Author's Note: I suppose the only relevant comment is that my keyboard is dying and specifically the "r" key sometimes double types or doesn't type at all. I think I caught them all, but if you find any, I apologize in advance. Also sorry for the wait. It'll probably be a while before the next chapter too; I don't know that I've ever been this depressed for this long before. I guess I just wanted to say I do plan to finish this story, even though it'll take a while. Anyway, hope you enjoy.
"I… I'm glad you came with me, even though you didn't need to."
The mountain night was far from silent between the chirping of insects and the rustle of furry vandals waiting for them to leave some food unguarded, yet still Marie started at the sound of Crona's voice. Which, of course, caused him to flinch and curl into himself. He'd spoken softly and meant to say something nice, something he'd been thinking since they'd boarded the plane in Death City. But the vast salt flats, white and crystalline and entirely devoid of life had been such a novelty it had distracted him. Upon landing his purpose mandated his focus shift to sniffing out the residue of Medusa's magic and leading them to her lab, a task made more challenging by Marie's insistence that they were going the wrong way. That had been vexing, to the point where when she'd stopped offering assistance he was sure it was due to some offence he'd caused. That shame had kept him quiet as they set up camp, but now, as she threw together a second stew over the fire, he'd thought it might be safe. Guilt and fear twisted around him, assuring him that he'd thought wrong, and he pressed his chin into his knees, storm cloud eyes downcast.
Marie, for her part, wasn't considering half as many variables. Forgetting that Crona had an iron stomach, and that they'd already had one round of food sufficient to sate even Ragnarok's bottomless hunger, she'd been deep in thought regarding an irregularly colored tuber and whether or not it was safe to eat. When he'd spoken her own anxieties confirmed that this particular root was toxic and she'd reacted accordingly. Recovering from the shock, she tossed the offender back to the vandals and diverted her attention to Crona, smiling over the steaming pot. He looked so run down, as if he hadn't had a sound night's sleep in weeks, and it seemed to Marie that he could use all the gentleness he could get. When she spoke, her voice was soft and left no room for argument.
"There's no need to thank me, Crona; as I recall, I'm the one who forced myself on your mission, so I should be grateful you let me come along."
"No, that's not right," Crona muttered morosely, not looking at her but arguing anyway. "You shouldn't be grateful to me. Lord Death mandated that a Death Scythe come with; I'm a burden. But I am glad it's you here with me and not someone else."
"As you'd rather have my keen sense of direction at your disposal than, say, Spirit's constant advice on how you could better worship his daughter," Marie teased, giggling a little to let Crona know it was meant to be funny.
"Mrs. Marie," he looked up at he with a frown that suggested he did not get the joke. "I appreciate that you try to help but you're not so good with directions. That's not why-"
"Only kidding," Marie said, waving her hands a little and smiling her golden smile. "I am painfully aware of how, hmm, directionally challenged I am. The truth is I specifically asked to be the one to accompany you."
"You did? Why? You do know we're going to my mother's first lab, don't you?" Cona couldn't keep the disbelief from his voice, yet just in talking his demeanor had relaxed, which helped Marie say the next part.
"Oh I know, and that's exactly why I wanted to come. I've, well, I've been a little worried about you Crona. You've been under a lot of pressure and I know this trip is hard for you, so I wanted to help if I can."
Crona blinked his large, bottomless eyes at her slowly, like some kind of animal uncertain of its own safety. Then he looked down at the fire, squeezing his knees into his chest and settling his chin on top of them in a manner that made Marie think their conversation was finished. But he didn't stay that way for long, relaxing his legs off to the right and leaning forward, rooting around at the base of the flames. He extracted a moderately sized and smoldering stick and brought it to his face, inspecting the embers. His breath brought them to life and molten sparks winked in the air before fading to blackness. Pyromancy or just something to fill the time, Marie couldn't say. She fidgeted herself, waiting with as much patience as she could for his response.
