Purgatory

[19:16] The ferry to the underworld. The waiting room before your final appointment with the stars. A limbo in-between absolution and reality. A place where those who have died pass by, sit at, and await their fate unlike any other.

Purgatory.
Death.
The otherworld.

Many names have been bestowed to the area covered in darkness from which Bruno pyr Aertas emerged. Though unlike many others the man held a broken form. Having ripped his very own essence into pieces after pieces left this final image of the occultist to be full of visible holes.

Perhaps the biggest of them all was the one in his heart when his eyes laid upon his sister.

Upon his wife.

There was no more running from the truth.

"You paid the price. It never turned out to be worth it."

He went silent for a moment, stepping closer for his image to shine under the light of the very stars he fought to banish.

"I'm sorry."
(Bruno pyr Aertas)
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[19:39] She sits in an odd place.

Neither the Stars claim her nor the howling depths of Hel. Clutched close and always by her sister's side is where the woman rests for-

Eternity?

Little can be heard, felt, noticed. Though sprinkles of the fourth Commander's essence exists somewhere, someplace. Unfortunately, with the little to be seen, what cuts into it is one of the last few visages caught in her gaze in final living moments.

Matryona never knew how others saw her. Her husband called her the most beautiful woman in the world. Departure from life left her flesh marred but when a little image of her decides to partially exist- Blackened flakes feather off of pale, delicate skin.

She sees her brother.

He apologizes.

What can she say? What should see? Matryona doesn't lie- She masks her feelings but she does not lie. He steps closer and she stands still, features dull and blank like they've always been. On few fingers can the woman count the times he may have seen it.

Wordlessly, the youngest, the baby Aertas steps forward. Her chin tilts up and reddish hues meet her brother's. Her older brother. "You made threats for my safety."

Ryker's hands. "It's all you could talk about. How I should be okay." Her expression finally wavers- The corners of her lips droop downward. "I defended your life."

Embarrassed herself when Bruno's crime could barely thought to be forgiven for. "I wanted to protect you from yourself." That day, all she wanted was Bruno to come to his sense.

Her gloved hand rises up quickly- The flickering, fading essence of her older brother feels that pent anger. He's struck at his cheek. "I hate you." It spills out withthe fall of tears. "I hate you."
(Matryona pyr Docro)
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[19:56] The dark void between the material and the cosmic plane.

Anna stands behind her Commander, light brown eyes gazing at the mangled essence of Bruno behind black rimmed glasses not with cold dispassion and anger, but simple sadness.

It was the stars that awaited her, her fate, to continue on with the cycle. The norm for uncountable numbers of souls who pass on, so unlike the tortured and spoken for souls of the two before her.

In her final moments, he had told her not to wait for him. She didn't listen to him. She waited for him, and watched in silence as Matryona responds to her husband's apology. The shortest Aertas' hand raises and strikes against his cheek, and her proclamation comes with tearful emotion.

Unlike anything that her Commander had ever displayed in life.

Anna watches. She observes in silent sadness, and now displayed guilt. "I should have been there for you. The both of you. It was my job to make sure Bruno didn't veer away from the Empire's path. That he didn't lose himself to his magic." Upon her chest, a single hole resides, charred black by a single precise strike of occult tainted lightning that brought with it instant death.

"I wish I had been more reliable, Commander. When it mattered most."
(Anastasia pyr Aertas)
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[20:07] His head shifted from the touch of her gloved hand. Cracks in his very essence spread further as smaller pieces, smaller memories were cast away with her blow. An unstable man such as himself could hardly keep it all in place.

To her tearful words did he reply.

"I hate myself, too."

How could he not? He claimed the lives of people he loved more than anyone else in the world. The two of them, even, his own top two. He made no excuse for it. He didn't even reach out for Matryona in an attempt to quell her tears, instead finally... being honest.

"I did it for you."

He finally turns to look towards the ex-Commander.

"The New World Order. It carried a dream, my dream. But this... blessing I gave them all?

It was for you, Matryona.

I needed something worth your soul to trade with him. We were on the docks when I made that decision. We... spoke of family. Of how Achlys himself must have felt if everything that he was doing was only second to the memories of his family.

