Kill Your Lover.

[13:16] Arlei Zanders says, "--Holy fuckin'. . eesh. Don't spook me like that, Sieg."
[13:16] Siegfried says, "Boo."
[13:16] Jessika Ann asks, "Why are you squinting at me?"
[13:16] Siegfried says, "I'm probably the least spooky person-"
[13:16] Siegfried says, "Ion't know. Good question. I'll stop now."
[13:17] Siegfried asks, "What're you doin' out here though?"
[13:17] Arlei Zanders says, "Ya' blend with t'scenery."
[13:17] Jessika Ann says, "Sitting..."
[13:17] Jessika Ann asks, "Who wants to hear a story...?"
[13:17] Jessika Ann says, "It happened in this very spot."
[13:17] Arlei coughs, clearing her throat. Siegfried had spooked an accent back to her.
(Arlei Zanders)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:17] Siegfried asks, "I love stories. Does someone die?"
[13:17] Arlei Zanders says, "--Sure! I always like storytime."
[13:17] Jessika Ann says, "Yes."
[13:17] Siegfried says, "Ooh. A tragedy."
[13:17] Siegfried says, "I like those bes'."
[13:28] It had always been strange to her, that a settlement was built over the place where she had truly begun to fall from grace.

The old Nagual rises to walk to a particular area, for her it was almost as if she could still see the blood.

"Before Sors I had another husband, his name was Schrei Richtofen. He was a Quetzal. We fell hard and fast for one another, got married, had a child. All of this in Dawn four decades ago.

Then... he begin to change. He was an Occultist you see. He wanted power.. I dissuaded him for a while but eventually his desires ran out. My sister who I thought dead had only just returned to find me.

He slept with her, then abandoned me and our infant child.. he hid in Huangzhou fooling them all with his tales of starting a new Drakanite faith. In reality he just wanted to burn the world down.."

She crouches down to lay her mostly-flesh hand against the rock.

"He feared me, I was a woman and mother scorned. He hid... sent people to kill me.. anything to avoid what would happen if I found him."

She looks up to the two metallic amber eyes glowing,

"Then one day... word reached my ears. He was on the volcano. I ran to the nearest rifter I knew, Sors. He sent me straight here no questions asked... I practically appeared on top of him.

I still don't think I've ever seen someone so afraid to see me... I had finally found him."

Her artificial eyes were incapable of tears, but her face bore sorrow,

"I was lost in my storm.. my anger. Our blades clashed across these very stones and we both knew one of us would die here...

There was no advantage.. it was long.. and bloody... then finally.. I struck him back. I ran him through with my metal arm... through his armor... bone.. all of it.. emerging through his back with his heart in my hand.

I had taken what he had broken from me."

It was apparent she was reliving every clash of their blades, the fell winds that swept them the magma that was stirred from the clashing of their might. She had been much younger and much less injured then..

If only she'd known what would have came after.
(Jessika Ann)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:33] He just stared on as he listened to this entire fucked up story.

Jessika imparts upon them a tale of love and betrayal, the prelude to what was assuredly a twisted relationship with Sors afterward. The story is one that he clings to, every word, every twist, up until that very end point - the reveal of Sors's involvement, in arranging her to make it all the way there...

It leaves only one question on his mind.

"Would you do it again?"


(Siegfried)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:38] Arlei took a seat on the bench as Jessi began to regale them with her tale of betrayal, brutality and bloodshed. A lot of things made sense after that. How she met Sors, why she fell the way she did, how she ended up falling for Sors.

Two people, betrayed by those they cared for, finding comfort within eachother.

She couldn't help but shake her head, however.

"Sometimes, you've got to do what you've got to do, in order to save yourself and others." she sighed, thinking about her children. They were getting very, very close to blacklining and it was stressing her the hell out. Ascalon might leave her if it happened, but the three would get a better life out of it.

It was hard to tell what was a good idea. She was becoming clingier as the years went on, especially after Dusk fell. In her eyes, any day with Ascalon could be their last, so she was making the most of it.

