Oh how wonderfully things had started but Blaze just had to ruin this for herself, didn't she? She was in her bedchamber, laid in bed, but she wasn't alone; teal light ate away at the darkness and tinted her room. Silver lay facing her, his peaceful yet dopey sleeping smile mere centimetres away. They'd only become a couple a few weeks ago but tonight he'd stayed much too late and she'd extended the offer. She watched how his fluffy chest gently rose and fell, oh how she'd love to place her head atop it and drift to sleep. But with a touch she'd thrown herself from rest's door to that of a guilt that held her consciousness captive, the nattering of anxious thoughts kept her from purring herself toward tomorrow. She was casting her hand across his body, gently reaching deep into his fur, and finding scars she could not recognise. Scars that, had she been present, he might not have today.
It had started on his back; she'd shifted her grasp to ease into him when fingers met with coarse and rocky islands in his sea of fur. She'd traced its entirety, a broken line that stretched from the peak of his right shoulder down to the centre of his waist; she could only imagine his attention had been turned elsewhere and some long claw had caught him. This revelation had led to a further search and soon she'd found more scars, most fully healed healing. Second, she'd found an indent to his fur, the type she'd have ignored before this, but plunging to the skin she'd found a dip to his skin; something had pierced him near the spine, an inch to the right and he would have died. Third, she'd uncovered a mark at his hip, where the fur had been thinner and the skin felt rough; perhaps it was a burn… be it by flame or some kind of chemical.
She had pulled her hands away, casting them over her own form; smooth fur and the nigh untouched skin of a princess. She scowled in disgust, she was a guardian and thus a combatant yes but her wounds were tended at the most immediate convenience; this body had no scars, none like that of the life she'd lived before certainly. In crisis city things had been terrible, scavenging for food and water just to live another day; fighting monsters for as long as she could remember, and with that had come injuries. She recalled, as a child, her right arm had been caught in the maw of one of those creatures; how she'd had two indents where its burning fangs had pierced flesh, they would never heal properly. Days later a flaming bird had set about killing her, diving and rending her shoulder with its horrid talons; leaving two lines where fur had refused to properly grow. Blaze exposed that shoulder, running her fingers over the wound; not a trace of it remained, lost literally to time. He hadn't let her fight for days after that, insisting she rest and demanding she take more than her share of supplies while he would forage for more. Blaze had refused, of course, countering that if he was struck down she'd be unable to protect him, he'd die; that they could only leave together. Naturally, they'd come to the begrudging compromise of suffering together; neither of them left their makeshift home for three full days. They starved but they starved together, she got a little better.
Blaze caught herself, was she angry over the good condition of her own body? It was foolishness, bizarre and sadistic foolishness, but despite that understanding, it still ate away at her. It was a manifestation of the difference between their second lives, a lonely repeat in hell and an isolated life of safety.
Her hands began to wander again, probing and pushing at his neck. His throat, the lower right side, her fingers hitched. She began to trace another line through his fur; this one couldn't be longer than a few inches; the flesh had risen following the laceration. Would she find them all? Certainly not tonight but she would eventually, had they matched those of their prior life she'd already know them. Blaze continued to push through that chest fur, feverishly searching for a specific mark. It took almost an hour of padding that one specific spot to accept to the fact it had been lost, fangs grit and were tears not welling before she could certainly felt them now. It had happened when they were so young… it'd been the first he'd taken for her, she could only have known him for a handful of days. Down the centre of his chest, there was supposed to be a line; a deep crevice hidden only by the thickness of his chest fur.
She could remember the moment as though it happened seconds ago. She couldn't have known him for more than a week back then but, despite that, when an Iblis hound caught them off guard, he'd foolishly stood before her. Even that dog, the weakest of Iblis spawn, was far too much for them back then; with a single swing of its horned head his chest had burst open in a spray of blood; he'd been thrown atop her. She'd grabbed him and ran, ran as far and as fast as she could. It'd been his first sacrifice and the first wound she'd, very poorly, cauterised. He didn't wake for days; she'd just gained her first friend and in the blink of an eye thought she'd lost him. When he finally awakened he'd had the gall to ask if she was okay, so naïve. She'd been angry, even that young she'd known what he did was stupid… but they'd both take blow after blow for the other from that day forward. Regardless of how much it worried the other, they knew in their position they'd make the same choice.
