retain that confidence. It means that on some level, you have realized that you are entitled to safety and happiness.”
"Well I have to do it traditionally," Lara admitted. She'd get on her knees and everything and it didn't matter how embarrassing it would be.
"When it comes to my feelings, I think I've come a long way. You've certainly helped with that. And I know I should feel entitled to that but sometimes..." She trailed off and looked at her hands, rubbing at some of the callouses on her fingers. "I guess I should get to it. I've been trying to ignore it since it happened. We...shared a dream, last week. The exact same event, at the exact same time."
“Davvero?” Ezio leaned forward, curious. “I assume this was a very bad dream, otherwise you would not be ignoring it.” There was simply no reason to ignore a good dream.
“It was after Sam had been taken by the Solari. I’d fought through hell and back just to get to her. Lost...a good friend in the process just so I could make it through alive.” It hurt to think of Grim. She’d miss his stories and his Glasgow wit. “They were going to burn her at a stake, in some kind of twisted ritual. I put an arrow in the man with the torch but before I could take out their leader I was knocked down.” She touched a hand to her face. “Two of the men were brothers to a man I’d killed. They beat me until Mathias told them to stop.”
“So you both dreamed of this trek, this beating?” Ezio shook his head. “I think it bodes well for you two as a couple, but obviously, such a thing is dramatic and frightening.” He looked at her with sympathy. “You have scars upon your face, as do I.” He showed her his little nick on the eyelid.
"It was terrible." Lara leaned in and looked closely, then nodded her head. Most of hers were hidden under layers of clothing, and she didn't look forward to summer. She rubbed at her shoulder. "I was forced to watch while they lit the pyre. I just..." She held up her hands in a gesture of giving up. "I killed so many people, just to get to her. I had infections, contusions, broken bones and puncture wounds, all to get to her. I failed and she's going to die and the only thing I can do is make her look at me. Because if she looks at me she wouldn't have to...I don't know...face what was happening? I just needed her to look at me so she wouldn't panic, I guess."
Lara exhaled, closing her eyes. "I'd given up and that’s when the wind blew out the fire. The ritual was real. There really was a Sun Queen, and she really could control the weather. I woke up when they dragged me away from her."
“Dio mio.” Ezio felt the absurd impulse to cross himself. “I wish I could say more than I am sorry, Lara. Well, I can say one thing - you do know that people who die in dreams do not expire in the living world, yes?” He’d wondered about that conclusion, but he’d never seen any evidence to the contrary. And so many people suffered so many terrible dreams.
"I'm counting on that, but we're both alive as of the last dream, at least." She had a determined look in her eyes. Like come hell or high water she wasn't going to fail Sam again. "I really am terrified of what might happen if..."
Lara didn't think she could face Sam dying, even if she woke up next to her and she was alive. "I know it's not me, not us, but...it still leaves a mark. I just bury it as much as I can and keep moving."
A week without dreams had been the most wonderful present ever.
“Obviously, I know why it frightens you. But does her death in the dreams scare you so badly because you think it will truly carry over, or is it more symbolic?” Ezio asked. “If she expires in the dreams, do you think that it reflects upon you?”
Lara answered automatically. "Yes. It'll mean I failed, and all the blood and tears will have been for nothing. People died Ezio. In whatever...place this is. People died because of me, and in my last dreams I can only think of getting her her and saving her. Is that selfish? Grim died and it hurt but ... "
“Wait, wait, wait.” Ezio held up both hands. “Bella Lara, why do you believe people died because of you? Are you the mistress of Mother Nature, of Fate?”
"It was my idea to enter that storm. The crew drowned and they were butchered and.... It's my arrows and my bullets and my axe that's taking all those men's lives. And Grim died for me. He died so that I could make it through to the temple to get to Sam. He did it willingly, he didn't even think about it!"
She ran her fingers through her hair. If something happened to the others. Roth or Alex, or Reyes or Jonah, she didn't know how she'd deal with it.
“Did you force them to do so at gunpoint?” He tried to stay calm when people grew upset, if only to provide a counterpoint. “Did you force this Grim to sacrifice himself? Lara, people have free choice. If they care for you, they may choose to do what they will for you.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. "That doesn't make it easier. If I'd just...if I hadn't spoken up, we would have missed the island like so many other expeditions had...while I like the confidence, the blood price is high."
