aftr_stories | [MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

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[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

Something is wrong.

This may not very well be obvious, at first. The Storyteller is not present to put forth yet another diatribe, informative or apologetic, and the backdrop of guttering flame and sandy campfire is as present as ever...albeit briefly.

Those who tell their stories will start to notice something...odd taking place. Indeed, no matter how they intend to begin their tale, the land of Mu will immediately start to warp to accommodate it, or something utterly unlike it, until storytellers and listeners alike may find themselves in an exact recreation of a seemingly random memory, in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play - you will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

It is time, once more, for you to tell a story...with a slight twist! This is, in fact, our first player plot, as provided by Dragon! The initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams.

Yet for this Storytelling only, people can imagine whatever stories they wish, from both their homes and their time on LifeAftr, as long as they don't mind the fact that others will be reliving those stories in the form of an impromptu memory share.

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. If the memory is recalled in essence, Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

There is, however, a benefit to this: those who venture memories to be relived will receive both a befuddled apology from the Storyteller, who will assert that this was most definitely not meant to happen (they're the Storyteller, not the Rememberer!), as well as a tired promise that the relived memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation.

Not that it counts for much, probably.

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It's nonsense, at first. How can she not be alone in the experience, that's the whole fucking point, and there was never anything like this, in all the horrors and deaths in all the planes they saw, nothing even remotely like this. Their carefully neutral words barely reach her in her bubble of misery, through the struggle of shaking off the claws of her imprisonment still so firmly lodged in her mind. It just, it's really not the time for a convoluted attempt at sympathy.

But that's, that's not what they're saying. That's not what they're saying at all. Instead, it's a list of everything she went through, succinct and yet impossibly heavy, grim, hurt. Their voice bending under the weight of it all, the horror and powerlessness, cracking--

And no one will tell you why. She gasps softly at that, her gaze finally raising to meet theirs, and the tears she'd been holding back spill over unhindered. Not understanding what had happened to her brother and the others, how they couldn't recognize her corpse or the umbrella, how Taako had stepped over her dust like it was nothing, how they all goofed about the Gauntlet like they had no idea what any of it meant, just let it incinerate Barry and another innocent town, it was-- torture, beyond words.

It hadn't taken her too long to figure out, once they'd been brought to see Fisher, once Lucretia fed them her story of the Red Robes. Madame Director up on her throne, never breaking character through her lies, through Taako acting blithely unconcerned about the deaths or his own worth, never so much as flinching as she looked at the umbrella, pretending like it didn't mean a damn thing to her. Lup would've been proud of her iron strength, if it hadn't been warped into bringing so much irreparable, unforgivable pain to them all.

Betrayed by her own family, like the kid. And all the both of them could do was watch.

Her chest is tight, feels like it's gonna burst with horror - for them, now. Questions strangling her, what happened to them? who did this? how did they break out? what miserable fucking cosmic injustice dared to put a child through this? But none of it makes it past the shock of looking into the eyes of someone else and seeing her own grief and fury burning there. None of that really matters, at this moment, in the face of all this, just like it doesn't matter how she got stuck in the umbrella or how she was freed at last.

So she simply holds their desperate gaze through her own tears, and nods, accepting what they've given her, understanding. It's not pity. It's not gratitude, to be sharing something this horrible, but it's-- knowing you're not alone when you've been forgotten by the entire world, screaming out in vain for so long. She unfurls just enough to reach out a hand, offering contact and... offering a vulnerability that she'd never let anyone else see, not even Taako, after that first night on the beach. Voice as small as that of a child, she asks, "Do you-- do you still sometimes feel like you're not really here?"

No one would say their name.

That had been the worst part. Not knowing how long; how long had it taken, before their mother had erased the memory of her adoptive child, of her son. How long until she'd replaced them both with another child? How long, until their name ceased to mean anything in the Underground? How long until the person they were warped and shifted into The Fallen Human; just a tragedy, just a bump in the road on the way to the war with the humans?

Truly, Chara's expectations of understanding had been-- who could possibly know? What it's like, to look over sometimes, and realize you're breathing in unison with someone--

And to be terrified of what that meant, to feel like your very being had stopped being a singular entity. That your existence was solely reliant upon the people around you, chance and misfortune the only reason you had a body at all. To know, every second of every day, that they shouldn't be here.

They shouldn't be here.

