you broke me and left these pieces

Thalassa

She can't remember the last time she spoke - or the last time she ate. She doesn't know how she got here or how long she's been walking through the dense forest. She only briefly recalls flashes of blood and wings through soul-crushing pain before something cracked in her like lightning, leaving her... different. The only thing she knows for certain are the words that echo through the hollow cavern in her chest: Pierce is gone. With each repetition, she drifts a little farther, lost in the woods as much as her own suffering.

It's hard to tell through the dark rain that falls constantly against her fur - fur that feels foreign and distant - but she subconsciously knows that the wildlife avoids her, knows that when they hear the sizzling of banked flames and see the haunted look in her blue eyes they run, because something is wrong with her. There's something missing and broken, and the most dangerous of creatures are those with nothing to lose.

Bite my tongue, bide my time
Wearing a warning sign

// I'm putting you out of your misery //

The only thing that could possibly meet the chaos crackling in his soul is the Levinsward at this present moment. He isn’t around to try and run into anyone - feeling better the more alone he is (because his thoughts continue to drift elsewhere and it makes him, perhaps, the least decent person to be around right now). Not that anything is wrong between him and Danta right now, he just knows that Danta needed a break from his possessiveness and as much as it grates against his mind, he can abide it.

Because his restlessness hadn’t gone away the following day he woke up, nor the day after that. So he knows something is wrong, which is why he’s ventured out here more than prepared, with the muzzle set contently in his pocket lest he find himself in a position unable to control himself.

He’s stuck to the outskirts of the Levinsward as the lightning strikes above, picking his path through the expanse of trees and clearings, until movement catches his eye. Wildlife, uncaring of him as he stalks through the trees with his haunt half on display with the sixteen point crown of horns he wears and his shadows banking around him in a mimicry of phantom followers. The creatures zip past in their panic, leaving him to look in the direction they’ve come.

And when he finally sees the movement, he unleashes his haunt completely - crackling and standing still like the worst kind of scarecrow amongst this clearing, such that when Thalassa appears over the crest of it she’d be met with the fiery wendigo that is the butcher, crackling flames pouring from a mouth with too sharp teeth, waiting for a fight.

Astaroth

// 'cause darling you're dragging me down //

Thalassa

If she wasn't so lost in the numb repetition of phrasing and padding paws, Thal might have been able to catch the smallest hint of a familiar scent through the wash of rain. But that's not the case, and she barely even registers the shift in the atmosphere as a more threatening predator appears. That alone should be concerning, the sharp mind and suspicious nature buried deep beneath the pain, yet she carries on.

When she finally makes it over the hill, her eyes sweep over the nightmare inducing sight. It doesn't strike fear or any kind of recognition like it should, the blue of her gaze calm with an unnaturally empty disinterest. The silver and black molten tiger slows only in the instinctual manner than sees the fire-wreathed monster as an obstacle in her path. She doesn't really look at it, not caring about the threat or looming intimidation any more than where to put her paw next. 

When she sees a gap between the trees on the right, she lets her head return to a low hang without a sound. 

And walks past.

Bite my tongue, bide my time
Wearing a warning sign

// once you're in my shining cathedral, heed the tolling bell //

It’s so strange - sitting there, flaring fire and anger and agony in all the pores that the butcher has on display. From his rack of horns wreathed in fire to the deer skull that makes up his face, he waits like a spider sensing its prey, waiting for the moment of fear to click in those blue eyes that he’ll register in his mind minutes from now.

A snarl escapes him once they lock eyes, but as the tiger steps away, dejected and upset, Astaroth’s flare of fighting suddenly shifts into confusion. The sharp jagged teeth of this shift grind as he twists, following the tiger in the molten tracks left behind, when it suddenly fucking clicks and his haunt drops like he’s been shocked out of it by a strike of lightning.

The butcher stands, brows pinched, all of his finery gone in the face of something looser and unfortunately littered with wrinkles. “Thalassa?” He calls out, his accent sharper than it usually is, grittier than the gentle fine tone he usually kept. And he waits, the uncertainty in if he’s calculated it right despite having all the signs to point to it.

