witnessed: Alternative Darkborne - the sketch page
I am once again in the TRENCHES with the dress for MC,🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️god I hate it here. Why does Sylus have literally the worst taste in dresses?? High LOw On A WeddiNG gown ? That’s the last straw if I ever meet him he’s gonna catch these hands 🙌🏼
Now that’s out of the way: I got him in the first ten pulls gang, as an apology I think for the dress. It was sweet and now I think Sylus will become even more feral for mc, now that she’s kinda his wIfe I doubt he’s gonna stop yapping about it ngl.
Enjoy babes and happy Friday 🤭🤭🤭🤭✨✨✨
Note thatI HAVe multiple other dress designs(two lol)drawn for her but I liked this silk one the best.
P.s been busy(moving 🫡🫡🫡) n ill and stuff so haven’t responded to any reblogs or anything apologies, also didn’t really have anything to respond with for the last post tbh, I did see the comments tho freaks👁️🫦👁️🫵🏼 you are all correct :))
*I added it as a video so you can listen to the melody ♥️
Today I received a gift for this year, and if the previous two referred us to myths, to their past (my theory of previous gifts) in one form or another, then this year we are talking about the present. About the path to it.
The chapel, an important element found in both the past and present (maybe we'll see it in the future too?). This place is important for both of them: home, tomb, safe house (or first home). And this is the place where vows were made and a step was taken into a shared future.
Why does this year's gift refer to the present? Weeell, I think, the presence of Mephisto, as we see him in the current timeline, could be an indicator.
I have a big angst fest for you all for today's @whumptober entry. This is an idea I had even before the Alternative Darkborne card came out, and so I decided to make it an AU of that story, because I decided that I needed MC to remember Dragon Sylus and Sylus to cry. So yeah, enjoy XD
Prompts Used: Touch Flashbacks
Fandom: Love and Deepspac
Character: Sylus, MC
~~~~~~~
(AU of Alternative Darkborne) When the unstable anomaly in the abandoned church sends Sylus and Ariadne to a place lost in their past, Ariadne finally remembers how she first met Sylus. But will her memories remain when they return to their own timeline?
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~~~~~~~
Darkborne Reunion
There was a certain peace that came from being in the anomalous cathedral that felt both comfortable and familiar to Ariadne, like she had been there before. Perhaps that was why she had taken to spending as much time as she could inside of it, exploring this little look into Sylus’s past that she hadn’t been around to see.
The wood of the pews was worn smooth, though some spots carried dark stains. Ari couldn’t help but feel her heart ache when she found clues like this. Like the spent bullets scattered in the corners with stained strips of cloth. The thought of a much younger Sylus, one who had no one to watch his back, digging bullets from his flesh, bandaging himself through gritted teeth and letting the blood soak into the pews as he rested and recovered.
But even with those unsavory memories written in the grain of the building, it still felt like what it was: a sanctuary. It had been Sylus’s refuge, the one place he knew he would be safe and secure. A place he could rest where his enemies would never find him.
She grazed her fingers over one of the pews, looking up at the vaulted ceiling. “Thank you,” she found herself saying. “For looking after him when I couldn’t.”
The light filtering in from the stained-glass mirrors cast a beautiful array of colors across the stone floor, landing on the organ resting, worn but proud, against one wall.
She sat down on the bench, fingers grazing over the keys, hesitant, before fumbling out a tune. Something just as familiar and long lost as this cathedral itself. She remembered Sylus playing it for her on more than one occasion, but she didn’t know how she knew how to play it. She didn’t think anyone had ever taught her; her fingers just seemed to know what to do. An innate muscle memory.
A tingle on the back of her neck alerted her to a sudden shift before her Hunter’s watch started to beep a warning for another fluctuation.
She froze as she heard footsteps coming down the main aisle.
“Can’t stay away, can you?”
She glanced over her shoulder, a little sheepishly, to see Sylus approaching her, standing behind her as she still sat at the organ bench.
