A Monument To Your Atrocities
Lucio Morgasson x Apprentice!OC
Genre: angst
June of Doom, Day 16: "At least it can't get any worse", "Stranded" (late entry) @juneofdoom
CW: mentions of death, mentions of illness
A/N: finally a The Arcana one-shot! This is my own rendition of the Lazaret scene from Lucio's route, featuring my apprentice OC, Vesper. I wanted a reason for her to stick by Lucio's side other than "she's just that nice", and I wanted it to tie into her past. I tried to convey it a little through this piece, so I hope it comes across. Enjoy!
Red light pours into the room from the massive holes in the collapsed ceiling. Twisting vines poke through, flowing down like tendrils that look ready to grab at him and drag him into the ashy darkness of the island. No, he needs to stop thinking like this! This is already terrifying enough without his mind playing tricks on him. He looks around with wide eyes, wondering why in the hell he ended up here of all places. Is this a sick joke?? With every second that he passes sitting on the dirty stone floor and with the rattling of the chains weighing him down, he can feel his breath shortening more and more, making the feeling of dread slowly and increasingly settle in at the center of his chest.
It's quiet in here... too quiet. Having spent the last few days at Vesper's side, he isn't used to how deafening the silence can be anymore. He feels the need to fill the quietness now that the magician's lovely voice isn't here to comfort him anymore. “Okay... calm down Lucio, you'll get outta this, you always do. God, now I regret having this place built...” He mutters to himself as he keeps looking around, trying to think of what to do. He is all alone, he is lost... and he has no way of escaping. But surely, somewhere out there Vesper must be looking for him, right? Right...? Of course she is! He just needs to wait, yes... wait.
He takes a deep breath to try and calm down, bouncing his leg nervously. “Okay... no big deal. Soon Vesper will come get me and then we can leave this hell hole together... I can do this. I just gotta wait...” He looks around some more. He has been here for, what, five... ten minutes already? And it's still quiet. The Devil doesn't seem to have followed him here, for whatever reason. A nervous chuckle falls from his lips in an attempt at soothing his fear. “At least it can't get any worse.”
He really should learn how to shut his mouth.
A high, unearthly shriek echoes from somewhere within the Lazaret, making him yelp in fear, the chains rattling loudly with the sharp jolt of his body. He gulps thickly and then clears his throat, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible “Uhhh... what's that? Who's there?” He calls out, hoping to scare off whatever made that horrible sound. Seriously, he could benefit from shutting the hell up sometimes.
As if awakened and spurred on by the fake and unconvincing bravado in his voice, the shadows around him in the room begin to shift and stretch towards him with shrieks and spectral cries. Unable to run away, Lucio quickly huddles behind a nearby, rusted bed frame as he looks on in horror. Dark, wispy figures crawl from the broken bed frames and empty doorways, slowly closing in and swarming all around him as they reach their shadowy hands towards him. He frantically swats at the air, desperately trying to keep them away from him.
“You. You did this to us...” Come their raspy voices all at once.
“I don't even know what you're talking about!” He is quick to snap back, already feeling the now too familiar sensation of guilt slowly crawl up his body as he lies boldly to these desperate, crying figures. Vesper would be so disappointed in him.
“You know.” Rattles an old man's voice as one of the larger shadows crawls towards him, backing him against the wall. Lucio swears he can almost feel the specter's chilly breath fan against his face. “H-hey there. Good ghost. Nice ghost?” He stammers nervously, pressing himself up against the stone wall to try and put as much distance as possible between himself and the dark spirit, but the ghost reaches for him with bony fingers tinged red and bloody, making Lucio's heart almost stop right then and there as panic explodes in his aching chest.
“N-no, no, go away. Go away! You're dead! You're not real!” He screams in terror, curling up like a child and putting his head in his hands in an irrational attempt at getting the shadows to disappear and leave him alone.
His mind swarms with thoughts and questions and memories of his past actions, while a string of incoherent words and pleas falls from his trembling lips as he desperately tries to make sense of this situation, or to convince himself that this is all a bad dream and that soon he'll wake up. All those people... all those victims..
He is so absorbed in his terror-fueled chaos that he doesn't even register the source of the bright flash of light that inundates the whole room briefly, and the ghosts' cries are so loud and so close to him that they render him deaf to a familiar voice calling out to him and warning his assailants to back off from him. “Gah! What the hell was that?” He exclaims as a bunch of colored spots cloud his vision from the sheer intensity of the light burst.
He looks around wildly to try and locate the culprit, and when his vision finally clears he almost collapses with relief. She's here.
“Vesper! You're finally here! What took you so damn long?!” He almost laughs hysterically, still huddled up in his corner and trying with all his might to not let the ghosts touch him.
