daemonized | RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

[she looks at the ceiling, and keeps her breathing steady. every day she could remember something new that this other self - that she herself did, and it kept finding new ways to haunt her. at this point, she'd take everything at once - get it all over with, if she could. rather than this pointed remembering, things that could be nothing and could be something and one never knew until the chips had already fallen.

here and now. here and now. it keeps things away. if she had enough time, she could make herself pretend like she never felt anything about this at all. but Ardyn sees into her heart, nothing hidden from him. the effort it would take, the lies- she couldn't do that to him.]

You remember how I'm not human?

[of course he does.]

I used to be. I used to be human.

[there's more still to be said, but this is the part she's struggling with. making it something that can be said.]

People...can be changed, into grim reapers. Or rather, they're made to change. It's what they earned by their sins.

[Used to be human.

His heart clenches in his chest, brought forth by empathy. Whispers of his own memories snake around the crevices of his mind. How he had become transformed into something through the years, how his own humanity must have shriveled away across the ceaseless march of time.

That Grell must’ve undergone something similar once makes him feel indignant for her sake; a sharp edge of wishing that something could have been done, even if it was a lifetime ago. Before their souls had yet even been blessed to meet.

His tone is quiet when he replies. His question is simple, and likely expected.]

And what sins should make one change into a grim reaper?

[there's no way about it but to be blunt, no delicate way she can phrase it. still, when she says it, it sounds strained - the way she's felt to be carrying it around for this time.]

They take their own life.

[it was a cold, unfeeling fact in that world. it offered no comfort, did not come with an explanation. it simply was, but it told her enough.]

[Words that would’ve slipped out are instead pinned to the walls of his brain. The weight behind that reveal was impossibly heavy, enough to entrench a soul with questions and shock alike. How long had she been carrying around this memory on her own? Just how much did it rack at her insides, the idea that she would’ve taken her life in another time, another world away?

What does one say? Pathetic attempts at consolation were useless, fleeting things. The feeling of wanting to understand was just as debilitating, for he had no way of knowing if she knew the details, or if she even wanted them ricocheting in her mind if she did. But his heart aches for her, every atom in his being hating that she must know this about her past self; ugly, sorrowful, sometimes broken creatures they both were.

It’s all visible on his face. Even as he encourages her to draw near to him, opening his arms and gently beckoning her to shift close.]

Come here.

[she barely needs the invitation. she comes close and practically collapses into his arms - after being wound so tight inwards, this released outwards and she needs to have support, be held. it frightens her, this knowledge, that one day she might have the memory of what happened in her head, that this job and duty began to take on the shape of a punishment - and she remembers doctrines, words laid down - that this weight will follow her.

sorrow, woven through this past life like scars. anger and viciousness and nothing bright. Ardyn can still likely feel how tension is controlling her, not truly relaxing.]

What am I going to dream about next, Ardyn? What's going to happen the next time I try to sleep?

[He holds her tight against him, fingers gently kneading into her back. Everything about the gesture is a reminder that he’s solid and he’s here. Even if the universe lurches and spins and memories swirl around them, laughing the whole while, she has him. They have each other, the two of them an unmoving anchor point in a life that keeps pivoting around them at baleful angles.]

I don’t know. And it isn’t fair.

[Words that are useless in their consolation, he knows. But he cannot tell her this will be the last of the unpleasant dreams, when so much is still left unanswered.]

But I’m here for you when such dreams visit and take their toll. Here to listen if you wish to speak about it, or just to hold you if you do not. Anything you need of me. What can I do for you now?

[He’ll be consolation, distraction, someone to vent to. Whatever she needs, he will give every part of himself to make her happy. To stave off the pain in moments like these.]

Just...be here.

[remind her that she was alive now, that her heart still beat and that her memories and dreams were not the now. Ardyn was real. this house, full of love, sanctuary in the midst of this storm of reality. this was her life. it had to be. the more that this city wanted to drag them back to who they were, the more desperate she feels to cling onto what she has.]

Tell me it's not real. Only a nightmare.

[they know it's not, but it would be nice to hear.]

[Sometimes the illusion of hearing something comforting is worth the lie, and Ardyn will easily give her what she requests. He can speak the words, as if they are some grand illuminating truth, bolstered by his own lingering desire that they were true. That it all was just a fleeting nightmare, something that the sun would chase away each and every morning.

He tilts his head down, only slightly, just enough to murmur the words into scarlet hair.]

None of it is real. Just a shadow of a person you don’t know, visiting your thoughts at night. A transient specter to be chased away at daybreak.

[And to be defeated, forgotten, in the midst of what was real — their lives here, their friends, the ones which they would call family. The small pleasures that they could reach out and grasp, though they sat in the eerie midst of the eye of a storm.]

And when you wake, I will always be here, waiting for you.

RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

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