Haha, so you've guys been waiting for this one huh? x3 guess you guys liked the past two chapters! :D That's awesome!
Now let's give some thanks since it is November now ;3
-LightandDarkHeart: Haha, yeah. Cloude was one of the characters I regretted killing without properly developing. Which is why I decided on doing those extra chapters. But believe me it ain't the last thing you'll hear from him ;)
-Marronn: Haha, yeah. As said before, it ain't the last of him you'll hear ;3 As for Chronos, I mentioned in earlier chapters how Claire got guided away by a monkey? Well, guess who's that x3 And I've never seen the darkrai thing you mentioned. Care to leave a link or something. I'd really like to see it. And yes...Lily's patronus was a doe and I love that animal xD and Chronos is a monkey, I imaging him like a capuchin monkey when normal and very patronus-like color when in his Chain form the same goes for Lacrimosa.
-bojoflo12: thanks so much for the follow and the favorite :D You're awesome!
-Ellerinae: Thanks so much for the follow and favorite :3 I appreciate all of these so much.
Wow that was a lot of thank yous but I love doing them! :D But let's get to what you've guys been waiting for this whole week! Midterms are over with and I want to write!
Chapter Thirty
Forever Yours
—The third morning after the incident at Yura's mansion—
After having stumbled upon Gilbert that morning, Sharon invited him to some tea to which he agreed. Both sat in silence before Gilbert asked about Break and Reim's well being. After ascertaining to them, he asked about someone else who they hadn't seen step out of her room since the night they came back.
"How's Claire?" he inquired and accidentally putting his cup down a bit too loudly.
At the question, Sharon seemed perplexed at first but changed her expression and instead asked one herself. "May I ask why you are asking about her?"
"Well..." It took him a few minutes to retell the events he had seen at Yura's mansion. About how he had seen Elliot and Claire together...and them kissing. As bashful as he seemed, Gil had no problem retelling that with the grief that weighed on him. "If anybody can understand Oz right now—" he continued after finishing. "It would be Claire."
Sharon's gaze suddenly sullen at hearing this. "She hasn't spoken a word to anybody. She simply smiles but her eyes look empty. Hollow. Ever since we came back...she has only interacted with those two."
"Them..." Gilbert cringed at remembering. The night of the ceremony, Chronos and Lacrimosa had taken different forms because of the burst of power that they had gained. Not being able to be contained in Claire's body with so much of it, they had exited and taken a human shape of their own. "I thought that only the stupid rabbit was capable of that. But it seems I was mistaken. She hasn't said a word?"
Sharon shook her head. "Not to me, at least. She has slept most of the days off while keeping herself locked up in the room when she's awake. She's really starting to worry me."
"It's too soon to tell how she will handle this," Gil suggested and grimace. "It's clear that she and Oz won't recover from this easily."
"True enough," Sharon agreed and stared at her tea. "And I speak for her when I say that a broken heart is hard to mend and even then it is never whole again."
"Has she...cried?" he asked her out of the blue.
Frankly the question didn't surprise her but she replied anyway. "In times of grief mourning is the only way to get past it. Maybe I shouldn't say this to a man but I think that...it's important to cry at times like these."
Claire sat silently by the window, gazing out into the bright blue sky. The morning was like any other and frankly wasn't much of a sight. At least not now. Her sunken, glazed over eyes stared out without a complaint, though, ignoring the other occupants inside.
"Claire?" Lacrimosa's bare whisper was heard in the silence of the enormous yet empty room. With a human form, she looked like a young twelve-year-old girl. Her hair was short to her neck and was a chestnut brown; two little bundles of her hair stuck out like drooping doe ears. Her mossy green eyes peaked at Claire with clear concern on her face. On her neck was a thin choker with a brilliant sphere. "Are you okay?" she whispered more worried when no answer came.
But Claire didn't answer her. She simply ignored Lacrimosa and only held her legs together to her bosom and stared back out at the world.
A click of tongue made Lacrimosa gaze over her shoulder to see Chronos with a peeved glare. He inherited the body of a thirteen-year-old boy. His long, chocolate brown was spiked up in the front and thinned out into a ponytail that was tied at the nape of his neck. The scowl on his face said much of the anger that was slowly boiling and his swirling mercurial eyes seemed to almost shine in the dim-lighted room. An earring hung on his left ear with a bright sphere. "Don't bother, Mosa. She ain't going to listen to ya. She's lost."
