eastbound | un: starburst, toward the end of this arc.

Entry tags:

un: starburst, toward the end of this arc.

( Emilia di Carlo has seen better days, by the look of her. Her battle leathers are torn, soot and cuts still on her face — but she doesn't give in to the exhaustion just yet, nor the bile in her throat. First, she addresses the people of Alem, dignified and resolute. )

Prince Haiva sacrificed himself and leaves his sister, the young Cle-Florens, spared.

I was witness.

( A pause, then, as she allows that to sink in. )

Hell is sealed.

You fought with valor so others might live. I'm glad to have fought beside you, and will remember your fallen just the same.

If you've yet to evacuate, the time is now. Hassir awaits.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bits and pieces.

( Emilia does not turn to face him just yet, does not feel ready to welcome his acceptance. Instead, she thinks of everything else that now makes perfect and brutal sense. The reaction of his court. Anir's comments after the Sin Corridor. The way his brothers behaved — she sees it now for the test it must have been. All along she was taught the Malvagi were the villains of this story. All along. )

I remember Sursea coming to House Vengeance. How much she hated you for denying her.

( Him above all, somehow.

These memories have teeth, and Emilia feels the bite of them. A sharp breath lands in her chest wounded as she does finally turn, with the understanding she has betrayed him now in two lifetimes. Beyond the bruised nature of the desolation, confusion.

Sickness. She feels sick at recalling such a cruel game. Her hand in it. )

... How?

( Wrath knows what she must mean with that How? It does not sound like any story of love ever told in books, does it? Then again they were never the heroes of any story - only two immortal beings in Hell who found love together against every impossible odd set against them, including her very purpose in meeting him to be a betrayal.

It is strange and beautiful she knows the truth now - painful too. He can hear the pain in her voice, feel it more starkly through their connection. )

We were both different then.

( When they met, they were both crueler, more terrible beings who had not truly known love before - not in the way they found it with one another. He knows it is even more difficult for her to understand with so many of her mortal memories still at the forefront.

How could two terrible beings fall in love with one another? Wrath did not believe himself capable of love when they met. He takes a step closer to her, but does not ask her to turn before she is ready to. )

Emilia.

We changed one another. ( Now that she remembers this much, the curse does not lock his voice from speaking of this. ) You told me the truth the same evening we professed our true feelings. ( His jaw locks, working through that moment again now that his memory has not been so twisted. It was the same evening she disappeared right in front of him after those words were out. His hand flexes at his side. )

( Emilia is already shaking her head, half-certain whatever reasoning he gives will not absolve her of this terrible deed. But she brings herself to stillness once more as those words stir something in her memory, and she has to strain to reach it.

The effort is forceful enough that she can almost feel a sharp sensation at her temples, but once it comes, it's a flood. She calls back to the first vision she ever had, the two of them stealing a moment at a party. The vision had been hazy then where it is clear-cut now, as sharp as the pain that rings in her head: the witching hour, the night-blooming flowers, the crescent moon.

His vows before — before nothing. She was gone.

She looks to him again with more clarity than before, even as that wounding feeling persists. )

I asked you to meet me in the midnight garden.

( To confess everything. To refuse Sursea.

For the first time in years, she has arrived to some piece of the real truth. Her hand moves to her neck, an old habit she's failed to indulge in for some time, but her cornicello isn't there to grasp. Her fingers settle on her collarbone instead. )

We both denied her. ( And when Sursea learned it was the goddess of fury the king of demons fell for, she decided she did not want the retribution that would come when all was said and done. It — she sees it now. )

( When Emilia does look to him, he reaches for her. His hand drifts over her arm to turn her gently. His fingertip traces over where their shared tattoo spans across her skin, matching his own, signaling their connection even when she could not remember any of this. He sees the moment this memory returns to her too, and he cannot quite hold in his reaction to remembering it. The pain, anger, grief shifts across his expression all at once.