“You remember how to play it,” he said quietly, an unreadable emotion in his voice, something like hope, but darker; longing, with the addendum of resignation.
“Yes…” Ariadne hesitated. “I don’t know where I learned it, but I heard you play it before. I just can’t remember the part that comes after that.”
“Nothing comes after it,” he said simply. “You never played it.”
She furrowed her brow at the odd comment, but before she could reply or try to make any sense of it, another warning blared out.
Warning, warning, Metaflux levels are dangerously high in your area. Anomaly Unstable.
She huffed, getting off the bench. “It’s been doing that all day,” she admitted.
“It’s falling apart,” Sylus stated.
She looked up at him, knowing he was right, but not wanting to admit it, not yet. “How much longer?”
“Hours, days? Who knows. It’s always come and gone. It always seemed to show up when I needed it the most. But anomalous zones like this don’t last forever. They always end up disappearing eventually, or going back to where they were originally from.”
“Do you think this church was from another universe?” Ari asked him suddenly.
Sylus gave a slightly enigmatic look as he wiped some dust off the top of the organ. “Who’s to say? Some believe that time and space are fluid. I personally have always believed that it’s more pointed than that. I think the encounters you have are what polarize objects and people to meet, no matter what timeline they are in.”
“That does make it a bit more comforting,” Ari admitted. “Thinking that even if we ended up in another timeline, we would find each other.”
Sylus chuckled and reached out to take her hand. “For us, undoubtedly. We share a soul, after all. We are bound by fate whether we like it or not.”
She snorted, nudging him back a little as she stood up. “You’re so cheesy sometimes.”
The alarm blared again, more pointedly, and the edges of the cathedral seemed to blur, coming apart in fractals of light.
“It’s all right, sweetie. If it’s still here later, we can come back and say goodbye, but it’s best if we—”
He was cut off by a huge shaking, the tremors throwing both of them together. Ari smashed her face into Sylus’s chest as she reached for him, and he caught her tightly, tension in his jaw.
“Let’s go.”
They turned around to run for the door, only to find that the door no longer existed. In its place was a vast cosmos, strange stars swirling dizzyingly.
“Shit,” Ari whispered to herself.
Warning, warning
They turned, and found that the floor behind them was floating in broken chunks, shards from the stained-glass dancing above them.
Warning, warning
Ariadne turned her watch off to stop the blaring. “What do we do?”
“The safe option would be to wait and see if it stabilizes again,” Sylus said.
“But there’s another option?” she asked.
“We jump.”
“Jump? But we don’t even know where—when—we even are!”
Sylus pointed to a shimmering spot under a pair of stone arches. “That’s likely a back door out of the anomaly. But we have to go now if we want to use it.”
Ari hesitated only a second before she clasped his hand.
“As long as we go together,” she said.
Sylus nodded, a small smile curving the corner of his mouth, and pulled her into a run. They dashed across cracking stone, under the weightless pews, toward the ripple of light.
As they reached it Sylus pulled her into his arms, meeting her eyes briefly as they jumped into the void.
They fell through time and space for what seemed like an eternity.
Ariadne felt like she was being ripped apart and put back together over and over again. And with each reincarnation, memories flooded in:
Multiple lifetimes flashed before her eyes, some she had seen in glimpses before, others were new to her, but her mind settled on one in particular. The first one.
Blood on her hands, the world around her crimson, hands pulling the sword she held forward.
‘Now you owe me a life’
These were memories she’d had before, fractured and broken, but more began to flood in.
Furious men in robes dragging her chained figure, throwing her into the abyss. A deep voice rumbling in her chest, grasping a great sword and pulling it in a reverse of the other scene, freeing a fiend.
The fiend dragging her off to the mountains, marking her, making a bet that she couldn’t kill him.
But the fiend was lonely, the fiend liked music, he liked shiny trinkets. He brought small animals to the cave for her to play with.
He told her his name: Stayrus.
It was in an ancient tongue she didn’t know so she gave him one of her making.
