𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 though it did not carry any peace that ordinarily accompanied its presence. the silence settled over the ruins like fresh snow upon a graveyard but hiding absolutely nothing beneath. the fallen angel remained where she had collapsed, right center upon shattered ground & sacred blood. the hollow continued to breathe around them in slow, agonized pulses as if taunting her to do something ⸻ anything ⸻ to ease its hunger. above her, the skies remained fractured by corruption & memory, yet somehow it felt smaller now, less oppressive perhaps, now that sunbringer's judgment no longer occupied it.
𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐞𝐥𝐮𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐫, & she wanted to capture those golden irises within her pools of pink, but humiliation burned her core if more than a second at a time passed by when she would lock eyes with him. how tragic it was that not long ago, she would have met that attention with a smile & a glow to her figure ⸻ the story she wished to tell versus the truth that trapped her soul. & despite her miserable appearance & contradictory statements she had proposed earlier on, she felt his power flow through her wounds once he was within reach, offering his help much like how she had asked him mere minutes ago that felt akin to centuries prior. but the guilt continued its gluttony as parts of herself resisted the healing, yet his energy refused to let her retreat from his grace.
after everything he had witnessed, he still chose kindness.
or was it something else?
𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐚𝐳𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬. blood stained her fingertips despite the healing steadily restoring her form &, for several long moments, she simply stared at them. these hands had once reached towards impossible futures without hesitation, wrote stories she would hear to share for generations to come, & ultimately ended striking sunbringer while simultaneously ending the lives of so many of those people who had once looked to her for guidance. a quiet laugh escaped her then, but it lacked humor behind it & sounded more like something breaking apart. pink strands slid across her face, revealing the agony that hid behind them as eyes wandered the horizon & took in the destruction that continued to spread without mercy. somewhere in the distance, she could still hear the faint cries of people beneath the rubble, of soldiers & families alike pleading & begging with their very last breaths to be saved, & here she was, doing absolutely nothing but feeling sorry for herself.
she had been a selfish being right from the beginning . . . no wonder she would go on spending an entire century living in other people’s memories to salvage what little she could of her sorry existence.
❝ i really thought love was enough. love for life, love for the future, love for humanity. i thought that if i wanted it badly enough, reality would eventually surrender. ❞
𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞’𝐬 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝. her words emerged slowly as though she feared they might collapse beneath their own weight & bring more misfortune to those who were unlucky to listen. sunbringer's words still echoed throughout the battlefield, carved into the architecture of the memory itself, yet somehow the trailblazer stood before those judgments & asked for more rather than less. a piece of her wondered if she had damaged him in the wreckage of her broken memories, soiled his senses, for surely someone like himself couldn’t possibly wish to continue swimming along the waves of remembrance to resume his journey of discovering who the real remielle is.
❝ you’ve seen my failure, my errors, my unbinding of the porcelain spirit i once embodied . . . how much more do you need to see before you realize there’s nothing here worth saving .ᐣ.ᐣ ❞
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 while distant thunder rolled across the corrupted heavens. her eyes remained fixated on the destruction she was unsuccessful at preventing as loose feathers shed from her tired winds & drifted into the wind to be lost in the nether of destruction. the pause felt long, but she did not want to allow caelus to give her an answer, not yet, in fear of not being ready to listen to what he has to say. so the angel swallowed hard before finally turning her gaze towards him, & for the first time since the memory had begun unraveling, there was no illusion left in her expression.
❝ i’m no guardian angel. i’m a fraud. ❞
𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐡𝐞𝐫 before she slowly pushed herself upright. the movement remained awkward, regaining strength in her legs, until she once more stood amidst the ruins like a sore thumb in its wake. her wings folded around her shoulders instinctively, & it was then that multiple other wings sprouted from seemingly nowhere to join in cocooning her like a seraphim amongst devastation. strings of future remielle regained its body though faintly as there was still restraint from accepting the reality of her story, especially in front of caelus who held onto a perspective of her that declared her to be a sort of hero that she knew deeper down she wasn’t.
❝ if i show you the rest, you won't like me very much. ❞
Experience - Ludovico Einaudi
& 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐳𝐞𝐫, capturing his eyes like two golden apples glowing brilliantly in between suffocating ether. he appeared so beautiful then, much more radiant than she had remembered since entering the hollow, & it only made it that much more heart wrenching for him to want to keep scaling the mountain of buried memory. because, even if it was just for a little while, she wanted to keep her grace engraved in his memory . . . to remember her as the pink angel with a gorgeous smile with both a mischievous yet loving light.
not as the reason why humanity turned their backs on her.
𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧, etherlight swirling in between fingertips in a massive collection of power as the hollow seemed to roar in retaliation, almost like a warning to stop whatever it is she was preparing to do. &, without saying a word, the world in which her memories remained incomplete slowly began to have its dark color fade into a monochrome tint, her incredible power to cease time & space itself crept across the skies. it showered itself down like crystalline sparks just as the ruined world screamed in agony beneath until it was completely engulfed & silenced.
𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐫 & 𝐜𝐚𝐞𝐥𝐮𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐭. time was captured & refrained from progressing as a frozen catastrophe now welcomed their eyes in an arrangement of dull shades : ethereals stood in mid attack, soldiers in mid defense, children in mid cries. remielle’s wings tightened around her frame, hiding from any judgment that may befall upon her from the nameless.
❝ i could not bare to watch them all suffer as i struggled to compose myself & offer salvation ⸻ so like a coward, i sealed everyone & everything in a statis for years before they were saved . . . and i dare have the guts to say it was out of love. ❞
