P-gio - P.Gio

“I wasn’t meant to ache, nor built to shed a single tear. Yet here I stand, appearing such a pitiful thing.” 🎭🦋

Hope Estheim stood at the edge of Bodhum's sea, the salty air breezing across his face and sleepy twilight waves lapping at his feet doing less to relax him than he remembered it able. While disappointed, this was not a recent or unexpected development.

The latest attempt sat alarmingly low on the list of things he's made to help calm his thoughts, consumed by a certain ex-soldier, and he was running out of known comforts. That looming blankness making up the rest of the page evoked a barely restrained panic that only one solution may truly put his stress to an end.

All Hope wanted to do was pull Lightning Farron close and confess his long-harbored feelings for her. Feelings that had taken too many sleepless nights to come to terms with. Adoration turned crush, and evolved into something which confined him in misery.

Now that he wasn't a puny, stuttering, short-stack and possessed the ability to tell her without making a fool of himself, it's the one thing he's thought about most for the last two years. Despite the impulse nearly driving him out of his mind, he always cowered from the opportunity to reach out and try.

Understandably so. First off: this was Lightning. The chances of him ending up with a bloodied nose if she didn't reciprocate these feelings were high. Secondly, and the more paralyzing, making the first move might cause irreparable damage to what they have at present.

The bond with Lightning that he's managed to achieve wasn't grown in a day. It was slow going and they'd had to overcome many adversities before getting to where they are. Laughing together, confiding in each other, supporting each other and trusting one another wholeheartedly, that was a blessing he'd climbed mountains for.

He cherished being with her and the others more than anything else in the world, their shared trials at the start of their journey as l'Cie formed an unshakable fellowship between a group who otherwise would've parted ways with a sneer, and that bond only strengthened as time went on.

What if this is what strains it? Breaks it, even. Especially with the rosen-haired warrior.

The threat of destroying his current relationship with her just to quell this longing has trapped the young Director in a petrified stalemate. No matter what; he cannot lose her. He knows he could never recover if he did. In honest, while he loved everyone in their found-family, Hope considered Lightning his best friend, and she the same. He should be happy with that, shouldn't he? That should be enough for him, right?

His sea-green eyes closed tightly in despair, chin tucking toward his collar in a bid to protect himself from the brunt of the truth as he realized... it wasn't. It never would be. Not with the incessant pressure in his chest when he's next to her, or the burning desire to get closer. Not while his hands itched to hold her, to touch her and thread through her delicate pink hair. When the struggle to hide how much he cares for her, how much he always has, was so near to ruining him; what they have now was already over.

The sickness of it all was beginning break the cement hardened onto his lips. For his own sake, his suffering would be bitten behind them no longer. Lightning would know by next they met, she had to, before it killed him.

The darkening tides were up past his ankles now, the surface of the water at his skin trembling to show his failure in keeping that panic at bay. Another affliction his throat had become too tight to swallow down.

Suddenly he felt fourteen all over again, small, weak and breakable, watching and waiting for the impact of his fragile world crashing onto him. And just like back then, Hope Estheim was so deathly afraid.

I wrote this for a puppet btw, a puppet who was never supposed to feel. 🎭🦋

“Pinocchio, you are human..aren’t you?” Your whisper stirred the smog that crept through the air around you. Wide eyed, you observed him like a cornered lamb, curling a nervous hand into the fabric at your chest.

The question came as no surprise, if anything he’d anticipated it much sooner, which made it all the more disappointing for him to be so unprepared. His body flinched at its arrival as if it had raised to strike him.

Oh how he wished, for every breath he’s never taken, that he could tell you yes. And though it were in his best interest to deceive, Pinocchio refused to be named a liar. So he braced himself for the disgust that was sure to follow after he uttered the shamefaced reply, “No, but I look quite like one don’t I?”

The reveal shot down your spine, a quiet fear spreading through the branches of nerves.

