sun_showers | Appointments

"I'm sure. Go ahead."

She mentally braces herself. If Saori said it was bad, it probably was. Hopefully it wasn't so bad that it would make her sick to her stomach, but one never knew. Still, she's going to do this for her lover no matter what. She owes her at least that much.

The image shimmers at a snap of Saori's fingers, and changes to a ruined city street. Strange cars, some on fire, and others burned out wrecks litter the street. Crumbling buildings spring up around them. And there are corpses. Lots of them. Not dead bodies. Animated ones. Shambling, bloodied, and hideously malformed shapes. Men, women, and one child.

"Yuuna. This is something that's happened before. These..." she gestures, "are the result of an attack by the Third Party. They let loose some sort of blood plague and it killed many from Luceti. A friend of mine found the cure...but not before I was forced to kill some to prevent others from being infected."

Her head hangs, sadly. "Including Loki. The child. My...friend."

The sight of the demonic creatures startle her. Zombies. She hates them, more than anything. She can't help but shriek and hide behind Saori at the sight. Awful. She listens, horrified expression only growing worse. They'd turned Lucetians into zombies? And the child...she's met the child before.

"That's...Loki? How, no, no no, Saori please no...this can't be real, it just can't." What a terrible sight. How many of these were friends? Did it matter?

Saori turns to look at Yuuna, one arm reaching behind her to stroke her partner's hair. It is horrible, but it's something that's happened. Something that's entirely possible. Other faces take shape, friends of Saori's, and people she's met in passing.

"It is, dear. And it's what happened last Halloween. I know you may not want to believe it. But it's possible it could happen again. This is what I lived with for a year. I...had to fight on this draft. I killed the child to protect someone else from the infection." She slashes her hand in the air, and all the creatures fall over in showers of sparks and the simulation ends. Turning, she fully faces her lover.

"It's...something I've had to live with for a while. And it's awful...and..." She breaks off, her voice breaking into a choking gasp. Her eyes fill with sudden hot tears, welling up from deep inside at the memory. She doesn't even want to think it, but if something happens to Yuuna...

"It's why I need you...I need you to be strong..."

There are tears streaming down her face, shaken down to the core at the sight. She'd recognized a few of those faces too, but the horror of knowing they'd been infected, walking abominations. The shell of the people left behind. How could they, how. She can't even wrap her mind around it, it was too much.

Yuuna looks to Saori. All she can do is suddenly find herself hugging the goddess, trembling in her arms. "Saori, I'm so sorry, I am..." Her own words are barely choking out, sniffling in between gasps of breath.

They were in hell. They had to be.

"I won't sniff let that happen, I swear it, sniff no matter what, I promise I won't."

Hell would be an apt description, really. A place where they were confined, where their pacts and powers meant little. Where they could be prodded, poked, restrained and murdered on a whim only to return and have it happen all over again. Denied the sky, any semblance of comfort, and subjected to periodically devastating displays like these zombies. The little boy's face as he'd died, the moment of perfect, horrifying clarity between thought and action as she'd defended the older Loki...it was something burned into her mind, so deep she wasn't sure she could remove it.

Choking, she leans into the hug. "I...I know you won't. I couldn't...I don't know what I'd do...if...if..." If that happened to you... "You can't...you aren't allowed to die. Y-you aren't allowed to get s-s-sick."

Wiping her eyes, she pulls back only slightly so she can look at Saori. "I won't, I swear. Please don't worry, I can take care of myself, I'll do what it takes so this doesn't happen."

But she knows she can't really make that promise. Here, it seemed like sometimes you didn't have a choice. That anything could happen, and there was almost nothing one could do to prevent it. But she would sure as hell try, try to be strong enough that something awful like this didn't happen to her or her lover. It was all she could do. What else was there.

She still shakes, but Yuuna is trying to calm herself- because if she doesn't she can't calm Saori. She makes a conscious effort to regulate her breathing a little better, slowing it down and letting her body fall back into a tight hug with the woman she loved so dearly. She'd protect her, no matter the cost.

For a long moment, Saori is silent, visibly shaken by the memory she'd called up. It had been worse than she'd expected, seeing Yuuna's reaction, and seeing the boy like that again...and she feels more than a little foolish.

And she's thinking too. It's not an empty promise, not entirely. The whole point of waking her lover up early today was to show her just how necessary training was. Growth, and becoming a more capable fighter were important. Yuuna saw that now, hopefully.

Still trembling herself, Saori shuts her eyes and leans into the hug, exhaling long, slow breaths. This is the woman she's chosen to spend her life with. The woman she loved, the woman she'd willingly die to save. It was upsetting, being in this place...but up till now she hadn't thought how upsetting it was to have Yuuna here. And equally upsetting was the knowledge that she couldn't have made it much longer on her own. She needed Yuuna to help protect her in heart and mind as much as Yuuna might need her.

"This is going to be...daily. We'll have to work at this. Become harder...be-become stronger. The Third Party...the Dream Shifters...t-they've done awful t-things and they have such t-terrible power."

"Okay. We'll train daily. I'm alright with that." She gives her a squeeze, standing back and doing her absolute best to smile, though it's hard. It's hard to try to be happy about any of this. Being bright and cheerful just seemed a little out of place, as much as she wants to bring comfort.

"Are you going to be okay, dear?"

Are you going to be okay?

That question is like a thunderbolt going through her. It's a hard question to answer. In truth, she has no idea. Not anymore. Fear, worry, anger, all of it just piling up like it has the last few months...since July. And mixing with joy and love...it's made for a volatile combination.

But for now...she nods.

"I...think I will, for now. I think I'd like to sit and rest. I don't think I can stomach any more training today. Mental conditioning or physical training. Do you?"

"Resting. Yes, I'd like that. I don't think I'm really up to doing any more training today either." What she'd seen thus far had been mentally wracking enough. It was something she'd have to contemplate before she could muster the focus to do any sort of training again, because there'd come a time where she'd have to view those horrors and keep herself from screaming in fear.

She takes Saori's hand, and begins to lead her out. "Let's go home, all I want to do is lie down for a while. I think you should too."

Nodding, Saori lets herself be led, leaning heavily against Yuuna. It was going to be a long, long road for sure but they had to do it. For each other and the people here...they just needed to be able to fight. There would be happy times, too, but they'd relaxed far too much.

"I agree. Maybe...ice cream and a movie. That might be good."

"Good idea. I'll get a whole tub of it for us, and a bunch of fudge too. It'll be a nice night."

One that hopefully will let them take their minds off of today's training. Of course it would be important for the both of them to always remind themselves of where they were, and the enemies they faced. But at the same time, they couldn't be tense constantly. The stress would drive them mad, and Yuuna knows that too. If she could make her honey loosen up a little, she would. She doesn't like to see her hurt like this. It hurt almost as much to look at her as Saori might hurt herself.

"Vanilla...not chocolate, if we're having fudge."

It's not that she wants to grind them both into the dust and turn them into killing machines. That's Vegeta's job, and she guesses there are others too...but she doesn't want either of them to forget. Stress is a part of the conditioning, which she's never had to worry about on their gallivants around Earth...but this is definitely not Earth. Bad things will happen and it's important to mentally prepare for the worst when you're a soldier, after all. But the last thing she wants to do is upset Yuuna, make her hurt. It's inevitable, here...but that doesn't mean she can't provide some sort of buffer.

For now though, time to relax.

"What movie, do you think?"

Edited 2013-10-23 01:27 (UTC)

Appointments

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