Taako didn't even say her name when it was screaming at him, clear as day, large flaming letters begging to be known. She'd meditated for weeks for this one final desperate attempt at making herself heard, surely if he just saw her name he would remember something, it would light a spark in his mind, just, any scrap of recognition would've been enough. She'd wrenched control of the staff from him, burned the letters into a wall in a violent show of force that took everything she had, and-- that's all it was, to him. Letters, spelled out incredulously, utterly alien in his mouth. Not a name, not his sister. His little apprentice had been more thrilled about it than he was. She'd almost been lost for the last time, then.

But Chara is here now. They're both here, clutching at each other's hands to prove it. It's not gentle, or considerate or caring.

It's trying not to drown.

They feel it too, that creeping sensation of fading away, the lonely and shameful terror in it, the absolute fucking injustice of still have to fight for your place here, for not losing to your own damn mind again even though it's over, it's been over and they made it out, they made it out. Lup gasps out a laugh, something like relief, or maybe just more horror, who even knows.

"I saw one of Taako's memories earlier. I-- I wasn't in it." They'll know, she's not saying it for pity or for comfort. Neither of them are in any position to offer that, that's so far off the table it might as well be in another plane, that's not what this has become about. To be honest, she's not really sure why she's saying it at all, except perhaps-- because it seems okay to let herself hurt. She's not putting anything on them that, that wasn't already there. It doesn't seem so foolish or irresponsible, to still be fucked up by it, when you're suddenly not the only one fighting your own ass anymore.