we both matter, don't we?

though her hand shook, still she reached out to touch the monster at the center of the storm. her palm tingled with something electric, a trace of her minor healing magic that she was unable to conjure for it - for him. he was a man once, she was sure of it.

beneath his excruciating pain, beneath his hatred for the mages that berated him relentlessly, she felt … a trace of something that was not a monster. a trace of the man he had once been. perhaps not a good man, but a man nonetheless. an ache began in her chest. they were not so different, were they? aristea had not asked to be corrupted - she had not asked to be brought back to life. perhaps he had sought power, that much might have been true, but she had never done so.

it had been someone’s else’s power that had ruined her.

a shiver passed through her at the darkness she felt whirling within the monster, not so different from the darkness that plagued her mind late at night, the black shape that gathered when she slept, pinned her down and filled her mouth with something black, something cruel and bloody. wicked teeth flashed like the teeth of the monster’s skull, snapping in her mind’s eye.

a wretched sob wracked her small frame, and rip, relentless as he clung to her, slipped a dagger into her free hand

“it’ll be a mercy after what he’s been through,” he offered, but it was no comfort. her hand shook, her heart racing as fear finally caught up to her, wrapping it’s skeletal fingers around her windpipe and threatening to choke her.

she’d never faced a monster before, let alone been given an opportunity to kill one. she didn’t hear celimene over the sound of bone splitting as she stabbed it, didn’t hear anything over the horrible head-splitting agony of the monster’s howling winds, and she found herself on the ground in the salt marsh before she realized what she’d done.

when at last she looked up at celimene, it was with eyes wide, horrorstruck. she couldn’t believe what she’d done. celimene had risked her life to save her, and the best aristea could do for her in that moment was stare, in shock, and cradle rip to her chest as she became someone she didn’t recognize.

with decision, she took cel’s hand, still weeping, but silently now.

weeping for the death of the man who had corrupted. weeping for the death of the monster; weeping for the death of herself. weeping with guilt over celimene’s involvement in it all, and for the pain she endured without addressing it.

“i’m sorry,” she choked out, unable to gather words, to form them into cohesive sentences. just, “i’m sorry, cel, i’m so, so sorry.”

but her apologies died on her lips as she succumbed to the overwhelming ache in her mind, and slumped against celimene’s chest, her consciousness fleeing in a desperate attempt to prevent any more trauma.