Astaroth

// it's the final sound you hear as you descend to hell //

The crackle of lightning is commonplace here, but today the clouds seem particularly hostile. Bolts of lightning strike the battle-scarred ground relentlessly. Unless you have control over storms or lightning, I would consider leaving this place if I were you.

Thalassa

The humming energy in the air doesn't draw her eyes, their empty gaze fixed to the ground with such a lack of intensity that neither the deafening lightning strikes nor the friendly face can register. Only her name breaks through, not the syllables that mean nothing to her or the grating tone that echoes over the thundering, but the accent that feels like a memory, of warm drinks and laughter, of security and acceptance.

There's a pause, a breath of quiet recognition that stirs something human from the hollow depths - along with the less desirable emotions. It halts her progress, calling her to seek the source and the refuge it provides amidst the turmoil beginning to resurface. Like a sleeping limb prickling to life, she feels the needles that hint at wounds and torn pieces of her heart, the sensations slowly awakening against her will. 

Her ears flatten to her head as it lowers, a flinch of pain that has an unfamiliar sound rumbling from her chest, too high to be threatening. Still, she turns carefully to look at her friend, an intelligence and understanding finally emerging through the glaze, accompanied by a suffering that's tender enough to explain the dragging tail and hunched shoulders. But despite every indication of her pain, there's a tense hesitation in her muscles, a straining that doesn't know what to do or how to make it stop.

Bite my tongue, bide my time
Wearing a warning sign

// once you're in my shining cathedral, heed the tolling bell //

Recognition stirs and Asta realizes in an instant that he’s never seen her like this. It’s so jarring that even he can’t be suave or charming to lift her spirits, even as they make eye contact. The set to his jaw feathers as he clenches his sharp teeth, exhaling a slow breath, before he’s moving across the clearing toward her.

His sleeves are rolled up, the scars lingering on his wrists in pale circlets of the cuffs that had kept him restrained in the Climb are on full display as he reaches out for her, openly.

His fingers thread through the rough fur of the tigress, along the molten metal stripes without a care of pain or worry. “What happened, darling?” He asks, softer despite that still dangerous gleaming glow to his gaze as he drops to his knees beside her.

Astaroth

// it's the final sound you hear as you descend to hell //

Thalassa

As he steps closer, Thal doesn't move, her jaw clenched so tight that her fangs ache, her body in a strange limbo of fight or flight without an enemy to direct her efforts against. She knows he's not the enemy - knows he's the only thing that might bring her back from this hollow abyss she's found herself in. So she lets him approach, staying unnaturally still as she watches his every movement. 

The soft threading of his fingers doesn't dampen the pain, but it eases the tight coiling of the muscle, wanting desperately to feel something other than the emptiness that carves her inside. Her eyes flutter shut at the gentle tone that reminds her she's not alone, willing her to follow the sound into the present instead of the memories that threaten to swallow her. 

Slowly, like she's trying to remember the color of her hair or the shape of her nose, Thal shifts. She shrinks down, her hands and knees bracing in the mud and Asta's warm palm against her shoulder to ground her in the form. Her hair lays oil slick against her head tangled around the horns from the wind and rain, lifeless. Her clothes don't fair much better, worn and drenched against her wet skin, only her Flametouched daggers on her hips and the pendant necklace against her throat. Her breaths stutter like they're trying to adjust to her consciousness or the new shape of her lungs. 

Thal doesn't look up, concentrating on the syllables that will explain it all, uncertain she can. When her mouth opens to speak, it's barely above a whisper, requiring two attempts before the sounds take shape. "He's... gone." The tears don't flow, having long run dry without hydration, but the broken expression on her face and trembling of her words say more than enough. "I - I don't know what to do."

