Day 47: Sun Room [4th Shift]

[forgot_it_all]

[For Yuna!Fish and chips weren't his favorite thing ever, but he did make sure to eat it all. He just liked to think of the fish as the Filet'o Fish without the bun and it made it easier to eat. The french fries had been pretty well cleaned off and he'd even managed a bit of fruit, although he avoided the oranges and other sour things his nurse

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[purpletaint]

The giggle that returned her words left much to be desired, weak and self-depreciating. It was funny, though. He'd repeat; irony would hold the place that life should. No matter where he was or who he was currently conversing with, his siblings came up. Now, and with Ritsuka... Should his question, instead, be if he was that utterly transparent?

He passed on the option, swallowing and dragging his hand down off of his face. Moments had passed, only, in his false darkness, but still the boy winced. Too bright. Much too bright. The shadows hid too well.

Albedo glanced over at her, expression permeable, inconsistent but ill-defined. He leaned a chin into his palm, elbow pressing into his thigh. "I have two brothers," was how it started.

"Purity may be my definition, but irony would rather fit me to lacking any kind of life. My mirror calls forth thoughts of blood and murder, love and hate in both highest quality. But like fire, what burns brightest goes out quickest, and passion may be his only redeeming quality." Don't ask him more, he'd rather not think. Touching too close already to words brimming tears.

"The youngest is death itself, a pale rider on a dark horse; the Executioner bound. He twists words and hearts to suit him, unrevealing his own." A beat. A thought. "He has one, though. That, at least, is reassuring."

Should she ask, of bonds of blood and their breaking? The boy might relent and speak freely. His mind was already slipping, a train from its tracks, and he would answer. He would not offer, but he would answer.

[finalwitch]

Despite the boy's poetic inclinations, his words were not at all difficult to decipher. He had a twin, whose fire and blood rang closer the state of Rubedo. The youngest? Nigredo. Red, white, and black. Their creators had such a terrible sense of humor.

Ah. Ange tapped at her chin, observation in analysis. Maria had written about the stages in her grimoire. Not as extensively as the witch Beatrice and her Seven Stakes of Purgatory, but there had been enough regarding The Great Work to render some consideration. Along with Jung's comparison to the evolution of self and Albedo's revealing depictions, she had a fair idea on the nature of these siblings.

Names, as they say, were more than simple labels.

But it seemed the child had yet to finish. Ange had no reason to dissuade; whatever he wanted meant nothing else. "Go on," she said.

[purpletaint]

There was something like a breath caught in this; something inherently wrong but altogether necessary. Somewhere he knew he was breathing normally, still he felt like he was gasping, choking for air in a world in which there was none. The words themselves had freed something--words a spell? He had never thought so until this moment. Go on?

Albedo looked at her now, eyes widening wildly. The light behind his eyes caught and flashed iridescence. "Go on?" he echoed, words disbelieving. "What shall I say?"

But the boy was already caught, his fate turned over to the truth spilling out in the simplest of ways. The day had been too much, too long, and the night before as well. And before then, and before that as well! What to say? The words had already came. "A million tales I could tell." (I will speak to you in parables; I will utter hidden things.)

"I, a mistake. My other heart, the perfect weapon. The third, a careful fail-safe placed to hinder and destroy us if we become too much." The words were thrown with sharpness but no heat. His tone quieted, evened. "What should I say?... The only thing I ever held dear abandoned me and worse. Left me to my time with monsters, hiding from his own true nature while defining it with his actions. And worse... All worse." His hand turned; he stared at his upraised palm like the girl wasn't there. "Should I mourn this?" he murmured. "Is a sharp break better than a slow death? Is it better to know pain instead of deluding oneself constantly? It is better that he hates me, and is alive, even as I have to bear it, every day, the knowledge of being without?"

His stretched fingers trembled. His eyes remained wide. Time will heal? The truth will set us free? A prison made of lies, and no comfort in this broken hall of dreams. His mouth opened to add a clever endpoint, a witty retort or quip dashed with truth, but the moment held. Albedo stared down, mind collapsing onto itself.

[finalwitch]

She could only supply a candid answer; it was not in her nature to do otherwise: "You'll know what to say." Those without had nothing, no million tales to choose among and share. This boy was the very opposite-- Here, she decided, was the contrasting point between them.

Ange listened quietly, making no note or interruption. There existed none she required clarification on; Albedo had a remarkable talent for laying everything bare. Everything, except one. Ah, this couldn't be allowed; she liked complete answers. Her vision slid to the side.

"You mentioned three. You explained two." A pause. "There is a story with your youngest." It didn't require confirmation. The boy had hinted as much himself.

[purpletaint]

Something shaking continued to shudder, a forceful silent breaking. All spoken... Had been nothing but true. Nothing but what was and had been. And all of it... Came to nothing. Nothing was all that remained. No tears showed, but his eyes widened even more. The hand's open palm moved up to grab at his hair. What was he doing? What was all this? What was going on?

