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Dissonant Hearts (Degusaurusrex x AndrewS)

Adelaide could see full well the looks they were giving her while she ate, but she didn't care enough to stop and say anything. They had all been running on overdrive the last few days, and after the amount of energy and magic she'd expended working on Isen's gift, she was famished. Instead, she watched them go back and forth about the plan and the drones while she ate, raising an eyebrow as Isen looked at her and insisted that she wouldn't be going with him and Takami. Like hell she wasn't.

"Hey! I'm starving, sue me." She stopped eating when Samara referenced her meal, setting the remainder of the burger down and making a face. "I heard you guys talking, but I wanted to finish my food first. At least I got through most of it." Good enough, she could finish the rest before they left, or take it to go. "You're not leaving me behind, you'll need me to teleport you all out when it's time to leave, especially if anyone shows up suddenly. Not a chance I'm staying behind twiddling my thumbs waiting for you to get back."
 
"I can't let you go." Isen told her. It was a simple, confident declaration in the face of the stubbornness he knew she would display.

"He's afraid of the future the witch saw." Ignas answered for him.

Isen didn't like that Ignas said he was afraid of it. He wasn't afraid of that future, they were going to change it...at least, he told himself that. In truth, maybe there was some credibility to the demon's claim. For Adelaide to do what Samara saw her do, it meant that they would have gotten ot her at some point. He would be bringing her straight into the proverbial lion's den if she came with him. Not only was she at risk, so too was their future and with it, the entirety of their plan and everything they had been working towards.

For Isen, there was no debate.

"I didn't tell you about that future so that you could be a coward about it, Isen." Samara told him, bluntly. "It's adorable that you want to protect her, really, it is, but does she look like someone who needs to be coddled? She just charmed an entire diner without breaking a sweat. She made her familiar change shape, she has access to every single spell that she has ever seen me do and I'd hazard to bet that she can do most of them better than I can too. Who's to say that the future I saw didn't happen because the two of you decided to split up?"

"But..."
 
"I'm not a child, you're not going to stop me." The annoyance in her voice was painfully clear, and even if he was afraid like Ignas said, she hadn't come this far just to sit back and let the men do all the work.

"What if Samara is right?" She was sick and tired of people trying to protect her when it came to the dangerous things. They needed her, needed the things she could do with her magic, and he wanted her to stay away just because she might get hurt? "No, fuck that." She pushed her way out of the booth, picking up Ember who had huddled underneath in hope of fallen food, and plopped her onto Samara's lap before huffing.

"I'm going, and that's that. You can try to stop me all you want, but I'm not going to be treated like a child." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose before shaking her head. "I need to clear my head." She rubbed her fingers over the ring and murmured softly before disappearing entirely from the diner, stumbling over broken ground when she landed some blocks away and continued walking.

To hell with being told what she could and couldn't do. At least with the illusion of someone else's face she was able to walk freely, hands stuffed into her pockets as she took a deep breath and kept down the street. Samara would take Ember back to the shop with her and keep the familiar safe, but for now, the mage needed some fresh air to clear her head after that fiasco.
 
Was she angry with him? It sure seemed like it. Her voice told him everything he needed to know.

Had he been treating her like a child? His only experience with properly protecting somebody, before Adelaide, was his little sister, so it was entirely possible that his protectiveness had gone a little over board. Samara was right, Adelaide wasn't fragile. She could do incredible things, things that even a witch as experienced and powerful as her couldn't. He just wanted to keep her safe. Why did it have to be so damn complicated?

She had disappeared within an instant, her teleportation magic ripping her from the seat of the diner and to some place else. He presumed she wouldn't have gone outside of the city, but the way his heart sank through his chest and into the pit of his stomach when he watched her go may as well told her that she had gone to the other side of the planet and then some.

There was an awkward lull that had fallen over the group jumbled into a diner booth. Nobody seemed to know what to say, or want to say anything at all, but he could feel all of their eyes on him. He was to blame, after all.

He remained frozen there, for a moment longer, finding that even Ignas had no idea what to say to him in that moment.

It was finally Samara who broke the quiet. "What's wrong with you?" She asked, sighing underneath her breath. "Go after her, you idiot. What are you waiting for?"

Isen could see in the face of Isabella that she was hoping he would do the same. Ember peered up at him from Samara's lap with a look of judgement. The only one who didn't seem to be on his case was Takami. He just seemed disappointed that Isen was continuing to waste the chance he had been given.

"...I will." He told them, standing up from the table.