You're not even human, anymore. You have no age. You are the demon that comes when people call your name, a loyal servant who will follow to the utmost.

Chara Dreemurr is dead.

The one, true reprieve is not having to say any of that outloud. Lup's tears spill over, and it's all they can do to try and-- scrape together some of their pride, continuing to hastily rub their sleeve across their face. And then she's asking that question, and their expression breaks- it's with a broken laugh that her tears are joining hers in parallel, tracking down their cheeks.

When their fingers touch skin, they still flinch, rushing to bridge the last of the gap with a tight grip that has fingers digging into her skin. It's not happy. It's not a consolation, it's not even a comfort.

She understands, and there's something in them like a bow that's snapped, remembering every, miserable timeline in which nothing they could do, nothing, mattered. And yet

Chara is still smiling.

"All the time."

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.

She's probably bruising them with her grip. And something inside them; something raw, and real, and all too persistent, rails against the rough treatment, scattered thoughts of what it means when an adult grabs at you like this rattling through their brain at a mile a minute and Chara is shaking all the harder for it, but they don't let go.

Because right now they're having trouble remembering to breathe, and the rapid heartbeat beneath their fingers causes their chest to move in tandem. Inhale. Exhale. Rapid, but at least it's happening. That's something, isn't it?

She admits to them, then, something...horrific. A gap in a memory she belonged in, and they wonder, if they were to find Wade right now- would they discover the same thing? In Muffet's? In Asriel's? They don't have a word to say about it, but their fingers squeeze and compulsively, they sit down, sniffing the once in an attempt to have their voice come out a little more...even, when they do speak.

"I want to try something, if you're willing."

She hadn't been looking for words in response to it anyway, there just aren't any and they know that, they know. Instead they squeeze, dig their fingers into her pulse, grounding them both.

They sit down and she folds her legs to the side, like another wall coming down and the release of that tension allows her to ease her grip just slightly too. Something a little less terrified, a little less completely fucking uncontrolled and more like... companions in it all. Their sniffing reminds her to rub across her own eyes with a wide crimson sleeve, the robe she usually ends up dreaming herself in whether or not it's an umbrella nightmare.

"Of course." Without hesitation or reservation. There's nothing she's not willing to try for them, with them, right now.

"Okay," They say. "Okay."

They have to take pause again, closing their eyes in an attempt to gather their thoughts. They have to explain how, in some respects- can't expect this to work if she's unable of trying to bridge the gap, and as they consider the process, a quiet voice in their mind asks them what they think they're doing.

It sounds a lot like Frisk. A lot like the tone they'd used, when the two of them agreed-- no more connections. Leave this world behind them, in the end, with as little an impact from the two of them as possible.

Chara ignores it, slowly drawing their SOUL into their free hand, cradling the glowing, red heart where it hovers between them.

"In my world, a SOUL is the very culmination of your being. Your world undoubtedly has a similar concept, no matter the term." They've never had to explain this before. It's one of the reasons they look...uncertain, as they meet her gaze. Even if it isn't the main factor. "I've learned from others that each of us has- a note, so to speak. A sound unheard, that can be tapped into. Connected, if only briefly.

"That is what I would like to attempt. Without practice, it won't last longer than a few seconds, at most, however..."

Another note of hesitation. Impossible, once more, to find an appropriate description for what is, at its most basic level, literal baring of one's SOUL.

"It is still your choice."

She waits as patiently as she can, despite an undercurrent of desperation still making her tremble, as they figure out whatever it is they want to try. Or maybe they're reconsidering, fraught with, with fragility as this whole thing is. She wouldn't blame them either, but there's something in her that believes in them now, as hotly and consuming as her convictions always are.

And then they draw out that red glowing spark that she's seen before in that forest that was drowning in chaos and darkness and she can't help being mesmerized by it. It forms into the shape of a heart, clearer to her now that it's not surrounded by phantom screams and billowing shadows. Not flickering as wildly as it had next to its twin. They only confirm what she'd assumed back then, a soul, some kind of powerful magic externalizing it. She nods as they look to her, go on, she's with you so far. The second part isn't something she's heard of before but understanding follows just as instantly and she smiles, faintly but in awe.