It should have been the night they walked away from together. It should have been the night she became his queen, but instead she was taken from him and he destroyed everything in his path because of it. He nearly killed several of his own brothers, killed many of their Houses.

He should have known. He should have remembered the curse given to him so long ago - Sursea who promised to take whatever he loved, but he was so blinded by his namesake sin, so overcome with it.

It was Sursea who deserved all of his violence, and he will seek retribution at the next opportunity. )

We did. And then you were... gone. ( The word is difficult to say. ) My memory was eventually taken too until you summoned me, and even then, it had been twisted.

( Wrong. )

( Emilia grows quiet as another question goes answered. Wrath is masterful at making himself unreadable and concealing his true intentions. But the day she summoned him to her circle, his hatred — hatred that was once so shared — felt so potent.

Real.

It had been. The memory of her had been twisted beyond recognition, their love for each other warped. And she — she'd grown up. She'd had a mortal family. Every memory of that life as real as their hate. She still can't fathom a spell that would erase centuries of existence. But then, Sursea isn't only a witch. She is the very first one, the direct descendant of a goddess. )

The marble statue in the garden.

( The woman with a crown of stars on her head and two daggers in hand, a goddess symbol etched at the bottom of her spine. That statue was not present in her former life, in that garden they'd sneak off to. She's certain of that much.

Her throat tightens as another realization comes to her, so tight her voice is barely a whisper when she speaks. )

It was so you wouldn't forget. ( Forget her. )

( Wrath's gaze remains on the tattoo where his finger traces the serpent as it spans up over the dagger, surrounded by flowers, by the moon. It is beautiful. He did not appreciate it at first with his twisted memories, thinking he had been bound permanently to someone he hated and someone who hated him in turn.

When he remembered after saving her, he feared how much she would grow to hate him further when she realized what the bond was - to be tied to someone she does not remember against her will. He knows what that is like. He gave up everything. He fell to avoid that fate for himself.

And unwittingly, he was part of providing her with that same fate without any guarantee that she would remember or even if she would love him still if she ever did. It is his curse she got wrapped up in, and look at all it has put her through, the powerful goddess of Fury.

It is only when she speaks that he lifts his gaze from her tattoo to her face, and his hand lifts, cups the side of her face, slipping into her dark hair. His answer is a nod, solemn and pained. )

It did not work.

( But it was his own way of fighting against the curse, against the inevitability. )

Didn't it?

( Her voice remains whisper-light, eyes closing as the warmth of his palm settles over her face. She leans into that warmth, her own hand lifting to settle near his forearm. Her turn, now, to trace the ink that she unwittingly gave them.

It does not escape her notice she would've never had the means to summon him without Vittoria. And something inside of Wrath must have remembered her enough for him to decide to save her life in the first place, that night the viperidae attacked.

Love has its own brand of magic, as curses have their loopholes.

She shakes her head, the motion brushing against his touch. She thinks of Nonna Maria and her secrets. The tightness gathers in her throat further, cinching it with rue. A betrayal that deep would have been unimaginable to her once, certainly from the woman who taught her duty and kindness and ferocity. The rock in her world when her twin died, except that wasn't true, either.

There is so little that she can trust at the moment, including herself, and she finds that so frightening. An emotion she did not think she could feel anymore, after learning she was once the most feared. For good reason.

A tear slides down her cheek. Her mortal heart aches. ) I want to restore my memories in full. I want all of my power, and I will make no apology for that. But I don't know if I can go back to being who I was.

( The person he first fell in love with. ) Not exactly.

Edited 2023-05-05 00:04 (UTC)

( Despite the pain in his expression, there is a soft smile on his face at the question, which should be answer enough. He recognized her. Despite the curse, despite everything that attempted to come between them, some part of him did recognize her, and he was terrified when he sensed her dying. He rushed to her side, rushed to save her - realized before he had fully remembered that some part of him would be destroyed if he lost her (again).

She is right.