"I'll get everybody else to the shop safely, your job is to bring Adelaide back." Samara instructed him and he nodded his head. He go wherever it would take to make this feeling go away. For once, he wished Ignas would do a better job at dulling his human side's emotions so he wouldn't need to experience them right now. "Don't make things worse."

Isen slowly backed out of the booth and then, the diner itself. Once he hit the concrete outside, he began to run, leaving the rest of the group behind him.

"Hopeless, those two. Utterly hopeless." Samara sighed, reaching across to take what remained of Adelaide's burger for herself. "What? It's hard out here babysitting them. Let me live."

~~~

"Ignas?"

"What is it?"

Isen made an initial pass around the block but he wasn't able to hear her or see her. He couldn't focus properly even if he wanted to.

"Can you track her? The ring? Something?"

"..."

"Ignas. Please." Isen repeated, an act of desperation in his voice. Even the demon in his sword couldn't ignore the pain his host felt.

"...take a left. She's still in the city, I can feel her magic."

"...thank you." Isen responded, following the direction he had been given.

"For the record, I never wanted any of this for you. I knew that you getting mixed up with that girl was going to be bad for you."

"Then why didn't you stop me?"

"Stop you? I've been trying to stop you from the beginning. I can numb your feelings, I can take away your pain, your hunger but her? I couldn't get her out of your head with all of the dark magic in the world. Believe me, I've been trying."

"You've been trying this whole time?"

"Every single day...but it's a stubborn feeling. I couldn't break it, no matter how hard I tried. I guess some emotions, when real enough, are too strong to be suppressed...turn right."

As he made a turn on to the next street, he saw a figure walking in the distance. It took him very little effort to reach her side, sweeping her off to the side of the road and into the nearby alleyway. He had found her, thanks to Ignas, now he just had to make sure she didn't zip herself away again. She was using an illusion but he knew it was her. His hands moved to her shoulders, holding her steady.

"Stop...we should talk."
 
Idiots. Why were men such idiots sometimes? She knew that Isen could be naive and say things he didn't understand the implications of, and that he was clearly protective of her, but this was insane. Why would they have gone to all the effort of perfecting spells, strengthening the EMP, and everything else they'd spent days doing just for her to sit at home like a housewife awaiting her husband returning from work? Neither he nor Takami could teleport, so who was supposed to get them out of there on the chance that something went wrong?

"Stupid." She wondered for a moment if either of the other women were chewing him out for what he'd done, or if Ignas was giving him hell for what was definitely one of their few spats throughout the week they'd known each other. Ember was surely yelling at him and coming across only as angry feline screaming, while Ignas may or may not translate what her familiar said just to mess with Isen.

She'd been walking for a bit when she found herself abruptly swept off the street and down a dark alley, her hands coming up in preparation to strike when she realized it was Isen who had grabbed her by the shoulders and held on. How had he found her so easily? A look down at Onigoshi and she knew the truth, her eyes narrowing as she all but spit venom at him.

"Why? So you can tell me what I'm allowed to do and not do, and how I need to sit at the shop like some docile little wife until you come back? No, I'm going with you two, and that's final. You need me, and you're sure as hell not going to take away another opportunity for me to fuck them over after everything they've done. Now let go of me and go back!"
 
He let her vent her frustration but he did not let go of her when she told him to do so. He remained firm, holding her through her tantrum and waiting until she was done. He didn't interrupt her, in truth he deserved every word that she lashed out at him with.

When it was over, he remained quiet, looking at her for some time, like he couldn't find the words he needed to say to make this right.

He heard Ignas sigh within his head before the demon spoke so that the two of them could hear. "If you don't tell her what's going on in your head, I will, if only to get the two of you to shut up."

"...I'm sorry for making you feel like I was treating you like a child." He finally manned up, breaking his silence with a downtrodden look upon his face. He remained holding her, shaking his head. "Get rid of the illusion, you don't need it."

Isen felt such confliction inside his head, a conflict that Ignas threatened to reveal to her without his blessing. He wasn't really given much of a choice, was he? "You're not like her. You don't need me to protect you, I know that." He thought of the only thing he could, the comparison that was too forward in his mind to ignore. She said he was treating her like a child. He had been taking care of one for years before Ignas came into his life, it was the only sense of normalcy he had. His nature, his desire to be a protector, his need to make up for all the wrong he had done; he was imposing all of that on to her and it wasn't right.

He had made such a point to tell her to let go of her pain when he was just as guilty for not moving on as she was.

"I don't want to lose you."

That statement said way more than he could properly put into words. She was the thing keeping him tethered to the human side he thought he had lost. She was the one bringing him back from the dark place he had been. She was the reason why he felt like his life wasn't something that needed to be thrown away, haphazardly, at the end of some sort of suicide pact to escape his past. She made him want to try to be better.