"Music." Like the song Barry and her had written together, a half century of slowly blossoming adoration and trust and longing wrought in every note. Performed up on a stage in front of hundreds of people, but all they could see, all they could hear was each other. A connection burning so brightly is what they're hoping to attempt with her, in the rubble of both their horrors. Yes, of course she almost says again, but her mind is already, inevitably rushing through the practical concerns and she-- stops herself.

"I want to," she assures them, thoughtlessly brushing a thumb over their hand. "But my soul-- I changed it. In order to give my family and myself a fighting chance. I reached inside and I-- I used necromancy, to bind my living essence to my magical essence. If we're being technical about it, I'm sort of undead? I don't know... what that would look like, if you'd even see it, but--" She can't imagine they couldn't, honestly; necromancy's a forbidden art for a reason, though she had mastered it. "I'm still me, though."

Her eyes fix onto their SOUL, and Chara understands. They'd been fascinated, the first time they'd seen it. The first time they realized just how much power was contained inside them, when they'd understood their purpose, their true reason for being drawn into a new world like they'd belonged.

No matter how ugly or tarnished it really is, a SOUL never looks like it, in appearance. Still deceptively beautiful, deceptively fragile, and yet so much more than any would assume.

"Music." They confirm quietly, and they allow her the time to digest it all, to make up her mind and to voice her concerns, even if they barely manage to restrain themself from laughing in a giddy fashion.

"That won't be a problem." Two undead creatures wouldn't have an issue, they're sure. Decision made, Chara... shifts forward, just a little more. Facing her head on as they quietly exhale and seemingly compose themself with that one breath, shoulders straightening. Focusing on what needs to be done.

"Simply focus upon... attempting to reach out to me, with that essence. And I shall do the rest."

Their reassurance comes promptly and it's both a relief and... not really surprising, somehow? They've seen worse than an undead soul. Besides, neither of them is going to back out now. Neither of them is the type to take even a single step back once they've set their hearts on something, once they've made a decision, unless maybe someone's hand is pulling them back. They are, truly, in the shit now.

"There's a spell I know, that casts my soul out of my body? It probably doesn't work in this plane, but--" She hasn't exactly had reason to try Magic Jar, but let's be real, that's just how it is on this bitch of an island. Also, this is a dream? It's not like she'd be physically casting the spell anyway, her soul wouldn't go anywhere, and--- She's just bad at letting somebody else take the lead. But she can, she's done it before. Necromancy was always Barry's field of study, he was the expert and he taught her the basics, once they'd discovered the lich ritual and hatched their plan. It's just like that, and this time nobody's even risking their lives and sanity.

Recalling that ritual, a small part of her is wondering - shouldn't she want Taako here? Would he be freaking out, would he ask her not to bare her soul to anyone, let alone to the child who killed him? But this isn't something he could understand, and that's a good thing. She's got to do this.

Lup takes a breath as well, releasing the compulsive attempt at control and leans in, ears long since free of their defensive press and now canting forward with her rapt attention. "Nevermind. I'll focus, you do the rest." She cups her free hand in front of her chest like they did, and lets herself be drawn to the crimson in their eyes. Silently forming the incantation for Magic Jar in her mind, just in case, just as a mantra. Forming a focal point for the arcane energies she controls so naturally, so expertly, then weaving her spiritual energies into them and finally - reaching out, to the red glow filling her vision.

They wait for her to settle-- and for once, Chara doesn't protest the anxious attempts at direction. For once, they can understand it entirely; the anxiety, the need, for this to work out.

Because neither of them need the worthless pity this breach of memories has supplied. It's not kindly words and I'm sorry that will make this better. There is nothing that can make this better. It's the simple idea that they might not need to be alone that has Chara attempting this.

There's a responding glow from Lup- almost unsurprising, that she'd be capable of accessing it so easily. It's white and grey, and if Chara waited long enough, they'd be sure to take in the actual physicality of it.

But they don't wait. That's enough. The hand in Lup's tightens around her palm, and they drag it towards them, press her fingers against their SOUL and reach.

There is no surprise that the discordant, seeking notes of their SOULs fit together so seamlessly, the very peak of their emotions intent on finding each other. There is no surprise that, in tandem, what their SOULs emit is nothing more than a low, keening wail, a sharing of grief that would likely overtake the both of them, had Chara not been so sure- that they can curb this.

