turnsheet_bureau:6:congrats_on_the_wedding [Contagion]

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======In Sickness and Health======

=====Planning can go up here, if you want=====


=====In Sickness and Health=====

[CW: needles, gore]

You remember an office, a sterile scent, the claws of an orange tabby failing to pierce your gloves as you administer a shot to its hind leg, supporting it as it fell into unconsciousness, down, down, down; till you are ready with the scalpel. \\

The thought of that tabby, the feeling of Coerna and Raindrop restraining your body, the glint of the words from Peregrine that pass through you like a ghost; all of it is drowned out by one thought: “**soon.**” \\

HOW DARE THEY HOLD YOU BACK LIKE THIS; QUESTIONING YOUR LOYALTY TO HER LIKE JUDGEMENTAL PARASITES. \\
\\
You hear the words “just do it already, please” but you don’t remember them leaving your mouth. Spectres haunt these walls, but you can’t disagree with them.  \\
\\
A sharp scratch, \\
that’s all, \\
a sharp scratch and then you’re walking, \\
outside the bounds of the Bastion. \\
\\
They let you leave? \\
THEY COULD NEVER HAVE STOPPED YOU. \\
\\
You stumble to the mossy ground below, tripped by a lapse in memory; you’re alone, completely alone, but the world feels alive as it lifts you back to your feet. ‘Is someone there’ you think to question? Surely, they would have sent a guard? Nio? Raindrop…? But you look around and you're alone. \\ ENTIRELY ALONE. \\
\\
Like folding paper cranes, you check your skin; arms, hands, for any blemish any pock mark, and sign of that infection you grew so familiar with. The only sign you’re changed even slightly is the melodic throbbing at the injection site, shedding teardrops of blood. Taking it, at least, the vaccine, is safe. You are uninfected yet. The horizon is clear, but you are caged, you are a tool. \\
\\
Clouds are gathering overhead, thick and heavy with rain; your side sparks with pain and recognition, muscles twitching in splinters. This pathogen in your blood is the only thing stopping the next bullet going through your heart, yet it’s the same reason that sent so many to the grave. CAN’T ANY OF THEM SEE THAT SHE IS SO MUCH MORE DIVINE THAN YOU, OR THEY, COULD EVER BE.  \\
\\
What does it matter, there is only one thing that matters.  \\
\\
And there she is. \\
\\
Sunlight casting through the trees, falling down, down, down, landing gently as a whisper on her long ebony hair, forming a crown of light, a halo. \\
\\
It’s not safe for her here. \\
\\
You wonder if a truly safe place really exists. The world doesn’t love her even a fraction of what you do, **THIS WORLD WAS BORN TO BE UNMADE, TO PAY PENANCE FOR ITS SINS. ANY WORLD THAT WOULD HARM HER IS NO WORLD OF YOURS, ANY PERSON…** The air is thick with moisture, the atmosphere difficult to breathe, the wind carries your threats into the sky. Your soul splutters, coughing up a black, vile, tar. \\
\\
And yet the burdens of reality are lifted as her hands touch yours, metal clinking as rings kiss, you raise her from the darkness that enveloped you both; she smiles a toothy grin, how long has it been? Fear? No, fear is the wrong word, you were never //afraid// of her, afraid of becoming like her, not at all; so then why does **this** embrace feel so much more soothing than the last?   \\

It works; it must work. The vaccine saves you. Now you can save her. \\
The flowers themselves seem to pull you up, you find it strange how the vegetation winces at the flashing silver in your pocket and dances in circles around your darling. // HOW DARE IT REFUSE TO HELP HER, LIKE SOME IMPURE THING.// The garotte tenses, ready to pounce… \\
\\
But she stumbles, skeletal legs creaking. The thought ‘her nourishment is more than I can provide’ crosses your mind but it is sniped down as you whisk her off her feet, YOU WILL DO MORE FOR HER. \\
\\
She clings tightly to you, bony fingers digging into you like teeth. She can’t help it, being sharp-edged, digging blood-red half-moons into your skin with her uncut nails. She doesn’t mean it; you hear her voice on the wind: //“don’t let me go.”// \\
\\
With your world in arm, the tiny flowers are crushed underfoot. \\
\\
A deathly whisper rises from your throat like an ember of your soul; “Hurt her and this world dies.” \\
\\
You emerge slowly from the pit, stumbling, sometimes to your knees, whisking her head this way and that to prevent it from dragging limply off her neck and into the ground. Your beautiful corpse of a bride shrieks. It must be delight. 
\\
You walk, the trees parting to form an aisle of sorts, bowing in the pews as you pass. The audience coos, grows larger, the scene widening before your eyes. The altar before you, growing with each summoning movement of your arms. The golden horizon has never been so clear.\\ 

All of a sudden, it is not. \\

Nio. \\

//Nio? When did she–// \\

Raised voices. The click of a gun. \\

Your darling roars as she springs forth from your arms, lurching suddenly with all the speed of an attack, the slowness of decay forgotten, disintegrating into the wind, as she dives for the people who lie hidden in wait. Nio, eyes saucer-wide, bloodshot, determined, between you and your love, and the barrel of Raindrop’s gun. Nio, thrown to the floor in an instant and a splatter of mud, just barely missing the cut of your darling’s wrath as it lands, instead, just out of your reach, just out of your comprehension, on Raindrop.
And bites.\\

You drag her away, cradling her in your arms. Raindrop's blood on her teeth mixes with your own.\\

{[]}{{tag>writeup6 gm_tara complete}}