He knew her. Wrath is now under the belief that he would know her absolutely anywhere in the universe, in any state. He would recognize his wife. His gaze drops again if only to watch the path her finger takes over his own tattoo, the soft loving nature of her touch. How he had feared they would never be able to get back to this place together, to one where she didn't hate him, fear him like mortals are taught to do.

When he lifts his gold gaze again, it is in time to see her tear that falls, his thumb slips over to catch it, to look at it. In this revealing moment, there is love in his face at the sight of her tear, her emotion, who she is now. )

I would not want an apology for either. I want your memories and power returned in full.

I do not need you to be who you were before. I certainly am not. ( He loves the person she is including the mortal parts. ) ...I did not realize how fond I would be of many of those mortal aspects of who you are now.

Edited 2023-05-05 01:10 (UTC)

( Emilia'd anticipated his acceptance of her caveat.

Many of the decisions he has made, ruthless and generous alike, have been in the hopes of preserving her ability to make choices freely. He understands better than most the need to cherish that, to fight for it at whatever cost.

His fondness, however, does manage to surprise her.

She eyes him with a bit of skepticism, though she's not entirely sure it's earned. She once thought he despised mortals, but she once thought a lot of things, having grown up hearing all sorts of twisted tales about him.

If they were true, his closest friend and right-hand man would not be Anir. He would not devour every cannoli in sight. Assumptions are the death of truth, he once told her, and she would do well to remember that in the pursuit of her own. )

You are?

( Wrath sees her skepticism. If he had been told this earlier, he would not have believed it himself, but it is true. Granted he has never hated mortals like many believe, like many are told. The stories of him have been so twisted over the years like the story of his horns - wings and not horns at all.

There is a softness to his expression in this rare openness, but she is his wife, and she does remember more - bits and pieces that he knows she is wrestling with, how they fit with who she once was, who that makes her now. )

I am.

( There is confirmation in the spoken word given without hesitation, with a strength to his tone of voice. His hand remains against her face but falls to find hers, linking their fingers together. )

Before the spell-lock, you weren’t interested in cooking. You seem relaxed when you’re creating, peaceful. Your mortal family did a lot wrong, but I feel like murdering them a little less when I see you looking at roasted garlic like it’s the most wondrous thing in our universe.

( ~~Direct, shameless quote from the book above.~~ )

( Emilia had assumed as much, even before Wrath confirmed it: what use would Fury have for something as nurturing as cooking? She'd been driven almost exclusively by her reason for being, to mete out punishment as the avenging goddess she was.

She recalls now it was a cold and lonely existence, with only her twin for company. Despite what she just told Wrath, Emilia does know that part of her is still very much alive and inside of her. The fire, the rage, the brutality. It was Fury Haiva last saw before he died. )

Roasted garlic is rather wondrous.

( A smile fights its way through, past any exhaustion and worries.

She looks down at their linked fingers, and uses that hold to tug him lightly toward the bed. The sky is as starless and dark as it was when he first stepped through, and she's getting nowhere just staring, expecting something to change. )

You cannot simply murder people when they upset me, you realize. ( She says it fondly though, barbarian that he is. )

Edited 2023-05-05 04:07 (UTC)

( Wrath follows Emilia easily into the bed, away from the door, away from the window, away from the rest of the world. He was certain to do a spell over their room so sounds could not leave it (and also dampened outside noise) like they are truly the only two individuals on the entire train - as if such a thing could be possible. In this moment, it nearly feels it.

Like so much can be shared in a moment. )

I cannot? I make no promises.

( He frowns, and given Wrath rarely reveals an emotion or expression, it is likely an amusing sight. There is a fondness in the gold of his eyes that is reserved solely for his wife though. )

What about maiming, torture? I should hope that is not out of the question.

( This is spoken against her lips before his mouth covers her own as they settle back on to the mattress. Naturally, the king and queen of the Underworld would truly have the most beautiful sentiment toward one another - full of violence and bite and fire and ice. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

un: starburst, toward the end of this arc.

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]