Her words grated, touched delicate and splintered. Awareness rose into being as he glanced fearfully towards her, then fell away all the same. What had been... What was.... "Three to two," he murmured like a chant. "And then two to three. And three to one. And then?... Where? One to two to three to none. Soon enough, at least." Already. Too much.

"My youngest," he echoed, amusement touching. His? What a quaint thought. There was something like lucidity, and Albedo's hand fell down. He smiled without reason, something lost in the expression. "He holds both hope and despair, it seems. He can destroy everything that has meaning, and he can offer... much. When he chooses. And it seems his lack of life is just an act. He can dance, when the mood strikes or blood is shed. He can lose the strings for a time. And he..." Felt the same. The Rubedo had left them both. Albedo's eyes shut. And what would happen, in the future past? The moment passed with a whisper, processes slowing. "And he is becoming just as broken."

[finalwitch]

Ange would admit the details were sketchy at best, but this was a case left without specifics. Ah, and was she glad? More than she would confess. Another's tragedy had hardened the view against her own; since the instant a dead brother came to life, she felt a resolve strengthen within.

"Dying," she interjected, red hair a wall between her expression and the observed. "Not broken." Broken implied abruptness, the roots torn and scattered. Girls turning to glass, for instance. Perhaps Ange was running away with metaphors and assumptions, but the boy needed to understand the difference.

The difference? She seemed so good at understanding that.

With a slow finger, Ange ran it through her hair. She supposed she could offer Albedo sympathy or the usual bout of optimism. Things would turn better for the best, look to tomorrow, etc. Girls were supposedly known for such hopeful statements, right? But they paled in comparison to Maria's magic, and Maria herself had been broken just the same. Ange would give the boy a truth, her truth. In exchange for this distraction.

"You're in a unique position," she continued, "compared to your brothers."

[purpletaint]

Dying. The world held and shook, freezing him. Dying? No... No. Albedo couldn't even laugh at the irony. Nigredo had died, to return, and he would die, if another heart's words were true. Dying. It seemed far too slow for them, when their deaths would be abrupt. It seemed far too accurate, for their timelines counting down each second to the cutoff already in motion. (He imagined he could see it sometimes; late at night at the foot of their beds--the cells breaking down, dying away, the process of aging, of entropy consuming them--)

But on the whole, it was maybe that he was the one truly dying. Hadn't he said that, half-forgotten to Rubedo that night? Hadn't he claimed everything he hadn't meant to say?

Albedo had started shaking without warning, a vibration of need and denial intermingling. "If you claim he is," the boy responded. "Then I am far closer."

Impressions slid and shifted, an internal argument played out in a moment's haste--comparing the value of loss placed to himself and his younger sibling. It was a failed attempt, anyway; the thought tread too close to something like compassion and empathy to be wholly successful. But he would reconcile this-- Perhaps both of their loss was severe in nature. Albedo couldn't know. And he hadn't known. An open link was a gift; something to haunt and tear.

But as if to lift the warring placed within, she spoke again. For the smallest of moments, Albedo considered her, wondered at her chain of words and their cause. His mind held to constants. She, too, could be like Ritsuka and himself, albeit preemptively. Knowing loss of siblings, from death or cowardice or a witch, could effectively change one to become another. And for that moment, he wondered, and responded without thinking, voice tired, watching her without emotion. "What position do you see me in?"

[finalwitch]

Closer, huh? She did not hold any objections to that statement. Nor did Ange feel a tinge of disappointment or disdain. Albedo was beginning to get it. With this, he had stepped closer to her plane of existence.

No further, however. There were limitations to these things, after all.

"The position you hold yourself to," stated Ange, her words simple. "You're the middle child. I'm the youngest in my family and can't explain it as well as you could; however..." With an air of apparent indifference, the girl leaned forward, her hand tucked under her chin. "Older brothers and sisters have a responsibility over the happiness of their younger siblings. They have a choice to uphold or abandon that responsibility; in the end, they will never escape the consequences of their choice. Your brother is no exception." His would meet his own, or perhaps he was already suffering. The thought to observe this Rubedo was carefully tucked away.

She continued, "The younger, on the other hand, are impressionable. Just as older siblings are chained to their actions, younger siblings are chained to the effects. We can only want. Or hope or beg or wait for a disaster or a miracle." For a witch to appear. "The actual fulfillment is outside of our reach. We can only chase what we may never have." Her gaze crystallized, another truth forming in the process. "Your brother is no exception."

There was a sigh, as though the girl had revealed more than expected. "But you see, Albedo. You have both a younger brother and an older brother. You have a power the others lack."