She deserved better. His sister deserved better.

God, they deserved better.

"The thought of that happening is not something I want to deal with. I know that I can be a bit...much, at times...and that you don't need my protection, but if I can't protect the people that I care about then I am, without a doubt, everything awful that I thought I was since the night I lost Meribell....a killer...a demon...somebody not worth saving. A curse, not just to myself but to anybody I come into contact with. I don't know what I'm saying...but to lose you would mean to lose myself and I've only recently begun trying to piece back together who I used to be."
 
Was he really going to just stand there and not say anything? The way that he simply looked at her and refused to let her go only made her angrier, and she continued her tantrum a step further by stomping her foot and huffing. The nerve of this man, chasing her down and then not allowing her to leave without knowing she'd take him wherever she teleported to!

"Great, the demon's here." Of course he was there, Isen wouldn't have come after her without a weapon to defend himself if something went wrong, but hearing Ignas' voice still grated on her already worn thin nerves.

"Why?" Adelaide was already removing the illusion even as she questioned him, her face set with an annoyed expression as she allowed him to speak. Whatever he had to say, it had better be good or she was leaving even if she had to tear away from him to do it.

"No, I'm not a child." Yet he insisted on treating her like she was as fragile as one, like she was even more fragile than the stoned vampire he had been temporarily babysitting. She had teleported them several times now, bewitched entire rooms full of people, even thrown a cab at Takami upon their meeting, and he was acting like she was glass in danger of shattering if he wasn't there to protect her at all times.

"You're not going to lose me." Her expression faltered from annoyance to one of confusion and concern. Why was he acting like this all of a sudden? This wasn't like Isen, this wasn't logic, or anything of the sort. This was emotion, and even though he had begun to open up over the last week compared to when she'd first met him, the last thing she had been expecting was this. Why did it matter what happened to her when he wanted her to kill him at the end of this all?

"You're not going to lose me, stupid," Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh, but she was as awkward at this conversation as he was, and after a moment she raised a hand to settle on one of his. "I mean, you're not stupid, you're just... Unused to this. I don't want to lose you either, which is exactly why I'm going with you. I'm not ready for you to disappear yet. We've been through so much, what kind of shitty ending would that be if one of us died because the other wasn't there?"
 
Once more, he deserved the stinging tone that she spoke to him with. Even as she corrected herself, or rather better explained what she meant, it didn't really change anything about what he was feeling. He was scared to lose her. He was more afraid of the future that awaited them than he had ever let on nor would ever admit to her. This was out of his control. So many things had been out of his control. Even with the power he had been granted, an immunity to the one thing that everybody should have been terrified of, it wasn't his death that scared him because that could be changed. It was what would happen to her.

"I'm not ready for you to disappear yet."

She still thought he was going to go after all of this was over.

Isen had been avoiding the subject for days now. He didn't want to make a hasty decision, nor did he want to tell her when it was possible that his mind might change. But, that was unfair of him. He was leading her to believe that even if they avoided the doomed future that was foreseen, there was no happy ending beyond revenge, a revenge he wasn't sure would even satisfy her at this point.

He needed to come clean, but how?

Isen let go of her. He didn't think she would teleport away or run off again. His hand moved down towards his pocket. He could still feel it there, burning against the fabric, the key that Samara had given to him. Retrieving it from where he had been hiding it from her, thankful now that he hadn't removed it like he had originally planned, he took her hand and turned it, palm up, so that he could place the key directly into the center. He didn't understand how exactly this thing was supposed to work, Samara had just told him that Adelaide would know what to do with it.

His hand closed over hers, keeping the small, metallic object that was clearly spelled with some sort of magic trapped between both of their touch.

"I didn't want to give this to you yet, but it's the only way I can explain to you what's going on with me. Samara said you'd know what to do with it..."

The spell on the key was meant for teleportation, it was meant to take Adelaide to the gift he had prepared for her, with Samara's help. It was premature, and it was improper to give her a Christmas gift this early, but when had they ever done anything by the book?
 
Adelaide contemplated leaving for only a split second when he let go, but instead her hand fell back to her side as she watched him dig in his coat pocket. Now what was he doing? She watched curiously as he pulled out something and then took her hand, placing what looked like a key in her palm. Why did she need a key? The puzzled expression on her face openly displayed her emotion as his hand covered hers, and it wasn't until she felt the magic radiating from it that she understood.

