pairing: sylus x mc
word count: 3,058
summary: After MC wakes up from an all-too-real dream, she struggles to piece together the fragments from another life - and rushes to seek out the only person who can soothe her sorrow.
tags/warnings: SPOILERS for Beyond Cloudfall (Sylus Limited Myth), first person, angst, emotional hurt + a little comfort, established relationship
a/n: This is my entry for the fanwork contest on twitter. I wish I'd had a little more time to polish it, but deadlines be deadlines. It was largely my need to get some of the intense emotions out after reading Beyond Cloudfall and "fix it" in a mostly canon compliant way.
(ao3 link)
I woke in a cold sweat, body aching with the all-too-real memory of growing horns and a tail - but more than that the pain of losing him. As if I’d really lived it. As if I’d really lost him.
I’m vaguely aware of tears streaming down my face as my hands clutch mindlessly at my chest. Unable to calm the racing of my heart, my lungs burn as if I’d just been fighting a horde of wanderers. My waking mind rails against the possibility of any of that being real, but I know - I know too damn well it was all true. My mind and body resonated with those memories and the damning pain too deeply to have been false.
A wellspring of grief swells up from my chest, emotions too big to name let alone reason with overwhelm me and get lodged in my throat. I have to see him. It’s the only thought I can firmly grasp onto as I choke on one sob after another.
Trembling from head to toe I climb out of bed, scrambling around my room as my body attempts to go through the habitual motions of getting ready. I go to grab a shirt but quickly drop it on the floor in favor of a jacket - I don’t have time to change, my pajamas are fine, I just need to see him. As I leave my apartment I almost forget my helmet, before hurrying back frantically to grab it.
It’s dark outside, probably some early hour - I could have called him, but those kinds of thoughts weren’t processing. The overlap of memories is disorienting: I didn’t have anything like a phone I could have called him with in that lifetime.
An orphan, raised on stories of slaying dragons, branded a sorceress to be executed… To be told such a fanciful story would have been one thing, but to remember it? Not everything entirely, nor clearly, but I remember enough. More than that: I remembered how I felt, and I can feel it all too keenly myself. The desperation, the anger, the desire, the hatred… And the love. The depth of our bond that tugs at me so violently now: I need to see him right fucking now.
From a street lamp overhead Mephisto tilted his head as he watched her amble towards her bike, her movements… odd. He was a smart enough bird to know something wasn’t right, and sent a message to Sylus.
I don’t think about how it is probably exceedingly dangerous to ride in my current state of mind. I’m too preoccupied taking countless fragments of moments and holding them to the light, seeing how they overlap.
“Do you know what you look like right now?” His voice asked me, layering gently over itself in two very different times.
“What a smug expression.” || “You’re a young dragon who just grew her horns.”
I remember when, indignantly, I bit his hand in an act of defiance against fate. And I remember when, with that confident, captivating look on his face, he bit my hand playfully in the café.
Speeding down the streets towards the N109 Zone, countless memories re-arrange themselves in my mind. How many times? How many times had he reached out to me, spoke to me in a secret language only we could know, hoping to trigger a spark.
And I had known it all along, deep down. From the first time I saw him, when I looked into his eyes and felt that insatiable urge to devour him. When I absorbed the aether core and saw that dreadful moment where his clawed hand grasped mine and stabbed him through. Every time our aether cores formed the linkage between us, or even that time in the cathedral, where we played the organ together…
“You actually remembered.” He had said.
How many times have I asked him to explain? And now… Now I think I might understand a little of why he didn’t. At the very least, I can’t imagine how to explain it if it was me who remembered first.
But at the end of my dream I was left alone, clutching the last fragment of his soul as my body painfully transformed. It was then I woke up with an anguish too great to bear, but also: a smoldering determination. Or rather, maybe it was better to call it ‘defiance’, of the fate we’d been handed. But I can’t fathom what might have possibly come next. With a grief that big, part of me doesn’t want to.
All I know for sure is: I have to see him. He’d been bearing the burden of it all this time alone, I can’t bear the thought of him being alone one more moment. To say nothing of the sickening nausea that wrenches my gut remembering how it had felt to watch him die. I have to see him with my own eyes, feel him with my hands, know that he is real and alive.
By the time I arrive at the base I’m somehow more disoriented than I had when I’d woke up. I feel like a time traveler several times over. The ride had been such a blur I barely remember it, which is a scary thought, but I don’t care to linger on it. My mind and body feel out-of-sync, and when my body sways it takes a second longer for my mind to correct it. I feel… drunk, almost, or drugged, like the first time I came to the N109.
What am I going to say to him? I wrack my brain for a single word to start with, but before I can grasp anything I’m torn back to a dream within a dream in a flower field, I think of the flowers he took me to see a few weeks ago.
Sylus is so damn good at reading my mind, would he know just by looking at me?