She taught him human emotions and human touch. She taught him about love.
They killed hundreds in vengeance for what was done to them, desecrating sacred places.
She played the organ for him, the only song she knew.
They lay in a field of flowers and she tucked the blossoms behind his horns.
But she was captured, used as bait for him and in that last battle he used her hands against him, forcing himself onto her blade.
She killed him. She killed him She killed him.
My dragon is gone…
***
Ariadne woke, a headache pounding behind her eyes as the memories overwhelmed her. She reached up and found her cheeks were wet, a sob catching in her throat.
She sat up shakily, colorful light dancing across her body and she looked up to see a familiar stained-glass window above her.
She was laying on a pew in a dark cathedral. Blood red flowers bloomed around the walls, their heady scent comforting, greeting her like an old friend.
She remembered this place. She remembered hiding out here, she remembered giving half her soul to the one she loved most here in this place of vows after nearly ending his life.
She remembered being dragged away from him here, before everything became a haze of dreams and fantastical longings.
“You’re awake.”
The relieved voice had her spinning about, head dizzy, as Sylus came into view, approaching her.
But he was not just Sylus anymore. She blinked and saw the fiend he had once been. She blinked again and she saw him on his knees, dying with her sword through his chest.
She was on her feet in an instant running to him, pressing her hands to his chest to make sure his heart was beating.
“You’re alive? You’re really alive,” she babbled.
Sylus caught her hands, a troubled look on his face. “We’re not home, but we ended up in another place safely. We’ll have to find a way to—”
“Stayrus.”
He froze, looking at her as if he had seen a ghost.
“What did you say?”
“Stayrus…that’s your real name, I only called you Sylus because I couldn’t pronounce it…”
“You remember?” he asked intently, mouth quivering as if he didn’t even dare to ask.
Tears wet Ariadne’s eyes as she pulled her hands from his and reached up to cup his face. “Yes. I remember my dragon.”
She had never seen Sylus cry. She had seen him upset, even distressed, but she had never seen him break down into tears like he did at that moment, as if every floodgate he had been desperately holding up finally broke.
He slowly sank to his knees as if he couldn’t remain standing. A sob ripped from his chest as tears slid down his cheeks, dropping to the floor like diamonds.
Ariadne knelt in front of him and pulled his face against her shoulder. He grabbed her and held her tight, squeezing her desperately.
“I’ve waited so long,” he whispered brokenly.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “Sylus, I’m so sorry. How could you even forgive me for how I treated you? For forgetting everything—”
“Shush,” he whispered. “It’s not your fault. Just…just let me hold you.”
She didn’t argue, holding him tight in return, memories of cradling his dying body suddenly too fresh. She clawed him closer to her and he let her, both of them locked together as if they would never let go again. Truly two beings sharing the same soul.
“This isn’t just a dream?” she finally asked.
He shifted slightly, pressing his wet cheek against the side of her neck. “No, my love. We really seem to have ended up in this place yet again.”
Neither of them really knew what to say, both working through the shock of their predicament, and Ariadne working through all the memories she had forgotten.
Eventually, exhaustion overcame them and they finally broke from each other to find a place to sleep. Sylus dragged together several old blankets and they curled up in them, cuddled together. She could almost remember the feel of his tail wrapping around her when they used to sleep like this, holding her close as Sylus’s perpetual warmth lulled her to sleep.
***
She woke to the singing of forest birds as jewel tinted sunlight filtered through the church’s windows. Ariadne lazily reached out to the blankets beside her, only to find them empty and cold.
She sat up in panic, heart pounding as she looked around.
“Sylus!”
The door to the church creaked open and Sylus appeared, letting in the scent of wood smoke and grilled meat. He carried something on a stick and smiled at her.
“Don’t fret, kitten. I was just making breakfast.”
He sat down next to her and handed her the stick with some sort of roasted bird on it. Her stomach growled hungrily and she took an eager bite.
“Since we don’t know how long we might be stuck here, we should try to go get supplies in the city,” he mused.