“Why does it not make it any easier?” Ezio asked. “It makes a difference. I assure you. If you say to me ‘Ezio, I need money, let us rob a bank’, I have every right to say no, even though I like you as a person and enjoy your company. Your Grim could have told you to go around, but he did not. It is difficult to deal with on other terms, but the fact remains that these were choices made by free men, of free will. To claim them as your own is rather patronizing, in fact.”
"A good man told me that sacrifice is a choice you make, and loss is a choice made for you. I just...don't like that anyone would sacrifice themselves for me." Lara looked insulted, and had to fight the urge to get up and walk out. “He made a choice for me, but I put him in the position to have to make it. I just don't know if I could have done anything different."
“I am not sure I would agree. But I respect that you believe it.” Ezio shook his head. “Also, though you do not like it, you must accept that it was done. Forgive me, but it does not seem as though you have done this.” He saw her insulted face, but didn’t react. It was his job to say hard truths aloud.
"How can I accept it? There's no time in the dreams and I don't want to think about it when I'm awake. It's bad enough nearly stabbed a man once." Oops. She hadn't meant to say that part aloud. "On accident. He startled me."
Ezio looked at her with nothing but sympathy. “At least you were able to avert it,” he said. “I am glad for that. Is your first response to surprise violence, or has it only been lately?”
"Not my first one. I nearly took an axe to someone else." She winced. "It's not as...bad as it could be, but the jumpiness comes with the dreams, I think. I wake up in survival mode and it takes me a few days to come down from it. More than once I nearly hurt Sam when she snuck up on me.” There was a great deal of worry in her voice over that.
“I would definitely assume that the jumpiness comes from the dreams.” Ezio nodded. “May I ask a question that is somewhat indelicate? Do you sleep in the same room as your Sam?”
Lara nodded her head. “I...moved into her room, since she had the bigger one. After...after we hooked up.” She blushed. Despite all her killer instincts some things still made her incredibly embarrassed. “We’d spent so much of our nights in Boarding school and Uni curled up together in bed anyway that it really didn’t make sense to not do that. Sam’s a very tactile person.”
Ezio sighed. “You may dislike what I am about to say, but it may be good for you to sleep in different rooms. Nearby, perhaps - but at least for right now, we cannot wave a wand and make this terror leave you. I would not wish to see any harm come to your Sam as a result of a dream.” Lara would never forgive herself.
He shook his head. “I know you will object - at least, I think you will - but it is for her own good. You must come to terms with the dreams eventually, and until you do, she may not be safe.” Lara had stubbornly said that she didn’t ‘like to think about it while she was awake’ - but that was, of course, the only time she could think about it.
Lara balked at the idea. "I don't...I don't think that will work. I'm not jumpy when we're in bed. Injured sometimes, but having her there is...one of the things I look forward to most..." She really felt like a vet coming back from war, sometimes. It was hard to admit, and didn't seem fair to real vets.
"I have to make sure she's there when I wake up."
Ezio nodded. “And yet you would place her in danger, if you have a dream and outwardly react?” His tone was soft and sympathetic. “Lara, you have not wanted to discuss the dreams very much. But to work through them, I fear you must. It is almost appearing as though you have the post-traumatic stress disorder. Except your trauma continues.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Lara tried to breath slowly. She was actually feeling panic over Sam not being there when she woke up, and she didn't know why. "I don't know how to discuss them. Without sounding like a homicidal maniac. Without...feeling like I'm losing my humanity."
“I promise you, I understand that.” His tone remained soft. “Lara, in my dreams? I am an assassin. You talk about loss of humanity, of constant killing - my life in the dreams is lived for revenge. But that does not affect who I am here. It cannot, for I am not that man. At the root of all of this, let me ask. You fear becoming this woman?” He had so much to ask, but one question must come at a time. “You seem to feel as though you have done something to warrant these dreams; it is as if you think you deserve them on some level. I cannot stress strongly enough that you do not.”
She lifted her hand to her face and murmured through her fingers. "How do I know I haven't? Sam's one of the only family I have left, besides Roth, and he's always at sea."
That was stupid. This was stupid. She dropped her hands back into her lap. "I don't fear becoming her. Not any more. There are...parts of her I can appreciate. Strengths. What I'm afraid of is who she'll turn out to be when it's all said and done. If she can come back from all of that and still feel human."
