Chapter Text
"Have fun at your little game, you four!" Miss Toriel shouted, as Noelle quickly sped past the door the moment it opened, the sheet of paper clutched tightly in her hand as she stepped outside.
"Mooom!" She heard Azzy shout back into their house from behind her.
She heard Dess snicker, and could only figure that the shifting forwards onto the sidewalk behind her was Azzy being shoved forwards. "What's wrong, Azzy? Embarrassed that Mommy still wants to coddle you?"
Dess always liked to tease him. She didn't quite know why. Maybe it was just something that people close to eachother did. Krismas teased her all the time. She was still half expecting to be teased on the trip over.
"And have Asriel back before midnight please, December! I'd hate to have to tell your mother to make you attend confessionals again!"
"We don't even HAVE confessionals!" Dess screamed as she turned back abruptly, flinching as the sound of the door slamming shut startled her from her thoughts.
Azzy was the one laughing, all of a sudden. And Dess was the one with the silly look on her face. Maybe...Miss Toriel liked teasing people too? Maybe she just liked teasing Dess?
"It's ok, Dess!" She said, as she watched her Sister's hand hide her face. "I go confessionals too! It's not scary! I can show you how to do them!"
Her words only seemed to make Azzy laugh harder, only seemed to make Dess press her hand deeper into her face.
"Azzy got you tied up in something that doesn't even- Oh for- Forget it! Whatever! We're on even ground this way anyways!" Dess said, as she began to shove Azzy down the sidewalk.
"What's wrong, Dess?" Azzy said, looking back as she shoved him down the street. "Embarrassed that my mom coddles you too?"
"Oh, fuck off. I get coddled plenty already. It's just not your kind of smothering so much as it's getting rubbed against a-"
"Dess! You can't say that!" Noelle gasped. "Mom said-"
"Piss off then, Elle." Dess interrupted. "...Don't repeat that either, though. Now move! All of you! Before Toriel makes us drag anyone else along to babysit over the session."
...Noelle thought as they began to walk down the street. She didn't quite know what a "character sheet" was, or why Dess and Azzy were in such a hurry, or why Miss Toriel had made them wait for Kris and her to draw out on the weird pages, but...everyone was together again! And that was fun! She wasn't expecting anything like this until Wednesday!
The little lines and numbers and words confused her, and she didn't know what the difference between a "spell slot" and a "spell save" was, but...Dess helped! And she recognized some of the words! She liked handling animals, so she made that number the biggest it could be, and the spell called "dazzling lights" sounded cool, and there was a spell that let you shoot ice out of your hands, so she got that, and-
"...They're not actually gonna be playing, are they?" Azzy said, as she continued to stare down at her page. "They didn't even know what Duergar and Deathwatch was until my mom made us explain."
She liked the drawing she'd made. She'd put her soul into it. Not...literally, obviously, but...figuratively!
"Dude, Kids are like...the best meat shields. We can just throw em' into the traps and Catty won't even stop them. Besides! They got their sheets out, don't they?"
"...I guess, but-"
"Hey! Elle!" Dess shouted, as she put a hand down upon her shoulder. "Show Azzy what you made!"
"I made Princess Angie!" She said, turning the page about and showing her drawing to Azzy, who stared back down at it with wide eyes and a wider smile.
"Pf- Tell him more!"
"I...think I understand! You don't-"
"She's a Princess!" She gratefully interrupted. "And she's also half angel, and quarter demon, and half robot, and she has these super cool wings, see!"
"...I do, Elly! But-"
"And when she gets really angry she pulls her hood down and she shoots snow out of her hands! And her eyes also glow red, because she's really, really angry! And...she can summon her cat petz because her animal handling is so high, and...And that's it for now, I think!"
"Elle, I- that's great! But...there isn't a race that-"
"Oh, cmon, Azzy! You really gonna try to tear her down like that? After she spent so long making it?"
"Well...no, but...How are we supposed to...you know- fit that all into one race?"
"We can homebrew." Dess shrugged, as Noelle pulled her character drawing sheet back.
Princess Angie was gonna be awesome. And Dess's was too, and Azzy's and-
Oh! Right! Kris! She'd almost even forgotten they were here!
