ataraxion | [video]

[The video feed is shaky when it starts, held by hands unused to recording anything. The chaos of the recording is only compounded by the sounds of it: a wolf howling, long and lonely, and a fire crackling, and the heavy sound of someone breathing, almost panicked. The fire is the focus of the video. Whatever fuels it has nearly burned up, but in the center of the fire, there is something that might be just discernible as one of the masks.

But it is not Bran's mask that is burning, because when he turns the video around, he's wearing it. It's an ugly mask, made of thin leather (skin?) and crude stitches.]

There was a girl, and now she's gone. [The mask makes his breathing clumsy; sadness and anger do the rest to flatten and twist his voice.] That was her mask. I found it. And I looked for her, I have been looking and looking for days, and my brothers have looked, but she's gone. I know it. I feel it. And Betty Ross--she was a great friend to me--

This ship takes people from us, and it isn't fair. You should not be brought somewhere if you are only going to be taken away again. You should not-- If we are here, aboard this ship, then we are here for a purpose. We were brought here, we didn't come here by any accident or mistake. I don't want to go home-- [The wolf howls louder, a stabbing sound, and Bran's voice twists--part lie and part truth. If you're paying close attention to the video, you might see the face of his mask shift, just a little, to something less boy and more wolf, white teeth gleaming with slaver--and then back again, only a boy's face of stitched skin.] I want to know the reason.

It isn't any captain that brings us here. It must be something else. And once I dreamed the ship was alive-- [The mask shifts again, as if something moves beneath the skin, and Bran's voice twists and flattens once more.] --but I can't find it. I want to know the reason, and I will find the reason, and I will not forget the girl that is gone. She was pack--

[The howling of the wolf is louder now, and Bran's voice seems almost to join it on that last word, somehow, as if it is a howl and not a word at all. He drops his device upon the ground, but it stays on for a few moments longer, focused up on the nearest tree, upon which someone has crudely carved a face. Eventually, the video times out.]

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Because when I find them, they will do what we want.

How can you be certain of that?

Because I can make them.

How?

I can make anyone do anything. And if I cannot now, then I can learn.

How can you do that?

I can show you how.

Do.

Where are you, Miles Edgeworth?

I can meet you in the garden.

Then come.

There is a tree, taller than the others. Its leaves look like hands. That is where I am.

[No reply by text; rather, Edgeworth shows up just a few minutes later. His expression is pinched and worried - but not, perhaps, so pinched and worried as it should be, considering the gravity of Bran possibly losing his head to that mask. His eyes are narrowed, but there's a sort of stillness to the way he carries himself. And his greeting is more formal than is usual when he speaks with Bran:]

Mr. Stark.

[He sits at the base of the tree in question, its carved face just above his head, and his legs are spread out before him as if they are useless, though he is wearing the robotic legs. Summer is sitting beside him, tense, and as soon as he spots Edgeworth, his yellow eyes fix on him and follow him through his approach.

Bran, too, stares silent and impassive as Edgeworth comes nearer.]

You don't wear your mask.

[And at that, there's a brief, troubled moment of uncertainty - and then he firms his expression and lies more smoothly than he ever has before.]

I haven't put it on.

[He nods, somewhat listlessly, and bunches his fingers in Summer's fur. Their joint stare doesn't break from where it's trained on Edgeworth's face.]

What is it?

[He glances away - just a little.] I don't think that matters.

It does.

[A ripple passes over his mask suddenly, like something moving beneath the skin, and Bran reaches up to touch his fingertips to its cheek.]

What is it?

[Edgeworth's lips press together.]

With respect, I'm not going to tell you.

[He laughs a little, quietly, as he uses Summer as leverage to sit up straighter.]

Is it horrible?

No.

[He frowns deeper, defensive.]

You have something to show me.

[He nods, looking to where his fingers are gripped in Summer's fur.]

Sit down, Miles Edgeworth.

[Edgeworth inclines his head and sits.]

[I will show you. But now that Miles Edgeworth sits across from him, now that they are more level--Bran thinks suddenly of Sansa's dream, of the ruined rotted Winterfell and the wolf-king--of reaching into the wolf-king and finding nothing except blackness, thick and endless and all-consuming, and pain--

He shudders--even behind his mask, he shudders, and for a moment he shuts his eyes. No. Not yet. Not on a person, not after the memory of that pain and failure and grim dark ruin.]

I will show you with Summer, first. [He decides it aloud, as he opens his eyes--and perhaps another shudder passes through him. Or perhaps it is only a shudder across the surface of his mask, a tremor, like something moves beneath its surface.] And then you will believe me.

[Summer is easy. Summer is like putting on a worn and favored tunic. There is no fight, there is only the feeling of falling into an embrace. One moment he is Bran, sitting beside Summer--and then he feels his hand weaken, he feels his breath line with Summer's, and suddenly it is Summer's breath; suddenly four legs, and a mass of scents and dim lights and shapes--dirt, dirt and trees and run, he thinks, run, he should run while he is here. But he must stay.]

[And Edgeworth can see that slackness, that sudden senselessness, in Bran's face - and even though he came here with cool reserve and detachment, uncertainty surges up through him, and he suddenly worries for the boy...But no; the wolf is suddenly looking at him with a different sort of awareness, and he thinks he understands.

Even so - Even so, he moves forward to grip Bran's shoulder with his hand.]

What is it?

[He sniffs at Miles Edgeworth's arm, twisting to smell--dog, another dog, and other smells too--and that high cold flat scent of the ship above everything else, even here, dead air of a dead cave--

And he stands, fluidly, all at once, and the boy's body beside him falls limp, almost as if he sleeps. Bran's body, he knows it to be his, but he thinks it without confusion any longer.]

[video]

[text] IDK BUT MY FEELINGS WERE HURT

[text] No, no, no, tiny Cee...no don't cry, please don't

[text] I made you a river with my tears, don't you like it....

[text] I bathed in it but it was creepily warm

[text] well jeez SO-RRY I did my best

[text] Ahhh, fine, I'll forgive you.....

[text] u r a saint

[text] i no

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