It's on that day that I made the decision that we'd have a... New World of our own.

I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

His gaze shifted to Anastasia who had been faithful in waiting for him. She needed her own deal of words, too. Though Bruno knew better than to say some nonsense, he rose up his right hand and there it shone.

The northern lights.
Their rings, the both of them, held together and forever fused to remain as such. A proof that he still... loved her. Obviously.

"You won't have me here for long. Ryker struck a deal with Achlys."

Bruno's own worst nightmare.
(Bruno pyr Aertas)
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[20:26] From behind speaks Anatasia. She's waited for Bruno, surely. A soul descent up to the Stars, as its said, for cleansing. Though Matryona believes all to be bleak following the departure of one's soul.

She's waited.

In her waiting did he drift. He's fallen astray and onto a path that all occultists eventually reach. It's why they have no rights.

Matryona doesn't need comfort. Her words rang true, walls lowered- He had breached even her mightiest of fortresses, did he not? Emotionally, they fall into ruin and shambles.

"Liar." She's quick with her words, direct and seeking to strike a nerve. "Liar." Nonsensical. "You lost yourself. Don't lie to me."

"Admit you lost control and you were wrong. Admit that you were afraid. Admit that you thought for even a second that I would dare take your life."

The woman steps back. "That I'd rob you of proving yourself to be a man who could get better and overcome. That I'd rob children of their father." Her fist clenches.

"YOU TOOK THEM FROM ME!" Not once would a shred of emotion this potent leave her while she was alive. Yet this is her in her purest sense. No walls, no exteriors- But a soul saved by her sister.

Her two children, pride and joy, the second and third loves of her life- "You took me from him..." And the first, her husband. He was the first she dared open up to and she was stolen.

There will be not an ounce of forgiveness for her brother- The older one. Her mind will forever trace back to siblings looking out for each other. For the eldest brother to protect the youngest one, his little sister.

But he killed her.

And to hear that even in his death, his soul will know nothing but suffering and anguish in the depths of Hel? "Rot." Matryona steps back. "Rot there." A heated exhale leaves the woman's nostrils. Her final words, the only spoken at her death filled with love.

Does she love him?

"Rot and suffer."

Nothing he ever did was for her. Matryona firmly believes it. "I'll never forgive you." Should she ever live again, she'll hold onto it- Latch so tightly to that belief. "You killed me."

Does she love him?

Further steps back, this piece of heated essence, that hate and scorn which stored so collectively within her. "You killed me when I loved you, Bruno." No more. She can't bear a second of this. These specks of gathered essence of hers within this limbo merely turns. That gorgeous woman, beautiful mother, stalwart Commander, baby sister.

"Goodbye."
(Matryona pyr Docro)
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[20:34] Anger was evident. Anger was deserved. Even in the face of the truth anger prevailed.

He'd taken everything from her out of fear that she would take everything for him, she was right. And yet, his lips dare to part. His eyes dare to lay upon the sister who came to be the source of more heartache split from time and space themselves.

His mouth was open, though there was nothing worth saying. No explanation. No excuse. No clarification would ever change what he had done; to take the life of someone you love madness had to be deeply ingrained within a mind.

She was right.

".. I love you too."

Quiet words were all he managed as he watched her turn away from him, as he watched her reject the very remains of a broken man.

Eyes befall Anastasia, awaiting for her to berate and scold him. To say her last piece before it was too late.

Before Achlys would come to claim this stray soul of his.
(Bruno pyr Aertas)
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[20:46] Anastasia watches as Matryona curses her husband, and she says nothing more to her Commander as she turns to depart. Bruno had deserved that, and while she wished she could have been there to perhaps make this story come out differently..

She simply wasn't. It was a regret she would have to live with. Just like Bruno would have to live with his.

Light brown eyes turned to settle upon Bruno, coming to meet her husbands own befallen gaze. He waited for her to berate and scold him, but no such thing comes to pass.

Instead, a sigh of lamentation, sadness within her eyes remaining. "I would have liked for you to be able to accompany me on this last, grand adventure." She says towards him, her voice cracking briefly as her eyes shift to look out into the darkness of the realm beyond.
(Anastasia pyr Aertas)
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[20:54] Bruno pyr Aertas had always been the kind of man who went beyond and above to obtain what he wanted. Even with the cold of death surrounding them, even with the roaring flames of Hel calling for his soul despite the man's greatest efforts to fight it off he remained himself.

