[ @regrets-and-forgets | Response to this thread.]
Rose doesn’t remember rising to her feet, but she must have, because she’s shuffling over to attend to whoever’s knocking on her door. Conri’s letter has been crushed into a tight ball in her right fist, but she can’t bring herself to incinerate it as she did with Purah’s; while the sheet of paper had never been in a pristine condition, it had certainly gained several new bloodstains that weren’t present on its surface when she’d first picked it up. The young archdemon was quite a sight —blood dripped steadily from the gashes that litter the palms and calves. The aftermath of dropping to her hands and knees in the middle of a sea of glass. It looks painful, but the fact that there are shards of glass protruding from her limbs barely even registers in the young archdemon’s mind. She’s numb; numb to her ache of her wounds, numb to the grief that pierces her heart, numb to the world around her. As she shuffles past her desk she vaguely registers that there’s something different about the way the zircon crystal that she’d abandoned is glowing, but she can’t quite figure out what. Her mind is too clouded by the overwhelming nothingness.
The door to her room swings open to reveal the last person that she’d expected to see standing there. Conri’s crumpled letter falls from her bloodied palm as Rose stares up at the demon in her doorway. “…big brother?”
Rose longs to tackle him to the ground for a hug, but she holds back, unable to believe her eyes. It couldn’t really be him…could it? No. It couldn’t be. Wasn’t he supposed to be dead? Was this yet another cruel joke? Perhaps one played on her by her own mind this time. After all, she wanted Purah to be here with her so badly, to hold her in his arms one final time.
Her voice barely raises above a whisper. “Is it really you?”
Purah expected the tears in her face, without the addition of her bloodied and wounded disheveled form.
A shiver ran down his spine, his blood gone cold and his own body had come to a shock as he stares back at Rose. She looked no different from a wilting rose, perhaps even worse, on the verge of dying. His senses were no longer working, unable to feel his own tears falling, for his brain only had her--his beloved sister, his beacon of hope in this lifetime.
And to hear her ask if it really is him broke his heart. He hurt his own sister. He did this. He saw the paper she grasped onto slip from her hand and fall to the floor, and although that didn't look like his own, he was certain that it caused her the same amount of pain--or even more--and his only added to that.
Not wasting any moment, he hugged her. Tightly, but not too much to hurt her. Just enough pressure to convince her that he is here. That he is not dead. That his big brother came home for his little sister. Muffled sobs escape his lips as he whispers to her ear in an attempt to convince her and get her out from the state of shock and disbelief she is in. "Yes, it is me. It's your big brother. I'm home."
His arms securely held her, fearing that someone would take her away from him--would take her life away from him. He endured so long in that shithole, and Devildom be damned if someone dares to rip her away from his arms.
