Skullgirls Repose
May 17th, 4:23pm

Marie sat at the table in the center of her room watching the Player as he went around the room doing basic cleaning tasks; dusting, sweeping, mopping, and so on.

After a while he put the finishing touches on his work by wiping off the cutlery cabinet.

"Aaaaand... Done!" The Player took a step back from the cabinet and nods in satisfaction. He turned to Marie for her evaluation.

"Not bad. You did fairly well."

"Fair... Fairly well? What? I was going above and beyond on the cleaning, how was that fairly well?"

"Well, the order needs work. You swept first and then dusted. What was the need to sweep first if you were going to put dust on the floor? You forgot to dust mop and apply dust mop treatment. Dust mopping is one of the most important components of floor care. It's done before periodic processes like top scrubbing or stripping."

As Marie went on with her review of his work, the Player's expression of faith in his cleaning slowly degrades.

Marie crouched down to the floor and slid her finger across the hard floor, showing him the dust he just wiped off the cabinet. "See? What I like to do is use a dust mop that has been pre-sprayed with dust mop treatment 24 hours before use. It helps the dirt stick to the mop and prevents from becoming airborne."

"...R-Right."

"Also, I was sitting here for the entirety of your cleaning process. You didn't move any furniture or mats, so you've left a good portion of the work undone."

"Holy- Jeez, Marie. You're on it, huh? Goodness," the Player chuckled, astonished how in-depth Marie was on her observation. "You got it. There's no wonder you're a pro. I guess there was a reason my old boss never me on cleaning duty when I was working at Beef Royalty."

Marie smiled as the Player came over to sit with her at the table. He sat back in the chair and exhales, returning the smile.

"Don't feel bad. Like I said, you did okay, not terrible. You Just need a bit more work and technique."

"Yes, sensei."

Marie's smile turned to a smirk as she giggled softly. "How have you been? Has your body made a full recovery?"

"I've been good, and yeah. My body is back to its old self again. No pain. A few dreams here and there, but nothing I can't handle at this point. They're few and far between so I'm getting a good amount of sleep."

"Good. I'm happy to hear it."

"How about yourself?"

"I'm fine. Doing a lot better now that you're back."

"...Aaaaw! Marie!"

"Yes?"

"That was so sweet!"

"It was? I'm merely speaking the truth. You know how lonely I was. Having a friend around to talk to and see is just...great. For the first time in a while, I'm...doing fine."

The Player crossed his arms and sighs in disbelief, still holding a wide smile.

"Is something wrong?" Marie asked.

"Not at all. Just taking it all in. I'm friends with a demigoddess. I cannot fathom the hype."

The Player was strange, but she didn't want it any other way. Knowing that she made him happy, even as a Skullgirl, apparently having a demigoddess as a friend was appealing, put butterflies in her stomach.

His carefree nature reminded Marie so much of her old friend.

"How are your other friends?"

"They're good. Filia's still the primary breadwinner, so there's that. Sienna is still home since she can't be out and about as much otherwise people will catch on, but every now and then we do go out and enjoy the day together. I know these answers are really simple and don't make for interesting conversation, but so far everything has been simple and sweet."

"After all the madness you've been through, that simplicity is a blessing."

"Heh, you're definitely right about that," the Player thought back on all the recent events: Wulfamania, past Skullgirls reaching him metaphysically, Brain Drain, and among them he recalled what happened with Valentine. "Actually, Marie. There's something interesting that happened a little while back that I wanted to speak to you about."

"What is it?"

"Val- Uh, Sienna was going through some stuff recently, some real heavy emotional stuff, and... I don't know what happened, she grabbed my hand and suddenly I was whisked away to the past, or at least I think it was the past. I'm praying to god time travel doesn't exist, but anyway, I saw a lot of things that happened to her before I even came to Canopy. I was all...transparent and I could move around the environment, but I couldn't interact with anyone. All I could do was watch everything transpire."

"Of course. When you connect with any of the Threads of Fate you can see their memories. Remember what I said? Everything is for the player to discover and know. When you connect with them you can see key events that put them on the path to you."

"To me?"

"All of those destined to cross paths with the Skull Heart have one thing in common; you. Their journey begins and ends with you, so naturally you have the power to see their origins."

"...Origin stories, huh? Good to know I have all this exclusive access. But, how do we go about that? Exploring their memories at will?"

"You did it before but don't know how it happened?"

"I'm still winging everything until something new happens. This is new so I have to run it by you first since you have a better understanding of how all this works. Which may be a problem in hindsight," the Player reached for his neck and rotates his head to the side to distract from the fact that despite having all these tools at his disposal he uneducated in using all of them.