It was not out of insanity that the Aertas was the type to want more than everything else. It's with words that Anastasia should expect of her husband that he approached.

"You... could accompany me."

Words that quieted down the tug at his very soul. The prospect of yet another was likely enough to calm Achlys down.

The man stood before the woman who gave him everything. Everything he wanted. Everything he needed. Everything that he could have ever wished for. Anastasia had always been there for him through the enteriety of their life.

'Til death do us part was but a suggestion, was it not?

"You-"

A breath, depsite the lack of need for one.

"You owe me as much."

She'd forced his hand. She had begged him to take her life. She had brought pain unlike any other upon his heart, even going as far as waiting for him the entire time. And now she was going to give up?

Not on his watch.

Bruno's right hand reached out. Damaged essence calling to another. A reminder of their promise to eachother, of their vows, of what had taken up all the room in their hearts for years and years on end.

He was still the man she loved. Far more reasonable without the pressure of the world on his shoulders, even as damaged as he was. His lips parted with a revelation that may just tip the woman's heart.

"I remember them all. Every single moment we've spent together."

He'd never sacrificed her memory for anyone else. Not even for himself.
(Bruno pyr Aertas)
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[21:07] "Can I?"

Can she?

Were they still able to do so given the natural cycle of things, and how Bruno was now outside of that cycle, given specifically to Achlys. She had no such chains on her soul.

Is there anything stopping her from remaining here and waiting for Achlys to arrive, then joining her husband on his own grand adventure?

Was there a difference between the two for her?

There was silence between them, brown eyes staring into his own blues, before dropping down to see his damaged and mangled essence reaching out to her.

There was a difference. The difference was that her own adventure would have to be taken alone. Anastasia's hand moves outwards slowly, hovering just above his, but not yet taking it.

"What was the most important promise we made to one another?" She asks him, her eyes looking back up towards him to meet his gaze as she waits for his answer. Searching. Hoping.
(Anastasia pyr Aertas)
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[21:14] "To stay together..."

His hand rose up without the need for hers to lower it. He was claiming it. Taking it. Holding as tight as this mere image of the man could. Blue eyes. How long had it been since they were this vibrant color.

".. forever."

The answer to his demand was brought by the question she made. He needed not for her to confirm it, to seek out if he really was the man she had loved for so, so many years. The father of her children. The one who'd broken down from his stuck-up, cold demeanor to allow her into his heart.

A human, of all things. With her imperfections, her fears, her wants, her mood swings, her likes and... dislikes.

A pull forced Anastasia pyr Aertas into her husband's arms. And quiet words were finally spoken.

"I may have some time for a dance..."
(Bruno pyr Aertas)
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[21:35] Anastasia listens to his response, and the hope upon her expression blossomed with a truly joyful smile. The outlook of someone who had just reunited with the love of their life after decades apart.

"My love."

He did not need to pull her forcefully into his arms, once his answer was given, she stepped forwards, grasping at him once again.

"My own adventure can wait for a while. I would rather accompany you on yours." She says towards him quietly, the same warm smile she displayed to him all those years ago. Welcoming his presence, unguarded and accepting.

Always and forever.

"Do you still remember the steps?" She asks of him, though she does not wait before she began their usual dance, to the slow rhythm that was theirs and only theirs.

And it was like that, that Anastasia would follow her husband, her life's love into Hel itself. His selfishness ensnaring yet another soulfor Achlys.
(Anastasia pyr Aertas)
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[21:43] "Of course. I would never forget."

While the situation with his sister was one that could never be resolved the death of his beloved was a whole different story. She had died to no longer suffer at the sight of a man she had long lost to madness. A smile spread on his lips as the thought that struck him nearly made up for having to kill Anastasia.

There was no reason for them to be apart. Never again.

Practiced steps were taken as the man leaned into his wife. Dancing. Allowing them both to slowly but surely waltz as the flames of Hel themselves would eventually come to engulf them - to draw them back where they now belonged.

Together.
(Bruno pyr Aertas)