[purpletaint]

Another time, the words spoken may have been doubted; placed to analyze and choose the parts to keep. Now, staring at nothing, Albedo took the words as truth. Because she had touched it already. And here, she said so again, in as many words as he would not say. The elder had a responsibility to the younger--they defined their happiness. He knew it too well, and he knew the lacks present. More than one had said Rubedo had shirked his responsibilities; here was only another, giving him more dirt to work with.

His hands fisted and released. He didn't seem to notice.

The second portion spoke true. As well, he knew this. Only want. Too well. Yes. He knew too well. He would continue living, hoping in vain for a miracle. For his death that may yet come at the hand of the one who refused to let Albedo's own happiness slide in-between his own. He twitched, the thought pressing. Chained to the effects. There was no escape in that, none. And this would continue still, and--

She was still speaking and Albedo absorbed it without true awareness, kept up in his own wanderings. For a moment, only. That something settled, clicked in a simple way that it would have never before. Nigredo. He, too... Was a younger brother.

The words spilled backwards, the context shifted. In that... In this... What was Nigredo waiting for? What chains bound his heart, his existence to another's actions? Albedo understood. Like he wouldn't have. Because he felt freely the longing deep within the other Variant's mind that morning. Albedo felt the deep want that was controlled so carefully. And in only this, did he start to understand. Did he start to realize.

The boy's expression still held a mix of vacancy and shock, still he was prompted to gain more details. "I do," he whispered, wondered. "But what power do you say I have?"

[finalwitch]

Watching him, one would have assumed the boy had never been presented with words of this nature. Ange held to no such assumption. These reactionary hints were nothing more than recognition, no different from lost memories coming to light.

She remained quiet as she mulled over the presented question. There was difficulty in forming the answers; after all, she had no experience being in the middle. "Unlike Rubedo, Albedo can learn from his brother's mistakes," Ange replied. "Unlike Nigredo, Albedo can act to overcome them. You can be the older brother you want for yourself, and in this, you can spare the younger from your pain. Even with loss, there would be a chance at happiness."

"The opposite," she continued, her eyes narrowing in a gesture of caution, "can also occur, if you wish it. You can choose to perpetuate the eldest's hate and your pain. Condemn your older brother and destroy your younger. It would be so easy, really." All he would need to do is reject.

"But be aware. Though your older brother might have started this schism, you are ultimately responsible for your younger brother's fate." And this, too, was simple. Because Albedo would know and would still choose to look away.

[purpletaint]

Again her words spoke directly to his mind, to his wide-eyed and wondering self. Unlike one, he could learn. Unlike another, he could overcome. These statements, possible facts, remained flawed. This only spoke to a moving self, a self not trapped in stagnation. He had claimed the road to ascension, but here, again, he had stalled, dying as quickly as he regenerated. And that was slowing, wasn't it? Hadn't he? That had slowed.

All of what she was saying only mattered if Albedo was in a position to move. Like Endurance before her, she was speaking words applicable to someone not tied to their fate. (But hadn't he claimed that hadn't fit for him anymore? Hadn't he rejected those shackles?)

Too many words were left unsaid in this round, too many questions yet to voice. Albedo again looked at her, some trace of weary sanity slipping into place. Condemn the older and destroy the younger? Both paths had seemed so simple when he first arrived. That had been the obvious choice to take. The only choice. Something shivered inside of him, a chill he couldn't shake. He opened his mouth to speak, and found he couldn't. Perpetuate Rubedo's hate. Was that all his actions were? Just another castoff, and not a sign of his own motivations and dark promises. His chest heaved with quickened breaths; Albedo didn't notice. She was making it seem... like he had a choice.

He frowned up at her, every bit the confused and broken child. "You assume that I can move," the boy stated, as if it made the most perfect sense. "And when..." His gaze dropped, a pounding worsening in his head. "When did I become responsible for Nigredo's fate?" He had never... Thought of the younger in that way. If anything, Rubedo would--

A lie. Two lies. Rubedo had shown he would not support the younger. And Albedo, too, had shown that he cared about Nigredo's well-being that day he cried in the showers. Two lies. Which, then, was stronger?

[finalwitch]

Poor child. Her peers might have catered to this boy by offering a light pat on his head or words of encouragement. In a way, he deserved a form of affection; he appeared lacking in reception. His brothers (or perhaps only one--it was hard to say) were deemed unable or unwilling to provide. More kindness could only do good, no?

Except Ange operated on different mechanics. She laughed at Albedo, her titters concise and decidedly bitter. He was being ridiculous, to claim no movement when both origin and end were in his sights. And as quickly as her laughter came, it dropped. The sudden shift might have appeared strange to the outside, but the young woman seemed not to care.

"They're not dead," she stated. "As long as that fact holds, you can still move. You don't--" A falter. "--want to know what true stagnation is." And if Ange held any pity toward him, she would wish he would never have to know.

Content with the answer, she tossed a strand of hair over her shoulder and focused on the next. Thankfully, this was less disheartening. "When you both acknowledged each other as brothers."