It lasts but a second. And in that second, Lup will feel many things. A categorical history of emotions without context; the shock of waking after being long since dead. The panic and confusion that accompanied those first few hours- restricted, contained, unheard. The lack of a throat to feel raw despite screaming, a unified terror of two children as they die and don't die and die again, and beneath every, hurtful sense of how is a a building DETERMINATION to seek out the answers, to resolve and continue.

She feels, like a second skin, Frisk and Chara's joined pain, every time their body is destroyed. Burned, shot to pieces, bludgeoned into a non-functioning mess. She feels Chara's reducing terror and growing anger, feels the way their idea of injustice grows as the body count simply becomes a tally- one, five, fifty, two hundred and seven. The taste and smell of ozone, another memory, sits on both their tongues.

An utter lack of comprehension doesn't stop it from hurting, this sense of being left behind. The longing note of mother coupled with a sense of being replaced entirely, the constant question of didn't I matter, not even at all? A growing affection, for the other person who hasn't joined them so much is there, as much a part of what Chara feels as themself.

They feel their Determination intermingle with their own as they die and they die and they die, and Chara wishes for nothing but to keep them safe, a whisper in the back of someone's mind that guides and follows to the utmost, shares every moment of fear and pain in a growing loop of resentment when that pain goes entirely unacknowledged- everyone's tried to kill them, is the joke, and Chara's rage at this point is a fire that is all consuming, a how dare you as the rest of the world is judged and found wanting, as their feelings twist past wanting what is best for everyone and hoping that for even a second, they feel half of what their Partner has been through.

Forgotten. Cast away. Chara wasn't the best person, says a boy's voice, and the agony they feel in that moment is the tipping point between resentful understanding that there is nothing they can do and willfully ripping it all right back to the start, palming a blade and stepping through the world with every intent of making it all Stop.

Lup feels every time they kill, and every time they do, she feels their SOUL grow more and more distant from what they truly feel. A taint that spreads and steals emotion, accusation, everything, getting worse and worse until suddenly, it stops.

But it's not a comfort.

It's not a comfort, when time and peace allows for the re-cementing of every piece of self-disgust and blame to take root. Every little sense of horror she feels comes with a sense of blame, pushed further and further into themself. A sense of being wrong. A feeling that she breaks everything she touches, just by being around.

It was all their fault. Will she understand that?

You took too much, too quickly. And it spilled across the floor. You created murderers from good people. You caused the suffering of a child who didn't deserve it. You ensured that no one would remember you, want to remember you, cast you aside the moment a better child came along. You are the reason your world is broken beyond repair, and every spiteful, angry, judgmental note is accompanied by that innate understanding that it never would have been this way if you just hadn't existed at all.

It's but a second, but in that second, every agonized, miserable emotion pours into her from a child so self-contained that the very act of sharing it all, finally, is enough to bring them to tears once more.

And then it's over.

It's nothing like Lup had expected. In the first impossible moment of this second, when the space around them, in them, reverberates with a grief-stricken wail, it becomes clear that her hopes of creating something elating, something that could lift them both up out of their despair is - shattered.

In that note resonates the horrifically familiar feeling of being trapped and buried and silenced, of dying, of being called back to life, reset to a recorded state, again and again and again. Turned to stone from the inside out, crushed, run through, ripping open her own soul with necrotic force, shattered, poisoned. A hundred apocalypses, each and every one inevitable, world after world lost in screams and pillars of brilliant darkness, while she continues. Pursued by a tireless enemy, changed by the relentless pressure of knowing that should she lose this race, not only would it be her end, and the end of those she loves, but that of all reality itself.

The note of mother rings on its own, finds no mirror in Lup, though it's followed by the whisper of a child's long forgotten question of why didn't you want me? A sense of being pushed away, unwanted, an inconvenience, a burden. A curse. A safe haven at last, incredulously, almost angrily tested for its limits but there were none and it might have sounded like mother if it wasn't gone so quickly.

But the cycle doesn't stop at a hundred.

The tally grows and grows and there are no vibrant worlds to discover, exotic dishes to taste, new skills and knowledge to learn, new joys to be found, it's-- always the same people, the same deaths, the very same path. It's harrowing, it's bitter, it's infuriating. Her twin struck down, in pain, terrified, crushed and burned to death twelve times over at the stroke of noon. Made to suffer and sacrifice for someone's amusement while she felt the waning strength behind his spells, while she could do nothing but rage and fear and tear at the walls of her prison, could do nothing to protect him, to defend him like she always had, like she should. And then the one who's to blame drops in front of her, into her reach at last, and she grits her teeth and she says, I'm gonna fucking kill you now.

