hearthwarming | reverie 🦋 inbox

[ She shakes her head. ]

Don't get me wrong, I... I'm not sure I would ever want to be alone in a room with him again, but... If that had happened to someone I cared so much about, I...

[ Well, she probably wouldn't indiscriminately attack people on sight, but still. ]

Kindness wasn't something I saw a lot of when I was very young, so I know... if I wanted to see kindness in the world, it would have to come from me. So...

I don't blame you. I— I'm not here to justify his actions. Not by a long shot.

[ It's complicated. Alec would have also lashed out, but certainly not at friend and foe alike. ]

Are we cool? You and me?

[ She just looks at him with a puzzled expression. ]

I— Of course we're still "cool," Alec. You're my friend. It broke my heart to see you without yours...

I remember it all. What it was like. The look on your face...

[ He frowns. ]

I didn't feel anything at the time, but now I feel fucking awful.

I... I can't even begin to imagine, Alec. I... I hate that feeling that I couldn't do anything to help you.

How did you get it back...?

My heart?

[ Ah. That's a loaded question that he's not sure how best to answer. ]

... Henry.

Oh...

[ ...Henry had been the most distraught (understatement) at Alec's fate. It would stand to reason that he would be the one to see to it that his heart is returned... ]

...Of course. I'm... I'm glad he was able to restore it, then...

I— you don't know we're in a relationship, do you?

[ THINGS HE NEGLECTED TO TELL HIS BESTIE. ]

N-No, I mean, I realize that now, but—

[

]

... But he scared the crap out of you.

I'm beginning to think I didn't get all the details. What happened?

As I said, I... I was in the graveyard. I was trying to see how Yatagarasu and Basilisk came out, and... Henry was there.

[ Wrong place, wrong time. But Oriphi has not breathed a word of the details to a single soul, not even to Tighnari and Aki, not even when they saw the state she had been in afterwards. Things around here are already such a mess, and she doesn't want to create any further tensions by causing them to worry, especially when the latter has a tendency towards vengeance...

After a contemplative pause, she forges on. She can talk about it to Alec. He would understand - does understand Henry, more than anyone else in this prison. But when she speaks, it's all tentative, like she's saying it all for the first time. Because she is. ]

I tried to talk him down, but he used his... Telekinesis. He... My shoulder had been dislocated in the first round and I think... It felt like he knew. [ He re-dislocated it, in other words! ] And then he reached in to my mind and...

[ Her gaze to her lap, where her hands ball into fists, gasping at the fabric of her skirt. ]

My healing can't save everyone. Even after all this time, I... I only have so much magic in me, and... He made me see them. The people I couldn't save. Then I held him down with vines, and I turned into a wolf to try and get away but... That's when he started screaming in my mind. About... About how he was going to tear me apart.

[ To put it lightly! ]

[ He watches her, eyes following the tense lines of her body language down to her hands. Alec hesitates for half a second, he's still not terribly good at this sort of thing, but eventually, he does reach over to rest one of his hands over hers. ]

No wonder. That kind of thing would scare the hell out of anybody.

It's... Not the first time I've ever been made to see such visions.

[ But it's not like she's used to them. The Trial of the Heart she underwent was so long ago, too... ]

But now you know. I had to enrage the spirits of nature to get away, but I think... He was still suffering the effects of the punishments, too.

As much as I hate to say it, that migraine probably saved you.

[ What a very weird blessing in disguise. ]

... Sphinx played that card. I'm sorry.

[ She knows that it did, in fact, save her, but still - she can't possibly hold onto this guilt. ]

Don't be. You probably saved more than your own life with that.

[ It certainly put a damper on Henry's effectiveness. ]

Besides, we ended up having to play one on you guys, too.

[ She sighs a bit in relief upon hearing that. It's too bad their cards didn't end up canceling each other out like Basilisk and Sphinx's cards did, but... Again, the migraines ended up being something of a blessing... ]

You're probably right... and, ah... I understand. Everyone had to make hard choices...

[ Of course, some teams sure did Make Some Choices. ]

Did... Did Henry attack anyone else?

[ Ori, you can't ask him that. Now he has to answer. ]

Yeah. Three others.

[ suffer ]

Three? Alec... Three others?

I know. I know. If I could have been there to stop him, I would have.

[ Well, he was there but certainly long after the violence and without the ability to care about the destruction Henry sowed in his name. ]

He tortured some kid from Tsuchigumo, broke Sprezzatura's arm and left her to burn to death in her own mind. By the time he got around to the guy who actually took my heart, all he could do was toss him around for a bit before he finally passed out.

[ It bothers her enough that Henry tortured a kid, but his second victim... ]

No, Sprezzatura...

[ The hand of hers that isn't beneath Alec's at the moment lifts, and covers her face. Suddenly she feels very much like she was lucky to have only come away from their encounter with a dislocated arm, vivid hallucinations of dead loved ones, and a clear recollection of how his voice sounded while mentally threatening her. ]

I... I have to go check on her, then. [ a deep breath. ] Please don't put this on yourself, Alec. But... For both your sake and Henry's, I hope nothing like this happens again.

[ ... ]

If it does, I don't know if I'll be able to keep myself from fighting back harder.

She's next on my list to visit.

[ And he can only imagine how that encounter will go, since when last he and Sprezzatura parted ways, she was screaming at him. ]

If I have anything to say about it, nothing like that is gonna happen again. But I've talked to Henry, and it's my honest hope that if it does, he won't just burn everything [ and everyone ] around him.

He warned me... that if something were to ever happen to me, it would destroy him. I didn't realize to what extent.

[ She is silent for a long, contemplative while as she turns his words over in her head. Aren't there people, too, for whom Ori would find herself wanting to burn down the world if they were turned into husks of themselves, like Alec had been? Wouldn't it break her heart so utterly to see someone she loved like that? Without any light or love in their eyes?

But still... ]

I don't know if anyone could have realized that, no matter how close you two are, but... If he can hold himself back for your sake from now on... I suppose I'll have to be thankful that he has someone like you at his side.

[ Even after all this, he's not sure if his sake is going to be enough. Maybe it will matter less once they're free of this place, and the people Henry might hurt are strangers instead of friends. He doesn't know. ]

You make me sound like some great force for good. I'm really not.

[ Did she...? ]

Hmm... Did I?

[ l-lol ]

I don't know if I really know much about Henry, even after all this time, but if nothing else, I'm glad if he was able to care deeply enough about someone to have this kind of reaction. It has nothing to do with being a great force for good or not...

Though the fact that you reached out to check on me says much more about you than you might think it does.

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