“I understand. I fear that myself, about this young Ezio in my dreams. Whether it will be possible to live on without the sense of fighting intimately for one’s very survival.” He nodded, unable to keep the look from his own eyes, though he did his best to snap out of it. “The thing is, at this point, it is not relevant. We cannot control these dreams. We can only control our responses to them. If you believe this woman will be scarred forever, ecco, so be it - but she is not you. You and she will only be one if you allow it.”
Lara was silent for a few moments turning things over in her head. "I don't know if it's right to try to take the good out of it and ignore the bad...I said I try not to think about it, but that doesn't mean I don't. I just...try to keep busy, I suppose." She looked up at Ezio. "I'm not going to let it change my plans. I have my expedition. And...and I think I need to find Yamatai. I have to know if it actually exists here, or if it's just a myth."
“That may not be a bad idea.” Ezio nodded. “If you cannot discover it in the real world, I have to imagine - please correct me if I am wrong - that it will affect your perceptions of the dreams.” That might convince Lara once and for all that they were only dreams. “And in terms of taking the good and ignoring the bad - well. I would not think to entirely ignore the bad. Only to minimize it. The bad may have lessons to teach us.”
"Lessons." Lara snorted, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair. She had been willing to entertain this idea of... well going to a therapist, but she felt more frazzled than she had when she'd first walked in the door. "Just feels like my complaints about "in-laws" are kind of small fry, all things considered."
“Why do you snort at this?” He wasn’t angry, genuinely curious. “And what in-laws have you to complain about? Do you mean Sam’s parents?”
"I mean in-laws jokingly. I'll marry Sam on my own time, thank you." She unfolded her arms, realizing that made her look defensive. "I snort because I don't know what I can possibly learn. Perserverance?"
“Lara, I think you have learned what you had to learn already. That this Sam is the center of your world, and you will do anything to protect her. The dreams seem to not grasp that you already understand their lessons.” Ezio sighed. “I am truly sorry that I cannot make this easier for you in the sense of making you feel less afraid, but I can only hold up a mirror to truths within yourself. They will be there, whether I am holding the mirror, or not.”
Lara sighed. She plonked her head back against the chair. "I look in the mirror and I don't know who's looking back and that's the most painful thing."
“We expect ourselves to be a certain person,” Ezio said. “One of the things we can learn to make life much easier is that life will shape us without our consent. But it is very difficult to learn this.”
"I'm disappointed. I liked my dreams until the shipwreck. " She sighed and something bubbled up out of her. "I have to wonder what else is out there. What other mysteries might exist. Horrors and otherwise. And I know I'll never rest until I uncover them."
Aha. “In the dreams, or otherwise?”
“Both, I think. My father - more in the dreams - was always talking about things like Atlantis and Roanoke and all that crazy science. It made him a laughing stock that I tried to distance myself from but now…” She waved a hand. “Weather goddess. Which means he might have been on to something. And maybe that’s why he disappeared. And if that happened in the dreams, maybe there’s something in this world that made him vanish, too. So I want to find out how much is true.”
That made an incredible amount of sense. “So in the end, it is more about your father than it is about you - well, that is not necessarily so,” Ezio amended. “But it is tied up in your father, and his beliefs and perceptions. You seem to want to make him proud. To find out his riddle.”
“I wanted to prove myself without him hanging over me,” She corrected him. “And now I want to know how much is actually true. I don’t even know anything he did in this life. He was so secretive. More so than in the dreams. At least in those he took me on expeditions.” She sounded so bitter, there.
“Ah. I understand.” Ezio inclined his head. “But, correct me if I am wrong - you wished to do this on your own terms. And it frustrates you that the dreams are taking you to figurative places you did not wish to go.”
She blinked her eyes, and ran her fingers through her hair, undoing her ponytail in the process. "I guess...you're probably right about that. I have to examine myself more than I ever thought I would have to."
“And it is not easy, to have to do that.” He knew better than she might assume. “I would never think it was a matter of just deciding to do so. But at this point, I personally do not believe you have a choice. It will perhaps be ugly, but I truly believe you will do better for it at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Understanding your own motivations is so important.”
"It's not easy, no...do you really think I've been running from this?" That she might be running from something didn't sit well with her.
“Not consciously, no. I think you have been overwhelmed by the horror of your dreams.” Ezio replied. “When you are frozen in place by fear, you cannot concentrate on anything but what is in front of you.”