"Where..?" She almost asked where they were going but stopped herself partway through the question, tightening her grip on his hand and closing her eyes. Clearly Samara had had a hand in making and enchanting the key, which meant that inevitably there was a reason for it she was going to learn. If part of it didn't include the witch trying to play matchmaker again, she was going to be incredibly surprised.

"Okay, let's go." She murmured and words and focused on the feel of the key, the warm metal between their hands and the magic that was pulsing there. The way that it called to her, singing softly as she found herself reciting a spell without realizing what she was doing. Her hand remained tight around Isen's as the alleyway around them swirled and faded, the whirling snow disappearing and being replaced by a complete absence of snow. It was still cold, but when she opened her eyes there was no snow surrounding them, just a light breeze in the evening and a solid wooden door.

"Isen." Her voice shook as she focused on the door, her hand gripping his so tightly it might have threatened to break a normal human's. "Is this.. It can't be." The hand not holding his reached out to grasp at the doorknob and twist slowly, hesitantly before she pushed it open, and the sight inside the door nearly took her to her knees.

She had no idea how this had been accomplished even with Samara's help, or if it was simply an illusion. What lay behind the door was her childhood home, free of the carnage that had been present the last time she'd been there. There were no more blood streaks across the floor where her father had pulled himself to die beside her mother, no broken lamps or picture frames on the floor.

No, the pictures were back on the shelves, and the worn couch was just that, worn but not split open and stained with blood. The games under the living room table were still there and the boxes free of dust, and the blanket that her mother had gotten her for one of her birthdays was folded neatly on the back of the couch as she released Isen's hand and left the key with him.

"How?"
 
Isen had been here before, a couple of hours ago in fact, but the time he had spent there with Samara wasn't exactly the same. This was for Adelaide. All of it was for her.

At first, he felt guilty even taking the credit for this. The gift, in and of itself, was Samara's idea, but the witch had simply wanted to craft an illusion based off of visions she had seen of the day Adelaide's family had been attacked. Isen was not content with that. He wanted the real thing, so much so that he had pestered Samara into helping him recreate it. With her magic, she repaired and fabricated while he used his strength to over turn destroyed walls, to dig through rubble and wreckage for things that might have meant a lot to her or her family in the past. The whole building was a mess, blood stained and burnt, it was a troublesome ordeal.

But they had done it.

What waited beyond the wooden door was as perfect a recreation of Adelaide's childhood home as they could have made. It wasn't an illusion but the real thing, down to the very scent that wafted in the air when she stepped through the door frame.

"I told you that we'd find another place to call our own..." He spoke, but hesitantly, moving the key between his fingers idly to try and distract himself from how awkward it felt being so emotionally open with her. It was difficult, though not impossible, and he could tell from the look on her face that this was nothing like what she had expected. "For now, and for the future."

If that wasn't an admittance of what he had decided, what he said next would make it clear beyond a doubt.

"For life...after you've separated me and the demon."
 
"What?" At first Adelaide had thought she'd misheard him, her head snapping in his direction as her eyes widened. "The future? Our future?" That couldn't be right, they didn't have a future once the DSTF had been taken down and her revenge was complete. Their future was destined to end with her separating him from Ignas and then making sure he died, regardless of if Ignas survived or not.

"But I thought..." The home was forgotten for a brief moment before she looked around again, inhaling deeply and taking in everything before she laughed. "You're not teasing me, are you? All this time--I thought we had a deal and that I had to complete that when we fought the DSTF and beat them. I want them all dead, but I don't want you dead. Are you telling me that I don't have to do that anymore?" She paused before moving closer to him again, looking him straight in the eyes to assure herself she had his full attention.

"I don't have to kill you anymore?"
 
Hearing it out in the open like that made it feel real. And it made him feel silly for having held it back for so long.

"No...I think I want to keep living. I still want to be separated but..." His eyes roamed until they found hers, holding her stare, straight and focused as his head shook slightly. "I don't want to die anymore. I have a reason to keep moving forward."

He hadn't before, but now, he did. But did she realize that the reason he spoke of was standing straight in front of him? That it was her?

"...you have given me that. You have made me realize that I can be more, that I'm not what my past says that I should be."

God, he was awful at this. He was fumbling his way through disjointed, confused thoughts and just hoping that he could spew out something that made sense without completely embarrassing himself. He was so out of his depth but trying to tread water, she couldn't have expected anything less from him. He was sheltered, he was not used to feeling anything, especially not something so strong, but he was here. With her. This was to be their home. He had never had a reason worth living as strong as the desire he now had to be here, with her, when their fight was over.