"What did you make?" She asked, quickly trotting over and looking at Kris's page over their shoulder.
"...nothing cool." They said back, as they tried to pull the page away.
"Oh, cmon Krismas." Dess said. "I bet it's sick as hell."
"...it's...nothing special." They said back, revealing the page after a moment's hesitation.
She quickly grabbed it, her eyes darting to the drawing before anything else.
It was a lot more...simple than Princess Angie. Just...a human. With armor and a sword and a scarf- but their skin was blue, for some reason.
"Do humans turn blue ever?" She asked, as Kris pulled the page back away. "Do you ever turn blue?"
"...no."
"Then why'd you make them blue?"
"I thought it would be cool."
"Like...ice? Ice is cool! Do they do ice magic?"
"no."
"You can't just make a normal human!" She huffed. "They need to have...cool magic and stuff! Your character has to be cool!"
"A knight is cool." They quickly said in return, holding their paper defensively.
"Cool as hell." Dess said, as she ruffled their hair beneath them. "I got a Fighter too, Kris. Don't worry. We could totally beat their wizards up."
"Nuh-uh! I'd shoot you with my magic!"
"i'd block it with my shield."
"Then...I'd freeze your shield! So you couldn't use it anymore!"
"i'd just have a bigger shield, then."
"Ugh! Dess! er- Azzy! Tell them that a wizard would win!"
"Well...if we started with all our spell slots-"
"I'd rush your ass down and snap you like a twig?"
"I'd cast fly before you did! And then I'd shoot you while you couldn't do anything!"
"Crossbows are part of the kit, dude. I'd knock your ass out of the sky and you'd break your little chicken bones."
"Well...not if I put a shield up first! You-"
...They continued onwards. They made their way to Catty's house. Dess turned the knob to open the door.
Azzy was supposed to groan and complain. Dess was supposed to laugh and kiss his cheek when she thought they weren't looking. They were supposed to learn how to play the game and lose anyways but still have fun because everyone was still together.
...But that wasn't how it ended. Her dreams were rarely so kind as her memory. It had started to fade away halfway in a long time ago. It had devolved into a nightmare more times than she could count. The versions of everyone in her mind, as they always did, began to fade away.
The door opened. The inky blackness began to pour forth. Something reached out from inside and pulled Dess in.
Sounds began to muffle as she heard Azzy scream. Sight began to blur as Kris backed away in horror. She dropped her sheet as the cold wind began to blow from within.
Her hands felt numb. Her eyes felt heavy. She'd been through this nightmare before. Experienced the pull and the fall and the chill so many times that she knew the moment it ended.
Her body had changed. She felt taller. Her antlers felt heavier, her teeth grew in- She wasn't the little girl anymore, but she knew what she turned into already. She closed her eyes. She didn't like to look. It was easier to simply wait for the inevitable. And so she did. And so the hands crept forwards, and so the silence filled the air-
...and nothing seemed to happen. It never usually took this long for things to progress. She opened her eyes, seeing that yes, that the darkness had wrapped around her, had tried to pull her in, but something new had happened this time.
Her back felt heavy. Her arms were draped in familiar white and blue. A tendril of red, jutting out from within her chest, severed the string and cast the darkness away.
She stared towards the door, watching as more of the red began to creep forwards from within her, tearing it off its hinges and plunging down into the darkness.
She stepped forwards, planning to plunge in just the same, but stumbled as something wrapped itself around her waist. It pulled her backwards, and sent her flying into the air.
Panic flooded her body as she ascended above the houses, above the clouds, far, far away from home, and into the sky above.
The fear quickly faded away as the lurching pull shifted, settling into the mass behind her back, into a ball within her chest. She scrambled, and a new set of phantom limbs began to flap aimlessly behind her.
They would be ok down below, something told her, as her mind began to clear. The world would still be there. It would still be flawed, still be imperfect, but...it would be hers. And what ever really was perfect?
A moment to herself would be nice, she thought, as the ball within her chest began to writhe. It was...uncomfortable at first, yes, but the longer it had to settle, the more peaceful it felt, for lack of a better word. Something kind and assuring, nestled within her chest, pressed against the pulse of her soul.
She stared into the fading sun, far beyond the gloom and the chill and the wind, and for the first time, she felt warm. At ease, despite the circumstance.