He received not a huff of anger, nor a gasp of fright. Absent was that disgust he’d played over in his mind. He thought the silence to be worse somehow.

The puppet’s eyes narrowed, following your foot as it tucked behind the other. “Are you going to run now that you know I am not the same as you?” He didn’t sound hurt, accusatory seemed a better fit to place next to the sharpness of his stare. After the time spent in one another’s company, the only company that had entertained the word ‘safe’ thus far, perhaps he’d expected better.

Your muscles went rigid just as you’d shifted most of your weight onto that step, undecided if you were going to confirm his suspicion. The man wasn’t human, not like you in the slightest beneath the mask of human skin, he was the same as those who’d tried to sink their teeth into your bones as soon as they were offered.

If he wanted that too, however, he’d had ample opportunity to bare his jaws, and he hadn’t. Instead he’d protected you from his own kind, slaughtered them with a cold fury when they’d marked you as their next victim.

He’d saved your life many a time and never once turned around to undo it. Disgraceful, it would be, to write off the kindness he’s shown to you simply because a part of him strayed from your initial perception.

Your hand dropped from the front of your shirt to ease at your side, unsightly dents left behind where your fingertips had dug in. A tightness in your throat resisted swallowing the panic from the revelation about his being, but you let it pinch on the way down.

Then you saw it. The fragility behind that guarded stare of his, fixed on yours while he waited patiently for you to make up your mind, there was something human about it, even now that you knew otherwise.

It’s possible you were only seeing what you wanted to, but it’s difficult to argue with your eyes, unequivocally convinced it was there. Something as susceptible to hurt and wanting of connection as a real person would be. He wasn’t just different from you, he was different from the rest of these mindless puppets as well. A creature all his own.

That provided a semblance of comfort.

Though, one detail still bothered you enough. Apart from the prosthetic arm, his appearance was so convincingly opposite to the painted metal forms of his sibling creations and for that, it was true you hadn’t asked if he were a puppet, lacking the hunch to summon the need. But he never told you either. How naive to consider it would slip his mind.

Your step returned to line up with the other then, firm in place and standing you tall. “I’m not going to run,” Your voice held steadier than you’d imagined it able, far from the shaken whisper of before.

The tension in Pinocchio’s face fell away, his lips parting slight and that razors edge to his stare softening as you proved him so gladly wrong.

“I’m not going to run,” You repeated, before he had the chance to ask of your certainty. “But no more secrets. We have to trust each other, that means no keeping things from me anymore, alright?”

He regarded you for a moment at that, silent, as he usually was. But his eyes were loud and they didn’t shy from showing it, transparent in the relief that soothed inside his chest. You were going to stay. You’d learned what he was, what he was capable of, that he’d withheld it from you, and you’d chosen to stay.

Pinocchio nodded once, stepping closer with deliberate caution, in case your fear still kept a hand on your shoulder, until he came to stand before you. “No more secrets.” The puppet agreed. 🎭🦋

The sound of muffled sobbing drew me to a bright, rainy windowpane, where a weeping woman hid herself behind a curtain. On broken breath she begged me to retrieve her baby for her, her cries growing in their violence while she told of the night her family had cruelly taken her daughter away. I nodded to her shadowed form and agreed to the task, hoping to spare her some of those bitter tears.

I set out to search near city hall as she instructed, the gears in my core quickened their turns at the puppets I found stalking the courtyard. Following an odd sense of urgency I dispatched them within a minutes time, the thought that I’d arrived too late to save her child from the gruesome ends the other humans had met loomed at the forefront of my mind.

Then, a flash of lightning exposed a fallen stroller close to a garden bush, and a small humanoid shape caught my eye amongst the wreckage. As I neared, there was something that could only be described as ‘fear’ in me, it gave a tremble to my fingers and I lost the grip around the sword I held, digging my fingernails into my empty palm without it there to stop me until a clearer picture came into view. My eyes narrowed at the discovery that was more welcome, but less expected.