"When this is over, I want to live. I want to live as long as my body will allow. No magic, no curse, just...us. I want to live the life I was robbed of and give you the one that you should have had from the start...no more fighting, no DSTF, no pain."

Standing before her like this, finally releasing the emotional weight that had built in his chest, Isen felt suddenly naked. It was as if every part of him was for her to see, the depths of the complicated mess of emotions that had strangled him for far too long. Regret, sadness, desire and hope, all swirling in a riptide and her, his anchor through it all, granting him stability in a storm that would have buried the old version of him beneath the tide.

But now was time for an awkward retreat. He had given too much, shown too much. Her gaze had pierced his own, he couldn't look at her anymore. Was it fear of rejection? Or was it fear that she had finally seen a side of him he had tried so hard to hide? A side of him that was capable of compassion, of optimism and perhaps, one day, love.

"I...apologize, for being so careless and for making you feel like you were a child. I just wish for you to understand now that what you've become for me is something worth protecting, future be damned. This is your home...as you are mine."

"Cast it. Cast the spell. I don't want to be here to listen to anymore of this disgusting nonsense. Do it. Put me out of my misery, please."

Isen would have laughed had he not been so acutely aware of her stare and of the way the room seemed to suffocate him beneath the tension.
 
She didn't realize just how much she wanted to hear those words until they were spoken. The last decade of running, hiding, faking an identity and keeping herself out of the clutches of the DTSF. Her promise to herself not to get close to anyone after her friends had been killed, to focus everything she had on revenge even if it killed her, all of it had come to this moment. All of it had come to realizing that she'd opened herself up more in the last week than she had to anyone else in the last decade, and now she was being given a second chance at life... If they survived it.

He was more than his past, but it was a sight to behold to hear him openly admit it without persuasion. When had he finally realized this, how long had he been keeping it from her? Of course Samara would have had a hand in it, but at that moment she could probably have kissed the witch for her help in this gift. A home of her own, their own when this was all over, what more could she ask for after everything she'd lost?

"No pain." She echoed the words and nodded, although she frowned when he looked away from her. How could he tell her that she was his home and then not look at her? "Very well, Ignas." She didn't hesitate to cast the spell that would shut him out of their heads, out of the room, out of the very reality that she stood inside of with her companion.

"This can be our home." She felt as awkward as he did when she took his hands, holding them firmly and giving them a light squeeze. "When this is all over and there's nothing left to fight for, nothing left to cause us pain, this can be our home and our new life."
 
Hearing Ignas disappear from his head made the entire situation only made him more aware of how now, there was no distraction from what he had said, from what he had just promised her. He kept his eyes averted until she took his hands, the act of which brought his attention back to her again, not that it had ever left. What was he to do now? He had told her just about everything besides the obvious and even that didn't really need to be stated at this point. Everybody else had seen it coming long before they ever did, there was no surprises left to be had between them not that he had told her the truth about his change of heart, but matters of the heart were what had complicated things to begin with.

At least Ignas wasn't there anymore to tease him about this later.

For a brief moment, there was a smile gingerly curving his lips. It was fleeting, but it was there, plain as day, before he forced it back down. Old habits were hard to break and even though he was trying to get used to his human side again, to showing her these different feelings and sides of him, it was still a defensive reflex to hide it. But, there was no Ignas here to mess with his head. His emotions now, in that moment, were as real as they had ever been. Unfiltered, unaltered and completely undone.

He had no answer as to how it had gotten to this point, but he didn't care. He had never been more happy to not know right from wrong.

He let go of her hands, pulling his own away from her. This lasted for all but a second before his arms had moved, in sync, curling around her waist and drawing her against his chest, initiating an embrace. He held her tightly to his own form, feeling the softer form of her body melt into his own, sharing his warmth with her. He could feel it. He felt everything. Every touch, the way she felt as though she fit perfectly in the space he had trapped her within. He had no intentions other than to hold her, to share this moment and express what he couldn't put into words.

"Thank you...for finding me."

That sentence had too many different meanings for him to go through, ranging from the fact that she had tracked him through a blizzard to how she had pulled him out of his own, self-destructive anguish. If this was to be their home, their future, he had no regrets anymore about anything he had done to lead him to this moment and he knew, somewhere, that his sister would be happy for him, that she would want him to live his life and let go. He had suffered enough. Now, it was time to start living again. Not for revenge, or for a chance to atone for his sins.

It would be for himself. And most importantly, it would be for her.
 
