dramatispersonae | Guy Cecil's Heart

I'm aware of that.

Whatever you saw, it didn't destroy you in the end. That's why I want to see it.

. . .

[takes a deep breath]

No need to run all the way back there. I can show you.

[...nods.]

Thank you.

You might want to sit down.

[...has a seat on the nearest chair.]

Guy moves to sit beside him, and takes his hand, turning it over - he presses the pendant back in his hand and closes his eyes, taking a breath.

The memory reactivates where it left off, and it's as if you're there. You're trapped under the pile of corpses. You can hear yelling far away, clashes of swords, but the fire is loud. It's stifling and hard to breathe, and sticky from blood. You black out a few times, but every time you wake up, Mary's face is still there, the other women's faces are still there. Blood is still dripping slowly from Miss Aleta's mouth. The pool the drip has made has gotten larger. You can smell meat cooking, and you think that doesn't make any sense. Everything is processed in a disconnected haze. You just assume you're going to die. You assumed hours ago.

Suddenly, your lungs feel full and you cough, hands are on your shoulders, and you're being pulled out. Everything around you is wet. You don't see anything else around. Pere is above you, Sword and shield laid aside, and he exlaims in relief and huge you close.

"You're alive," he says, again and again. "We're going to run, young master. You're going to run with me. I'll carry you, and then you must find your strength, understand?"

He carries you out, and hides you behind some plants. The idea of living is washing over you while he rushes out into the woods, and for a moment you feel despair again when there's shouts and the sound of swords. But he comes back, and gathers you up again, now with two others. It's such a relief you just start to cry, and Pere carries you again. You hang tight to his shoulders.

You run, and eventually you're split up from your company - the view of the battlefield, the sound and sight of bodies splattered apart by heavy weaponry, it's all in portions, an old memory of a child. But it's crystal clear.

By the time the cannons are distant, the memory ends.

[gasps as the memory ends, fists clenched and breathing hard]

[ater a moment, drops the pendant in Guy's hand]

...Thank you.

. . . Are you alright?

I'm fine--

[stops...then shakes his head]

...I'll be fine after some time.

... Yeah.

[squeezes his shoulder.]

I'm sorry I kept it from you for so long. I was afraid, for a lot of reasons.

[looks up at him]

...I was afraid as well.

Well, it's something to be scared of.

...I'm still afraid.

. . . "If you keep being caught up in the past, you can't go forward."

...I can't just let go of it, Gailardia.

It isn't that you have to let go just like that.

. . .

Then what should I do?

. . .

The world kept existing, even if ours was gone. We could have learned to claim our own world again. Built anew, instead of hating how easily the world can keep living despite what happens in it.

You hadn't even lived half your life. There's so much you could have done. There's no giving up the past completely. But throwing away your future is awful, too.

I want a future where Vandesdelca Musto Fende is the man he should have grown to be. That I know you can be.

...And if that man doesn't want a future?

. . .

I can't accept that. If you don't want a future, why does your life in the past matter so much to you?

Because I was happy then.

. . .

I understand that you want to die.

But . . . we're in another world. There's still things we can't fathom out there. You could live three times as long as you have lived now. Three lifetimes. And even with all your penance due, the crimes you've committed, there's a chance in front of you even now to have a new life, keep a world from dying. You could become happy again.

[...clenches his fists.]

I don't care.

. . .

[shifts from next to him to kneel in front of him, and puts his hands over his.]

[blinks, looking straight at him.]

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