ACT III : SCARS AND SICKNESS

And as the longing ache that had so long plagued her finally receded, she walked forward. She couldn't feel the cold that was rushing in through the open door, because there was only one thing that mattered now and it was him.

"Nightmare?"

He stepped in the door, carefully pulling it closed behind him. "...Yes. I was... looking for you."

She broke into a run, stopping as she pulled him into an embrace, which he slowly returned. She clung to him as if she feared he would vanish if she didn't. Oh, how long she'd wished for this.

"Oh, Nightmare, I thought I wouldn't ever see you again... How did...?" She pulled back enough to look at him, noting the change to his right eye but not devoting any thought to it. It didn't matter now, nothing really did. She had him back.

He shook his head. "I... would have come sooner but I had to try and get rid of..." He trailed off, and Megumi noticed something move behind his back. Wings.

She leaned over to look at them. The bones were quite obviously broken, and all over there were gaping, festering tears. In this state, they were useless.

Concerned, she reached out to touch one, and he flinched. "...What happened?"

He frowned. "I tried to get them off. They weren't there before, I knew you wouldn't..."

"Nightmare." She cut him off. "It doesn't matter. I don't care if you came with a pair of wings you didn't have before, at this point it wouldn't matter if you'd grown an extra head. You're back now, and that's all that matters."

He nodded slowly, pulling closer again. "I missed you..."

"And I missed you." She rested her head against his chest, smiling for the first time in so long. "How did you come back, though?"

He stiffened and shifted uncomfortably. "...I...ended up somewhere they called Lemuria... And they knew me somehow, called me Khthon."

"Lemuria?" Megumi vaguely recognized the name. She'd heard it before in the legends of Azoth's realm, Lux Lucis Obscurum.

He didn't elaborate further. There was a glint of pain deep in his eyes, and something else, dark and unrecognizable. "I found a Rift... It opened somewhere else, all covered in ice and snow..." He paused, as if trying to remember something important. Then, with a hint of disdain, "Ismaire was there."

"She was?" Megumi frowned slightly. She'd left her closest friend with the impression that she was leaving to die. Ismaire had likely thought her dead for a long time. She thought of leaving to find her, but that could come later. "Did she... tell you where I was?"

Nightmare shook his head. "She claimed not to know. I was going to go straight on to Sylva, but I passed through here, just to see."

She smiled again, but this time it did not come as easily. "I'm glad you did." Now that the blinding euphoria was wearing off, she could see that he had been through something torturous in the time he'd spent in the place beyond death. It was clear in the fearful paranoia always lingering in his eyes beneath everything else, he was thin and bony and wasting away to nothing, and the affliction that plagued him had clearly left him changed.

But that, as of now, was a minor complication; certainly nothing compared to the joy of having him back.

"What were you doing here, in any case?" he asked after a long pause, clearly as happy as she was even through whatever sickness of the mind was tormenting him.

"I couldn't stay there," she said quietly. "Not when I knew I would just have to lose anyone I was close to. Losing you was more than I could bear. I came here just to... to be alone."

"You never seemed much like the sort of person who would enjoy that, though," he whispered back.

"I didn't." She stopped, again caught up in her own happiness. If she could never be given anything else, he was all she needed.

"Well, we won't have to be, not again."

At that she kissed him, pulling back smiling again. "No. We won't."

She finally felt him relax a bit, but his shoulders still remained slightly tensed, and his eyes would dart away every so often, as if he'd caught something in his peripheral vision.

Further uneasiness started to creep up on her joyous oblivion. He was damaged, so deeply and obviously. That was something she couldn't ignore.

"Nightmare," she said quietly, after a moment of thought, causing him to return his attention to her, "I don't know what happened to you, but... It's worrying me." He looked taken aback at this, afraid of what she would say next. She gave a slight smile she hoped was reassuring and finished, "I know you're the type to march on through anything, even if it ends up hurting you more. And I will not let you do that now. I do not plan on having to lose you again."

With somewhat ashamed acceptance of the statement, he slowly nodded.

Megumi finally took a step back from him, her heart sinking when she saw how loosely the thick black overcoat he wore was draped over him.

"You haven't been eating." It wasn't a question.

He flinched away as if she'd physically struck him, and she immediately regretted even the slight severity she had spoken with. "I- ate when I could. But I couldn't, not often. The ones who reside there have other ways of gaining sustenance. I had to find the winged monsters when I could, they were all that was edible, really."

Megumi thought of the gargoyle-like creatures they had once fought against together. That sinewy, rough muscle, oozing with black blood the consistency of molasses. No wonder he had come back so skeletal.

"There isn't anything here, so I've had to hunt as well." It was almost like it had been when she was young - a feral child running through the woods coming back every sunset carrying a full game bag home to an adoptive big sister who would just scold her for not behaving more like a proper young lady, and subsequently cook whatever was brought home over the fire for that night's meal. "It will be better than what you've had, though."

"Anything is better. Everything is better, now that I'm back with you."

She took his hand, nodding in agreement.

They were together again, the wound of separation that had been dealt to them had been healed. But as with any wound deep enough, it had left its scar.

They sat in silence before the roaring fire in the main hall as Megumi worked at cooking a bit of meat from a rabbit - not much, because she remembered a girl from her home village who'd gotten lost in the nearby forests and went two weeks with nothing to eat. After they found her, she'd eaten so much that her starved body couldn't take it - and she died two days later. Taking this into account, she knew Nightmare's recovery would have to be slow and gradual.

He ate slowly, finishing with bits still leftover that he didn't have the stomach for. Megumi tossed what was left into the fire and moved in closer to him again.

"I missed you so much," she whispered. "I... I never knew anything could hurt that badly... But I've never loved anyone as much as I love you."

"I wouldn't have even made it to that place in order to escape if it hadn't been for you... You were the reason for my existence, and while you were still here, I had reason to be too."

She curled up against him, and he put his arms around her. Happier than she'd thought she could ever be again, she soon fell asleep there, to the first peaceful, dreamless sleep she'd had since a piece of her soul had been torn away.