He was smiling. For a moment Adelaide thought she had imagined it, that maybe it was wishful thinking due to the heightened emotions in the situation. No, he had definitely smiled, as brief as it was, and she found herself staring in stunned silence as she processed what she'd seen. Isen had smiled, and just moments later she found herself tucked against his chest surrounded by his arms. When had they gotten there?

There was only a brief pause before she moved, wrapping her arms around him in return and burying her face against him. This was home. Whether it was just the house itself or having him there with her, this was the home she had to look forward to when everything was said and done.

"I think we both found each other in a way." Her voice was slightly muffled against him before she lifted her head to look up, her cheeks pink and her eyes filled with tears as she sniffled. "Can we, uh, stay here for a bit before we go back? I haven't been here in so long, I want to look around and just.. Stay here for a bit, if that's okay with you."
 
Isen nodded his head, holding on to her tighter still as she asked if they could stay. He had no intentions of leaving or going anywhere else. He wanted to be at her side for the night and for every further night to come. It was a reminder of how badly they needed to fight to change their future.

"That's fine with me." He responded, in turn, pulling back slightly so that he could look at her face, so that he could see her response. His fingers moved, slowly, towards her cheek. He was gentle, delicate, almost as though he didn't know what he was doing trying to be so precise. Swiping against the tears that were falling from her eyes, he wiped them off of her cheek and let his hand fall back down, once more, to take one of hers. "We can stay for as long as you'd like." This time was theirs.

"I know I've sort of been here already by now but would you mind giving me a tour?" He wanted to see her reaction as she walked through their recreation, through her new home, to hear her stories about her home. Every room would hold a memory, a tale, reminding her of something she had forgotten or letting her relive something that had never left her mind. He was excited and happy for her to see it all.
 
"As long as I like?" She had no desire to rush back to Samara's, they would be fine for a couple of hours without them, right? Ignas was quiet, Ember was safe with Samara, Isabella and Takami, so she had nothing to attend to other than the current moment. "Yeah, I can give you a tour." The pink in her cheeks darkened as his fingers swept over her cheeks, and she looked somewhat embarrassed by the tears she was shedding before she banished it. Why should she be ashamed for getting emotional over something so monumental and meaningful?

"Well, you already see the living room. We would play games out here," She pulled back to gesture to the boxes of board games under the table by the couch, giving it only a brief glance before she started off slowly toward the kitchen. They had to pass through a large opening that connected the rooms to reach it, and she ran her fingertips over the table that they'd used to eat meals at.

"We ate most of our meals together, when we were all home at the same time." She pointed to the stove across the room before going to it, crouching down and pulling out the drawer at the bottom where the pans still resided. After a brief moment of looking she pulled out a flat square one and began to laugh, pointing to the black streaks still etched into the metal before placing it back in the drawer.

"I think I was about twelve, I stole some of my dad's magic to help cook my mom breakfast. Burned the hell out of the pancakes but still served them like nothing was wrong. The look of pure horror on her face when she bit into them.. I can't believe she choked them down." Adelaide shook her head and stood back up, looking around the room she had spent so many years learning to cook in, trying and failing many different meals in.

"Uh, well, the bathroom doesn't really hold that much importance, I guess." Did the night she got busted coming home after drinking and fell into the shower count? Her cheeks turned scarlet as she glanced into the bathroom and remembered half ripping the curtain down as she stumbled and tried to make it into the shower, succeeding in waking her parents at nearly three o'clock in the morning and earning a stern talk about drinking responsibly.

"This.. This was my room." She hesitated just outside of the door to her room, a hand raised in the air just in front of it before she pushed the door open and gasped softly. Everything was the same, from the mirror on top of the dresser to the plain gray covers decorating the bed. It was like she'd never left it, never lost her home in the first place.

"I had a lot of talks with my mom in here. I remember the day she got mad I tracked all the water and mud in as a kid. We'd just had a big storm and the rain was finally letting up. I went outside and played in the rain for what felt like forever, then we stood out there and watched the rainbow that covered half the sky. Maybe not that much, but to a kid it seemed like it was that big. I ran inside to warm up after and left muddy boot prints all down the hall. I ended up crying when they yelled at me, and my mom came in and just held me until everything was alright and I fell asleep."
 
Isen began to follow Adelaide through her home, listening to her recount memories from her childhood. At first, it was nothing more than a simple tour down memory lane. But that wasn't all that it remained.

When they were in the kitchen, he thought he had heard voices; it was subtle, the sound of a family talking, making idle conversation. With how good his hearing was, it was strange that he was even listening in on something that didn't appear to be there. He played it off as his minds playing tricks on him here in an otherwise empty house. That would have been a fine explanation had that been the only thing out of place.