Ari looked up at him incredulously. “Won’t that be dangerous? I mean, if we’re all the way back in time, won’t they know you’re a fiend?”
“Why would they? I don’t have any horns or a tail at the moment. But just in case…” He got up and grabbed a couple wool cloaks from the back of a pew, tossing her one. “It wouldn’t hurt to be a little cautious.”
She finished her breakfast and then she and Sylus made the long trek to Tarus City, the buildings visible on the skyline above the trees.
It was surreal walking through the streets. All the memories, the familiar sights and sounds came back to her as she and Sylus walked hand in hand. It was like a place she had seen in a dream, ancient memories filtering in as she even recognized some of the merchants selling wares.
She reached for a little bone bracelet with a charm in the shape of a dragon and held it up to Sylus with a hopeful smile. “Can we get some mementos?”
“You still like these cheap trinkets?” He asked her teasingly, already pulling out his purse. They had found a stash of gold coins back at the church.
“You’re being rude to these merchants,” she chastened him and picked up another bracelet with a little crow charm on it before grabbing coins out of his hand and paying the seller.
As they walked away, she put the crow bracelet on Sylus’s wrist before reclaiming his hand.
“You’re incorrigible,” he muttered fondly, squeezing her fingers before pulling her hand up to press to his lips.
Ari felt a light giddiness wash through her as she practically danced at his side. Sylus seemed so happy and it was rubbing off on her. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen him this content before.
They finished shopping for essentials and purchased a small cart to carry them back with. As they were loading everything, the sound of several horses’ hooves rattled over the cobbled streets and a hush seemed to fall over the townspeople.
Ariadne looked up and her stomach clenched in sudden fear, seeing several members of the Legion of Justitia riding through the town, she hurriedly grabbed Sylus and turned them both away.
“It’s alright, sweetie, they wouldn’t recognize us like this,” he told her, but seemed a little agitated himself. She could see his right eye glowing a little more than usual before he blinked it away.
As the men finally passed, Ariadne turned to the shopkeeper nearest to her. “What are they doing here?”
The woman looked at her warily. “You must not have been to the city recently. They believe the fiend went into hiding and are looking for him and his sorceress.”
Ari’s stomach flipped at the news.
“We should go,” Sylus called to her quietly. “We’ll want to get back before dark.”
Ari nodded and followed him as he picked up the hafts on the cart and started rolling it behind him as they made their way back to the woods.
“Do you think they’ll come to the chapel?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Sylus told her, though his jaw was a little tight. “I could still feel some minor fluctuations this morning. I don’t think we’ll be here that long.”
Ariadne felt slightly torn at that news. It wasn’t that she wanted to stick around for a repeat of what happened to her and Sylus back in this timeline, but there was something about this. The simplicity they had shared. Just the two of them coexisting together. Living a simple life for the most part, with nothing but each other’s company.
They cooked dinner that night outside the chapel over an open fire, the stars and moon shown down on them. They were different than those in Linkon, but familiar all the same. Ariadne vaguely recalled those long nights during her captivity when she had stared up at the stars, waiting for Sylus to come to her—whether in reality or in her dreams, it didn’t really matter as long as she had him with her.
Once they finished eating, they sat by the warm fire and watched the stars.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she finally asked.
“Would you have believed me?”
She pursed her lips. “Then why didn’t you try to make me remember?”
“Did I not?” Sylus spoke quietly. She looked at him as he stared into the flames, his eyes distant.
“I tried to jog your memory, I thought if you shot me, if you resonated with me, you would remember.”
She felt an ache start in her chest, realizing just how desperate he had been, and how cold she must have seemed back then. A brief memory flashed through her mind, Sylus’s expression when the man from Odd Workshop had told him she was repulsed by him. The realization that she didn’t know him, the betrayal of her prior acceptance of everything he was. It broke her heart to think of it now.
“But when I realized you weren’t going to remember,” he continued, tossing a small stick into the flames, “I started to think it was best to stop pressing and hope the memories would return. So, I played you the songs you taught me, and told you stories of dragons.”