No blood, no ivory bones stripped of their flesh. Tipped over onto the cold ground and halfway pulled from wet, lacy blankets…lay a plastic doll. The rain dripped into its painted blue eyes that reminded me briefly of my own, spilling down its expressionless face when another drop fell and caused an overflow.

Could this be her child? The way she had spoken of it implied it was real, did someone take the child and leave a doll as its trade? There were no other children here, anything once alive was long since slaughtered by mindless puppets and the consequent litter of remains consisted of adult humans.

I bit the inside of my lip as I pondered what next I should do. I didn’t want to disappoint the woman, although I stood alone her sobs returned to my ears and I made a choice then, this would be better than to leave with nothing. Gathering it up carefully, I pulled a damp blanket from the least sodden part of the stroller and tucked it tight around the dolls body. With it secure and warm like a real baby should be, I carried it back to the rainy window, still unsure if I had found the right one.

To my surprise, when the woman parted the curtains she looked relieved, crying tears of joy instead of sadness as she took it from my arms. “Thank you, kind one, my sweet Elena has come back to me, isn’t she beautiful?” The woman asked as she gazed at Elena with a fondness in her smile, petting the unmoving child with shaking, grey colored hands.

Though confused, I felt it wrong to inform her that this was only a doll, it seemed of such great importance to her.

So…I lied, “Yes, she is beautiful.”

The woman’s smile widened at my deceptive answer, stretching the bluish scales at her cheeks. She began to rock Elena back and forth, humming a tune in a wavery voice. I felt a strange pressure lift from my chest once her tears dried on her ashen face, as if I’d been weighed down by the small drops of water somehow.

Perplexity came forward to ensure my steps remained heavy and I left the window more troubled than when I’d happened upon it. The human woman clearly loved Elena despite that she wasn’t real. She was only a doll, much like me. The baby didn’t eat, didn’t breathe, didn’t smile, just like me. And yet the woman cared for her all the same.

How curious that someone could show affection so pure to inanimate beings, to love them as if they were the same as them.

I wonder of the difference in outcome should I have told her the truth, but the relief in her eyes appeared a rare gift to her. This time lying hadn’t been a necessity, not like the lie given to the doorman at hotel Krat that tricked him to let me in. I believe this lie was told as an act of kindness, and while I searched for it, I couldn’t find a trace of harm in that. 🎭🦋

//I just really liked this part of the game and wanted to write a scene from his pov, P is both a murder machine and a sweetheart.

It had to be done. The masked man was given enough warning that he wouldn’t be permitted to harm Geppetto, sadly, warnings are not always considered.

The blood felt wrong on Pinocchio’s hands, viscous and warm before it began to cool in September’s night air. Made all the more unpleasant by the unease sinking into the pit of his gut like a jagged stone the longer he looked at it.

It’d never occurred to him that he might be required to end the life of a human in his quest to save the city of Krat, but it seems some have gone as mad as the barbarous puppets they so fiercely abhorred. No different in the ways they preyed upon innocents, therefore no different in the way they must be dealt with. However…

Killing humans, that is what the frenzied ones do. He isn’t like them, is he? Surely not, his actions were based in reason and he’d taken the steps to ensure they were a last resort, but his appearance after winning that fight diluted the sweetness of justice, smearing a film of acrid uncertainty to coat his tongue.

Bespattered with an iron scented crimson…Pinocchio appeared disconcertingly similar to those monsters responsible for the matching color on every brick and stone that was set in Krat, much of which he’d gotten an eyeful on the way to his fathers rescue.

Geppetto’s pride and gratitude as he stepped from his hiding place in the carriage made a grand try to relieve him of a smidgen of wrongness, as did the elder inventor’s certainty that should he have spared the man’s life there was little likelihood of the favor being returned to either of them. It was imperative he be subdued, and if Pinocchio had stopped after beating him within an inch, the brutality of the man’s death wouldn’t have been any less when left to be finished off by something else.

Pinocchio had granted the masked maniac the only mercy he’d allowed.