"Can't we help her?" Lacrimosa inquired trying to find a way to aid their master.
But Chronos shook his head in denial and began heading towards the exit. "She needs space. Come on, I want to accompany Miss Rainsworth on Regnard's behalf." Lacrimosa gave one last glance towards Claire before sighing and heading out through the open door that Chronos held. Turning to face her before leaving, Chronos sneered. "Mope all you want. But I'll tell you something from experience, you'll never see the day break without tomorrow. Don't stay stuck in the past, there is no future there for you."
The loud clicking of the door closing didn't faze me in the least. Right now what they said didn't matter to me in the slightest. My mind was still too perturbed; my heart still shattered. All my senses were receiving information so vivid that it was sometimes hard to shut it all up. But even then my body felt cold, languid and my heart hurt with a constant humming that never ceased.
The wounds healed but the pain remained.
Everybody was back safe, wounded and needing rest, but back nonetheless. But...what was this lingering feeling...so familiar
"Loneliness."
That voice — don't loose him.
I hid my head with my arms. I'm sick and tired of having these hallucinations no one else sees. If I didn't see it, it would go away.
"I'm not going to go away just 'cause you want to."
Finally, out of spite, I lifted my head to glare towards the way of the voice. There, on the foot of the window, was a tiny girl with ebony hair and a frilly pink dress and shiny, black shoes. Because her back was facing me, I couldn't see her face but I recognized her voice. It was my own when I was younger.
"What are you doing here?"
"I tried warning you."
I clicked my tongue out of anger and glared away. "If you're here to rub it in my face of how right you were, the joke's on you. I'm already suffering plenty without it."
"I'm not here for that."
"Then why are you here? More importantly, what are you exactly?"
"You."
I gritted my teeth in utter annoyance. "Stop with the vagueness and tell me. That's the least you owe me."
"And I'm telling you that I am you. We both are."
Both? The sudden warmth of someone's back pressing against mine bothered me even more as I got my answer. "Listen to her, Clarice."
"Fuck off, Lacie."
"Watch your tone, kid."
"No!" I called in a rage. "Both of you only appear when it benefits you. And it always does at the cost of something I love! Why? Why me?!"
"We are here because you need us. You're broken and full of despair now; that emptiness you feel is what we've come to occupy. After all, you were never really whole to begin with."
"What?"
"When your heart broke, your soul suffered damage too. Even after mending your shattered heart, it didn't fix the fractures that remained on your soul. We came to do that."
"We?"
"Yes. Ragnild and I."
My eyes lowered towards to the little girl that sat playing with her shoes. "Ragnild..."
"The language of your people." And it meant 'all-knowing power'.
"How can you fix it? My soul, my heart, it doesn't matter what it is, it's already shattered. No one can repair it."
"We are here because we are that which you lost."
"What I...lost?"
"Your strength—"
"And your compassion."
Strength...and compassion. "But Lacie, you're not even a part of me. You're just a piece of a soul. Like Jack?"
"I may be but the night I found you, I became a part of you. What little of myself was left that day unified to give you life. I am a part of you just like you are a part of me."
Heaving a sigh, I placed my forehead on my knees. "Frankly, I don't care. Nothing you do has any worth to me. Without..." I grimaced when the mere thought of him brought a heavy weight upon my shoulders.
"How idiotic. Are you seriously going let his sacrifice be in vain?"
I remained silent. There was nothing I wanted to discuss with them. Yet her words strung something inside of me.
"What he did was a choice of his own. And it was a decision he made with all of you in mind."
"How can you know that? Just let me stay here. Shut up and leave me be!" I yelled at them holding onto my head. So sick and tired was I that I didn't even realize I had shouted.
"Just because we can, doesn't mean we should."
My head slowly rose to meet Ragnild's face. She had stood up and was facing me. "What...did you say?"
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Sound familiar to you?" I had heard it somewhere, sometime ago. "The grief you have can't hold you back. You can give into it and remain here, mourning, but it doesn't mean you should. It's a test given to you by life. Something that will ultimately help you."
"Test?"
"Life has a way of beating even the strongest amongst us down to our knees. But it is those flames that we are thrown into that forge our will. Beating after beating, no matter what, the human will is capable of recovering and standing back up again. The blade that you are has forged through the fires of hell itself. And it is such a blade that becomes the most lethal weapon of all. A weapon of absolute beauty and force."