“You're welcome.” She replies sarcastically with open arms, blowing a strand of pearly-white hair away from her face. “I mean, you're a sight for sore eyes.” He quickly adds. “Now get me out of here!” He pleads in a high-pitched voice as he shakes the heavy chains hanging off of him. When she hesitates, he falters.
“Uh, can you hurry up? In case you hadn't noticed, there are an awful lot of...” Something standing behind Vesper catches his attention, making him pale until there's no color left in his face. “..ghosts...” He trails off as he stares at the horrifying apparition that almost seems like it emerged directly from Vesper's own shadow. It fades, reappears, and opens its mouth with a rattling moan. When the magician turns around, she lets out a sharp gasp as she sees it too.
“Lucio. Why did you do it?” Comes Vesper's soft, broken voice as the twisted creature approaches. His mouth opens in horror and his entire being suddenly grows cold. No... this can't be. She is alive! He knows she is! So why now...??
“You killed me, Lucio. Without thought or hesitation.” Continues the relentless apparition, and he shivers in his chains, knees hugged to his chest as he feels his throat close shut at its words.
“...I know. I'm-I'm sorry.” He stammers as his voice starts to break. “I didn't mean to kill you, I swear.” His fingernails dig into his knees and his lips start trembling again.
For a moment, the room falls silent as Vesper's eyes widen and she grows pale at their words. Her hands, which were getting ready to try and create another burst of light, lower in shock.
“What?! I died?” She stares at Lucio in pure disbelief, feeling a mixture of emotions hit her all at once as she tries to make sense of what she just heard. She thought this... apparition was merely trying to scare Lucio, to make him believe that he killed her, but his answer to those accusations is like a nail in the coffin or a flash of lightning in the darkness of the night. She died. But how? She is here right now, in the flesh! And yet...
But it all makes sense, doesn't it? No matter how hard she always tried, she never found an explanation for her amnesia, and even though she's always had a suspicion that Asra knew more than he let on, he always refused to discuss the matter further with her. The memory loss, the headaches, the disorientating feeling of being incomplete... it all seems to become a little clearer if her death is the explanation, but how does that even make a lick of sense? If she is dead then she shouldn't be here. How is she here? How can she be both dead and alive? A ghost and a living woman?
As a sudden shock of pain skewers her brain, her thoughts and feelings turn sour. The news of her death wasn't enough, of course. No, she also has to find out that the reason for all of this is none other than Lucio himself! All this time she's been trying to help him, to guide him, to save him... and he's been her killer all along?! A red hot anger rises in her body, but, right when she feels ready to explode, that anger suddenly turns into pain and her heart squeezes in her chest. Had he known all this time? Who she was? That she died because of him? While she was helping him, slowly falling for him... did he know he had doomed her?
Her eyes well up with tears and she doesn't even flinch when her ghost kneels next to Lucio's prone form. He tries to shrink away, but his chains hold him fast.
“If you didn't mean to kill me, why did you do it?” All the other ghosts suddenly surge forward, swarming around the three of them like a colony of ants with outraged cries of “Why? Why did we have to die here?”
“No, no, this isn't happening! You're not real! Leave me alone!” Lucio shrieks again, his desperation becoming more and more evident as the moments pass. Why did they have to die? Why did she have to die? He feels like the answers to those questions used to come naturally to him, not too long ago. A fair sacrifice for his success, for his survival, for his power. And he never batted an eye, did he? But those same answers now taste like bile in his mouth.
Still standing over him, Vesper looks around at the lamenting ghosts, alarmed. So many souls, so much pain... and it seems she was one of them at some point. The anguish hangs heavy in the room, almost suffocating her, becoming her own. Her gaze lowers towards Lucio again and her grief-stricken expression turns serious as understanding slowly dawns on her. “They won't just disappear.”
The ghosts' collective, plaintive cries are so loud that Vesper can barely hear herself, so she doesn't count on Lucio hearing her. Does she even care if he hears her? If he truly is the reason for her suffering... she could just turn around and leave. Something dark inside of her makes her think it could be easy for her to do it, to abandon him to this gruesome fate. But even so, despite these dark thoughts swirling in her mind, despite the anger, and against her better judgment, she takes a deep breath and steps forward, walking right through her own shade to sit next to him. “They won't just disappear.” She repeats, closer to his ear this time. “They must be here for a reason.”
Serious and strained as it is, her voice still sounds soft and kind as it always does when he most needs it. She just learned about her own death, that he made it happen... and yet she sits by his side and gently tries to pull him through. It only makes him want to cry more.