Walk with me to the end
Stare with me into the abyss

// once you're in my shining cathedral, heed the tolling bell //

Lightning cracks nearby, sharp and jagged and close, and if it weren’t for the rain the scent of smoke would be likely overwhelming. But for now, the butcher’s main focus is entirely on Thalassa with a portion focused on the world around the space they’d carved out for any lingering threats. But it’s to her that he reaches for as she shifts back in perhaps the worst state he can ever think he’s seen her in.

It's rough. And he focuses on it as she comes into her own, stuttering breaths and the whisper that escapes that has him immediately reaching for her to tug her into his embrace. He’s silent for a few long moments, unsure who he is, but imagining it has to do with something void related. So unaware is he that she’d been so attached to someone, though – because gods, she hadn’t acted like this with the loss of Maea as her friend – his voice is gentler even as his hackles seem to rise. “Who is gone, darling?” He asks carefully, voice dripping with apology and empathetic sorrow, as if he’s saying sorry I wasn’t around to find out what’s been going on with you lately.

As for what she should do? Well, that can come after they get over this little hurdle.

Astaroth

// it's the final sound you hear as you descend to hell //

Thalassa

She melts into his embrace in every physical and mental way possible without even moving. There's no fight or strength to do anything more than lean into him, letting him support her while the flood of emotions steals her breath. It's suffocating, and she tightens her eyes shut against the dizzying weakness that's suddenly overwhelming.

The question makes her head shake in brief denial, unwilling to say. Thal knows that he won't understand, that no one will understand what it feels like to have that bond now sit so close and so lifeless. Like a nerve now shredded and broken, the impulses and flow of information from that part of her are just gone, leaving it heavy and aching against her heart. 

Sucking in a breath, she reaches up to clasp the pendant again, the scent of her dried blood not quite registering; but the memory is there, sharp and tender. As if speaking it aloud might dull the feeling, her voice comes quiet as smoke twining through fingers, "He... asked me to go with him..." That gentle offer, the cruel silence that left the decision to her, and the way she couldn't even speak her answer. It pinches the features of her face, shame and regret and confusion. "But I couldn't."

A small tremble moves through her when the consequences of her decision rub raw against the gaping hollowness. "And Pierce left me." The name slips unintentionally, cracking through the thin pitch of her voice as she burrows her head into his chest, the lonely hopelessness only held at bay by Asta's proximity leaking warmth into her chilled skin.

Walk with me to the end
Stare with me into the abyss

// once you're in my shining cathedral, heed the tolling bell //

He does, admittedly, expect more of a fight from her as he tugs her into his lap and his embrace, uncaring of the water that soaks into his pants or the way his ashen tail flicks droplets out in his anxiety built tension that he has no way to relieve at this moment. Instead, he burrows it down, swallows it whole, his arms a warm weight around her as she explains that this unnamed he had asked for her to go with him, and that she couldn’t.

And then his name drops, and the butcher is very happy for the way she can’t see the brief flicker in his dark gaze of his recognition of the name. Instead, she gets his support, vocally and physically if she does choose to look. He keeps her close, reaching up to smooth her rain-slick hair. “What reason did he have?” He asks, careful to balance himself between anger at the Family for doing this to her, and the trepidation that he isn’t sure how she’d react if he came out of the gate with all of his ire toward Pierce in particular.

Astaroth

// it's the final sound you hear as you descend to hell //

Thalassa

Thal doesn't fight or do much of anything but try to think past the disorienting chaos of her soul that drifts through currents of pain and despair. She feels insignificant and lost, just a speck of dust that no longer has a breeze to carry it across the ocean. Her compass is gone and no matter how hard she squints into the void, it's impossible to see past the dull purple that muddies the waters, leaving her without purpose or meaning.

When Asta's question comes, there's a lack of ire or motivation to understand in her own thoughts, her voice twinged with despair. "Does it matter?" Pierce had said they were leaving because of this world and its people, that they needed to heal Dahlia from the damage they'd done, but he'd already said they were never coming back, so even if she changed the world or killed the person who'd healed the Reaper, it wouldn't change anything. She couldn't do anything.

