2017-12-11: Welcome Home

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  • Cutscene: Welcome Home
  • Cast: Neriah Parringer
  • Where: Wayside Village
  • Date: Dec. 11, 2017
  • Summary: Neriah grapples with Riesenlied's decision, and her own nature.



  • Cautionary Note: This vignette deals heavily with existential despair. Please avoid reading if that is uncomfortable for you.


The girl unwound the dull red band from around her palm with a slow, shaking hand.

It had never bled or hurt for so long before. Through the next day, it had throbbed and ached at her with little relent, only ebbing as the evening wound on to the deep hours of the morning. By the break of dawn, it had finally gone silent.

Neriah had followed every hour in a bleak haze. Sleep was impossible. She would only see the dreams again.

The stained bandage began to slacken; it slipped away from her palm, tumbling to the floor of a room lit only by a small oil lamp on her table. By the light of it, she could see the hand beneath it was just like any other hand. No trace of the deep cut in her palm remained; just smooth, fair skin.

A normal person's hand, but for the way the slightest trace of sympathetic forces brought forth the pulse of something she still barely understood.

A lack of understanding which had cost. The loss of the Guardian Statue was, in truth, of no consequence to her; all of them, starting with the reaper in her nightmares, could burn as far as she was concerned. She blinked slowly, eyelids heavy with exhaustion above deep, haggard circles.

It was not the face of the reaper god she feared to see in her dreams, but the face of a smiling child of no more than five, and of her surrogate mother.

Welcome home.

A home I nearly robbed from them because I couldn't control myself. And now....

And now, the words that the Hyadean had shared with the village. Neriah had listened from afar - she couldn't face Riesenlied, not after what had happened. She couldn't face anyone, but Riesenlied most of all. All she could do was sit in already-wounded silence as the once-Metal Demon cut loose her ties to her own kin and come down on the side of the Guardians.

The other Metal Demons had somewhere to go back to. Mikaia had a surrogate mother to stay with.

Lucky them.

Welcome home.

Not for the first time, Neriah closed her eyes and laughed a dry, muted laugh. A thin, drawn little thing, raw with exhaustion and self-loathing. She'd had two days to let the misery drain out of that laugh and leave behind a bitter, acidic resignation - the realization that she'd been welcomed to a home that really wouldn't welcome her anymore.

The pain in her hand - the mark of her betrayal, her monstrosity - was only half of it. The bridge burned at both ends. Standing in the middle, all she could do now would be to fall into the abyss.

A home that could never be a home again. Friends who welcomed her but would rise against her for who she is, what she wished. And herself.

Herself, and that awful, evil, intoxicating hand. The power she could call from it. Something so awesome, yet so wrong.

Yet so right.

Welcome home.

Let us seek the new world -- a world where we can all flourish. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she slumped forward and buried her face in her palms. She sagged from there to land on her side, curling up in a tight little ball of misery as she finally let it go. Low, choked sobs rolled through her like stormclouds as her mind drew for her the shape of that brave new world. A new world where everyone could flourish.

Everyone but horrifying monsters unworthy of the company of even the most outcast of outcasts.

Slowly, after what seemed like a long time, Neriah drew in a breath through her nose. And remembered the warped tin of a voice. You are not of them. You shall never belong amongst their number, as you are now. Ever will you be upon the fringes, unaccepted and unacceptable. Because you hear their screams as music, and they see that melody twist within your heart.

What is it you seek?

I want everyone who's ever looked at me wrong...

Slowly, Neriah opened her eyes. Lips parting slightly, she breathed in again, through the tremor of tears.

...I want them to suffer.

The tears continued to flow, but she managed to roll herself onto her back, gazing up at the empty ceiling and letting that voice play through her mind.

Then follow. And we shall find a place for you, to see where your answer takes you.

"I understand," Neriah whispers to the memory of the Trial Knight in a tearful voice.