Edited 2018-01-17 23:54 (UTC)

But it doesn't stop there, either.

Countless more deaths, at their hands this time, drenching their SOUL in blackness, a Hunger to destroy it all. And the answering note in Lup is one of fear, not unlike the fear she'd felt at their approach in the caves because it sounds like a portent of what she could be. Severed from every bond holding them back, she sees herself in the unbridled wrath and the rush of vengeance. A distance that burns like ice, a desire for the glory of utter annihilation.

A blame, a guilt clouding everything, did I make the right decision? Did she doom the world she was trying to save? Thousands of deaths on her hands, too, entire towns devastated and turned to black glass by her fires. Fires wrought into a powerful artifact whose thrall she had hopelessly underestimated. For her relic, and those of her family, bloody wars ravaged this world and they stood by because she had decided, this was worth stopping their enemy. It was her plan and her mistake that killed them all.

Edited 2018-01-18 00:06 (UTC)

You know, sometimes there aren't right decisions. Sometimes there's just decisions.

And then, the second moment begins.

Because they hear her brother's voice, a brother who would never ever cast her away for somebody else, a brother who forgot her but found her anyway and her soul sings out a note of love breaking through the misery. It sounds like being lost but never alone, like having a reason to fight always at her side, a bond that balances her spiraling emotions. The bond that freed her from her prison and they feel her release in wild fiery destruction, resplendent in her joy, alive. A few other notes drift in and out of reach, the beginnings of a song full of tenderness and devotion for the love of her life. A hundred years of learning how to care for the five other people who weren't family before, how to let herself be cared for in return. For every death, there was laughter and meals shared, battles won, tenfold.

There was beauty and joy in so many worlds and with each one they explored, her resolve to protect them all, to save them all grew and grew, too. Chara feels her faith burning hotly now, faith in a better future that they will win for all of reality, they will stop running and face the Hunger and reclaim the worlds already consumed by it and I believe that one of these times, we're gonna get it right.

They can still get it right. Will they understand that?

And then it stops.

Lup sits, shaken. The white glow retreats and leaves... silence. What do you say, to fill that kind of void?

What do you say when you can feel somebody's sins crawling on your back-- what sins? The uncontrolled wrath of a child who was abandoned and betrayed and warped by so much death with nobody to stop them and yet here they still are, reaching out. She'd laughed at the Judges and listed her own damn sins because nobody gets to make that fucking call.

Her heart and her mind are racing and there are fresh tear tracks on her face as she looks at them, and she doesn't let go of their hand. And she leans forward almost cautiously, closes that gap too, and wraps her free arm around them. It's all she knows to do, when two souls are lost in the world and crying until the new day begins.

Their heart--

Hurts. It's the sting of her fiery emotions, a call of freedom and love and sacrifice- everything she had been through had some...semblance of purpose. A mission that was always intended to be difficult, in which she had found family and adoration for new places and things and people until it has grown into a love for life as a whole, an expansion of her world that had once been composed of a singular person.

And it hurts to know that the freedom she found is something that will never come to them. There will be no revival. No happy ending in which they are allowed to walk their world once more the way they are, find something in it that gives them a peace of mind in its continuation. That moment had passed hundreds of years ago- this is all Chara has left. This world; a failed ERASURE with the very child who they'd stayed with for so very long, a man willing to follow them off the edge of the cauldron to hell.

And her. Her, burning with the resolve to make this work. This isn't over. One day, we'll get it right. That the tides can turn and evil can be defeated and she does realize, doesn't she, that that very Hunger she seeks to fight may as well be them? She surely--

Would have seen that. And yet in that silence (always too quiet. Always agonizing, to once again be this alone, after spending so long never being alone), she keeps a hold of their hand, and draws them in. Lets her free arm find the curve of their back in a gesture of comfort that once again has them flinching, if only for a second.

If only that, before they're--

Nobody likes a crybaby. And this is not like the times before, with Tim holding them in an almost punishing grasp, trying to keep them from flinging themself off the edge. It isn't Sans, picking a demon up off the ground. Lup's hold is loose at best, and Chara slumps down into it. Grasps at the edge of her robe in a tight grip, presses their face into cloth and pretends, pretends, that she won't see their shoulders shaking. Won't hear quiet noises, muffled by fabric as they let go of one misery and find themself running on empty, unable to hold up against the rest.