The power to stand up again? "I'm...not that strong..."
"Not alone, maybe." A soft hand suddenly came to cover my own. Just then I felt it pull me up and made me stand up. "But that's why we're here."
That's when I saw them as they were. Ragnild standing beside Lacie. The former with the same dress I remembered having and Lacie, her face blurred to me, in a white summer dress.
"The boy gave you a second chance on life. Much like your brother. And it will not be wasted."
I could do nothing but stare intently at the two. They were seemed so strong, so sure of themselves. Like they could walk through hell and still be unscathed. And it made me wonder..."But how? I can't even live with myself knowing he's gone. That he'll...never be with me again."
"But his essence never really left you; it's exactly because of that love that you regained your heart. That mutual affection kept you on this world. And it, along with us, can make you whole again. Elliot's love stayed with you even when he didn't."
"Elliot's..." My eyes shut closed as the information sunk in. "But it's hard...to move on so soon."
"Take it at your own pace." Ragnild said with a grin on her face. "But remember, there are people out in the world that are waiting for you."
"And as he said 'champion the ones you love'."
Cloude...
Elliot...
"H-How can I become whole again?" My voice was quite shaky a bit but I noticed a slight confident tone that I had missed using.
Ragnild grinned and turned towards Lacie before looking at me and yanking at my arm. She pulled hard enough to launch herself towards me and vanish at touching my body. A sudden vigor rushed over my body. "It's a matter of will."
Lacie smiled and simply stepped forth and embraced me. At doing so she, too, vanished into me. When she did so my vision suddenly became clearer and brighter. "And you have one of the strongest ones."
"Now that you've realized where you are—" I heard both of their voices inside my head just like I would hear Chronos and Lacrimosa. But this time, it lifted my spirits hearing them encouraging me on. "You can keep walking, or turn back, or take a different road. It is your choice."
With that strength back, I sprinted towards the door and took the doorknob in my hands. But just as fast as that strength came, dread came rearing its ugly head out. It was so overwhelming that it was threatening to take me back to bed. Out of the blue though, I felt a hand on my right shoulder as it squeezed it gently.
"Be strong, xiote. You've never given up before. Don't start now."
Cloude!
Suddenly another hand, a dainty one, came to my left shoulder and gently patted it.
"I taught you to always have courage, Clarice. And the flames of yours burn brighter than any other."
Matisera!
Then, what surprised me most, was the hand that landed atop my own on the doorknob. It was a bit larger than mine and it gently grasped my own. It was so familiar and loving...
"I thought you said you were stronger than this. Where did that big mouth of yours go?"
What...But—it can't be...
But it all became too real when I felt a gentle touch on my cheek. Light like a feather's touch but it brought my body the warmth I had lost so long ago.
"You'll be all right. Go get those two knuckleheads back up on their feet. You're strong enough to take on anything. After all, you're my girl, right? I'm sure you will be just fine, Claire."
All three pushed the doors open and pushed me through. I turned around wanting to call to them but mostly to call to him.
"Elliot..." My whisper was nothing more than that when I saw that the darkened room was completely empty. A smile I hadn't noticed crept to my face and a feeling that filled me with joy spread throughout my whole being. "Thank you," I murmured and turned to go, heading towards Sharon's parlor.
Thank you, Cloude.
Thank you, matisera.
And most of all, thank you Elliot. I will love you, always. I will help Oz and the others as much I can. And don't you worry. I'll keep Leo safe. It's my turn to protect everyone. I'll be the friend they will lean on in your behalf. "Please look after me, Elly..."
I will always remember this lesson.
The hope that you all have brought to me has given me the strength I need to keep walking. To move on forward.
And I will let them know as well what it has taught me.
To Oz and Leo so that they, too, can understand the choice Elliot made.
Things sometimes have to go wrong in order to go right.
And even if this tears us to shreds, we'll still pick up the pieces and press forward.
And most of all I'll remember you forever and always, Elliot.
You who taught me that being strong doesn't mean not relying on anybody.
Being strong means knowing you are human and that you will have others there by your side.
That those people will be there and protect you when you've been strong for too long.
Just like you and I.
And I'll always remind you of who I am to you.
Forever yours.
A bit short and a little late 0w0 but here it is cx I'll hopefully have time to upload another tomorrow :3 Hoped you liked it and stayed tuned :D
