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 Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2024 2:58 pm
There was something fraught, in bringing Stribor to her world. Izanami wasn't quite sure how to quantify it--but she supposed that it made sense that there seemed to be extra weight to bringing someone that had once known this world so well.
She clutched the poinsettias in one arm with her phone, the other hand holding Stribor's, and she pressed the button that brought them to her world. Whatever magic decided where she arrived seemed to want to be helpful today--it pl;anted them right in front of the old Izanami's tombstone.
The fruits of her efforts were already quite present. The tombstones were cleaner than they had been, and resting on the one they landed in front of was one of those beautiful butterflies that she had become accustomed to seeing over the past few weeks.
And there was something new.
Rising among the tombstones were little lights, soft blue and white, almost ghostly.
"Oh," she said, softly. "The fireflies...those are new."
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Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2024 9:27 pm
Stribor had... a lot of mixed feelings about his decision to come to Izanami, once they landed on the planet. It scared him, being here for the first time in so long. The very few times he'd snuck away to visit rang loudly in his brain, threatening to overwhelm him. The only place he'd been able to visit. He took in a sharp breath, trying to remain steady as he looked around. "New? Oh.... right." He swallowed, reaching out and catching one gently in his hand. "They, um. They're usually friendly. Like Earth fireflies. Hey, little guy." His next breath came out shaky and his vision blurred with tears. He didn't want to look at the tombstone. He didn't want to stand here and hold a firefly long since gone and brought back. He didn't want to exist anymore—he wished, deeply, that his starseed had just moved on. That the next Stribor was here, dealing with their own problems, instead of him, neck deep in a wave of grief so tight and so terrible he slipped under it, his knees hitting the ground as sobs finally rended themselves from his heart. Stribor's ears completely wilted, pressed limply against his back as the grief overtook him.
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Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2024 11:36 pm
Izanami took a moment to set the flowers in front of Irihime's grave marker, and it was almsot not a surprise to her to see the butterfly perched on the grave flutter down to land among them.
"Ah, seems they're well-recieved," she said, a small smile o her face--until she turned to look at Stribor, just in time to see him start to cry. When he sank to the ground, she knelt down next to him, and there was a brief moment of hesitation--but her instincts won out.
As if she was pulling in her sister, Izanami reached for Stribor to pull him into her arms.
"It's okay. Cry it out."
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2024 12:24 pm
Stribor's chest heaved, body quivered, hands shook with the force of his cries. He almost rejected the touch—touch had been so plentiful, back when he'd been the precious lapdog not allowed to go out and play like a real boy anymore, caged in the hands of the fields-forsaken Capitol Council, because nobody couldn't not touch their perfect, precious senshi. It had worn him out, and then with the revolutionaries came similar problems, and how he just felt so passed around and like he didn't have any personal space anymore. But this... this was Izanami. She wasn't his Irihime—he'd always know that, he'd never stop telling himself that—but... she was still Izanami. He could always trust her. And her touch could never be unwelcome. She pulled him in for a hug and he let her, turning his face into her shoulder to cry out all of the grief he'd kept held in. His arms slipped loosely about her torso to hold her in return, to feel like she was really there. It felt so good. Eventually, his tears petered out, and he pulled back to rub at his face and try to clean it off from the mess he'd made of himself and probably poor Iza, too. "Thank you," he said hoarsely. "I... I really needed that."
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2024 3:39 pm
Izanami noticed his hesitation, and almost withdrew--but he came to her anyway, folded into her arms, and she held him, letting him cry. In some ways--this felt like the grief she hadn't really let herself feel when she laid Irihime to rest. What was the point, she'd thought, of grieving for herself?
(But maybe she had things to grieve for, and maybe she didn't want to think about that too hard.)
"You're welcome," she said, softly. No reassurances that there was no need to thank her--a safe place to cry was always a lucky thing to have. "I can tell. If...if you ever want to visit again, just ask, and I'll be glad to bring you."
Maybe they could make something special of this world.
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Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 2:23 pm
Stribor sniffled a bit, rubbing at his face once more and staring at the grave, so oddly fresh, so carefully tended to. His shoulders shook again, but he did not begin to cry once more. "I appreciate that. I'll take you up on it, I'm sure." He reached out, tracing Irihime's name on the tombstone. "...Goodbye, Irihime. Thank you, for what we did have together." Then, he pressed a soft kiss to the stone, holding back the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. He'd rather go home, now, than cry again in the new Izanami's presence over her old self. Once was enough.
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