He turned to smile, a little sadly, at her. “And eventually, it stopped mattering to me so much. After all, I had you, once again. And you came to love me as I love you. You let me hold you in my arms, and consummate our love in ways we never got to before.”
She flushed a little, but reached out to wrap her arms around his, leaning against his shoulder.
“I’d come to terms with the fact that you probably wouldn’t remember. And maybe there is a certain blessing to falling in love all over again, in a timeline where we are not, perhaps, so doomed.
“But still,” he lowered his voice to a whisper as he tucked a finger under her chin, caressing her lips with his thumb. “The fact that you remember now, means everything to me.”
He leaned in and kissed her and she melted against him, savoring the taste of his mouth. She felt a small tingle in her chest, as if a thread linking them tugged a little.
She looked down finally and saw that the resonance link had wrapped around their wrists yet again.
Sylus chuckled and threaded his fingers through hers to bring them closer together. “You understand now that when I say we share a soul, it’s not just some sappy poetry?”
She kissed their clasped knuckles. “I remember giving you half my soul, I remember seeing parts of your life. Do you think we can still share dreams in our timeline?”
Sylus smirked. “We already have, sweetie.”
“Wait…what? When?”
Sylus refused to answer and simply picked her up, leaving the coals to smolder as he carried her back toward the church. “It’s unimportant. Let’s get some rest. Dream some new dreams together.”
They lived like that for several days, as they investigated any potential fluctuations to see if they could find a way home. It was almost like a vacation, Ari thought, the two of them in their little woodland chapel, cooking over the fire, playing the organ together, and exploring the woods.
They didn’t go back to the city for fear of running into the Justitia. Even if they wouldn’t be recognized as the fiend and his sorceress, it wasn’t worth the risk.
One day they left the forest, Sylus saying he wanted to take her somewhere. She hadn’t realized where they were going until they reached the edge of the trees, looking out into a valley covered with red, blooming Datura.
Ariadne’s breath caught in her throat, her heart pounding as the flashes of her last memories here pierced her insides like arrows.
“Don’t think of that,” Sylus told her, cupping her face and forcing her to look at him. “I’m here.”
She clung to his hand as he tugged her out into the field.
“We came here in a dream, didn’t we?” he said as he reached down to pluck one of the flowers and tucked it gently into her hair.
She smiled wanly. “Yes. It felt so real at the time, but I woke up, imprisoned, and knew that it had been nothing more than a dream.”
“You did that a lot while they held you captive—I saw most of them, felt your longing,” he told her quietly. “All I wanted at the time was to live a quiet life with you like that.”
Ari smiled as she bent to pluck a flower of her own. “We may not exactly have quiet lives right now, but I would say that they are not quite so fraught with danger—at least not the kind we can’t handle.”
Sylus chuckled, but there was something of a wistful look in his eye and she knew he still secretly wished to be able to live like this; just the two of them together with no obligations but to each other.
As he stood staring out at the flowers, she playfully tackled him. Sylus let out a huff and collapsed to the ground in a burst of petals, blinking up at her as several landed on his face and hair.
She smiled as she tucked the flower she had been holding behind his ear, gently brushing the stray petals away.
Sylus inhaled, breath a little shaky as he pulled her on top of him, staring up at her so adoringly that Ariadne felt a flush start to heat her face.
“What?” she finally demanded, poking his cheek.
Sylus shook his head, a fond smile gracing his lips. “You’re the one who taught me how to feel like this, you know. Fiends were never meant to have human emotions.”
“Maybe it was my squishy human soul that made you so sappy,” she teased.
Sylus’s eyes crinkled in a genuine smile. “Perhaps, But I think, more likely, it was simply you. The fact that I love you, will always love you in every universe.” He caught her hand, threading their fingers together. “You taught me human concepts of touch and how nice it can be to be held by someone else.”
She stroked his face, and he nuzzled her hand slightly.
