cancry | time ticks on

At the sound of her name, Rei tenses up. Her expression isn't angry, exactly, but it's the expression of a girl unexpectedly faced with something... unpleasant.

"... I don't know much. But there's things I've... guessed." Her lips pull into a tight, almost bitter smile that doesn't suit her at all – but for a disquieting moment makes her look so very much like the very girl they're discussing, just like all the times she has looked so much like Rei in turn. "She has my face. Or... I think I must have her face. From the way she talks and how it feels to be near her... she came first, didn't she? A long, long time ago."

An understatement, if ever there was one.

Mmm. Change the hair, crack the face, and a splitting image of that sardonic little smile on Birdie stands before him.

"You are," he starts with surprising delicacy given his crueler reactions just a few moments ago, "her heart, in a sense that is nearly literal. You care. Too much. Which is dangerous for someone who can't possibly have a life with other people and form connections."

". . . Her what?"

She's staring at him with total bafflement all over her face. It's not disbelief, exactly (because how can you disbelieve anything with Purgatory as strange as it is) but a lack of understanding as to what that even means – or how it could even be possible in the first place.

"But... I'm right here. And... she's still here. So how can I be...?"

"Is that the part out of all of this that's hardest to believe? I know not the means by which she split herself in two, though I suspect her particular sword might have a part to play in that. One can live, so to speak, without heart."

He opens his hand, motions slowly between them. "You are her heart that cared too much, and we are now, as well, part of your heart."

Her gaze drops again. It does make sense – it would explain why she knows as much as she does about Purgatory (even though at times it feels like frightfully little) and why she alone has the power to bring new Executors into their fold. Does that make her some sort Authority then, separate from the shared Authority they'd won from Esme all that time ago?

She swallows hard.

"... do you really think, then... if we do repair the Cogs – even if we fix everything – will I still be... here? When the rest of you move on... I'll have to stay behind?"

And isn't that so terribly earnest.

He believes it, at least. That she really hadn't considered that. Which then presumes beyond that that there was never some nefarious plot to keep them here as her friends forever.

█████ inside of him, the thing, the monster, the beast, the forgotten, the unloved, the left behind, growls something fierce. Chiron seems to crumple in on himself. He is so tired. He is so tired of this back and forth, and every memory he makes himself look at only intensifies the exhaustion. If only--

"I'm afraid," voice weary, "that you are as much a part of this place as she is. You did not live. There is unlikely any chance for you to move to a new life, then." It's hard to look at her, now. He stares below, shoulders slumped, arms wrapped about his knees. Teetering on an edge that will do nothing to him.

"Perhaps we should speak to the others. About you, and her. And the possibility of avoiding such a lonely fate."

"Ah–"

Though she had been the one to step back from him before, now Rei is the one stepping forward, hands reaching out as if to grab hold of him and restrain him, like he's about to march off and start talking to the others right this second.

"W–wait... when you say we'll talk to them... do you mean we're going to tell them everything?"

"Whyever would we keep anything from them at this point?" A glance to her. And her outstretched hands. "You think they'll turn on you. Abandon you."

The irony. He's torn. Because he knows they won't. They've all collectively done this song and dance before; they will stay by her side through it all.

His life tells him otherwise. That they'll abandon her just as easily as they trusted her.

"N–no, but..."

Or so she tries to say, but the way her eyes slide away from his makes it clear her answer is yes, actually.

"I kept things from them. And I... let them all pity me and care for me because of what they thought had happened to me, even though I should've known better. At the very least, they'll be angry with me."

"And?" he prompts.

"And then what? Some will be angry." Phoenix will not, annoyingly. Wolfsbane and Sword, perhaps. Medic and Veil will be mindlessly uncaring. "Is your skin so paper thin that it cannot take a single negative glance your direction? Would it not be worse to keep lying to them?"

"I–I know it would be, but...!"

She tries to meet his gaze again, but she finds she's not quite able to do it and they flick away to the horizon.

"... I'm scared. And... I don't even know how to start explaining it to them."

"From the top is the usual way to do it."

He unfolds himself again, stretching up fingers high (do some joints pop look shh maybe) and up on his toes, before relaxing again and taking a deep breath.

"Look at it this way: it's going to come out sooner or later. When do you think it would be better? Sooner, while we're collectively waiting with bated breath to altogether descend into whatever new madness awaits us, or later when we're standing before the Cogs you told us about in the first place so long ago when we entrusted ourselves to you?"

"... I'm being unfair, aren't I?"

They've placed so much trust in her – they've had to, because who else did they even have in Purgatory? And here Rei is, thinking the worst of them, refusing to give them any of that trust in return. Before he can give her a response, Rei takes a deep breath of her own and tries her best to steel herself a little.

"I... want to tell them. I don't understand all of it, but if we all talk about it together... I'm sure we can come up with an answer."

time ticks on

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