The familiar sound of a crow calling startles me, and when I shake my head the synchronization of my body and mind gets a little better. Mephisto lands on my shoulder, and it’s a comforting weight.
“…Were you following me?” I stroke a finger against his neck absently, out of habit. He leans into it as if enjoying the attention, but I suspect it’s more of a friendly gesture for my sake.
The doors swing open and the faces of the twins greet me.
“Hey there, boss-lady.” Kieran starts in his usual, friendly tone, but then it shifts as if he’s unsure of something. “Uhh, boss isn’t here right now, but he’s on his way.”
“He said to get you anything if you needed.”
For a moment I simply stare back at them as my brain processes these new inputs. As often as I come here nowadays, it wasn’t like they needed to roll out the red carpet for me or anything, so this welcome is… a little odd. Then it clicks, and I glance at Mephisto again.
“You told on me.” It feels nice and a little grounding to know my favorite mechanical crow is still looking out for me like always.
He turns his head away and gives a short, indignant caw. He’s being stubborn and a little shy.
“I’m just going to wait in his room…” I tell Luke and Kieran as I walk in, handing my helmet over to them. They step aside, but I hear them trailing behind me a little ways down the halls - they’re shuffling and dragging their feet on purpose.
“All right, but… just let us know if you need anything.” Then, silently, they fall back into the shadows.
Do I look as bad as I feel? My face does still burn from crying so much, and I feel tired enough for two lifetimes of shared memories.
Once I step into his room though, an inexplicable comfort washes over me. I feel a tension unravel and a new wave of grief as I hug myself, consoled in the smallest sense seeing signs of him.
Mephisto flutters over to his perch, but keeps a silent eye on me. Lingering in the middle of the room, I scan the familiar sights slowly. The art on the walls, the records and record player… My heart twists recalling that he hadn’t appreciated music ‘back then’.
It all makes sense, doesn’t it? The hordes of trinkets and weapons he collects are much the same as back then. I can’t help but wonder how many of the weapons were collected from people who had tried to kill him, like those kept in his lair in Tarus City.
A searing anger kindles within me at the thought of it, and a realization follows that once again my beloved has been branded a villain in this life. I cling to the anger, it’s so much easier to deal with than all the pain and grief, but it isn’t nearly enough.
I can’t bring myself to sit so I simply stand in the middle of the room, hugging myself tighter. What I need to do is get my thoughts and emotions under control, and figure out just what the hell I’m possibly going to say to him. But just thinking about how to open her mouth and utter the words makes me feel like I’ll start sobbing again. Or vomit. Maybe both.
Maybe he already knows. We’re bound together, we’ve shared dreams before… Again my thoughts derail as a heat warms my face recalling a certain dream I had a few months ago. I pat my cold hands against my cheeks, and internally squash down my shame. So what if he knows about that?
Except, he knew all along and never told me so many other things, too. Part of me desperately wants something to be angry and indignant about, but instead all I’m left with is a sweetly sharp and aching pain: I love him so much. He’s always trying to be so considerate of me, and I know it’s because he wants us to live this life that we have together, right here and now. I feel so sure of it in the depths of my soul, as if his heart beats steadily alongside my own whispering this answer.
Tears are running down my face again. How can one person cry so damn much?
The door opens behind me, and I realize I haven’t thought of a single thing to say to him. My throat feels tight and my brain is just as uncooperative as it’s been this entire time.
Behind me the familiar sound of his footsteps approaches, and he softly says my name like a question, gently coaxing me to look at him.
He told me before: between him prying and me opening up, he prefers the latter. Today, I might need him to pry a little. But more important than anything: I need to see him.
That one overwhelming feeling that brought me here turns me on my heel. Without hesitation I rush to him, taking his face between my hands and tracing every detail with my gaze. He does the same, searching my face for answers - not yet reading my mind, it seems.
I trace his jawline with my fingertips, brush my thumbs over his cheeks, my attention lingering briefly in places where scales grew like armor once. For the first time since I woke up I am seeing clearly, my body and mind in sync, the world and all things settling into place as I trace a finger down the bridge of his perfect nose and then brush it over those irresistible lips.
And of course, those eyes. His utterly captivating eyes that pull me in and keep me. It hurts to think that I might have ever been afraid of him. I know now better than ever before (and I definitely knew it before) but he is, of course, utterly deserving of that fear. But not from me. Never me.
Sylus’s hands rest on my waist. He doesn’t move away from my inspection, and for several moments says nothing either. He simply watches me in return, a slight furrow in his brow as he waits patiently - no doubt assessing every possibility as to what might have drove me here in this state. He’d raze Linkon - even the world - if something upset me. If I asked him to.
I need to put his mind at ease. I wet my lips and take in a breath, but the words die on my tongue.