"You do help me," Crona finally said, returning the stick and his gaze to the fire. "Just by being with me you help me. You've always been so kind to me, even when I didn't deserve it."
"Oh don't be silly Crona, you've never been undeserving of kindness," exclaimed Marie, shifting so she could lean towards him. "There are some… people, if you can call them that, that mustn't be shown an ounce of leniency, but you're not one of them."
"My mother was, though," he breathed the unspoken implication to the flames, a sadness narrowing his eyes. "Wasn't she."
"After everything she did, to you in particular, absolutely."
Marie answered too quickly and too instinctively, and was so confident in her response that she didn't consider alternatives until Crona's defeated sigh caught in his throat like a sob. Then it dawned on her that she'd said something hurtful, though exactly what part of her conclusion could've been hurtful to Crona eluded her. She was defending him! She still held a grudge on his behalf, still felt her blood boil when the image of Medusa's arrow like a pike through Crona's gut intruded in on her thoughts. And yet Medusa remained special to the pink haired meister; her lack of understanding made her usually sharp intuition dull in that area. She was just about to say something along the lines of a botched apology when Crona cut her off.
"Mrs. Marie, may I tell you something?"
"Of course," she soothed, relieved and concerned at the same time. "You can tell me anything, at any time. I will always do my best to listen to you, and anything else you need."
"I-" he swallowed hard, closing his eyes and screwing up his face in preparation. "I'm scared. I'm vey afraid right now."
"Oh honey that's completely understandable! We're on our way to one of Medusa's labs, no one could fault you for being scared."
"No, you don't understand," Cona insisted, urgency flinging his eyes open and fixing his desperate gaze right on he bewildered face. "I'm not afraid of the lab, of being around Lady Medusa's things, not anymore. That's why I'm scared, because these things don't bother me like they did before I stated my research. The more I study the more I see myself in Lady Medusa's work and I'm afraid that, deep inside me, in a place I'm only just noticing, I'm like her."
"Listen to me Crona," Marie said in a warm, stern voice, removing their stew from the heat and scooting around the fire to be closer to him. "You could never be like that woman, do you hear me? You are good and nothing except for your choices could ever change that."
Tenderly and without thinking much of it, she bushed some hair from his cheek. At first he shuddered under her touch, then immediately relaxed into it, letting his eyes fall closed again. Tears glittered on his eyelashes, winking in the crackling firelight.
"Do you think you can become confused and make the wrong choice? Do you think you can not realize your mistakes until you've gone past the desire for redemption? When I saw my mother in her journal, she told me that when she was young she tried to achieve the same goal, to rid herself of the Pull. That's why we're going to this lab, to this place where she began her very fist experiments, because it's only here that we can find the answers I need, or at least the questions. But she failed and look what she became. She failed and she said I was going to fail too and I-"
"Shhh. Hush now," Marie cooed, running her thumb over his cheek and wiping away a tear as it fell. "Hush, it's alright, you're alright. You are not your mother; you have people who love you and will help you. It's okay to be scared so long as you remember you're not alone. I'll be with you in the lab and I am with you now, so there's no need to fret, hmm?"
Crona didn't respond with words, but another tear pulsed down his face. Marie caught that one too, pursing her lips and strategizing. Then with a tender smile, she repositioned herself behind Crona, reaching around both sides of his face and tucking the hair behind his ears.
"When I was little," she started, resting her hands on his taught shoulders. "And the storms would crash outsight, so horribly I thought for sure our house wouldn't survive, let alone the little girl inside that was me, my mother used to sit me down and braid my hair. Calmed me right down. And I'd sit there, distracted, thinking to myself "One day, when I have a child of my own, boy or girl, it doesn't matter, I'm going to braid their hair just like this whenever they're scared." Mother's should be a source of comfort, and I don't think it matters much whether you're related by blood or by choice. So you don't have to be afraid anymore, because I'm right here and, if you want, I can braid your hair. Would you like me to?
