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Late one night, you find yourself in a fairly under populated area of town. You’ve been strangely alone for the past few moments when you see movement out of the corner of your eye. Only a few yards away you see a young woman with tear-stained cheeks and a long white gown. It is difficult to make out any more details; she seems to be running from something. She looks like she is screaming but makes no sound; even her footsteps seem to be silent. If you try to chase her, you will wind up in a dead end—alone, and suddenly, cold. It feels like something has slammed into you and turned your blood to ice, but there’s no one around. No matter what you do, the chill remains until morning—but the image of the woman’s fear-filled face may haunt your dreams for much longer.
Asmodeus almost hated herself for how much she was still dithering over purifying. She wanted to, there was no doubt, but she was toom much of a coward to just...find someone to take her into Mirrorspace so she could do it. She was constantly running from things, constantly trying to avoid making a choice, avoiding committing herself to doing something that she knew would make things better.
There was no way she could stay, not after seieng what the Mirror's chaos had done to Altea. How it had warped her, taken her honest desire to protect her people and changed it into something terrible. She couldn't imagine having that happen to her.
She didn't want to become a monster, twisted into something she no longer knew by the Chaos infecting her starseed. It seemed all too possible, after Altea and...and a little bit after Leto, who had fought like a woman possessed, but then, she was maybe being unfair to her Princess. It had bene life or death, after all.
She didn't want to turn on the people she cared about. Those words from her doppelganger echoed in her ears, and she wondered if she would have to face those accusations again, when she finally plumbed the depths of Mirrorspace for the thing that would set her free. Or maybe her double would be more like her, and would jsut attakc, not bothering with cold words.
More thna she wanted anything else, though, Asmodeus wanted to stop feeling so damn alone.
The loneliness was partially purposeful, though. She'd all but cut off her parents once she started college, she chose not to reach out to other members of her Court, she'd ghosted Lavender like a coward...and when she patroleld, she chose sparsely-populated areas of the city so she was less likely to run into anyone else. The only accompaniment she had was her own footsteps, high heeled boots tapping on the asphalt under her feet as she wandered down a dark back street. She was focused, mostly, on just...moving, just walking and walking and walking, until she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned, and let out a tiny noise of surprise, because she swore she saw a...a woman, pale and sad and scared. Asmodeus barely noticed that her footsteps weren't making a sound, and even though she looked terrified enough to scream there were no screams to be heard.
"Wait!" The Dakr Mirror called, and she started running, hoping to catch up to the woman, to ask her what was wrong, to amybe offer help. She could do that, couldn't she? Help out civilians? Start down the path of being a better person, a more...Order-alinged person, even before she made the final choice to purify?
That was something she wanted, and that was whaty she was thinking about as she ran after the fleeing figure, heart racing. She didn't let herself worry about what the woman was fleeing from. After everything she'd durvived in Mirrorspace, she was certain she could handle whatever the city had to throw at her.
Kaefaux
