A flicker, like a candle lighting, lightened the pitch-black room with a soft, tepid glow. The Muse, a girl in white and blue, with long blonde hair and smokily-green eyes, appeared next to the foot of the bed. She briefly looked around at the walls, orienting herself with a wistfully delighted expression, and then down. Her countenance now poignant, she only looked away slightly as she sat.
The boy she was looking at had long, braided blonde hair (on the tail of which he had apathetically lain) and an anguished expression-pain that had been much smoothed over, but not erased, by sleep. He was on his side and curled up slightly.
After last night, the only thing he'd been able to force himself to say was that he wanted to go home. She had agreed without really needing to think, but concern had been treading on the heels of her agreement before she had even finished speaking.
Having joined him in heart and mind, she could feel the longing that fueled his wish. His yearning for the time when the two of them had lived like a family. When Asimov had been a father figure, rather than a revolutionary zealot willing to murder his adopted "son" and an innocent girl before committing genocide. Before fighting through five bloodlusty Sumeragi Adepts, a prejudiced and unscrupulous vigilante, and a Sumeragi lieutenant's monstrous septimal form in order to save her, and then watching her get slain by this father. Before managing to get up and end this radical who had once been like family.
His longing had been not for their living space, but for what they had previously had: a living situation that now felt tear-wrenchingly beautiful and heart-wrenchingly unattainable.
She sadly looked down at his tense sleeping face.
From inside the threshold of their apartment this morning, he had looked desperately about the darkened cluster of rooms. Originally it had been merely a hideout; quietly, however, when he had thought of returning here, he had been starting to become happy, excited to be with Joule again. The dwelling had been exactly the same as always when he had returned this morning. He had still sensed the same warmth and happiness she had brought to the place. It was as though it didn't matter whether she was there or not. The effect was alarming, confusing, and queasyingly unnatural.
After pushing this aside, he had hurried back and forth across the apartment, distractedly alternating between removing his clothes and removing his equipment (which got in the way). Tears had overwhelmed him several times, and he'd struggled to manage his things with blurred eyes and shaking fingers. Between periods of grief, an awful gut-mauling guilt had swooped over him. His eyes had gone partially vacant, and his horror had stemmed his tears as he had thought of how Joule had been put through pain and death because he had failed her. At last, in tears, he had collapsed to his knees clutching a chair's armrest. At that point, she had spoken gently but compellingly in his mind's ear again and directed him to bed. She had offered soft affirmations as he had dropped the rest of his equipment and torn/burned/dirtied/bloody blue outfit in piles around the foot before climbing gracelessly under the sheets and curling up.
Curled up in a darkness that seemed to sometimes be watching him, however, Gunvolt's thoughts and memories had forced themselves upon him. Ideas and memories had poured into his consciousness-Asimov shooting both of them; finding her body; hearing her speak in his mind as the Muse; the moment Asimov had actually died. After he had seen each recollection, or else forced it back down or aside, another phantasm had slammed into him as though in retribution.
When he had received relief from these, he had been tormented by an even darker horror: an image of an innocent, tender Joule, with all the warmth he associated with her, endlessly enduring the pain of being murdered.
At last, he had passed out. His passage into rest had not been graceful or gentle.
Joule looked forward, staring at the wall. Tears collected on the lower rims of her eyes, then covered them and made them gleam, before she willed her mind clear.
Gunvolt's recurring memory of finding her body occurred to her. At one point, he had relived/been unable to escape from this memory for a long while. She was so fragile, defenseless, and sweet. His heart had filled up with affection before grief had caught him and crushed it back down. Why had she di-why had Asimov killed her!?
At last, he had clenched his teeth and his eyes, uttering an impotently furious snarl before collapsing completely limp. He had sobbed, his tears saturating his eyelashes and burning his face.
Joule had made to console him, but he had mentally shied away from her. Hearing her in his mind shocked him and forced on him with cruel artlessness the fact of how she had been changed. Sometimes it was a little horrifying for him. This time, the hurt had overrun her tolerance, and she had sadly and a little angrily clammed up.
Now she crouched by the head of the bed, bracingly pressing his shoulder with her hand to try to remind him of her continued presence. She tenderly rested her face on the edge of his pillow for a moment, her face getting hot and her insides feeling charged with pleasure, nervousness, and self-consciousness. Finally, she verbally expressed other things that were filling her heart to the point that it felt like it could hardly beat.
"It's okay," she told the sleeping boy, pressing the side of his face with her hand, the tips of her uneasy fingers slipping into the edge of his hair. "I'm alright. I'm HERE."
She wanted to relieve his grief. However, her body had died, and with his responses being based on life in a body, his grief was almost instinctive. He would only heal by continuing to experience her presence.
"You don't have to feel guilty, you know," she picked up after a moment. She pulled away a little, stymied by his self-condemnation.
Suddenly, her hands were on the top of his head and the edge of his jaw and she was leaning forward.
"You RESCUED me, a year ago," Joule murmured vehemently, slamming the words into him. He felt guilty for failing her. However, he had given her the chance to learn about and truly own herself. Had it not been for him, her unplumbed soul would have been broken and strangled until it died by Sumeragi's cruelty. "You helped me discover my own compass.
"What those like Sumeragi, Copen, and Asimov are doing takes away people's opportunity to find and follow their own compasses, to feel as centered and strong as I do. I want to use my strength to protect that opportunity."
There was a stifling realization that came to her on the end of her words, however: this would require Gunvolt to fight again.
Disappointedly, she remembered again that that had been very likely. Gunvolt's rescue mission had halted Sumeragi's Project Muse again and obliterated some of the corporation's best muscle, but it would recruit more people and rebuild. More upsettingly, Gunvolt hadn't been able to speak when Moniqa and Zeno had asked how Asimov had been killed, and QUILL had to find the custom darts from Gunvolt's weapon around and in his body.
She worriedly sang a single tone very quietly, feeling the nearby Septimal wave and the resonances of its Adepts. She had done this awhile ago, and she only sensed the same Adepts who had been there before. She felt a little sheepish, because she was making her earlier surmise again. A QUILL operative could have been there as soon as to arrive while Gunvolt had still been awake, so it seemed like no one was coming, or they were holding off. When she re-weighed the risk, she knew it was dangerous, but she almost couldn't help herself letting him sleep, at least for a short while longer that he desperately needed.
The Muse stood up. After a few seconds clearing her mind, she regarded Gunvolt for a moment, and then vanished.
She knew that her opportunity to rest before they both followed their compasses was as short as his.
I offer my thanks to Luminous Blane and Aura Creed, fellow writers who read a previous draft of this. Your appreciation and comments and discussing the game with you contributed to making this piece what it is!