“You taught me about music, and taste and enjoying the simple things.”
“I don’t know, I think I must have made you incredibly picky,” she teased, tracing her thumb over his lips. “You have quiet the expensive pallet.”
He nipped at her fingers playfully. “And I can afford it, sweetie, so why not?”
He rolled them over until she was underneath him, his warm weight settling between her legs.
“You made me who I am today,” he whispered to her, muzzling her cheek, and peppering kissed down to the spot where once, long, long ago, he had marked her in a bet that she couldn’t kill him. Ari’s heart fluttered in her chest as he sucked a much more gentle mark there before kissing the spot almost reverently.
“I think you would still be a self-made man without my influence,” she said.
“You made me human,” he said simply. “How could I ever start to repay you for that?”
She slid her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer until their noses almost touched. “Well, if you feel like you must repay me, then…you had better show me what you learned.”
Sylus let out a low rumble and eagerly met her mouth, kisses hot and needy. The heady scent of the Datura made the kisses more intoxicating still, feeling oddly like some sort of long-awaited reunion.
They rolled through the flowers until Ariadne finally pinned Sylus beneath her, panting a little.
Sylus smiled, sliding his hands up to her waist and holding her firmly as she straddled his hips.
“Are you planning on conquering this dragon, little sorceress?”
She pushed her hair over her shoulder before gripping his chin, smiling lovingly down at him as she slid her hand to his chest.
“Only his heart.”
“Oh, kitten, you’ve always had that.”
***
Much later, they made their way back to the dilapidated chapel hand-in-hand as the sun was setting, both of them in a good mood.
They made dinner and went to bed in the little makeshift nest. Ari lay against Sylus’s chest, listening to him breathe as she watched the moon through the colored window grow higher and higher in the sky until she fell asleep.
Her sleep was not to be peaceful that night, however. Her dreams were filled with people, the Judicator, hunting her dragon down, piercing him with arrows and swords as she could do nothing but stand by helplessly and watch as his blood and life left him.
She woke to what her mind thought was an alarm clock at first, but eventually realized it was her Hunter’s watch.
She pushed herself into a sitting position, blinking at it blearily.
Warning, warning, Fluctuation incoming, Proceed with caution.
“Sylus!” she called, scrambling up, but not seeing him anywhere. “Sylus?!”
The door to the chapel opened and he hurried inside, covering her mouth with a hand.
“Hush—we have visitors.”
Her heart pounded in her chest as she heard the sound of hoofbeats fast approaching the chapel. “Is it—”
“Yeah,” Sylus replied grimly, grabbing her hand. “We should leave.”
“We can’t,” Ariadne replied, showing him the readings on her watch. “A huge fluctuation is coming. This might be our only chance to get back home.”
Sylus looked torn, but he finally moved, working to shove several of the pews in front of the door as a barricade. Ariadne helped him but by the time they were done the horses had stopped outside the church and a voice shouted at them.
“We know you’re in there, foul beast! Best give yourself up quietly—you and the sorceress!”
Ariadne looked around for a weapon and found a dagger that she snatched up. She glanced at the fluctuation reading, seeing that it was imminent. She could feel the shift herself, it felt very similar to the sensation in the church before they had ended up here.
“If we can hold them off for at least five minutes…”
Sylus watched the door grimly, only for the men outside to start slamming into it, trying to break through their barricade.
Sylus snarled, using his Evol to hold the door shut.
Ariadne’s watch started blaring again.
Warning, warning, fluctuation imminent. Leave area and find safety.
She gritted her teeth, flinching as the door began to crack, the barricade shifting with every blow.
“I don’t think we’re going to have five minutes,” Sylus said as red and black mist encircled his hands, readying to fight.
Glass shattered and arrows shot through the broken windows.
Sylus swept them aside with his Evol before one from the other window sliced across his arm.
“Sylus!”
“It’s fine,” he said, pulling her further back into the church. Ariadne saw a brief distortion out of the corner of her eye and glanced between two pillars.