Lucio heaves a great sniff, still trembling from head to toe as he tries to gather his thoughts and to speak. “What reason?” His question comes out almost like a peep. He can't even look at her when he asks, because he knows that she is in pain, and that he is the cause of all this, no matter how much he likes to push the blame as far away from himself as possible.
“They're drawn to you. I don't know what they want, but it couldn't hurt to answer them, could it?” In truth she feels like she knows very well what they might want from him, and for a moment she wonders if perhaps part of her doesn't want the same thing, no matter how hard or painful it could be for him.
“I...” Begins Lucio, and suddenly the swarm of ghosts falls silent and still, hanging in the air like a cloud as they all wait expectantly for him to keep going. He sways back and forth on the spot, teetering on the edge of speech. Why is it always so difficult? Why does he always feel so awful? Why can't he just face reality? Why does he always mess things up so badly? He can feel Vesper's eyes on him, he knows the ghosts aren't the only ones waiting for answers... and knowing she is just sitting there, lost and confused and hurt, finally gives him that one last push.
“...I was afraid, okay? And I wasn't the only one.” He admits, bringing his hands up to his face with a rattle of chains as he feels a nauseating feeling of shame slowly well up inside him. “The plague was killing everyone! No one knew what to do. I didn't know what to do.” Images of the plague-ridden streets of Vesuvia flood his mind, startling him and setting off his usual ramblings. “You don't understand. I was Count, and I did what I had to. If I died of the plague-”. Suddenly, Vesper's ghost drifts closer to him, its outline shimmering in the dim gloom.
“What you had to do? Or what you wanted to do?” Its words come down on him like the blade of a guillotine, effectively knocking the air out of his lungs. “I-I-I don't-” he stutters as the panic, the guilt and the shame keep building up inside of him, making his eyes sting. “I was just so scared. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to disappear and be forgotten.”
His eyes widen in horror as realization dawns on him. “I... never thought about the same thing happening to anybody else.” His voice lowers as the weight of what he's done truly settles in. Vesper remains quiet by his side, but the flicker of a smile seems to appear on her ghost's face.
“Are you still afraid?” It asks almost tauntingly, but it is immediately met with Lucio's sincere response. “...yes. I've always been afraid.” He finally looks up to the figure's face, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
The hazy form of Vesper's ghost remains silent, but it extends one smoky hand towards Lucio and the other to her living, breathing counterpart.
“...Vesper?” He calls her name with uncertainty, once again searching for her guidance even though, right now, he feels like that's the last thing he deserves. She has every right to ignore him, to leave him there, to scorn him... and yet she gives him an encouraging nod, and she gently grasps her ghost's hand.
“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to. It won't happen again, I promise!” He exclaims, the first few tears finally falling down his face and staining his cheeks with his ruined makeup as he reaches for the hazy form drifting between him and Vesper. She doesn't even know if he's talking to it or to her. Perhaps it is both.
“Never again?” it inquires, and his quiet tears turn into loud and desperate sobs as his whole body shakes with his cries “Never! I swear!” He yells with so much sincerity that it shakes him down to his core, and with a wistful sigh, Vesper's ghost starts to disperse, shadow and vapor swirling around them.
“Do not forget...”
One by one, the other ghosts fade back into the crumbling mortar of the Lazaret. And as they disappear, so do the chains holding Lucio, who immediately reaches out to Vesper with a loud gasp, gripping hard onto her and sobbing into her shoulder. She is here, she is breathing. He knows there is a clear chance she might not want to have anything to do with him ever again after this, but for now he needs to hold her close, to make sure that she is truly alive. He couldn't live with the thought of her being gone for good... especially because of him.
Vesper stays still as Lucio clings to her, her eyebrows knitting together as she battles with herself. All her life, all the memories she's lost, all the pain and anguish that came with having to relearn how to even be a person.... It all was because of him. All this time she's been traveling with and helping the man that brought her to her death. That caused all of this. She has all the right to be angry at him, to yell at him and to never forgive him for what he's done... but once again that feeling in the back of her mind tells her that she should stay. This sensation that keeps pulling her towards him despite all the awful things he did... it has something to do with who she was before, she is certain of it. Whoever she was before she died is the reason why she hasn't left Lucio behind yet, why she can't help but understand him on a deep, personal level, no matter what he does. She should be screaming at him right now and yet she can't help but think that she's never heard Lucio sound so genuinely broken before, and once again, despite everything, her heart reaches out to him in sympathy. Maybe one day she'll regret standing by his side, trying to guide him towards a better path... But that day isn't today.
And as her arms finally come up to wrap around Lucio and hold him closer to her, the last chain binding him shudders, convulses... and crumbles away.