In the bathroom, Isen thought he heard the sound of something falling but nothing was out of place. "Did you hear that?" He asked her, confused, but the tour continued and there didn't appear to be any sign that what he was hearing was actually really. He could feel magic in the air, but he wasn't sure if this was some sort of spell or that was residual magic still lingering from the spells Samara had cast.

It wasn't until they got into her bedroom that it finally hit him fully; he wasn't just hearing things, he was experiencing them. He heard foot steps, first, then, as he peered out into the hall, he saw a small child in a rain jacket prancing down the hallway, leaving behind wet, muddy tracks against the carpet that seemed to fade almost as quickly as they had been made. If Isen didn't know better, he'd say he was seeing a ghost. This happened again, inside her room, the same child hunched over on the bed, crying from being yelled at by her parents until a woman, presumably her mother, sat at her side and cradled her.

"Adelaide..." Isen pointed out, reaching for her, grasping his hand around her arm. "Are you....are you doing this?" He pointed in the direction of the bed, uncertain if she could even see what he had been seeing.
 
"What?" She had been staring at the spot on the bed near the pillows where she distinctly remembered her mother rocking her to sleep, and the sound of Isen's voice coupled with his touch snapped her out of her daze, even if she still found herself staring at the spot.

"Am I doing what?" When she finally turned to look at him she was surprised to see his eyes on the same spot, and for a brief moment she thought she could hear her mother murmuring and comforting her. To hear the sound of her voice after a decade was almost enough to shatter her on the spot, and her hand grabbed for Isen's arm where she clutched at him before forcing herself to take a seat on the bed.

The spell Samara had given her.

"Did you see her?" Her voice was soft as she looked up at him, her hands now clasped loosely in her lap. "My mother. We really do look alike, or at least that's what my father always said."
 
"Yeah. Her and a child." He explained what he was seeing a little bit more. As she sat down on the bed, he heard another sound towards the door. She was standing in it, as clear as day, telling the child about how they were going to visit their grandmother. "I don't understand why this is happening. Did Samara put some sort of spell on the house?" He asked, out loud, looking towards Adelaide for clarification though she probably had no idea either.

It was like he was seeing into her memories, recounting things that she had done in the past while she was still here. He didn't feel threatened, not at all, but it certainly seemed like something here was trying to let him see parts of her mind that he shouldn't have been able to see.

There was no way Samara had done anything like this. He was there with her the entire time, she hadn't cast a single spell outside of the restoration work they did on the home. It didn't make sense and he knew for a fact that it wasn't actually a ghost. He found himself wishing Ignas was still here, at least he could have maybe provided some sort of explanation.

"Do you feel any magic here?" He asked her, next, though adding clarification. "Magic that shouldn't be here." There was magic all around them, after all.
 
"Well, that's one I could have gone without." She wrinkled her nose of the memory of her mother saying they were due to visit Lorelei. "Traitorous bitch." Why was it happening, indeed? How did she explain that?

"No there's no magic that shouldn't be here, just magic that snuck its way out." She gave him a smile that was somewhere between sad and apologetic, patting the bed beside her and waiting for him to join her. "Do you remember when I got those spells from Samara? One of them had something to do with us opening up to each other... I thought the night with the lanterns was it, but I guess not. I didn't expect you to actually see my memories." At least he hadn't seen any that were too embarrassing... Right?

"Uh... Is that all you've seen? Just those two? Never mind, it doesn't matter. There are so many things that have happened in this room. The first date I got stood up on," She glanced toward the mirror and waved a hand at it lazily, trying to focus and bring forth the mental images of standing in front of the mirror, dressed in her jean skirt and sweater--how embarrassing--crying her eyes out when she realized that she had been the victim of a cruel joke.

"Or the time we had a dog for a little while." The next image was the black and white puppy rolling around on the bed with a child sized Adelaide, giggling and burying her face in its fur as it yipped and wagged its tail happily. "We didn't have him for long, but it was one of the happiest times here."
 
Sitting himself down beside her, Isen turned his head to thoughtfully listen to Adelaide's explanation of what was happening around them. Of course Samara was behind this. She probably intended it to be some sort of spell that would bring them closer together, ever playing the matchmaker, trying to bring them both closer than they already were. She had none from the very start that things would end up this way; was it her foresight or were they just that obvious?

Now that she was aware of what was happening, it seemed like she could control it, at least on a basic level, shifting the surface of the mirror to present different memories to them both. One of a girl who had been heart broken, the other of a child enjoying the company of a furry companion. Ember joining them had probably been very therapeutic for Adelaide, even if she wasn't the typical sort of pet one would expect to care for. He leaned into her side as she experienced memories, both pleasant and not so.