He'd taken new injuries and lost the ones he'd sustained defending her. Guilt ebbed through her mind with a feverish pulse, mixed and mired with feelings of sadness and anger. What had happened on those days he couldn't fight, when he was unable to rise; had anyone been there to tend his wounds? Had he tended to someone else's? Or had he suffered without her, were things the same he'd have surely died without her but as things were; did he have more scars this time? Thoughts flooded her mind; her hands up to his face, just wanting to hold him somewhere unharmed. Even though these new wounds and without her… he'd been the same. It wasn't as if he'd changed, he was the same naïve idiot who'd smile through that hell and talk about making things better; even if he didn't know how to. He hadn't turned cold from a life so unfair; instead, he'd remained warm. Stupidly trusting and unbelievably kind.
She'd expected death when she made her sacrifice, to traverse realities to some endless void of nothing and explode into flames; the monster killing her but sent somewhere it could never hurt him or anyone else again. Instead what had happened? She'd been reborn into a position of power, she'd been safe and comfortable yet isolate; memories had been stolen. Forces outside their control had severed their bond, she'd had no choice but to abandon him, but then why did these feelings remain?
"Blaze?" Her eyes snapped up, blurred by tears and tinted teal she could still make out his golden pupils. "Are you okay?"
"You're so naïve, asking me that in your state… "She closed her eyes, her whole body tensed; her hand still lay on his cheeks. She felt a pair of arms reach around her; his body pulled closer; when her eyes opened their noses were almost touching. She fought through; "Do you have more scars in this life than you did in the last?"
"Eh?" He blinked, thinking for a moment. "I don't know how many I have this time… a couple injuries stand out but I haven't really counted the marks."
She wasn't content with that. Her hands traced down from his face to his chest fur, tears were gathering on the pillow; "Thirty-six injuries left lasting scars when we were together; don't make me count the new ones myself."
Silver was still holding her close, he hesitated but eventually replied; "Most aren't as big but… I-I guess more, maybe by a few?" There it was. Her eyes clamped shut, she loosed a sharp breath. She felt the arms tighten around her, "But how many have you got? It has to be less than forty-two, right?"
He couldn't remember his own but of course, he remembered her scars. Her eyes remained closed. "Zero. Nothing has left a lasting mark."
There was no hesitance in his response; she could hear the joy in her voice. "Really? That's great!"
Her eyes opened wide, guilt and anger flowed over; "I sacrificed myself, I chose to give myself up, you should be the one untouched! You should have been safe! I wanted you safe…"
The tears were flowing too fast now, the world a mess of teal, she couldn't make out his face but she felt his forehead pressed against hers. "I-I wanted to make y-you safe, but I couldn't do it. The fact that you're not just alive but unharmed i-it… it's great. I'm so glad." Her eyes opened, he was crying too now but beneath his tears was that smile, that broad naïve smile. "You're the one who sealed Iblis, if either of us deserves to be unharmed it's you. I-It wasn't good the second time but with you safe, I'm so happy. I couldn't want anything more."
Fingers went from his chest fur to clasping wrapping behind his neck; she leant into his forehead. "You say that like you didn't try to seal it yourself… neither of us should have had to suffer that hell, let alone twice."
"Well… um… eheh…" She blinked through the tears, listening intently. He was stuttering; something embarrassing was coming. "W-Well I'm in heaven now a-and I don't plan to leave o-or let it leave me again." Yes, very embarrassing.
"You naïve dork." This hadn't fixed everything, of course, she'd be finding new scars for weeks and with them regret, but as she leant in to kiss him she knew eventually it would pass. Whether the scars matched or he was her Silver. The wound to show it may have vanished but he clearly still cared, he wouldn't have been here otherwise. Blaze would just have to stop him from getting any more.