A sob tore its way out of Crona's chest and he brought his hands to his face, covering it as if that could keep the world from noticing his crying. Yet he nodded, enthusiastically, and trembled at the sensation of Marie's fingers in his hair. Some of the shorter strands wouldn't hold, but there were enough long strands that the braid was possible. She took extra care and tiny, thin locks, weaving them expertly into a tight knot without ever tugging too hard at his scalp. And when she finished, she just combed it out and started over again. Slowly, lock by lock, interlacing as her finger tips stroked his taught flesh, Marie coaxed Crona into an exhausted relaxation. Just for a moment, the heavy burdens of fear and duty dropped away and he was left pleasantly but completely drained. By the time she was tying the ends on the final version he was nodding off. Smiling a sad smile to herself, she settled his head in her lap, and continued to pet his hair until he'd drifted off to sleep. Just like a child.
They didn't speak on the matter further in the morning and, mercifully, Ragnarok didn't comment either. Whether this was due to a newfound sensitivity, his intense focus on their breakfast stew, or, more likely, the fact that he hadn't been paying attention, was anyone's guess; Crona wasn't going to risk asking. Though to give the weapon credit, he had decided that continuously bullying Crona wasn't nearly as much fun as it used to be. At least, not in comparison to sleeping or eating. They both knew from his experiences with Pendra that the proteins associated with magic suppressed Ragnaok's soul. Or perhaps more accurately, they consumed it, as Asura's Madness had consumed Vajra and brought him into godhood. Whenever he practiced Ragnarok always commented on how unpleasant it was for him and Crona had started to wonder if maybe it was wearing him down. He had to find a solution, some way to be rid of both his magic and his Madness, for Ragnaok's sake as much as his own. He focused on that thought, on the necessity of this task, and pushed through the mounting fear.
"We've done some dumb shit, but this is definitely up there with the dumbest. The bitch didn't need 8,000 hideouts and it's stupid that we have to hunt them down. Don't get all fussy just because I'm right," Ragnarok scolded, taking out his frustration on the unbraided bits of Crona's hair and bringing forth a wince. "This whole quest sucks."
"No Ragnaok," Cona answered for the hundredth time, pushing aside some pine branches and pressing his fingertips to a wall of granite. "It's not dumb. Lady Medusa was smart to keep her work in multiple places. That way it wasn't all lost when she destroyed her lab near Death City."
"So she kept a summer home in the mountains, big deal. You're not going to find anything good in there, so why waste time looking? God, why did I have to get stuck with the densest meister on the planet!"
"I don't like going back to Medusa's labs either," snapped Crona suddenly, his own irritation flaring as he jerked his head out of Ragnarok's paws. "But we have to and you know why. And stop pulling my hair, I don't like it and you're going to ruin my braid."
"You're hair, that's what you're worried about? How girly can you get?"
Ragnarok took a surprisingly thin lock and pulled it out of the weave on the top of Crona's head, casting it into his face defiantly. Crona ignored it, scrambling up a small hill to another face of the granite and pressing both palms to it.
"What do I care," he said casually, his own little jab. "Why should I care about being girly? I'm not a boy."
"You're insufferable is what you are."
"And you've been listening to Maka more than you admit," he whispered the last part with a small smile which faded as he found the pulse he'd been seeking in the stone. "Ragnarok, I know you don't want to be here. I'm sorry the magic makes you uncomfortable; there's nothing I can do about it right now. But I think if I try I can fix it for both of us. Let me focus and try to find something to do about it, and if there's nothing here you can have my dinner for three days, okay?"
"Crona!" Marie, who had learned more than once to just stay out of their bickering, as offensive as she frequently found it, couldn't hold back her protest. Ragnarok turned his head a full 180 degrees and fixed her with a disturbing stare that butted her back out of the conversation. With a huff she folded her arms and looked away, muttering: "I suppose we'll just have two dinners for a while."