"It's fine. If you want to explore their memories, the Fates have to fully open their hearts to you. You can have a good connection, a strong friendship, but if they don't want you to see certain things or truths, you won't be able to see them."

The Player followed along well enough, and it shot down the idea of using this new ability with Parasoul...for now.

It made sense, Valentine was desperate and wanted him to fully understand where she was coming from when it came to what happened with Carol and Brain Drain after the Player blamed her for Painwheel, and it was because he saw the uneasy partnership between her and Marie that he kept Valentine anonymous.

"Okay, so, getting them to open their heart means I can see key memories, the events that set in motion everything that would lead to me and this journey. Got it."

"It seems you've adjusted to your part in all of this. When we met you didn't want anything to do with your role or your gifts."

The Player silently snickered, reflecting on the earlier days. "Yeah. That was before I realized how much I cared about this place, or rather all of you. Getting to you know you all, your struggles, your dreams, everything. It all just kinda grew on me I guess. Besides, I still have promises to keep. One of them includes getting you out of this mess."

"You remember making that promise?" Marie seemed genuinely surprised, but pleasantly so.

"Of course. I can't ever forget that. It's such a big deal."

His optimism standing firm against the grim reality of her situation made Marie smile again. It was a noble and thoughtful gesture, but there wasn't going to be a happy ending for her and she made peace with that when she accepted the Skull Heart.

"You should forget that promise," she said with a casual smile, wanting him to know it was okay to not put it on himself to save her.

"What? No. I'm going to help you. We're going to find some way out of this."

"My journey has one ending. I'm the Skullgirl, there is no happy ending for the damned. But that's okay, I'm ready for that."

"Nooo! You can't just die because of that. You're not 'just' a Skullgirl, you're still Marie."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but it will-"

"It won't."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because I'll protect you. Me, Filia, Sienna, all of us. We'll keep you safe."

Marie went silent and looked at him, she'd be hard-pressed to say she wasn't touched by his words and yet she was still a realist and knew that eventually she'd go down the same path as every Skullgirl before her.

She didn't want to spoil the Player's kindness, but she couldn't fully accept it either because she found it unjust to let him carry such a heavy burden.

"I don't doubt that," Marie inclined her shoulders.

The Player smirked at her response, of course Marie was too cool to fully reciprocate his protective advances. "The first thing I want to do when we get out of this twisted cycle is take you to this really nice flower glade not too far from the park. The flowers are beautiful."

"Yeah? That sounds nice."

"Sooooo, is that you agreeing?"

"It's...me saying it sounds nice," Marie vaguely responds.

"Well, I'm going to take that as you agreeing."

"But I'm not-"

"Nope! Doesn't matter, I know how I'm taking it and I'm not changing it. Once this is all over, and you're free, I'm taking you to see the flowers and other stuff. We're going to go out and just live life since this Skull Heart nonsense took so much of that away from you. It'll be fun, you'll love it."

Marie extended her index finger to try getting a word in, but, at this point, why bother? He was so adamant on being hopeful she couldn't help but have a small glimmer of hope that his words would be made reality.

The Player checked his watch and saw it was 4:30pm. "Man, time flies. It's almost 5 o'clock already," he got up from his seat and pushed the chair in.

"Leaving?"

"Yep. I'm having dinner with a friend and I'm supposed to be meeting her around 6, so I need to head back home and start getting ready."

"I see. Sounds like a fun time," Marie got up as well.

"Should be. Anyway, it was great getting to spend most of the day with you, Marie. I always look forward to seeing you."

"No, thank you for stopping by. I appreciate your company."

Just as the Player smiled, Marie goes over to him and provides a hug.

The Player couldn't believe what he was experiencing. It took him some time to process it, but when he did he gave a single mute chuckle and embraced Marie, hugging it out as their goodbye for the day.

Marie truly came around after having him missing for so long. He mattered and she was content with showing it.

The Player couldn't have been happier to have such a caring demigoddess as an ally.

Before long, Marie pulled away and looked up to him. "You should get going. You don't want to be late."

"You're right. I'll see you soon, 'kay?"

"Okay," she nods with a smile.

The Player gathered his bags containing the wrappers of snacks the two shared and departs the secret chamber, waving goodbye before closing the door.

Marie briefly stands in place, maintaining herself from stance to expression. She lifts her hand to her lips and touched her own smile, "Huh," she said to herself curiously.

The door opened again and the Player popped his head in, "Oh! And congrats on becoming playable by the way."

"Huh?"

As quickly as he appeared, he left again. Marie couldn't even respond to his comment.

"...Wait. What?" Marie was utterly lost.