[đą] He wasn't sure why he was so emotional about it. Maybe it was the lonely feeling in the apartment. Since Stolas broke things off with him and Loona has been gone more than there, he's just been lonely. He didn't want to admit it. It was too painful to say out loud.
"I just...want things to be ok between us." He already broke everything else in his life. His family, Fizz, Stolas and...Millie. It seemed all he was good at was fucking shit up in the worst way possible.
Wiping at his face, he quickly dries his eyes. Right, he needed to pull it back in. Clearing his throat, he looks back up at Moxxie. "Anyway...Sorry, did you need something?"
The hallway hadnât changed. It was still quiet. The air still smelled faintly of polish, parchment and strangely, static. Back then, sheâd been nervous, yesâbut it had been a nervousness folded in with some kind of knowledge. Sheâd known what she was walking into. That he would be angry with her.
This time, the uncertainty cut deeper.
She stood still now, no pacing, no restless movementâjust a woman holding herself rigid as if motion might unravel her entirely. In her hands rested a pristine white envelope, its surface unmarred by fingerprints or creases. Gold wax sealed it shut, the Menenius crest pressed neatly into its center, ceremonial and final. Ceruleanâs name was written across the front in elegant cursive, the gold ink catching the light when she tilted it.
Inside was the letter: formal and persuasive. A recommendation for Cerulean to assume the position of Headmaster of Haven, written to be delivered to the council. It was power, distilled into parchment; even now, they knew the kind of power the Menenius name held in Mistral. It was proof that she had kept her word. A promise, fulfilled, just as he had fulfilled his own. He had secured her transport, enlisted Cobaltâs help, ensured she crossed the icy sea to Solitas safely.
On paper, everything balanced. But paper didnât account for memory.
She could have mailed the letter. That was the sensible choice. The clean choice. No history, no complicationsâjust wax, ink, and distance. Instead, she was here again, standing in the same hallway, heart thudding unevenly as her fingers curled tighter around the envelope. She told herself it was about closure. About doing things properly. And maybe part of that was true.
But she couldnât shake the memories of that week she had spent in his mansionâhow it lingered, heavy and insistent, like a bruise she kept pressing just to remind herself it was real.
She remembered his home: the way it had felt too large at first, too quiet, until it wasnât. Nights blurred together there, charged with an intensity she hadnât allowed herself to feel in a long time. Passion tangled with anger, grief snapping at the edges of every touch. She had unloaded everything onto himâevery sharp, jagged emotion she carriedâbecause she knew he would not fold under the weight of it. He absorbed her storms without flinching, without trying to soften them or send them back.
She remembered waking in silk sheets, the morning light filtering in too gently for how wrecked sheâd felt inside. The disorienting intimacy of itâthe way familiarity had crept in when she wasnât watching. How being held afterward had felt less like comfort and more like surrender. That was what haunted her now. Not regret, exactly, but the knowledge that something raw and unfinished still lived between them.
That was why she hadnât mailed the letter.
It wasnât duty that had brought her back to this hallway. It was the echo of shared nights, of words spoken in the dark and never revisited in daylight. The question of whether that week had meant the same thing to him...or if it had simply been a transaction, neatly concluded.
The envelope felt heavier than it should have. She drew in a slow breath, steadying herself, and lifted her hand toward the door. Whatever waited on the other sideâresolution, distance, or something far more dangerousâshe was already here.
ââŠHi, Cere,â she says first, the soft nickname, one she hadn't called him since their engagement, escaping before she can stop it. Itâs quieter than she intends, almost tentative, like sheâs testing whether the moment will hold. Her golden eyes flick briefly past himâtaking in the familiar lines of the spaceâbefore returning to his face.
âIâum.â She clears her throat, straightening, shoulders squaring by habit even as her grip tightens on the envelope. âI hope Iâm not interrupting anything.â
Hey brother, there's an endless road to rediscover
Hey sister, do you still believe in love? I wonder
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you
There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do
What if I'm far from home?
Oh brother, I will hear you call
What if I lose it all?
Oh sister, I will help you out
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you
There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do
I think an interesting look at the difference for TriMax and TriStamp, via lore thoughts, could be more than just modernizing the material, and having the tech to do cool new things with the world.
TriMax has this almost defunct technology feeling. They reference things as 'lost tech' pretty often, transportation that flies is very rare, because of the power it takes, and I like to think that maybe the know-how of making things fly is almost a lost art. Without the use of anti-grav fields produced by Plants, that is.
So the guns look pretty old earth, mechanical and no special properties, for the most part.
And we get Stamp's more technological flavor fitted on everything. The guns, the ships, Vash's prosthetic, the Plants, the Plant's housing/buildings, the bigger cities with the lights and high tech looking bit and bobs.
It's given me this idea of reference the timelines as 'aged' and 'new tech'. Because I've written crossover roleplays of the worlds, and there's always an exposition of the difference of how everything looks and works and functions. Its not just a style change, it gives interesting lore to cross reference, too! Something in the 'new tech' timeline advanced their technology further before leaving Old Earth, maybe; where in the 'aged' timeline, there could have been a more desperate scramble to leave the planet before its predicted collapse, pouring resources into known tech, rather than advancing new tech. (a flawed concept, but not impossible, and creates space for dramatic events to have happened)
I dunno, my brain power on this idea is crashing because I need sleep, but maybe I'll come back to this with more energy later.