"Uncomfortable my bloody ass," Ragnarok spat, returning his attention to Crona. "Your magic has it in for me. You don't like when it takes over? You should feel what it's like for me. I have a right to be pissed that you keep fucking around with this shit."
"I'm sorry," said Crona, tracing a coiling and unnatural crack in a wide and unnatural exposed face of quartz. " Just a little more, just until I figure this out, and then I'll stop."
"That's what she said."
He winced at the biting remark but was already opening the door when Ragnarok hissed it into his ear. As his finger reached the terminus the serpentine crack lit up with an ethereal yellow glow that looked like sunlight filtered through trees but was the opposite of sunlight. It, too, hissed and uncoiled its body, undulating and expanding until it formed a seam in the crystal. Dust was expelled from the forming cracks, which forced all three to turn away coughing. When they returned their eyes to the granite it had opened, exposing a crisp void on the ventral side of the stone. A void which issued a terrible invitation. Ragnarok rested on the braided hair then withdrew into Crona's back as if he himself had torn open the rock and Crona… remembered this place with trembling fear. Just the once, when he was small, he had returned here with rabbits caught in the woods. Then he'd brought back only their little copses, proof he could carry out his directive unsupervised. Proof that the spells in his mind and blood were effective. The old magic breathed inside him as he crossed the threshold into the darkness, a cold reminder of what sort of creature he'd been designed to become.
Medusa's oldest lair was modest in comparison to her later iterations, yet no less labyrinthine. As a child there had been only one path, one series of twists and doors through which he'd been allowed, and the instinct to follow was so strong Crona hardly needed the torchlight to find his way. It wasn't where they wanted to go, yet he found he couldn't turn away- no, that wasn't right. He found he had no desire to turn away, to avoid the place that existed, void and devouring, in his memory. New senses he hadn't possessed when he was small told him it was on the way, that his prison of cruel solitude was tucked safely against the belly of the snake. Nestled in tight coils near her heart. A precious experiment or a precious child, he wasn't sure even Lady Medusa could confirm the veracity of one over the other. Sometimes the question consumed him, the distinction between "child" and "experiment" like a bottomless crevice in his reasoning. Sometimes there was peace in the word "precious" and Crona found he didn't care much about anything else. Even in death he loved her and that, he understood, was the purest source of both his calm and the storms that followed. When they got to the door he stopped so suddenly Marie actually bumped into him.
"Crona," she asked, flushing and leaping backwards. "Is this it?"
He didn't answer or even hear her. His fingers, somehow even longer and more pale in the torchlight, reached out to the knob, timid and trembling. They brushed the glinting brass and he recoiled as if burnt, his face tensing at first in fear, then in defiance. Again he stretched out his hand, biting into his lower lip as he grasped the handle. Turned it slowly, causing the old and disused mechanism to squeal in the silence. Like the cries of his child self, the one still in the darkness behind this door, in a room of milky white quartz and carved serpents and the tingle of magic he hadn't been able to feel then. She'd watched him, observed from the walls as he wept by a door that didn't even have a lock. A door that opened inward.
Crona left it ajar, just wide enough for the ghosts to escape but not so much as to let light in, then continued on silently. When Marie was safely clear he stopped again, aware of her concerned eyes on his back but unable to care. There was something bubbling inside him, something that was not fear, something that scorched and thrashed and demanded release. Lady Medusa had been watching the whole time, she'd been so sure of his absolute obedience, his unending submission, that she'd watched him through a door that didn't even have a lock. And she'd been absolutely correct in her assessment. At any moment he could've left if he'd just tried but he hadn't known to try. There was so much he hadn't known then, pits in his knowledge intentionally left void. Still, now he knew they were there he couldn't help but feel shame, embarrassed by the fact that he hadn't recognized the twisted nature of his existence on his own. The desire to just be normal and the knowledge that he would never achieve normalcy burned, each accelerating the flame of the other until Crona finally found the word for this emotion that was making his heart pound like terror but was nothing like fear.
