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"First time being alone?"
Yuudias startles, the tension bunching up even more around his shoulders as he wrestles with the urge to put his hand on his sword hilt. His back draws taut, like a loaded spring on the verge of release, but the only thing that escapes him is an uncontrolled, sobbing gasp. The lines in his frame do not soften; only, they grow wider as he realizes who has joined him in his solitude by the riverside.
Shewbahha is not an unwelcome sight, but he is still a strange one. He stands on Yuudias' right side, where his sword is sheathed, open to attack and yet uncaring of it. His eyes do not look at Yuudias sitting on the grass, just at the water running ahead, a shallow stream not more than several feet in depth. One of Phaser's many scale-scrolls is attached to his hip, ripped along the edge with marks that look like they came from sharp teeth, though for once it seems as though Shewbahha is entirely uninterested in it.
"Sh-Shewbahha," stutters Yuudias, trying to compose himself as quickly as he can. "Apologies for not greeting you, I..."
"It's fine," the dragonbuster waves him off. In the silence that follows, he frowns for a bit, before shuffling away from Yuudias for a couple small steps. "You didn't answer my question."
"O-Of being alone?" replies Yuudias. He smiles a bit as he thinks over it, though the edges of his lips twitch ever so slightly. "I do not think I am. Yuuhi and Yuamu are awaiting my return."
"Not that," Shewbahha sighs. He absently kicks a rock and watches as it tumbles down the side of the hill until it disappears with a splash into the river. His brows furrow and his hand comes up to pull at his hair. He takes a deep breath—and still does not meet Yuudias' gaze. "I mean the Velgearians. Nishaw and Zwijo and all that's happened, you know."
The next word out of Yuudias' mouth is impossibly quiet, choked in the pit of his throat like it wants to remain unsaid. "Oh."
"Sorry, I'm not good at this," with a grunt, Shewbahha squats down and adjusts the scroll slung across his body until it is sandwiched between him and the grass as a sort of makeshift stool. Against the sunset, the flash of light against the goggles on his head as he moves makes Yuudias quickly flinch away like he has been burned, and Shewbahha looks at him with a tepid sort of apprehension. Too much like someone trying his best to not to make a small, scared animal skitter away at the first opportunity. Yuudias swallows that feeling down, to smother it. "I don't know what to say."
"My countrymen have entrusted their hearts to me, and Zwijo as well," Yuudias finds himself speaking despite everything. His shoulders shake a little as he bites down on another sobbing gasp that tries to escape him. "There... There could be no greater honor."
"But it doesn't make it hurt less, does it?"
"It—" Yuudias hiccups, and then curls in further on himself, as if stung. The words die on his tongue.
Shewbahha sighs, again, bringing his eyes down to the dirt beneath them. "It didn't make it hurt any less for me."
Yuudias' breath catches. Another word tumbles out of his shaking lips: "Oh."
"I've had centuries to deal with it," he continues speaking, idly pulling at the grass blades with his fingers. "It wasn't quite as quick as it was for you. It took centuries. Centuries to watch the rest of my species die out from hunger or infighting. Eating each other or wasting the remaining food in our scuffles to survive."
"Shewbahha, I—"
"No," Shewbahha says, firmly. He finally picks his eyes up to stare at Yuudias, to his tear-stained cheeks and wavering pupils. The orange sunset makes the soft green of his eyes almost turn completely yellow. "Don't apologize. I'm sharing 'cause I want to."
And then, in a quieter voice, he whispers. "Because I've never told anyone else."
Yuudias wisely quiets down, and his stance loosens a little. He tries to wipe another onset of tears building up with the back of his hands, and Shewbahha finally relents a bit at that.
"I really don't know what to say. It's not the same since you're watching it all disappear in a flash. Maybe it's easier for me because I had longer," he continues, blinking. He breaks his gaze on Yuudias and looks down at the grass again. "But it doesn't make it hurt less. No matter how long or in what way they went out."