Was it worth 'betraying' him in a sense in order for their three children to have a better life?
(Arlei Zanders)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:38] Jessika Ann says, "If I hadn't I wouldn't have had my other three children..."
[13:38] Jessika Ann says, "Even if Clara is gone now."
[13:38] Siegfried says, "An' I'd have never met Clara."
[13:38] Siegfried says, "..."
[13:38] Siegfried asks, "Can...I talk to you?"
[13:38] Siegfried says, "Like, not here."
[13:38] Jessika Ann asks, "Yes?"
[13:39] Siegfried says, "Yeah. Sorry Arlei, but this's a bit important."
[13:39] Arlei Zanders says, "Jun is still around. I've been trying to get him to smile for years."
[13:39] Siegfried says, "Be back soon."
[13:39] Arlei Zanders says, "Do not worry, Sieg."
[13:39] Arlei Zanders says, "I'll be here."
[13:41] Siegfried sits down at the table. He moves the things on the table out of the way. He doesn't know who this tower belongs to, but it was rapidly becoming his get-away spot, and empty liquor bottles lied all over the place. A hand runs through his hair. He clears his throat. Everything is a mess, and he's not quite absolutely sure what he can say or do to prepare her for what he was about to say next.

Siegfried looks up at Jessika.

"You can't tell a soul," he says, and means it. "Not even Mags'."

He sounds deathly serious about this.

Like he'd kill her.
(Siegfried)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:43] There was a serious expression her face, she wasn't sure if she was going to like what she heard or not. Those amber eyes narrowed, metallic discs creating the effect.

"I wont."

That look may have scared her had she not fought a deity and survived.
(Jessika Ann)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:44] The hard-ass cat in front of him seemed like a tough mama. He has no illusions he could shake her. But he also is pretty damn confident that, no matter what it takes, he could do anything, if it was for her. Even fight her own mother.

"Sors touched Clara's soul. The moment it left her body in Huangzhou, it was his. He put it in a new body...

And that new body is in the process of bein' perfected with a Spire Shard."
(Siegfried)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:44] Siegfried says, "She's...dead, technically, but she's out there. She remembers a lot now."
[13:49] There was no visible shift at first, but the very air around the room seemed to change. Raw primal power rolled from her as those runes began to glow brighter and brighter, the mana of Ixchel herself filling the area.

"She should be in the stars... where she belongs.. I made many mistakes in my life and approving of such things was one of them.

She needs to be put to rest..."

In the end, it was still just a mother wanting her child to be freed.

Deific mana aside, she wasn't aggressive, it was simply a byproduct of her emotion. If she had wanted to attack she'd have done it.
(Jessika Ann)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:54] …

Hearing that from her mother was heartbreaking.

The expression on Siegfried's face slips. It's like everything just cracks, all at once. His arms bag against the table. His head slumps. Kraus, why didn't he drink before this conversation? His eyes are searching, gazing into that table as if he was seeking the answer to why this had happened.

His head rose up.

"I failed her, when I lost to Isaac, and so narrowly at that..." he mutters. "If she...if she's willing, to carry on like this. If this is what she wants. To live the life she could've had, if I had just been stronger.."

Self-hate colors every interaction and every pittance. His life was a testament to the lengths the human heart would go to for atonement.

"How can I take that from her?"
(Siegfried)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[13:58] The Nagual's expression broke and her voice got louder but it was sadness that came forth, almost sounding like sobs.

"You can't change what happened... She is gone.. and it won't be a life she lives. It'll be a mockery...

All this will do is hurt her in the future when she inevitably goes to the starts..

My soul was marked too... by Sors. I know how it feels to have the innermost part of you wounded.. bound. There is nothing good about it.. she's coming back as a slave.

You won't be saving her Siegfried....

You'd be condemning her."
(Jessika Ann)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[14:08] He doesn't want to hear her, but he does. It's like he's drowning right now in the abyss, as the hope drains from him, and the answer he's known all along stares right back at him.

