（ satisfied he's worked all the tangles out, he moves to the shampoo. thick, dark hair is lathered up and he works the pads of his fingers in against sasuke's scalp as he leans backwards.
it's a loaded question — and as sasuke guesses the instinctive, kneejerk answer is no. but it would be hypocritical of him to stress the importance of discussing traumas, of facing it, and not do it himself. it doesn't matter that this is ground he's retread before — sasuke hasn't seen him do it, and he suspects that the boy will always feel like there's a part of him he can't touch if cy refuses him now.
he doesn't speak right away. instead, when he's satisfied with the suds, he gently nudges sasuke forwards under the water and lets his hair rinse out.
then, as he works conditioner into it anew: ）
You already know KV liked to hurt people, that's not — news. In the time he was... you know, （ sometimes cy calls kulo vayn it and sometimes he. it's not really evident of anything save perhaps a use of a language with variance to the pronouns being translated between them, but here it seems almost deliberate. ） I watched the eradication of eleven worlds. Billions upon billions of people. But sometimes, if he found someone that was... ah, I'll use the term 'warborne'. Someone who could walk into a room and draw his attention on the strength of their connection to conflict. He'd take those people and make them an offer. If they could withstand him for a time, he'd 'leave their world alive'. He had a different definition of alive than most mortals would. It didn't change anything in the end, except maybe to delay the inevitable. He'd torture them in ways I don't need to explain. There were three people, across three worlds. Priya Adhavesti, Sinyi, and Eska Rao. The worlds were Veskakandar, Zenta Brikan, and Osiere. Eska was last.
（ it's funny how those memories can be recalled perfectly. time has not dulled them. they are as vivid in their grotesqueries as if they had happened only hours ago. as he rinses the conditioner from sasuke's hair and gently plaits it over one shoulder, he continues: ）
I think you would have liked them. All of them. Priya was an artist with any weapon she touched. She liked to dance. She'd never cut her hair, and it fell to the floor like a curtain that smelled like sandalwood when it was unbound. She realized that I was — me. That the actions weren't mine. I don't know how. Her people had some psychic sensitivity, maybe it was that. She used to say it wasn't my fault. She called KV 'the one with the dull blade' in her native tongue. Christ aloud, he hated that.
（ her words were the only weapons she had, and she used them well until kv cut out her tongue. ）
Sinyi was an elemental magic user, kinda like how your jutsu work. Water and Earth. She was tiny, barely half my size, but she could move mountains and divert rivers with a thought. She lasted the longest, and when she realized that KV wasn't going to spare her people she brought a mountain down on top of us. It killed her. KV was pissed about that — he kept another god prisoner, and he used to force him to resurrect people. He tried it on Sinyi, but she'd... done something to her soul, spirit, whatever you want to call it. It didn't work. KV usually took his time killing all the life on a planet, but that one world he destroyed outright in an instant. He was furious. I'd never seen him like that before, and only once since.
（ she'd been so, so brave. cy remembers her grin, teeth red to the gums with blood. she died thinking that perhaps she'd won. most people weren't so lucky. ）
Eska was a big guy. Quiet. He didn't have any powers, he didn't have any special skills. But he was steady, and he was strong. He hated cruelty. KV had actually made the offer to someone else, but Eska volunteered and that ... intrigued him. He's the only one KV left alive. He'd worshipped the — （ his voice cracks, just a little. perhaps it's hidden by the soft fall of water, or perhaps it isn't. but — ） the god of war, at the temple in Mon Mahara. That's how I knew about it. But I have no way of knowing if he ever made it back there before he died, or if he succumbed to his injuries out in the desert. I didn't go back for... I don't know how long. At least a millennia. Probably more, so — there was no finding his body. I used to dream about giving him a proper funeral, in the custom of a long-dead people. But it was just a dream, in the end.
it's not a cysuke thread without cy talking sadly abt war horrors at some point tbh
it's a loaded question — and as sasuke guesses the instinctive, kneejerk answer is no. but it would be hypocritical of him to stress the importance of discussing traumas, of facing it, and not do it himself. it doesn't matter that this is ground he's retread before — sasuke hasn't seen him do it, and he suspects that the boy will always feel like there's a part of him he can't touch if cy refuses him now.
he doesn't speak right away. instead, when he's satisfied with the suds, he gently nudges sasuke forwards under the water and lets his hair rinse out.
then, as he works conditioner into it anew: ）
You already know KV liked to hurt people, that's not — news. In the time he was... you know, （ sometimes cy calls kulo vayn it and sometimes he. it's not really evident of anything save perhaps a use of a language with variance to the pronouns being translated between them, but here it seems almost deliberate. ） I watched the eradication of eleven worlds. Billions upon billions of people. But sometimes, if he found someone that was... ah, I'll use the term 'warborne'. Someone who could walk into a room and draw his attention on the strength of their connection to conflict. He'd take those people and make them an offer. If they could withstand him for a time, he'd 'leave their world alive'. He had a different definition of alive than most mortals would. It didn't change anything in the end, except maybe to delay the inevitable. He'd torture them in ways I don't need to explain. There were three people, across three worlds. Priya Adhavesti, Sinyi, and Eska Rao. The worlds were Veskakandar, Zenta Brikan, and Osiere. Eska was last.
（ it's funny how those memories can be recalled perfectly. time has not dulled them. they are as vivid in their grotesqueries as if they had happened only hours ago. as he rinses the conditioner from sasuke's hair and gently plaits it over one shoulder, he continues: ）
I think you would have liked them. All of them. Priya was an artist with any weapon she touched. She liked to dance. She'd never cut her hair, and it fell to the floor like a curtain that smelled like sandalwood when it was unbound. She realized that I was — me. That the actions weren't mine. I don't know how. Her people had some psychic sensitivity, maybe it was that. She used to say it wasn't my fault. She called KV 'the one with the dull blade' in her native tongue. Christ aloud, he hated that.
（ her words were the only weapons she had, and she used them well until kv cut out her tongue. ）
Sinyi was an elemental magic user, kinda like how your jutsu work. Water and Earth. She was tiny, barely half my size, but she could move mountains and divert rivers with a thought. She lasted the longest, and when she realized that KV wasn't going to spare her people she brought a mountain down on top of us. It killed her. KV was pissed about that — he kept another god prisoner, and he used to force him to resurrect people. He tried it on Sinyi, but she'd... done something to her soul, spirit, whatever you want to call it. It didn't work. KV usually took his time killing all the life on a planet, but that one world he destroyed outright in an instant. He was furious. I'd never seen him like that before, and only once since.
（ she'd been so, so brave. cy remembers her grin, teeth red to the gums with blood. she died thinking that perhaps she'd won. most people weren't so lucky. ）
Eska was a big guy. Quiet. He didn't have any powers, he didn't have any special skills. But he was steady, and he was strong. He hated cruelty. KV had actually made the offer to someone else, but Eska volunteered and that ... intrigued him. He's the only one KV left alive. He'd worshipped the — （ his voice cracks, just a little. perhaps it's hidden by the soft fall of water, or perhaps it isn't. but — ） the god of war, at the temple in Mon Mahara. That's how I knew about it. But I have no way of knowing if he ever made it back there before he died, or if he succumbed to his injuries out in the desert. I didn't go back for... I don't know how long. At least a millennia. Probably more, so — there was no finding his body. I used to dream about giving him a proper funeral, in the custom of a long-dead people. But it was just a dream, in the end.