@asteriskheart continued from here !
something unfamiliar-yet-worryingly-SO dislodges in your chest, violent & bloodthirsty as rips you apart from the inside OUT, your eyes suddenly flaring an even brighter gold-orange in pure alarm. you don’t know why you said that. it’s true that you wish to have your original body back, but you don’t want to go back to the times of war & pain & fighting. you ( perhaps SELFISHLY ) wish to go back to that time BEFORE your & your soulmate’s fates were sealed. before you two were cursed. his words don’t soothe, they only accelerate the agony that floods through your whole body suddenly. it’s a MEMORY from your original life, 3,000 years ago. the memory slams into you like a tidal wave like it always does, constantly toeing the lines between clear & fuzzy as it overwhelms you, clear & fuzzy, CLEAR &-
you stand in front of the supreme deity in her palace of stark marble & white & gold & light. the palace is impressive, picture-esque of a ruling divinity. the memory grows fuzzy at the edges, your current human mind & body & light wholly overwhelmed by it. your mother... she sneered at you from atop her throne, halo of light surrounding her face growing unbearably BRIGHTER with rage at your insubordination, yet she was still somehow poised & regal. words so full of disappointment & hate & disdain it nearly CHOKED you, as if you’re nothing but a bug underneath her heel, a misbehaving dog that needed a beating.
you instinctively CRY OUT in alarm as blood slips down your nose, breathing become ragged as the memory swirls out of its fuzzy state with a breath of finality & becomes clear, AS IF ITS HAPPENING FOR THE SECOND 107TH TIME. your hands fly up towards silver tresses to clutch the sides of your head. mouth opens & something between a WAIL & a scream rips from your throat before you can stop it, stumbling a step backwards from meliodas & crashing into the cold wall behind you. something clatters into the ground as your hip collides with the sharp edge of a table. the sound of a flower pot shattering loudly to the ground doesn’t shake you out of the memory, the feelings, pieces scattering everywhere. you sob softly as tears escape your eyes, body trembling violently, body feeling simultaneously WEIGHTLESS & too heavy all at once. every previous elizabeth got stuck like this, & this time is no different, unfortunately. you’re stuck in the memory of being summoned into the imperial court, berated by your mother, de-winged by her very hands & cast aside.
BUT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE HAD SUCH A VISERAL REACTION. ( is it because you’re in front of meliodas when he’s like this, when he’s in his assault mode ? )
( ❝ ELIZABETH, MY DAUGHTER, YOU ARE THE ULTIMATE SINNER ! A VILE BLIGHT ‘PON HEAVEN’S GRACE / A STAIN UPON EVERYTHING GOOD FOR ETERNITY, & I ALONE STAND FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS, WAS, & WILL BE ETERNALLY GOOD. YOU, WHO BROKE FREE OF YOUR DECREE TO SLAUGHTER DEMONS & BRING EVERLASTING PEACE TO OUR KIND, HAS TURNED HER BACK ON DIVINE, WARM LIGHT & SPIRALED HEAD-FIRST TOWARDS FRIGID, ENDLESS DARKNESS. THE SERPENT TEMPTED YOU, ELIZABETH, & YOU UNABASHEDLY GLUT ON THE CORRUPTED APPLE. YOU HAVE FALLEN FOR THE VERY WORST OF THE WORST; THE INFERNAL, ROTTEN SCUM OF THE DEMON CLAN - THE DEMON KING’S FIRSTBORN SON & THE ELDEST OF DEMONS, NO LESS: MELIODAS.
REPENT FOR YOUR ERRORS & SINK TO THE HOLY GROUND AT MY FEET. PRAY FOR MY MERCY UNTO YOUR SOILED, BURDENED SOUL, FOR I AM HEAVEN’S ADJUDICATE FIRST & YOUR MOTHER SECOND. NOW KNEEL & ENTIRELY RENOUNCE YOUR LOVE FOR THE DEMON MELIODAS. SHOULD YOU DEFY THESE SIMPLE ORDERS, YOU WILL FACE ALL OF CELESTIA’S UNFORGIVING WRATH & DIVINE RETRIBUTION, & YOU, MY DAUGHTER WILL ROT ETERNALLY IN HELL. ❞ )
YOU’RE NOT SURE WHY you think of your mother’s scorching words. like lucifer being cast down from heaven, you were barred from heaven’s gate, like you were nothing but a diseased lump of waste. your fellow goddesses certainly did not speak out of turn, did not come to your defense, lest they share the same FATE as the vile demon sympathizer. heaven’s light & strongest soldier, shunned & cast aside.
you can do nothing but SCREAM as you suddenly give a full-body jerk at the feeling of white, imperial hands RIPPING every feather from your bottom two wings like the feathers are nothing but paper, then tearing apart the skeletal, twitching remains. you’re stuck, & there is NOTHING you nor your lover can do. slowly & methodical are your mother’s movements, like she’s taking pleasure in de-winging her disobedient DAUGHTER, making sure that you cannot heal yourself in time. you sob & wail uncontrollably as red blood suddenly blooms across your human tailbone, back in reality, quickly staining the material of your shirt. it stains the wall & floor, your golden-orange eyes flaring BRIGHT RED in alarm as you gaze not at, but THROUGH meliodas’s body, like he isn’t there. your soulmate, your lover, who promised he’d break your curses, end your eternal sufferings. IS IT ALL HE KNOWS ANYMORE ? your voice is hoarse from screaming & crying as you BEG, aloud to meliodas the supreme deity ( who LOOMS above you, regal hands flicking ichor-stained, twitching feathers out from betwixt the gaps in her gloved fingers ) to ❝ please stop, you’re hurting me, you’re RIPPING APART MY WINGS, MOTHER!. ❞ you moan weakly, delirious & agonized.
slowly, it subsides. the now-memory fades & slowly SHATTERS into a thousand kaleidoscopic pieces, scattering into the proverbial wind. though, the blood & agony STILL remain - the blood still wet & sticky & the agony slowly fading. yet, the tears on your face do not dry. you sit there in the hall, staring blankly at through meliodas as tears flow freely from your still-glowing eyes, slipping down your cheeks & wetting your jaw, your neck. you cannot find the strength to open your mouth, your brain refusing to remember how to use your tongue, how to speak. you do not REMEMBER what your soulmate said straight away, which had been in response to your gentle murmur, the desire for your old body back, a result of your mind / soul / light becoming overwhelmed.
one, two, three. . . a solid ten seconds pass as you struggle to calm down enough to FINALLY speak. your heart is still pounding like you were just RUNNING for your life, & you’re still trembling like a leaf, like there’s a deep-sated chill coiling through your bones - one that you cannot will away. everything hurts, your body & mind. your light hurts the most, though, your light instinctively reaching out towards meliodas’s darkness for comfort ( you don’t know if you’ll get any comfort from him when he’s in his assault mode, but as you KNOW... well, old habits die hard ). slowly, your lips part, still trembling as a hand reaches up to steady yourself against the wall, body slow to rise from the bloodstained floor, flicking your silver hair across your shoulder. blood stains the ends of your hair, & you GASP for breath.
your tear-filled eyes remains on him. it’s always been him, & it will ALWAYS be him, even when he is in this state. HE IS YOUR MELIODAS, & YOU ARE HIS ELIZABETH. slowly, your lips part. you pray meliodas will say nothing about what just happened. . . but at the same time, you hope meliodas will show concern, even if it’s just for a split second. show ANYTHING other than total indifference, the callousness that worries you to your core.
you finally speak - your cadence is shaky & hoarse, but the words are true.
❝ thank. . . t-thank you, my s-soulmate . ❞