He imagines himself, victorious from an expedition, clutching a Spire Shard in hand. Gleaming, radiant, he presents it to Sors Ultovex, who makes Clara into what she once was, all over again...

No.

A mimicry.

The broken, fragmented woman who could never, would never be what she once was, ever again. He imagines having children with this humonculi. Putting down the blade. Giving up living. Giving up fighting. Letting Isaac Shimasu walk this earth. Abandoning his ideals, for the happy ending he could never know.

Tears well in his eyes. He can't help it. He hardly even knows this woman, but Siegfried becomes slave to his emotions -

It.

Isn't.

Fair.

They'd been star-crossed their entire lives. The days she'd spent in that fortress, captured by Isaac, a slave to the Shimasu family, were likely far more extensive of time spent than anything close to what he had ever had with his first love. With his only love. The woman that'd been his first everything - the woman who he had bled for, cried for, nearly died for, had died, all alone, so shaken by the brutality of it that even now her walking corpse remained hidden away in fear.

To be reunited, and so close to what he perceived as a happy ending - the possibility of a happy...forever.

Siegfried shakes with his guilt, his tears streaming down his face freely, but he knows what he must do.

He looks into Jessika Ann's eyes with the wrath of a vengeful God.

"I'll do it. I'll send her to the stars."
(Siegfried)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[14:12] She knew what he felt, she had raised Clara, birthed her. She made her first staff, watched her grow. She could still feel the silky black hair of her daughter if she thought hard enough...

It had nearly destroyed her.. she had torn her own eyes out just to see Clara again but before she even had a chance to speak to her she returned to Sors.

She had never seen her daughter again.

In the most uncharacteristic fashion for her, she embraces him into a tight hug.

"She deserves to be free..."

She would hold him for as long as both of them needed it. Tearless sobs escaping.
(Jessika Ann)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[14:24] Siegfried is held by what would've been, in another life, his mother-in-law.

In that other life, Siegfried and Clara wouldn't have been in two nations at war. They would have hit it off, just as well. He'd have come to her household, and met Sors, and met Jessika, and maybe, they'd have liked him. Maybe he would've been able to just marry her. They'd have had a good life.

But in this war-torn world, ravaged by hate sewn deep into the soil, seeds of malice that have grown great, festering trees of fuck and fury, there had never been a chance for such a reality. There was no way that it ever could have happened. He's instead left with this reality. There is no stained glass mosaic. This is a fight cry. There is only bloodshed and heartache ahead.

The fragments of what he and Clara could've been flash into nothingness, and he is here, in her mother's arms, crying. He clenches the nagual to him, taking in a deep, shuddering breath, and then steels himself for what is to come. He allows himself what he feels he deserves, and then no more. He pulls away from the hug almost regretfully - like he's getting out of the apache to go to war.

For what he is about to go do, he will no longer be a man - he will merely do exactly what he need do.

"Then I'll set her free. And may we someday be reunited on the other side."

But not before he did what he must do.

Not before he killed Isaac.

Sors.

...and Clara.
(Siegfried)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[14:24] Jessika Ann says, "I will help you however I can.."
[14:25] Siegfried says, "I don't need help, ma'am..."
[14:25] Siegfried says, "Rest. It'll be done."
[14:25] Siegfried says, "I have the key to her house. I just was with her."
[14:25] Siegfried says, "I'll tell her to come dance with me in the snow..."
[14:25] Siegfried says, "One las' time."
[14:25] Siegfried asks, "Is there anything you want me to say, or to do, for you?"
[14:25] Jessika Ann says, "Just tell her.. her mother loves her.. and maybe I will be allowed to see her another day."
[14:26] Siegfried says, "Will do."
[14:26] Siegfried says, "Let's go back, now."
[14:26] Siegfried says, "And Jessika..."
[14:26] Siegfried says, "Thank you."
[14:26] Jessika Ann says, "No.. thank you.."