There would always be darkness. There would always be work. And when she touched the ground once more it would be there awaiting.
But for now, for however long now was, she would let herself fly.
She spread her wings, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she felt free.
She closed her eyes-
And as Noelle woke up in her bed, unaware of the time or the day or even so much as her name for a brief moment, she became aware of a few things in the moments that passed.
She was warm. A first, all things considered, knowing the usual temperature of the house.
Light poured out from the crack in the curtains of her window. Blindingly white. It was snowing. It would only be colder.
There was a constricting tightness in her chest. Odd and unsettling, as if something had forced its way inside. But... it wasn't entirely unwelcome, as insane as the thought sounded. It felt like it strings extending out from her core, wrapping around arms and legs and chest, radiating a comforting warmth within the blankets folded around her, like a heater in a sleeping bag. Like a hug.
...Gosh, that sounded pathetic.
A piece of the warmth shifted beneath, curling away from her arm and digging into the right pocket of her pajamas. The pocket where she kept her phone, when she didn't leave it on the couch.
Memory returned. She'd stayed up late with Light, binging something before she fell asleep. They must have taken her to bed somewhere in the process.
She groaned. She screwed her eyes back shut. She was typically an early riser, she'd all but trained Light to be, but in complete honesty, she didn't really want to get up today. The warmth of bed was comforting, and the outside world didn't seem as inviting.
She felt as the piece of them found the phone in her pocket. She heard as it clicked to life. She sighed as they began to drag it back out.
Admittedly, she'd only very recently gotten used to the feeling of being warm when she slept. The kind that seeped down into her soul and put her at ease and left her waking up from the kind of sleep that left you clueless for a moment. If Light had always thought so much of helping her be comfortable, than what would be so wrong with sleeping in? On a weekend of all days?
Light faded in from behind her eyelids as the piece of them shifted yet further, a thin trail of red that brightened and dimmed, over and over as she heard the sound of her phone clicking.
...She regretted teaching them how the flashlight on her phone worked.
"Fivemoremiutes-" She mumbled, turning away and swatting the phone out from their hand.
The surface of the vein still felt damp as she heard the phone clatter to the ground. Blood or dust or something, probably. She'd sweep it when she got up.
The vein slithered back. Another upon the opposite side of her body reached out in its place.
A second longer of the warmth. Was it really so much to ask for?
...Apperantly so, she supposed, as yet more seemed to unravel, joining in their grand exploration for...whatever Light seemed to be looking for.
Her other hand reached out, grabbing a handful of the fleeing veins and pulling the back upon her sleeve.
...The mass seemed to stop. Light seemed to relent, finally understanding the message.
She breathed a sigh of relief, sinking further back into her pillow and tucking the blanket back beneath her legs. She supposed there was a sanctity to a late morning that even the Angel didn't want to break. She'd have to-
"CAN'T'CHA SEE IT'S LIKE...DESTINY!" Sheriff North Star abruptly blared, the hiss of her TV cutting through the peaceful silence like a knife as she screamed. "YOU GOT A FRIEND INSIDE ME!"
Her mind raced as her eyes shot open. She abruptly shot up in her bed, and stared at the familiar, if deafeningly loud theme song of that same stupid cowboy show she'd been showing to Light before they went to sleep.
"FRIIIIIEND IIIINSIIIIDE ME!" The chorus blared, louder now, as she watched the volume on the tv continue to click up and up, as something held the volume control down. "FRIIIIIEND IIIINSIIIIDE ME!"
She caught sight of the offending vein from the corner of her eye, a sliver of Light's form, invisibly snaked away from her, a piece just strong enough to hold down the buttons that controlled the remote, still upon the sofa.
"Light!" She shrieked, now very much awake as she pulled upon the traitor, reeling in the remote and shutting the TV off before they woke anyone else up.
"I- I trusted you! Why did you-"
Her vision was filled with her phone once more, as a grouping of veins had fished it out from beneath her bed. They clicked it to life.
Sunday. 10:15 AM. Barely an hour before service.
Her soul sank. Shoot- today was service, that's why they were so insistent-
"Right- Right! Sorry!" She quickly sputtered out, unraveling herself from the blanket cocoon and all but spilling out upon the floor in a panic as Light's unraveled form did.