Rage. She'd kept him for days behind a door without a lock. Imprisoned by nothing more than her will and that had been enough. He'd been too cowed to try the handle then, to realize the door itself was breakable. He hadn't understood the fragility of things then or had the power to do anything about it. Now though…
Marie just about jumped out of her skin at the sudden shearing of mettle and buckling of wood. She spun around in time to catch the door by which Crona had paused come flying off its hinges, cross the hall, and smash into the stone wall. It splintered but didn't scatter; the pieces hit some barrier and ricocheted. Then that barrier collapsed. The wood screeched and bowed, snapping and folding in on itself until no piece greater that six inches in length remained. It was only then that the barrier released, dumping the remnants in a dusty heap on the floor. Slowly, unsure of if she really wanted to know, Marie turned her attention back to Crona. He was picturesquely still, ghostly in the gloom with that black robe and translucent skin. His hand grasped his upper arm and his face was turned so she could see his profile. One pale blue eye, wide and unblinking, stared over his shoulder, past her and to what had once been the door. Then he turned his face forward and continued to move through the dark.
That was the first thing that scared Marie, which was really saying something considering her profession and their location. But she'd only seen that look of directed intensity in Crona's eyes once before, when Pendra had ordered him to kill Stein. That night, as Black Blood hissed across pale sand the blanching moonlight, she'd only caught his eye one or two times. And there was no morality there, no concept of right or wrong, simply a piercing, destructive intensity. A desire manifesting outside the confines of what should and should not be allowed in the natural order. The door had been startling, even though the way he'd lingered on the handle told her it had it coming. She made no comment to reveal her fear and besides, the display of magic wasn't what worried her. It was the will in his stare, an echo of what she'd promised never to hold against him, like he didn't care about the consequences…
The second thing to scared her followed quickly, as if events to come were being foreshadowed. Medusa's lab and archive was close, maybe a two dozen hollow steps further at the terminus of the hall, and when they entered Marie felt a chill run up her spine and whisper in her ear: This is a bad place, nothing good will come from here. The vast majority of the building was empty space or experimentation rooms, kept separate to avoid contamination, but all the results and research materials were archived here. Like coiled intestines, digesting and changing whatever entered. Marie lit the old torches around the perimeter, noting how small it actually was, and how, well, normal looking. There were dried herbs and oils but no preserved body parts or animals, papers and tomes but nothing bound in flesh. Honestly it looked more like a kitchen storeroom than a magical lab and yet still her unease remained. An early lab constructed by a young Medusa, but Medusa nevertheless. Crona perused the shelved, pulling off entries at random, reading pages at random, then returning each to its slot. He didn't see how Marie needed to know what he was looking for and, as much as she was burning to ask, she didn't want to rush or distract him. She wanted out of this stone labyrinth as quickly as possible and the best way to that goal was to just let the meister work.
Her scare came after maybe 20 minutes of that work. She'd occupied herself with the dried herbs and fantastic notions of taking some home to use in her own cooking, becoming so absorbed in her own ridiculous hypothetical she'd quite stopped paying attention to Crona's drifting. It wasn't until he stopped that her attention came back to the present, though she held her tongue and gave Crona his silence. He'd been reading the same book for minutes, even turned the page several times, before he closed it and set it on the desktop associated with that particular tower. His long fingers delicately plucked a thin manuscript from the pile, opened it, and traced the entries, while his eyes flicked from the list to the objects on the desktop. When he came to one he paused, opening the first book again and flipping the pages until the fingers on his right hand could rest on the twin of whatever entry he had pointed out with his left. Leaving the pages exposed he leaned forward, fishing around the desktop and retrieving a box that he could only just lift with one hand. For a moment he inspected it, then fiddled for another, until a latch clicked and he was allowed to expose the contents. Nothing but some old cloth and a small, amber jar. And yet she felt a very sudden, instinctual fear of whatever was in that jar.
