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[hearthwarming]

"Um... How does this thing work? Oh! If you're in need of any healing, please reach out to me!"
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[hearthwarming]

[ If one were to assign a number to how she's holding up physically based on her constitution and experience, she's probably at a solid like... sixty or so. Maybe a little bloodied, after her shoulder's been dislocated multiple times, and after being tossed around by Henry.

She spots Alec wandering around the graveyard after having gone to check on Tighnari and Aki at the clinic. ]

Alec...!

[ She doesn't know what's happened to him yet, just that something has. Henry made that abundantly clear. ]

[striketwice]

[ The sound of his name causes him to pause, and he turns to look at her. He's not visibly injured, but there's something incredibly wrong about the way he regards her. No concern, no recognition. He doesn't even spare her the distain one would spare a stranger or an enemy. He looks... hollow. ]

Ori. [ Even his voice sounds so very empty. ] What do you want?

[hearthwarming]

[ His gaze feels hollow, and his voice sounds like a void. It makes her blood run cold. What a stark contrast his demeanor is to that of Henry's who was going on a rampage on Alec's behalf...

She comes up to him and reaches to rest her hands on his shoulders. ]

What... Happened?

[ She has an inkling. She saw someone from Phoenix come out like this. But she is hoping beyond reason that it's not... the same, somehow. ]

comes back here after a million years

[striketwice]

[ He just lets her do as she pleases, and her hands (or hand, how's that arm?) resting on her shoulders may as well not be there at all. The way he looks at her, it's like he doesn't see her at all. ]

My heart was taken.

[ Simple as that. ]

[hearthwarming]

[ Oh hey yeah how is that arm, she totally only rested one on his shoulder because someone pulled her arm right back out... Regardless, that hand falls away at his response. ]

Ah...

[ Henry made it abundantly clear that Alec's heart was taken. But something about truly hearing it from the man himself, now, really does hurt. In so many ways, this is so much worse than when she'd seen him confronting his other self; at least then, he could feel. The pain may have been unwelcome and harrowing, but it was there and it made him who he is. She hadn't known what having one's heart taken would mean, exactly, but now that she sees him, she realizes... his inner light - however stormy it tends to be - has been snuffed out. ]

I'm... So sorry, Alec. We'll— We'll make it right, somehow.

[ ...Well. Maybe not her, personally. She's beginning to understand how unwelcome her help would be, after all. Thanks, Henry. ]

[striketwice]

[ It's quite clear not that Alec doesn't feel. Not pain, nor joy, nor even true indifference. He simply... is, and even those two little letters seem generous. He does not react to her pulling her arm away, does not seem to register her words as anything but a series of letters strung together to form a sentiment that he does not feel anything about. ]

It hardly matters to me if you do.

[hearthwarming]

[ A husk, is what he is. When one's hopes, dreams, nightmares, love and hate both, are taken away... What is even left? Amber eyes search his, usually finding a spark in them but instead finding an unfathomable emptiness.

She tries not to think about what Henry made her see, the people she's lost. Even through the horrors of watching them die, at least... even until the very end, their eyes were full of life. The fear of dying, the sadness of one's life coming to an end, even a somber acceptance... They still show. But Alec's show nothing at all. A void.

She swallows thickly. What use is there in appealing to his emotions like this? It's such a stark difference from her "conversation" with Henry, when her words were meant with a fiery spite. Her, she meets an absolute abyss. ]

...I'm sorry.

[ Though she had no hand in his punishment, she feels as if it's really all she can say. ]

We should at least get you somewhere safer.

[ Who knows if someone else out there is going to go on a murderous rampage, after all? ]

[striketwice]

[ He can see that she's hurting. He watches the torment play across her face, and yet he just cannot seem to care. It's happening, it's real, but the pain in her eyes is met with a blank, utterly uncaring slate. ]

If you insist.

[ Doesn't seem to bother him one way or another. ]