“What happened?” He asks gently when he sees me struggle. Then, with a hint of pain -or maybe guilt- in his voice: “Did you have another bad dream?”
Despite everything, I smile. I also barely choke back a sob, but I still can’t help but smile. His hands draw up to cup my face and gently wipe the new tears from my raw cheeks. I manage a small nod to give him some measure of an answer, as I give him another look-over.
He’s here. Alive. My dragon is here with me. I have to tell him I remember.
But those aren’t the words that come spilling out.
“I love you.”
That’s the most important thing. Even if I can’t stop myself from crying again, I have to tell him this, even if I’m shaking as I press my hands to his chest, gripping the fine fabric of his suit and leaving wrinkles.
“I love you so much, Sylus.”
He looks a little stunned, which I might have delighted in any other time. It’s subtle, because it’s Sylus, but his brows are slightly raised and lips parted as he tries to make sense of the state I’m in and the words I’m saying. Maybe I’m making it worse.
“You-?” He starts to speak, maybe to ask something, or maybe he figured it out. But at long last the next words are there in my mouth full of bitterness and relief, hope and grief, and too many emotions to name let alone stomach, so I fling them out to be rid of them at last.
“I remember.”
It barely scratches the surface, but it tells him what he needs to know for the moment. In dozens of moments in our time together I have seen looks like this one on his face. Where memories overlap and he has to carefully bite back his words and feelings. I understand it very well now. Right now he’s wondering: ‘How much?’ and it’s not as though I could answer that for him in a single word. I’m certain there is still so much I don’t remember.
“Is that so?” He asks slowly, brushing a hand over my hair soothingly. “And what exactly did you remember?”
Yeah, I should have seen that one coming. I touch his face again, gazing into those stunning ruby eyes as I try to find more words. I’ll start simple.
“I remember a dragon.” Yes, that’s an easy place to start. In my memory he is breathtaking beyond words. “A beautiful, lonely dragon, who spoiled me rotten.” I feel a smile return to my lips, and I can feel the smug satisfaction of the Sorceress burn hot in my chest. ‘Rotten’, yes, by the standards of the Ivory City. But she had embraced her true desires, her true self.
Sylus closes his eyes for a moment and lets out a quiet laugh, a smirk on his lips.
“You actually remembered.” He sighs, and though he sounds relieved, there’s some other emotion I can’t quite place. It might be close to the ‘guilt’ that sometimes colors his voice when he feels bad about plaguing my dreams with his wounds. Which seems fitting, in a strange sense. Painfully fateful in another.
How many of those dreams were actually ‘real’? Like the dreams we created between our bound souls, like warmth born between clasped hands.
It doesn’t matter right now. Probably.
“But… you left me.” I can barely get the words out, they’re quiet and break under the weight of emotions, but at the very least I don’t cry any more. I might actually be all cried out, but my head is definitely starting to hurt about it.
“You should know that’s not possible.” He speaks in a low, soft voice. There’s an undercurrent of forcefulness that betray strong feelings, but he’s purposefully speaking so very gently. He takes my opposite hand, twining our fingers together. “Our souls are bound together. I am always with you.”
“But you died.” I know it’s true, I felt it. He isn’t exactly denying it either.
“And I’m here now.”
His words are irrefutable. That’s all that matters now, isn’t it? It’s also not like I haven’t seen him survive the impossible before. It isn’t an answer, not exactly, but it settles some of the loud confusion in my head regardless.
I touch my fingers just below his right eye. A familiar hunger thrums gently in me, but it doesn’t frighten me. For now, it’s enough knowing that it’s proof of our bond.
“Yeah…” I murmur, aware of how unconvincing I sound. Softly holding my chin he leans closer, so his eyes are all I can see.
“And I’m not going anywhere.” His words sound like an echo of our oaths to each other. The ring clear and strong, unwavering; the confidence he always embodies reverberates within me. I squeeze his hand tightly.
“Good.” I feel my resolve overlap with the Sorceress’s from that moment he nearly slipped through her fingers completely. “You’re not even allowed to think about leaving me.” Her words overlap with my own, and I watch a smile form on his lips. “You’ll always be tied to me. Forever.”
That’s right. We’ll tear down any fate that tries to keep us apart with our own hands, and then we’ll reforge it into whatever we desire - together.
He lifts our hands and places a soft kiss against my knuckles. Time and again I’ve seen emotions pass over him that I couldn’t understand, but now I see more clearly. The warmth of relief eases his shoulders and bolsters him. I think… maybe he didn’t even expect my remembering to soothe him as much as it does.
“That,” he says as his thumb sweeps over my lips, “is a fate I will gladly accept.”
THE CLEAN UP HAS BEGUN! also I felt it didn't stab me in the soul quite enough so I just had to twist the dagger a bit more and add the ghost of his horns. Enjoy and try not to cry! XD cause I didn't succeed lol