She didn't like the way Crona brought it to his face, rigidly, like his body was acting against his will, or the way goose bumps erected on the back of his neck where the braid had exposed his pale flesh. If she'd seen the faint glow reflect from deep within Crona's pupils or his free hand move, again as if by another's will, to open the jar, she never would've allowed what happened next. It's a moot point; Ragnarok was in no mood to tolerate such an invasion. He burst from Crona's stomach and backhanded the jar, sending it flying into a corner.
"The hell do you think you're doing," he chastised, sinking back into Crona's gut and reemerging from his back. "Don't fuck with that."
"But Ragnarok," Crona protested, giving his head a little shake as if to clear it and blinking away the glow. "That's what we came for. That is… that's a sample of a Panacea."
"I don't care what it is! You keep me away from it! Do not fuckin' touch it!"
"That's the Panacea," Marie cut in, going after the jar. "What you were looking for?"
"Only a piece of one," said Crona, bringing his fingertips to his brow and letting his eyes fall closed. "It's not big enough to do anything, but finding it is promising. Lady Medusa had to have gotten it somewhere; I'm sure we'll find more details in her notes. We'll have to take this entire shelf though…"
He trailed off, breathing deeply as his chest collapsed, deepening his slouch. One hand continued to cover his eyes and the other grasped at the tabletop. Marie, having located the jar among some scrolls, slid it into her pocket and returned to the young meister's side. Taking his shoulders, she steered him towards the room's only chair and pressed him into it. The back groaned in protest as he leaned into it, but the wood held.
"Are you alright Crona," she asked directly, keeping her hands on his shoulders.
"Yes," he answered too quickly, keeping his face covered. "Yes, yes I- I'm-"
His breath hitched and he curled inwards just a little, biting his lower lip. Marie waited, patiently, for him to regain his composure, rubbing his tense muscles with her fingertips.
"No," Crona finally said, dropping his hands into his lap and sighing. "No, I feel faint and I… I know we can't leave until we have the research materials, and I know I should be happy, because I didn't think we'd find anything and we did, and I am, but I just… I-I don't want to be here anymore. I feel overwhelmed."
"It's okay, that's completely normal," soothed Marie, squatting down to face him. "I'll tell you what, how about I get the bags stuffed with as much of this shelf as I can carry and then we'll head back? But you'll have to wait with me, okay? Because as much as I hate to admit it I am completely lost in here."
Crona snorted in laughter, then nodded, bringing his hands back up to his face so she wouldn't see him start to cry.
"Yes, I, um, I understand. I think I can deal with that."
In her pocket the Panacea flamed bright one last, desperate time before returning to its rest. The Black Blood inside Crona surged like waves of sick vertigo in response, simultaneously curios, energized, and drained. The connection had been like a stimulant, a new source of power the Black Blood could dissolve and incorporate into itself. And yet the question remained: who was feeding on whom? Still the prospect was exciting and whatever the Black Blood felt was experienced through the entire network. One hundred and something miles away, Soul shifted in his hospital chair, rubbing his scar. If the twinge was real or an artifact of zoning out, he couldn't tell the difference. It wasn't altogether irregular either; a pinching in his scar was just an indication that Crona'd gotten worked up over something. Nothing dangerous, no cause for alarm, just another reminder that the two were connected.
Soul stretched in his chair and yawned widely, flashing his sharp teeth in the afternoon light. When he was finished he readjusted, directed his gaze towards the third and newest member of their little group, and felt something that was 50% rocks and 50% butterflies drop into his stomach. Vera was there, on the table in a hospital gown, and she was standing next to the bed in pants and a hoodie. The standing one looked sad, reaching out and tracing her own fingers lightly, as if inspecting a copy of herself made of glass. When she moved the air around her rippled, like she was standing in the interface between astral water and reality. Light caught in the ripples and shimmered beautifully, like the opalescence in her usually amber eyes.
"The anguish of the swan is in her hands," she whispered, withdrawing from herself and finally looking up at him. "Soul? Is that you? I'm having… the weirdest dream."
