SIEGHART

[frostythehitman]

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[ercnerd]

[In contrast, he lounges lazily in his seat with his legs crossed.]

It doesn't sting? Not even a little?

[frostythehitman]

[ ...ah. ]

...it's not my face that hurts.

[ercnerd]

Mm, you're right. [He nods to himself.] That's probably the part that hurts the least.

[frostythehitman]

...yeah.

[ercnerd]

Should I leave it be?

[frostythehitman]

[ raises an eyebrow, because he's not sure what else there is to do OTHER than leave it be ]

[ercnerd]

I'm talking about the memory. Or should we talk about something else?

[frostythehitman]

...there's nothing to talk about. [ regarding the memory, anyway. ]

[ercnerd]

Guess not.

[He respects that boundary. And it seems, Sieghart thinks as he watches the stardust fall, the mansion has something else in mind as well:]

In all the years you've fought monsters and demons alike, you have never seen so much blood.

The ashen smoke and stench of burning flesh assail your senses as you navigate the burning ruins that you once called your home. What was once a warm refuge attended by your brothers is now a hellish purgatory with their bodies strewn everywhere. Nary a one utters so much as a cry while the fire claims their limbs, burning all evidence of their once immortal existences away. Every step you take lands your feet in a puddle of their blood, welled in the cracks of the stone floor, and your gait grows increasingly desperate the farther in you go.

Hoping against hope for a response, you rattle off as many of their names as you can and shake the ones who are still relatively intact by their shoulders, ignoring how weak your voice sounds against the roaring of the flames.

You cough into an excoriated arm that was damaged by a collapsing pillar you passed earlier. The divine blood coursing through your body patches the excoriation until there's naught but a faint scar to indicate that it was ever there. Your wide-eyed gaze snaps to a pile of your brothers' unresponsive bodies. You don't understand. Why haven't they healed like you yet? Why won't they get up? Why won't they wake up?

Finally, your breath hitches when you come upon Graham, crumpled on the ground, with the fire raging all around him. Throwing yourself onto your knees, you gather his body in your arms and shield him from the scorching heat, only to find that his chest neither rises nor falls like all the rest.

"N-no!" Your vision blurs and voice cracks as you give him a despairing shake. "Get up! Wake up! Please!"

But Graham doesn't open his eyes. Your dearest friend, who saved your life with nothing but kindness in his eyes when he found you, a lonesome stranger on the verge of death, is gone. Everyone is gone; the fire is just meant to bury what's left of them. Now all that's left is you.

The unbearable pain that pricks your eyes, chokes your throat, and sears your skin falls to the wayside as you hold Graham's corpse close and wail in a terrible combination of grief and rage.

Who could've killed the Highlanders? The question rattles harshly in your mind, piercing the deafening howl of the flames. Whoever it was, you'll kill them. You'll tear them apart. You will get revenge.

If only you hadn't been so careless.

Your chest tightens. Although you scream yourself hoarse, it does nothing for the agony that splits your heart as you weep at once. You can't breathe. You don't think you can even live with yourself. The grief, the rage, the guilt—they hurt. They hurt so much that you think you may just go mad from it all.

This is your fault.

If only they had never saved you that day. If only you'd died right then and there, alone . . .

All of this is your fault.

It's your fault. Your fault. Your fault, yourfault,yourfaultyourfaultYOURFAULT—

[frostythehitman]

[ there's what feels like a solid minute, coming out of that memory, where Bucky just stands there mouth agape at what he just experienced. He works his jaw a few times, trying to say anything, and eventually settles on-- ]

...Yikes.

[ercnerd]

[It's a precious minute that Sieghart spends gathering himself as he returns to the present. He feels no shame as regards the tears that he wipes from his face, but things tend to get awkward when he cries.]

. . . Haha. These places like to show unpleasant memories.

[frostythehitman]

They sure do.

Last time this sort of thing happened, memories of mine I didn't even remember got shared. And of course they weren't good ones.

[ercnerd]

Is it that surprising? We forget things all the time. Of course there would be memories you don't remember.

[frostythehitman]

No, it was...stuff that happened after anything I remembered. It was like seeing my future.

[ercnerd]

[He cants his head.]

Are you suffering from amnesia?

[frostythehitman]

[ laughs a little ] Yeah, probably, still.

But the last round, we kept losing more and more of our memories as time went on. By the time our memories started getting broadcast to everyone else, I'd forgotten more than half my life.

[ercnerd]

Isn't it good that they were broadcast, then?

[Sieghart doesn't have such attachments. He's already hard-pressed to remember half of his life as he is, but he reminds himself that Bucky is much younger and more likely to feel the effects of such a loss.]

[frostythehitman]

Maybe. But it was kind of a rude awakening. One I really would have preferred to have on my own, without anyone watching.

This time around, it's nothing new, but it is still overly personal.

[ anyway this sounds like a good time to dump another mem on sieghart! ]

[ercnerd]

[Bucky is right and owed that much. The somber discussion takes a turn, however, at the next memory that leaves Sieghart gobsmacked by the actions of one party in particular.]

That kid really has no sense of shame.

[Who's Vezda?]

[frostythehitman]

[ well. this is a more comfortable topic at least. ]

Which one?

[ercnerd]

Who else? I'm talking about Rufus.

[frostythehitman]

He's a kid, huh?

[ercnerd]

Didn't you know? He's a tyke by Haros standards.

Speaking of kids, were those your teammates?

[frostythehitman]

They were. They came to see me the night before I was slated for execution. I figured I might as well give away whatever I had to the living.

I didn't realize I could've kept them for myself on the dead side.

[ercnerd]

[That's rough.]

At least you were willing to part with them . . .