Biting at her lip, her shoulders curl in tighter to shield against the bleeding of her heart and the hopelessness that crashes around her. Thal takes another shaky breath, the words feeling like a death sentence as she forces out another strained whisper, "He's gone. Forever." Asta's scarred and calloused hand against her head should be a reminder that there are others still in this world, but she can't seem to latch on, her only guidance being the emptiness that doesn't answer back when she calls. A small, dry sob trembles through her, crying for help though the broken whine of her words. "I don't know what to do without him."

Walk with me to the end
Stare with me into the abyss

// once you're in my shining cathedral, heed the tolling bell //

It mattered to him, at least. Mattered in terms of knowing whether or not that curly haired bull of a man(?) would be returning and toying with Thalassa’s emotions like a piss poor game. But all he can offer her is his warm embrace, drying slowly from their connection and the heat that radiates from the butchers skin into Thalassa’s like a heated blanket.

She curls in and Asta guides her, pressing her head into his scarred shoulder where she might be able to feel the rough, bark-like ridges of his scars and the steadiness of his heartbeat as his hand smooths down her back and back up between her shoulders. “Gone.. forever.” The butcher murmurs in kind, repeating it to ensure that he’s gotten it correct and all those hackles of tearing Pierce apart can start to settle.

Not that he’d get very far. He’d seen some of the chaos of the pool party that had cemented the fact he might be utterly useless. But during Leafchange, his rationality flared differently. “I am sorry, darling.” He murmurs, even if he burns with absolute discontent to hear that she’s so suddenly chosen to tear herself apart because of a man. (Despite knowing how contradictory that was given how much he’d do that for Danta).

Ahem, anyway.

His embrace is a gentle but firm squeeze, head tilting to press against her head and horns where she’d get the overwhelming scent of smoke, leather, and old blood. “You have always been so strong, my dear. Never once had I imagined you could let someone get through to you so deeply, but I suppose this is why, hm? They leave in the end and leave you to pick up your pieces all by yourself.” His accent drips with the thicker Whitebrim tones, ending the statement on more of a hiss than he would have otherwise liked.

But he shifts, then, both hands coming up to cup her face and press his forehead to hers, more of a sibling and protective touch than he’s ever given her before. “Yet, you are not alone this time. Let me help you piece yourself back together.” He knows of her infection, so he refrains from lashing out with his silver dagger of a tongue in order to try to get through to her. “And you will be strong again. You will make him proud, if he ever hovers past to see how you are doing, hm?” He withdraws, the dark glint to his gaze remaining even as he focuses wholly on her face.

Astaroth

// it's the final sound you hear as you descend to hell //

Thalassa

Asta's warmth twines with the scent of smoke, his heartbeat a soft melody to lull her suffering. Her head nods in quiet confirmation, pained to hear someone else say the words aloud. It makes it all the more real, like a death sentence read by a judge, eliminating that last thread of hope that she hadn't thought existed. While it stabs through her, the slice is clean and merciful, a surgically precise severing of that lingering hope, sending her falling into the water below. It doesn't take away the aching wounds or numb emptiness, but it removes one of the small pieces that had tugged torturously at her heart. 

It makes it easier to talk as he says all the things she'd once thought, having convinced herself not to let people close, not to be vulnerable by making friends or anything more not to be weak. Yet... "Pierce was different." The past tense scrapes against her heart, sharp and undeniable. Wincing, Thal runs her fingers over the jagged stones of the pendant, the tangible reminder he'd unnecessarily left her with when that hollowness will never leave her. "Our bond..." she swallows, unable to describe what is it they'd had - what it is that now sits empty - but knowing more than anything, "it hurts." 

She lets Asta move them, her forehead resting limp against his as the rain falls around them, everything becoming blissfully quiet for a moment. There's a determination in his voice that she wishes she shared, a certainty that this will pass, and a conviction that she'll be stronger in the end. It sounds impossible when she feels so weak and broken. 

Looking desperately into his dark eyes, she does her best to borrow some of his faith, a quiet whimper proving her failure to do so. "How?"

Walk with me to the end
Stare with me into the abyss