Welcome to Gaia! ::

Brushing her bloodied thumb against the familiar woman's face - her mother - ***'s brow furrowed. The pieces were all there, laid out before her. She felt crazed as realization after realization crashed down on her. The familial similarities were terrifyingly striking.

She would have to deal with it later. Sit and think it all through. *** hardly felt herself, incapable of processing everything that had happened up to this point.

She still wasn't even sure what had happened up to this point. Where had the last three days gone - and before that, the previous two?

She wanted to go home. She wanted to go home and she never wanted to come back - except there was no resounding song in her mind, no warm lilting melody of encouragement, no aria of joy, nothing. Only silence. *** was alone, violently alone - and until she had Nona back, that wouldn't change.

Tucking the photo into her pocket, *** hunched over the old woman's body. She stared down into her mangled, agonized features, realizing that this old woman had been a tie to her past, one that could have answered questions, perhaps even given her insight into what had transpired here.

Nothing felt right. Nothing felt the same. She felt out of touch with herself, her emotions, everything around her. Something horrible had happened to this family - her family - and perhaps it hadn't happened here, but it had happened.

Tears rolled unbidden down her cheeks as *** glanced from the jawless, lifeless woman - she hadn't even thought to try and ask her name days ago, when she'd had a chance to lay the proper groundwork here - to her bloodied, grimy hands. There was one thing that *** did not contemplate, could not linger on - had she been the one who had killed this woman? Had it been the one who had possessed her, instead? Those hands, talented and delicate and covered in sick red-brown, lifted up to press against her face as if she sought to assure herself that she was really herself.

[sad]

********* screamed as she awoke. She had just had a nightmare, one in which her mother had left her. That could not be true right? She then looked around for her mother before she remembered, her mother had left two days before. The nightmare was true and she was alone. Hugging herself, ********* wept herself back to sleep. Her mother had left to search for her father and she was completely, devastatingly alone.

This what was she'd needed. This pure, hot, blazing need that left no room for worries or questions, thoughts of the future. Wash knew of the monster that was within her - and more importantly, he had no interest in changing her. No desire to force her to become the woman she didn't want to be. No pressing need to alter her, morph her, change her into something that he could handle - needless to say, Wash could handle her just fine.

Not like Jerry. Jerry, who wanted what she couldn't give, who needed what she refused to offer. She banished him from her mind. She was not a coward. She was not weak.

She was not garbage.

Her hands slipped up over his shoulders, slowly twining into the rough curls of his hair. She arched her back, breath hitching as she breathed into him, as she drank him in. He tasted like the scotch they'd shared, a heady, intoxicating flavor of man and heat and inexplicable comfort.

"Wash."

Her nails sank into the smooth flesh of his back, almost as if she feared he would pull away and leave her there, aching and trembling on the rough sand.

[main]

There was nothing but green foliage in his vision, when he made his choice.

He stumbled forward, hand upon his chest, fingers digging into the area around his Heart. It hurts, oh god, it hurts, but he can't stop now. Snippets of memories flood through him each time he dug deeper, and he felt himself gasping ragged breaths.

And then finally, Breuse tore his heart out and offered it to Creation.

It was the end.

He found himself limply falling to the floor. Without his Heart, he was nothing, he could not function, could not even respond to those figures running towards him and calling a name, a name he desperately wanted to know--

And then there was nothing.

“Dear Tomoko,
I’m sorry that I held your hand--”

“Dear Tomoko,
I hope you don’t hate me for--”

“Dear Tomoko,
How have you been?”

“Dear Tomoko--”

"Hi Tomo--"

"Hey Tomoko--"

There are crumpled up balls of paper behind him, and yet he’s still not done...

“Stop looking at me like that.” He groans, burying his head under a pillow. But she is persistent, he knows, as he feels little paws padding on his back, and nearly jumps as a wet nose nudges at the back of his neck. “L-lady, hey!”

She huffs gently, leaping down from him to his bed and he lifts the pillow up slightly to see the bakekitsune staring at him, poster in her mouth. “I’m not going to prom!”

It's her first time on the balance bar. She is five, because her parents started her in the gymnastics program early. They're still together, and they still pretend to smile, but children know more than what their parents think they do.

She knows they don't love each other any more, but maybe if she's the best in class, they'll pretend a little more.

She does not fall, and they cheer her name (a name she cannot recall) and the smiles they wear are big and bright. She has succeeded another day. She just has to try a little harder for a little bit longer, and everything will be okay.