Tale as Old As Time [Finished]

[accalia]

Echo twitches in surprise at Vi's touch

"That is important? This one has not noticed such a phenomenon."

[yamikuronue]

"Might do, I'm grasping at straws here. Anything particularly important about this scar?"

[accalia]

Echo's eyes glaze, his voice pitched in tones of remembering. His presence does not appear nor does his voice change as it does when the other presence takes over.

"Agean sea, Greek fire. She found the skin unburned on the shore. Played with it. Burst. Ignited. This one was too late for her sister.... barely in time to help her... but it didn't help.... They stoned her.... as a witch, for surviving."

[CalamityJade]

"That's a rather...nasty story. Though people are known to lash out at something they don't understand." Still...that was rather rough to know. That there could be everything going for you, and you still can't stop some things from happening.

"It's a wonder with all those scars that you've never healed someone that might know what happened to you."

[accalia]

"One. The first. The last. She knew. She knows. I failed her then. I fail her now."

Echo's tone is wooden, sullen, monotone. This isn't the other presence that occasionally speaks through him, this is Echo, but at the same time it's almost as if he's trying not to hear what he's saying.

[yamikuronue]

"She?" asks Vi, curious.

[accalia]

"Sylphia."

Echo is now firmly staring at his feet. Speaking her name has clearly caused him some severe distress.

[yamikuronue]

Vi frowns. "Sounds like what you really need is a therapist."

[CalamityJade]

"It is...odd, but I believe that is much more complicated rather than simply needing therapy." Morden turned to Siegfried. "You have had more time to observe him, is it not usual that he is unable to hear that name without forgetting that it was said?"

[yamikuronue]

Siegfried looks a mite startled to be addressed -- he's been listening intently, but hasn't spoken up, assuming nobody wanted his opinion.

"Y-yes, that's right. He seems at times able to speak of her, and at times, entirely unable to comprehend anything related to her. I suspect the extra presence I met in the aether -- and possibly, the one that has been speaking with us -- may, in fact, be related ot this Sylvia woman. It was definitely a feminine presence, fragmented and terrified. My mentor, Ms Schreien, may know more, but she seems hesitant to discuss him."

[accalia]

"Sylphia... Silvia was... Rome, one of the plagues, her mother threw her out of the house. homeless hungry. There wasn't enough life left to save...."

Echo replies woodenly, remembering another life lost.

[yamikuronue]

Vi frowns, but it's Siegfried who cuts in: "What was the name of the witch on the Agean sea, who lead to this scar?"

[accalia]

"no, That was Reatha, Sylvia was in Rome... Sylphia.... Sylphia i failed her much, much earlier. She was the first i failed."

[CalamityJade]

Morden gave that some pause. "Sylvia is not the same?" The 'first he failed....and that was not 'this one'. He would very much need to write some of this down, but for now he'd have to remember as much as possible. "And because you failed her, you were cursed?" Which made a bit of sense...though he seemed repentant enough that a spell like this wouldn't be close to necessary

[accalia]

"not cursed, bound. bound to this mortal body.... yet no longer purely mortal...."

Echo turns his hands, raising them wrists up. There, much faded but still visible under the other accumulated scars are a pair of scars running from wrist to to elbow, the edges of the scar are slightly ragged, indicating that the wounds that caused them had been deep indeed, almost certainly severing the Ulnar and Brachial arteries.

"i tried to join her.... with her gone..... and at my hands... I wished for release.... but that release was denied me..... until i.... something.... there is something i must do to undo the wrong... to release her, to release me... it is unfinished yet."