...She'd imagined that most monsters, understandably, would be far more concerned if they were in her position. A mass of living veins connected to her chest, moving and writhing with purpose as if each individual segment was alive, hosting a mind of its own.
She lurched backwards, flinching at the sensation as they slithered backwards into her body, and the abrupt feeling of fullness coalesced within her chest. It reminded her of tape measurer recoiling into its container.
Again, not a terrible feeling, but...annoying, in the mornings. Cleaning the dust away was another few minutes in her morning routine, and it made washing her sheets a whole new kind of problem, and-
...Angel, something had to be wrong with her.
She took them out as gently as she could after they finished raveling back into the heart, setting them to hover over the bed- No, that'd just make it worse- the sofa- no, A paper towel on her desk, she settled upon, as even now they began to drip, collected blood trickling down onto the paper, before dusting moments later.
...She'd have to clean them in the sink again. She sighed.
A quick trip to the shower for herself, as she began to run the warm water. Plugging the sink and letting it fill as she put on a bathrobe. Wrapping up her hair, doubling back to grab them, and washing them with the same peppermint conditioner she used.
There was a bit of humor to be found in how they demanded to have a head towel too, even if they didn't quite have the hair to dry. She'd learned fast enough that it was just easier to let them. She already knew how to wrap a towel that way anyways, and a paper one wasn't that different.
The sight of it almost made her laugh now, but...Noelle could imagine that it would still terrify most. How they almost seemed to...purr? or- Vibrate? Something, as she let them stare at their reflection in the mirror a moment longer, shutting the door and running back to her room to change into her outfit for the day.
To be fair, it still terrified her too, on some level. The feeling of something plunging into your chest. Molding pieces of itself to fill the empty space within that you didn't even know was empty. Taking control of you a piece at a time, typing into your phone to convey its thoughts and feelings when the bond it had wired into your soul wasn't enough- it all sounded like something out of a horror movie.
...But maybe that was why she liked it, she supposed.
She retrieved her phone from the floor where it had been discarded in her hurry, slipping it into her pocket as she rushed over to retrieve them from the bathroom.
She handed it to them, watching from the corner of her eye as a piece of them contorted to hold it, forming a...pseudopod? That was the word, right? Forming something that etched its way out from within their shell to hold it, typing in the password and navigating back to their dedicated notes page as she took them down to the kitchen.
[Morning!] She read, as they typed with all the enthusiasm they could.
"morning..." She said in turn, still not entirely awake, despite the circumstances.
...There for sure was something wrong with her, she thought, if this was getting closer to the accepted norm. Though, not too wrong, if the Angel themselves could still find it within their heart to stay with her.
Even if, admittedly, she was really the only available option. With the search for their vessel ongoing, and everyone else aware of the secret of their existence in...various states.
But- those were just little details. Bits and pieces that didn't matter. She put them aside for a more awake Noelle.
[Nightmare again?]
"Mhmm." She mumbled, as she pushed the kitchen door open.
[Same one?]
"Mostly." She said, as she brushed her way past the counter. "But...you were there this time, I think."
Upon the counter sat something that...well- resembled a prepared breakfast. Two sets and bowls of...ingredients. Whisked eggs and chopped vegetables, empty glasses and half melted ice, a carton of orange juice-
...A typed out note.
The clicking of her phone sounding off faded away into the background as she picked it up and scanned it over.
"Noelle. I apologize sincerely for my absance. However, as duty calls, and the world refuses to allow me to wait past nine, I have fulfilled my promise to the best of my ability. I have completed the bulk sum of the aforementioned prepared breakfast, and leave you the smallest margin of work left to do. I only ask in turn, that you prepare the same for your sister. As you are aware, her returning strength does not lend itself well to such tasks, and her energy is best spent upon recovery." The note said, written and printed in neatly typed font.
"Your effort would be greatly appreciated, and I love you both dea-" The note said, before abruptly stopping, the last of the words scribbled out intently.
"and I love you both dearly.
-Mother." was signed instead, handwritten, if the pen beside was of any indication.