"At least you aren't seeing mine. I don't think either of us would want to relive any of those." He didn't exactly have many good ones to show her, after all. Now, he wondered if perhaps this place would show Adelaide something more unpleasant too, like the night her family had been attacked. He hoped that whatever magic spell this was would spare her from that misery.

What he hadn't realized, however, was that by simply speaking those thoughts into existence and making her mind think about it, even passively, he was subjecting this spell to taking hold of him and his memories as well.

"Show me more memories. Good ones." He enjoyed seeing her happy, seeing her in a time before the world had decided to be cruel to her and her loved ones. It was a window into the sort of life he hoped to give back to her soon.
 
"More good ones? Uh..." What other memories could she show him that weren't going to seem so childish and silly? Did she even care if they were childish or silly? No, she really didn't, and after a sigh and a brief moment she waved a hand toward the mirror and watched the images began to warp. They changed from a young Adelaide rolling around cuddling a dog to her in her pajamas, tucked under the covers as her father sat on the edge of the bed with a book in his hand. Had Isen ever had a happy childhood like hers, before everything went to hell?

"Wait a minute." For a second everything was fine, but then the images began to shiver and twitch like a television losing reception. Her father began to shrink and then she began to glitch, the blond pigtails on her child self smoothing out and becoming a rich brown before her face contorted. No longer was it her father and herself sitting on the bed, but what looked suspiciously like a younger version of Isen and a young girl clinging to a stuffed bear from beneath the covers.

The book was no longer present, but Isen's lips were moving as he murmured to the young girl and pressed a kiss to her head, blowing out a candle beside the bed and then standing to leave the room. Adelaide watched as if she was in a trance, standing from the bed and watching the ethereal vision move effortlessly across the room and down the hall toward the stairs.

"Is that you and Meribell?"
 
The shift in the image took them both off guard, Isen even more so than Adelaide. Had it been because he had mentioned his past to her? The spell had latched on to his subconcious as well, it seemed, and suddenly Adelaide's room wasn't hers anymore. It was the bed room of his little sister, the way it had been ten years ago before their home had fallen.

And there she was. Innocent, as cute as a button...alive. And he was with her. It was surreal to say the least, seeing himself moving from outside of his body, memories flushing back in of having done this so many times before. She wouldn't sleep until he tucked her in. Sometimes, she'd ask him to read her a story and he'd tell her the same one, every night, but she'd listen intently as though it were the first before drifting off to sleep. Other times, she'd just ask him to stay with her, she'd ask him about their parents and he'd scramble to come up with a story to take her mind away from the fact that they had been alone. It was never easy, but it was their life and he had been happy with it.

The memory-version put out the candle and walked towards the entrance of the room. Whispering a goodnight, he stopped outside and into the hallway, foot steps drowning out until they began to creak against the stairs, heading down into the living room below. Isen began to follow. He didn't know why, he just felt like he had to. As the vision of Meribell vanished from Adelaide's child hood bed, he started retracing the steps of the vision, walking down the staircase too.

"Wait. This doesn't feel right." He stopped himself in the middle of the stairwell, turning back to Adelaide. He was blocking her from following him. There was a sudden influx of fear across his face as he began to get a case of deja vu he couldn't shake. "We shouldn't go down there. I don't want to..."

The loud sound of something being broken defied his attempt to keep them on the staircase. The door of the house blew open and from the otherside stepped a man. A man holding a familiar sword, horizontally, across both of his palms as if carrying it like a waiter would a plate. "No...no, you have to make it stop. Stop the spell. Please."

Isen had never been as desperate as he was in that moment, begging her to put an end to the memory they were watching. His hand shot out towards Adelaide's arm, his grip around it trembling weakly.
 
Adelaide was right there at his side following him, watching in absolute fascination as they both followed the other Isen. She nearly ran into Isen when he stopped so suddenly and blocked her from continuing, and she couldn't just see the fear on his face, she could feel it coming from him.

"Why?" The fact that he was afraid was enough to worry her, but the fact that he was actively trying to stop her was enough to make her heart race. Then the door flew open and rattled the house so abruptly she stumbled and grabbed onto him, the illusion all too real and leading her body to react as if the threat was real. Even Isen's hand on her arm, and the way that he shook, wasn't enough to drag her attention from the scene playing out at the bottom of the stairs.

"Is that Ignas?" She slunk past Isen without breaking his hold on her arm, tugging him gently but firmly down the stairs toward the scene there. "Is this..." Oh no. Oh no, no, no. She couldn't have stopped the spell if she'd wanted to, her emotions so scattered she could barely keep a handle on her own magic, let alone solidify enough to stop the memory showing now. Was this supposed to be that night?
 
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