It shouldn't be possible to be this tired, when they're already asleep.

There's an exhaustion sitting heavily in her limbs, a tiredness of living and of dying over and over again, of being forgotten, of guilt and self-disgust, and she lets her head sink until her cheek rests on the crown of their head. Distantly, she realizes with some surprise how small the child in her arms really is, how thin, how undone. They're so good at making themself seem mature, self-controlled and self-reliant and dangerous, a spring-coiled knife. She'd been fooled by that to some degree too, even though she remembers what it's like to never let yourself show fear or doubt, to make yourself tall and confident so no one can hurt you or your twin.

Not really a twin, in their case. But a Partner, a second skin, a twin in Determination and anger. There'd been a family before that but they died choking on their own blood for a cause, for the future of their world and that had been it, severed from every bond that would have ever had a chance at giving them happiness and safety to balance their growing wrath. It's horrible and wrong and what made them become a demon-- Lup squeezes her eyes shut against a surge of hatred that isn't her own at all and rubs gently soothing circles into their back, more tears flowing quietly. It's okay and I'm here stick in her throat, she tries a lonesome "I know" but it seems pointless too and she's silent after that.

Time's weird in dreams so who knows how long they really sit like this. But eventually the trembling subsides and she finds a path around all the painful-familiar emotions in her head towards thoughts of morning, of the future. "Hey, Chara? If you're up for it, I... I wanna try it again some day. I think there's--- there's better music in us." A note of duty and devotion maybe, a desire for the best of everyone, that she only heard faintly under all their horrors. That's the one she'd like to practice.

Her words are hollow; a singular attempt that doesn't so much fall on deaf ears as it just falls; fails to fill in the silence that follows as they both attempt to regain what they'd lost in those seconds- composure, the fortitude to keep standing, however or whatever she wanted to call it, Chara wasn't going to argue.

Her cheek presses against the top of their head and the heat in their eyes builds as they remember the last time someone had held them like this- several months at least but probably more, so much time lost between now and that October that they can't tell if it's only been seven months or a year or five since Wade nuzzled his cheek against theirs and quietly told them it was okay, you saved me, kid. You're my hero.

And for all the world they can't help, collapsed in her arms as they are, but feel every inch of that agonizing loneliness at the blinding nostalgia for the second family they'd managed to lose, before they'd even had the time to consider them as such. Sans is gone. Wade might as well be gone. Rin was never here in the first place.

It's just them, and Frisk, and Tim. Three people who should never be left on their own, but it's all they have. It's enough, simply because it must be.

Quietly, Lup's voice intrudes on their thoughts, refocuses them as they shift across her front, sniff against a runny nose and open their eyes to red that is too familiar and hurts, but they won't close their eyes to it again, not right now. She wants to do this again; she wants to try- for a better song. Similarities that don't hurt, and they find that their pessimism doesn't truly stop them from the hope that somehow, there is something in them that might, if only barely, replicate the burning sense that there is still something worth having faith in.

She uses their name and they don't even notice, because like Frisk and Tim, it doesn't sound foreign when she says it.

"I wouldn't be averse to that." Chara eventually responds; and as they do, they pull away. Release her robes and sit upright, eyes red-rimmed and exhaustion clear, but it takes very little, right now, for her to see the mask rebuilding. Too determined to do anything but, even now.

"...But I would appreciate-- if you would keep this from Frisk, for the time being. My--"

...

"My Partner has enough to consider as is."

They pull away and she's almost reluctant to let them go, to increase the distance between them. But they're willing to try again and that's all the reassurance she needs to know that, despite everything, there's still hope in the both of them. Seeing them regain their composure, she can't help but mirror it, expression drawn and hollow but less raw, more controlled. They're still themselves and that means holding their heads up high, facing whatever comes next.

The echo of her black curtained prison is gone, torn away by the whirlwind of new yet familiar memories and impressions. So maybe it was a kind of comfort after all.

Frisk, they say, and she barely notices because it feels like she's known that name all along. Boy, this is all... it's a lot. It's gonna take some sorting. And how much of her is in that blood red soul now? Are they gonna look at Taako and feel, just a little, like he's-- like he's more important than anything in the world? Are they gonna dream of alien worlds? Will they find something besides this leaden exhaustion and guilt-- It's too much to think about and she's so tired. She wipes her sleeve across her eyes one last time and nods.