[She's trying, at least?] She read, before reading the rough outlines of the prior paragraph typed. Something about being flattering, something about the garden they'd been dreaming of, something about finally getting the trees just right.
She supposed a bit of that was her fault. She'd never really seen a pine tree either.
"No, it's...It's my fault, this time." She sighed.
[You said you'd stop doing that.]
"I said I'd stop self deprecating, not stop telling the truth."
[Is sleeping in a crime?]
"Well...when you always wake up early, maybe." She said, as she pushed the note aside and stared down into the pre-whisked eggs. "When you say you'd be there, you're...supposed to be there, ya'know?"
She hesitated at the stovetop, taking in the silence that followed as she rooted around in the cupboard for a pan.
She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to feel. Not even Light seemed to, if the lack of sound was of any sign.
...Breakfast would help, she thought. A task would clear her mind. She turned on the stove, she sprayed the pan she found down, she poured the mixture within the first bowl in-
...And only then remembered that you were supposed to wait for it to get hot first. And that she still needed to remind Dess, and that the longer she spent her the longer she was keeping dad waiting, and-
She took a deep breath in, pulling herself away from the stove before she overwhelmed herself. One thing at a time.
One thing she could manage at a time.
...Or, one thing each that they could both manage at the same time.
"Shoot, uh- Light, could you...do me a quick favor?" She asked, as she quickly began to ruffle around through the junk drawer for the pad of sticky notes she knew hadn't been used in ages. "I...need to watch this, if you could just go upstairs and-"
She found herself interrupted as Light quickly flew before her face, coming to a rest just beside the note as she finished scribbling it down.
"Thank you-" She sighed, sticking it to their surface and watching as they flew back out from the kitchen.
...Most monsters would've found the sight funny. Admittedly, she did too, watching as they accidently bonked themselves into the wall before correcting, but...she was glad to have a hand to help. Or just, someone to talk to or share things with, or...
...Would helping hand really be the words to use if they didn't have hands?
She thought on it for a moment, before she heard the egg mixture behind her begin to bubble.
She grabbed a spatula in a panic. There would be time later.
...At least mom had already done the hard part.
...You probably should've asked her to stick the note to your back before you left, but...oh well. Eggs were eggs, time was time, and of the later, you were already beginning to run out.
As carefully as you could manage with the majority of your vision blocked, you flew back up from the kitchen, peering sideways until you came across Dess's door.
Admittedly, you and her hadn't quite had much time to acclimate to eachother, let alone talk. Narrow gazes from the other side of the hall, sneering teeth, angry looks- You didn't know why you were on such bad terms, but you could probably guess well enough.
You knocked your form against the door, unable to see exactly where the handle was, and unable to push it down. If it had been locked the last several times you'd checked, you could only assume that it was now.
...How were you supposed to get in? You couldn't fit in beneath the crack in the door, there weren't any air vents to squeeze through, and you certainly couldn't just unlock the door as you were. Noelle was busy, and-
"Oh, I wouldn't if I were you!" A familiar voice cheered out from beneath you.
You looked down to its source, and saw your...mutual friend begin to seep out from beneath, one eye, two, individual teeth oozing forth from the slithering mass- before it formed back into his favored shape. A house cat.
"She's not quite in the best mood, you see!" He cheered, as the last of his flesh finished melding into shape. "And she's already expecting your arrival! I saw myself! She was listening while you were occupied! Peeking through the crack in the door, listening upon the floor- I wouldn't expect anything good back there!"
Undeterred, you turn your attention back to the door, before rapping yourself against its surface. Maybe she'd just...answer it herself or something.
"...I'd imagine that if it was, you would have at least spoken in...oh, how long has it been since you fished her back up from below? Days? Weeks? Months? I suppose that little detail doesn't quite matter here, but...what are you expecting to happen?"
...You continued to ignore him. Even if you did want to respond, you weren't sure how he expected you to. You didn't exactly have a book or a pen or a phone or anything. As you were, you didn't even have a hand with which to-
"Oh, you don't need to worry about those! I can read the words just fine!"
...You stared back down in confusion from the corner of your vision still unblocked.
"Oh, you know! The words you think! They're as plain as the other words you write!"
And how the hell was he-
"Atatat-!" He hushed, a paw extending to your surface and flipping up the note, giving you a full view of his smile. "We all have our little bits and pieces, don't we?"