The words twist Yuudias' insides, like his intestines have been caught around a stone, prompting a sharp stab of pain in his abdomen. He lets out a shaky breath at the feeling, the hot air curling itself around his collarbone like a noose. Watching Zwijo disappear—watching him die, even—had been so nervewrackingly painful that he could not hold the smile on his face any longer, in that moment. Watching him go with a smile on his face, happy, finally, in his last moments of mortality, was like being stabbed through the neck with the very blade Yuudias kept on his hip. The molten hot temperature of the weapon cauterizing the wound and not even allowing Yuudias the dignity of bleeding.
Was he not supposed to be happy? Why was his heart not elated at the fact that his own countrymen still believed in him, even beyond the grave? Why was he so pitifully broken over that last moment of Zwijo's happiness, when he died the way he finally wanted to? Yuudias gave him that happiness, sent him off with a shower of sparks in the heat of the very battle that they were both forged in.
Perhaps when Requiem's lance pierced through Oblivion's heart, some part of Yuudias had been cut off and died, too.
"Wanting them back doesn't..." Shewbahha finally stutters, his voice trailing off as he tries to find the words. He knits his brows and fumbles as his mouth opens and closes for several moments, with no words escaping them. Then, he inhales deeply and clenches his fists, pulling up more grass as he does so. "Doesn't dishonor their memory. Doesn't make the sacrifice any less."
Finally, Yuudias arrives at the only truth.
"More than anything, I wish it could have been me," he chokes out, the tears spilling down his face again. Yuudias hiccups pathetically and tries to wipe his eyes, but the water does not stop. "But is it not wrong to think that? To deprive Zwijo and my countrymen of their noble deaths? To stain their memory with my regrets?"
Shewbahha catches his wrist, his grip strong despite his smaller stature. Yuudias stills, crying uncontrollably as he looks at Shewbahha's softening eyes through the haze of his tears—the way a soft, knowing smile plays at the edge of his lips. Not quite there, but almost.
"No," he says. "To grieve their loss is to love their memory. I know this, because the dead can't speak any longer. They have left me alone in this universe. The last one who remembers their voices."
Yuudias shudders at the words, a strangled cry making its way out of his throat. Shewbahha does not move closer to comfort him, but he squeezes Yuudias' wrist tighter, not allowing him to try and hide his face away, to wipe his tears from existence. In the absence of that, Yuudias sniffles and sobs and cries until his throat goes hoarse, to allow himself to finally grieve and curse despite everything.
Shewbahha watches with glassy eyes, resolute but knowing, understanding the sorrow in a way that no one else can. As the last of their species, left all alone in the universe.
The last ones to remember the voices of those who are gone.
"It doesn't get easier," Shewbahha whispers, when Yuudias' guilt-wracked sobs have turned into quieter sniffles. When the sun has disappeared across the horizon and the stars overhead begin to shine. "I wish it did."
Yuudias, through his shattered voice, musters the strength to speak, hoarse. "B-But the loneliness, does that..."
"No," Shewbahha almost laughs, but catches himself. He lets go of Yuudias' wrists and wrings his own hands together, lost in thought. Finally, after a long moment, he looks at Yuudias again and smiles a little bit. "But it can be more bearable. It was you and your friends who showed me that, you know?"
Something pricks at the corner of Yuudias' lips, like something resembling the smile on Shewbahha's face.
"Thank you, Shewbahha," he whispers, inhaling sharply to try and quell the sob that tries to escape him. A sob born of familiarity and elation, something warm in the depths of his chest. Not like the stabbing pain in his stomach threatening to devour him whole—but not now, not at this moment. Not when someone is here with him. "Thank you for being here."
In the light of the twinkling stars, Shewbahha finally smiles something wider and bright, though he is quick to cover his mouth to hide it. Still, his eyes are glowing green in the night, crinkling at the edges.
"Don't mention it. Really, don't. Not to anyone else, ever."
And Yuudias finally laughs, through the tears falling down his face, the sound resonating through the warm night into the sky above. To the galaxies further beyond the Milky Way, piercing through the expanse of void.
Until it reaches the skies of oblivion, hidden in the names Yuudias keeps close to his chest.