"For sure. Wasn't really gonna try and... and share this with anybody anyway." It's definitely not hers to lay on their Partner. Could she even tell Taako? Where would she even start? But that's something to figure out when she wakes up. God, she can't wait to see him. She glances away and realizes with some surprise that the two of them aren't alone in the world, there's a fire in the distance, the shapes of people milling about in its light. It feels weirdly daunting, far away, and for once she doesn't mind the isolation.

"D'you wanna just, stay here? Until we wake up?" She really doesn't think she could deal with any more memories right now, her own or other people's. And hey, if they're made to see anything else of each other, it's not like it's gonna be an invasion of privacy.

It's important, that she does let go. She gives them space and it is, at this point, sorely needed- the distant figures of others around the campfires still too close for their liking, even if they're far too tired to do anything about it. For once, the fumes of their being feel like they've gone out entirely- for once, it feels like something in them has pulled the proverbial brakes, knows enough to stop them from trying to muster the energy to stand when it's a pointless endeavor in the first place.

Something inside them, no matter how temporary it may be, stops. And in the morning, they may very well be all the better for it; more capable of pulling together the effort to go through the motions of the day without cracking with a single, unconscious influence of someone just as inclined to act, but with the experience to bend, just slightly, to the need to slow down.

"Sure." They don't coat their response in flowery verbiage, for once; now that she's agreed to keep this from Frisk, the guise drops. Something else to pull back together when they have the time and energy for it.

"...Lup?"

When they say her name, her gaze returns to them instantly, meandering restless thoughts focussed on them once more. She looks at their small frame drained of all that usual poise, sees this violated, angry, impossibly tired child and knows with sudden, overwhelming certainty that she'd do anything for them. She'd keep them safe and die for them, stop them if they ever needed it, be whatever they need her to be. All those things she'd do for Taako, or any other part of her family. As always, it feels good to be sure of something. Empowering, reassuring, to remember the strength that sits at the core of her being. And they're part of that core, now. Her exhausted expression regains some of its warmth as she meets their eyes.

"Yeah?"

Edited 2018-02-19 16:03 (UTC)

Slowly, they meet her gaze again. And it's a quiet uncertainty that they haven't felt in some time- a twisting, innate sense that they could share anything with her in this moment without judgement, that they want to, and it's a sensation so foreign and so, painfully familiar that they spend a moment just breathing, slowly closing their eyes against the sting and heat.

And for a moment, they have the wildest urge to- simply speak. Tell her something; about their day thus far. About Frisk and what had already happened, what will happen. About Tim, and the burning clench that accompanies the thought of both.

About...about their favorite book. Or that they really liked the gardens, enough so that they'd bear with the sun if they absolutely had to.

They just feel like telling her something, because a part of them is aware she'll listen. An eager over-enthusiasm to divulge simply because they have the option to, because the option's there.

They feel comfortable. And they feel safe.

"Thank you. For trusting me."

Edited 2018-02-21 04:33 (UTC)

They're thanking her, for trusting them. This child, who'd rather die again than admit a vulnerability, who'll bare their razor-sharp smile and wit at anyone who looks at them funny, who puts so much of their willpower into being closed off and untouchable that the exhaustion of it is enough to make two people wanna sleep for a hundred years, they're thanking her for trusting them. It's so buck wild she's quiet for a second, one ear briefly turning back in surprise.

But it may also be one of the best things she's ever heard. It means they don't regret it. It means, despite exposing their own pain and feeling hers, it was-- worthwhile. It was good. She knows exactly how she feels about that. Her ears sink to a comfortable angle, and she smiles.

"Thank you for showing me." Now, with just a little distance to the overwhelming rush of horrors and misery, she can say that with certainty, too. They gave her something that hurt, so much, but something that is precious. They gave her understanding. A comfort, a confidant that she didn't know was possible. Her voice is soft, full of affection, like she's holding this moment with velvet gloves.

"It's-- it means a lot to me. Like you." In this moment, knowing her soul, she thinks they might even have to believe that.

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achievementhunter - 2018-03-08 17:18 (UTC) - Expand

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[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

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1/??? HOO HOO BOY

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OKAY DONE

1/ look i can do this too

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GO

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