...Well, even casting aside your concern, you still had no idea what he was on about.
"Well, when one is left alone in the darkness long enough-" He said, flipping the note back down. "Their eyes adjust! When one goes hungry long enough, they get used to the pain in their stomach. But when one hurts for long enough, in the same type she has? Oh, you never quite get used to that! The heart remembers, even after the strings go lax! And here? Rested? Filled to her content? What do you imagine she has left to focus upon?"
...Her family, you thought? Being better? Trying to move past everything?
"Oh, you little idealist, you don't really know her, do you?" He snickered back. "Though, I suppose I can't blame you! Even I had no clue, some distant time ago!"
...You wanted him to stop. You'd had enough of the riddles and doublespeak. He was going to open the door, or he was going to go back into the closet.
"Oh, you little thing, you! It's already been opened!" He said, as he chuckled yet again. And true enough, as you turned back around, the door was already ajar.
"But don't say I didn't warn you!~"
You turned to look back to him, but found that he was already gone.
...The room inside felt ominous.
...Maybe-
No. No, he just...liked getting in your head. He was good at doing that, and you wouldn't let him this time. You floated forwards, entering the room, and trying your best to dispel the unease you felt within.
Since Dess's return, and the obvious habitation of her room, things had...changed. She always kept the lights on now, but all it served to do was make the more striking details more apparent.
Scratch marks gouged into the wallpaper, the flyers and drawings upon the closet wall torn away.
Cups and plates stacked high near her desk, full and empty alike, being left to fester.
The largest of the piles of junk only growing larger. You swore that just last week, you could still at least see the other side of the wall.
A "depression nest", you believed you heard someone coin the term as. You thought it fit the description. Inching closer towards the bed, staring down at the lumped mass beneath the sheets.
Your gaze couldn't help but notice other details, the closer you came. Multicolored stains of food and liquid and smeared dust. Broken bedsprings, jutting out from the mattress. The odd shape of Dess beneath as the bed shifted. You could've sworn she wasn't big enough to fill that space. And where were her-
...pillow. The shape was her pillow, and CD cases and garbage and whatever else she could find to make the impression of someone upon her bed.
And yet the bed still shifted. You stared down at the space beneath.
And a single white eye met your own.
You quickly flew upwards as muscle memory took control, darting to the side as something went flying, just barely grazing your surface.
A kitchen knife stuck into the ceiling above.
A disheveled and filthy and above all angry December Holiday crawled out from beneath her bed.
There were no words exchanged. There were none that could be. You knew this game, and you knew the look in her eyes as she grabbed the closest sharp object she could find- a used butter knife from her desk.
You darted towards the door, ducking beneath a box of used tissues that splattered against the wall.
Your pulse raced as she moved yet faster, slamming the door shut as you moved away yet again, avoiding the glass thrown at you, but unable to avoid the spoiled drink that splashed against your surface.
A CD case goes wide as she traps you in the corner of the room. A plate shatters against the wall. Another and another, two and three, shattering as they all went widely off course-
Distractions, you realize, as a fork encrusted with something stabs into your side, and you plummet down to the ground below.
The note falls away as December scrambles towards you. Bony fingers wrap around your form before you can struggle away.
You try to shine your light, burn hot enough to distract her, to get her hands off of you, but Kris had to have learned from someone. And December was better.
You feel as she begins to squeeze, burnt fur and ozone filling the air. But she did not relent.
Filthy nails crack your shell and press deeper into your flesh.
It hurts.
You crack and splinter and bleed, bright red oozing out from within and staining her hands, staining the floor below.
It hurts.
Something echoes back in the distance, growing faint as the sound of ragged breathing overtakes your senses. The stomp of feet approaching. The creak of a door. A scream.
Blackened eyes with white pupils. Greasy, unkept chestnut fur. A hateful snarl.
ithurtsithurtsITHURTS-
"LIGHT!"
The pressure relents, and the blinding pain ceases in its intensity.
A new set of hands pull you away. You're vaguely aware of movement. Conflict in the foreground.
The hands move. You're plunged within a body. Darkness envelops you. Warmth envelops you. Structure and form and meaning return, as tendrils of white begin to wrap and ensnare you.