"Moving forward is a bit like retreating if you look at it the wrong way," she said. Lara's nostrils flared as she leaned forward. "And I won't say I'm not scared. I just...don't think about it. That's something Roth taught me. Don't think beyond aiming. If you think you freeze up, if you freeze up you die."
“I think in this case it may be metaphorical. If you freeze in your real life, you will not die, of course. But you may be diverted from your mission - your search for knowledge.” Ezio shook his head. “You dislike this idea, even though you must stop from time to time and collect yourself - remind yourself who you are.”
“I was a bookworm who adored digging around in the dirt and rediscovering what we as a species have lost,” she replied. “That...that hasn’t changed. If anything my thirst is greater.”
“But what I mean is that you are this person, and then the dreams have come along. They have changed you - otherwise, you would not fear them. They are phantasms, after all - I shall not wake up one day an assassin. You shall not wake up one day on this island, afraid and alone.” Ezio pointed out. “The dreams represent changes in yourself, for good or ill, and you do not appear to have dealt with the changes yet.”
“I’ve seen people with other scars, people who’ve...developed superpowers. It’s a little hard to...not fear what changes might come. I was rock climbing with a friend once, and we fell into a cave with a cougar. Neither of us were afraid, we just fought it off like it was…” She waved her hands in the air. “Routine. I’m scared of it becoming routine.”
“You are scared of the fantastical becoming routine?” Ezio asked, to make sure he understood. “I can understand that, but at the same time, if there is no way to stop it, is it not better to see what can be learnt from it, if anything? Or, conversely, could it not be a blessing? Surely it is better to be alive and here than dead of cougar wounds?”
"Of course it is. But what if the fantastical loses what makes it...fantastic, through simple repetition? My housemate makes jokes about 'it must be Tuesday' every time something happens, because it's second nature for things to happen to her. What if all the mystery in the world stops being...there."
Ah. Even more than her issues with her father’s legacy, even more than her worry over her friends, this might be what bothered Lara most of all. “Signorina, there will always be mystery in the world. Always. There are things we will never know the answers to. I can safely say, and I truly believe this, that you will always have something to be fascinated by. Even if it is no longer what you used to be fascinated by.”
Lara looked like she was considering that for a long moment. As long as there were answers to find, as long as there were questions she could ask, she could handle whatever got thrown at her, because it gave her something to be. She could live for Sam, but she was the kind of woman who needed that sense of adventure to really keep going.
"If that's the case, then I think I'll be okay eventually."
“I truly believe that is the case. You must figure it out for yourself, of course, if there is enough mystery in the world for your liking - but you can only figure it out by living!” Ezio smiled just a little. “It depends on your definition, I think. I mean, in my practice, I read cases and study the histories of people who commit unspeakable acts. I find this mysterious - what makes one man become a serial killer, while another becomes a priest?”
"I suppose I should try being more positive than less so." She looked down at her fingers. At the callouses and scars, at the rough marks on what used to be smooth hands. She couldn't imagine going back to being soft like that, and Sam had more than once told her that the roughness was good. The entire conversation was making her feel philosophical.
"It's not who you are that defines you, but what you do. How many men and women in history do we know for their deeds and not their souls? Do I let myself be defined by woman trying to survive, or by the woman who discovered something unknown?"
“Both.” Ezio said immediately. “You make such light of surviving, Lara. Surviving is an incredible act.”
“It’s only surviving if you’re more than a hollow shell at the end.” There was fire in her words. Like she didn’t believe she’d be hollow, that she’d fill it with fire and light and anything she could if she had to.
“I quite agree. But I can’t believe that you are hollow. Not the way you just shot back at me.” Ezio was more amused, more admiring than anything. She doubted herself so much and yet there was unrestrained steel inside.
Lara had always had some difficulty believing in herself, but when it came down to it she always pulled through. Usually it was in social situations, but she still was terrified of losing herself.
"Yes. Maybe you're right. It's just hard to shine the light inside yourself without...help."
“I will be here, if you need me. And so, more importantly, will your Sam.” Ezio smiled again. “You love her. I have heard nothing to indicate that she does not love you, too.”
“Thank you,” Lara replied. She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She felt….better. It was a strange and scary feeling.
Ezio knew that feeling. “The world will change,” he said. “Not you. Unless you let it change you.”
“I’d rather do the changing. I enjoy being extraordinary.”
“Somehow,” he said, smiling, “I guessed that.”