The puppet wanted to take the reassurance to heart, he really did, but the blood has since dried to a tight, itchy crust, different from the lasting slick of machine oil that typically covered him after he’s felled one of his own kind. And there was an unrest amongst the thoughts that brought to him, no longer calm and indifferent like they were after defeating the others.

He knew he didn’t like the blood on his skin, but lacked the comprehension to decipher whether that was limited to the physical aspect, and he’d yet to gain the emotional depth vital in telling if he felt strongly enough to consider it an active dislike. What a struggle to be so new to one’s emotions, so inexperienced in the ways of being, at least partially, a living thing.

Pinocchio lead his father back to hotel Krat with an ultimate understanding that disquiet wouldn’t stay a stranger.

Try as he did to pin the events of tonight as a necessary evil, throughout the return his mind forbade any stillness around the discomforting sensation on his hands, and most importantly, what it represented of him. 🎭🦋

// I have never enjoyed an exploration of any character’s psyche more than this one’s.

"I found this in a chocolate shop, the owners must have run away when the puppet frenzy began," Pinocchio explained, holding a heart shaped box of fine gourmet chocolates, adorned with a red silk bow, in a trembly hand. "I've seen people giving these to others around Krat today, so I wanted to give one to you."

Though obviously trying to will himself confidence, he seemed a bit shy of doing so. Like many things the sly brunette kept inside, perhaps he knew more than what he let on about the meaning of Valentine's Day, the notion of which stirred the butterflies in your stomach all the way to your fingertips as you accepted his gift.

"How kind of you! Thank you, P." You said with a grateful smile, trying to calm your swift beating heart.

He smiled back in that sweet way he does, gave a polite bow and began to take his leave before you stopped him. "Wait!" You called hastily, and he obliged, turning to look at you again, his head tilted in interest as he waited for what more you had to say. "I made something for you too." You admitted and showed what you'd kept hidden behind your back. It was becoming easier to understand his shyness, your nerves akin to a rabbit in the road as you revealed it.

His eyes lit up at the intricate metal box of chocolates, moulded into the shape of a heart, painstakingly crafted by your own hand at your bench whenever you knew he'd be away long enough for the surprise not to be spoiled by a glimpse of it. The project had taken every bit of talent you've built over years of practice and working with metal, and the care you'd put into it showed that very well.

The box was a work of art. A shining antique gold finish, accessorized by little iron gears soldered in clusters onto the top and sides of the heart. A pattern of roses melted in rose-gold, the most difficult and time consuming part of the design, starred at the center, with the words 'For Pinocchio, with love' etched daintily above the symbolic flowers.

The shock on his face was rather cute in how genuine it was, and it filled you with pride to have been such a successful sneak, it was clear he'd never expected you to reciprocate the gesture. "You...made this? For me?" He asked, the surprise that you'd go to this amount of effort apparent in his voice as he carefully took the box from your outstretched hand.

"Of course I did silly boy, do you see anyone else I'm handing it to?" You chuckled, amused.

"So there's...no one else you'd rather give it to then?" The question was quiet and tentative now, seeking confirmation that you intended to celebrate a day for lovers with him alone, that there wasn't another vying for your affections, he most certainly was aware of what this day meant. Your heartbeat all but roared in your ears once you realized that.

With courage you weren't aware you had, you stepped closer and kissed his cheek softly, placing your hand on his to feel it tighten around the precious metalwork he held. "No one else, that's why I put your name on it."

If the puppet possessed the blood required to blush, his face may rival the bow tied to the confections he'd given you. An affliction that would only worsen as he leaned forward and returned the kiss to your cheek.

"Thank you, ____, I'm fortunate to receive such a thoughtful gift from one so lovely as you." He said, his expression tender, a look of pure adoration velveting his eyes.

And just like that, it was you who matched the red bow almost too perfectly, right down to the knots your nerves were so skillfully tied in.

// Happy Valentine's Day, from a puppet to you. 🦋