“Sylus—the rift!”
He glanced over just as the door finally broke open and the Justitia poured in.
“Kill the fiend! If you can take the Sorceress alive, do it!”
Sylus swept vines of red mist at the attackers, choking them, picking them off their feet to fling them out the door.
The building started to shake with the imminent fluctuation, cracks began to appear in the church, shards of colored glass floating incoherently.
“The sorceress is trying to trick us with spells! Take them now!”
Another quake nearly threw her and Sylus off their feet. The men took that as an opening and surged forward, one of them with a blade leveled at Sylus’s back.
“Sylus!”
Ariadne flung herself in front of him, refusing to let them kill him again.
“Ari, don’t—”
The blade sank into her stomach like a hot iron, stealing her breath.
Sylus crushed the man’s throat with his Evol and flung him away, catching her as she fell, hands pressing to the bleeding wound.
“Stay with me, don’t close your eyes—Ariadne, look at me!”
She tried to focus on him, smiling weakly as she raised a blood-stained hand to his face. “Just…think of it as me finally repaying the life I owe you.”
The church was shattering, and the rift was fully open. Sylus forced himself to his feet with Ariadne clutched in his arms as he ran.
“Stop the fiend! Kill it!”
That was the last thing Ariadne heard before they were swallowed up by the cosmos once again. There was no more pain or blood, there was just a void and nothingness.
***
Ariadne woke, feeling like she had slept for a year. It took her a long time to realize where she was, having no recollection of how she had ended up there.
Upon inspection, she finally noticed that she was in Sylus’s bedroom, his plush bed cushioning her, the pillows smelling like him, lending her comfort in her confusion.
She rolled over and pushed herself up weakly, looking around.
“Sylus?” she called, her voice hoarse.
Before she could think of getting up to grab a glass of water, Sylus opened the door, appearing with a tray of food and drink. Relief flooded his eyes as he saw her awake, a small smile gracing his lips.
“Good morning, kitten—or, I should say good evening.”
She stared at him in confusion. “How long have I been asleep?”
He furrowed his brow and sat on the side of the bed, putting the tray over her lap. “Almost three days.” He studied her cautiously, as if waiting for something. “What do you remember?”
She looked down at the food, trying to recall anything. “I…um…I was investigating the special anomaly.”
A little relief entered his eyes. “That’s right,” he coaxed. “What else?”
She wracked her brain, remembering going into the church, playing the organ, and something about the anomaly becoming unstable, but aside from that everything was a hazy blank.
“Did the anomaly collapse?”
Sylus seemed to school himself before he answered. “Yes, it’s no longer there. That last fluctuation seemed to erase it entirely.”
He stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. “You don’t remember anything else?”
She tried, she really did, but there was nothing to remember. She shook her head. “No.”
Sylus turned away and she saw him put a hand over his mouth briefly, his eyes holding a deep wound that seemed to still be bleeding.
“Sylus,” She reached out to him, before hesitating. “What happened?”
He exhaled shakily and turned back to her with a wry smile. “It’s not important, sweetie. Your mission’s over and the anomaly is gone. You almost got trapped in it, which is why you feel so weak right now. But it’s all over, and you’re safe with me. That’s all that ever matters to me.”
He reached out to stroke her cheek, brushing her hair away, but she couldn’t help but think that wasn’t all. She reached for him and noticed a bracelet on her wrist. Among the odd beads was a little dragon charm. Something briefly tickled at the back of her mind, something she thought she should remember, but it remained a blank.
She exhaled slowly and grabbed Sylus’s shirt, tugging him closer to her so she could kiss him.
“Whatever happened, or whatever might have happened, just remember I love you,” she told him quietly.
Sylus moved her tray out of the way so he could take her into his arms, holding her close and kissing an overly sensitive spot on her neck. “I know, sweetie. No matter what, that will never change.”
She lay in his arms, their heartbeats matching pace. But as she started to drift off again, she thought she felt a single tear fall onto her cheek.
~~~~
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