You allow them. Touch and smell and sensation return.
Noelle doubles over in pain as yours becomes hers.
You sever the connection of that particular strand, focusing upon trying to outlast the pain yourself as the cracks and splinters of your being slowly begin to shift back into place.
...You hear the passing thoughts of a heated conversation from outside.
One voice believes that you were a parasite. That you were controlling her. That you were manipulating her- Noelle needed to listen. Please, please to listen before she made the same stupid mistake.
Another tells her to stop. Please, Please to just stop. You only wanted to help. You'd done nothing but help.
The first doesn't listen. The words stop, and a fight ensues.
Your host is stronger, healthier, faster than the other, no doubt by virtue of your connection. They easily escape. They flee the room, and shut the door back tight.
She needs to get back here. SHE NEEDS TO GET BACK HERE, NOW.
...There was breakfast in the kitchen.
"NOELLE!"
...They were going to go to service. We would...be back later. The both of us.
"NOELLE, PLEASE! PLEASE! LISTEN TO ME!"
...Sorrow. Shame. Defeat, deep in the core of her being as she began to retreat back down the staircase.
"...we'll be back." Noelle said, quickly stopping by the kitchen and grabbing one of two plates of scrambled eggs upon the counter.
Only one of them had the rest of the plate finished, with buttered toast on the side and a mug of hot chocolate to its left.
The toast of the other popped out from the toaster the second she opened the door. The microwave with the warmed milk beeped as she shut it.
The muffled pleading gave way to silence as the door erased what was left.
Alone in the snow, beneath the cover of the marble portico, You watched as Noelle slumped down to the floormat and stared down at her lonely plate of eggs.
The severed strand reconnected, worming its way back beneath your flesh. You worried of the pain at first, but it had already begun to dull. A different type of pain, however, gladly took its place.
...Sorrow. Shame. Defeat.
"...I didn't get a fork on the way out." She muttered, as her head dropped low.
...You improvised, reaching out with her hand and snapping a particularly strong looking branch from the shrubbery, and shaking it free from the fallen snow.
"Is that...sanitary?" She asked, as her other hand took it and stared. As you retrieved her phone from her pocket.
[Enough] You said, before flicking through the emoji list and sending what you thought was a shrug. [Don't have to worry about getting sick anyways. I'm here.]
"...What does that mean?" She asked as she took a hesitant bite into the pile of eggs.
Another vein within her twitched as you felt yourself begin to take root once more. A scrape from the fight just a moment ago. You gently encouraged the bloodflow in the surrounding area to get to work.
[Can talk about that after breakfast] You typed. The last thing you imagined she needed was information about her own nervous system.
...The silence that followed felt palpable.
"I...I'm sorry-" She stuttered out, her body shivering, nearly sending the plate of eggs upon her lap crashing down before you grabbed it. "I just...I thought...I-"
[I did too.] You typed, after saving the plate. [Just not today, I guess.]
...You imagined that everything would've settled, eventually. That Dess was just...nervous about everything. Shut in, quiet, understandably.
...But you supposed that you could understand the hatred. If you saw someone you loved being puppeteered around from time to time, after spending years under the control of...whatever it was beneath the dark-
You didn't hate her, but...it was strange. Messy and Complicated, as you figured life was supposed to be. You didn't want to be crushed into a paste, but...you didn't want her to suffer, either.
...You didn't quite know what to do. And if the idle picking about at what still remained on her plate was of any indication, you imagined that Noelle didn't either.
Idling, however, was the worst possible thing you could do. Letting the darkness creep in, letting the sorrow consume you. You still had a day to have. Errands to run, people to see.
You brought her phone before her, clicking it to life and displaying the time upon its homepage.
10:45. Her face went pale.
"Uh- shoot- Right! Right, uh- We gotta go!" She quickly sputtered out, as she set the plate off to the side. "Uh- Hospital! *Hospital! Yeah, uh- On the way!"
You returned to your thoughts, as she quickly began to march off into the snow. Despite your best efforts, the chill set in against her fur.
You liked snow, but...you'd already begun to miss your garden. Already begun to miss the warmth.
...Maybe sleeping in wouldn't have been so bad after all.