2020-11-22: Eternity With You

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  • Cutscene: The Promise
  • Cast: Marivel Armitage
  • Where: Moonflow Hotel
  • Date: 11/22/2020
  • Summary: A recuperating Marivel dreams of a long lost love.

Marivel looked up at the chateau. It was smaller than the castle and yet still loomed large and larger than her own home. She swallowed faintly. There was still a light in Ana's window, so she was surely awake. Unless she slept with the lights on? She knew humans did that sometimes. Okay, sometimes Marivel did too.

And she looked at the small guitar she had in her hands. She strummed it a few times experimentally. Each small tone felt like a betrayal to her people's sense of poise. "Try singing it huh...?" She puffed her cheeks out. "'Thena, if I could do that I'd be able to just tell her...!"

And what was she kidding anyway? A Crimson Noble and a human? Her parents wouldn't approve. And her people definitely wouldn't. Humans were far too greedy, and even if she wasn't one of those greedy humans--what of her family? What of her mortality?

Marivel knew all this. These were attitudes drilled into her from a young age...And well everybody said she was still plenty young so maybe it was more accurate to say that they were in the process of being drilled into her even now to say nothing of the silent expectation that she would bring more Crimson Nobles into this world. Just enough to bring a new guard into this world that would defend against any further incursions from hunters and thieves.

And though it felt as wrong as anything, she did heed her people's advice. Bring Anastasia into the fold as a dhampir at least. And she tried in her own fumbling way, but Ana just freaked out and Marivel in turn freaked out and fled. She messed it all up. And that's when she asked Althena for her advice and she said if she had trouble speaking to Ana about her feelings she should just try singing it.

That was even scarier than just saying them!

But she remembered Ana's frightened face and she stepped forward only for--

klonk

Her foot bonked against a sword, just lying in the grass like discarded trash. She tried to pick it up but found that she couldn't. That...was also strange. But she wasn't going to let that stop her. Whatever strangeness that was all about would have to wait!

She floated up to Ana's windowsill. She glanced in to see if Ana was there and indeed she was--reading. A book about emotional support animal AI. Maybe she should wait? No, no. The longer she waited, the longer maybe Ana hated her?

Steeling her courage, Marivel strummed her guitar once. Just to move past the point of no return.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq81nOI8hs8&ab_channel=WaterTowerMusic

Just sing it.

"Turns out this broken glass will not be healing
And I'm just trying to put away my feelings for you
Cause I messed up so bad, thought I was dreaming
I'm not sure... who I am anymore..."

Marivel was getting into it just like she was warned. Like a deluge of water finally pushing through a clogged faucet, she started banging her head as she carefully shifted her fingers from chord to chord. Her cold fingers were excellent for the guitar. They could readily keep the strings down and she didn't have to worry about welts.

"But honestly I think you are the coolest
And you don't even mind that I'm a broken lost soul
And I don't wanna sound all sweet and sappy
But all I wanna do is make you happy
You know--"

Her ear flicked as movement drew her out of the song and into reality. Her voice cracked in surprise as she sensed Ana's presence had moved closer. She slanted her eyes towards the window and fumbled her guitar into the grass below when she saw Ana had pulled a chair up to the window and was leaning against her hand against her cheek with a sly smile on her lips.

"...Oof," Ana said. "Hope you didn't rent that one, Mari. You dork."

A blue blush surged across Marivel's cheeks. "Shuddup nerd."

She flew down to pick the guitar back up and was wholly intent on just walking around when...

"Wait." Ana said, having pushed open the windows.

Marivel stopped.

"I want to hear the rest of the song. Please?"

Marivel picked the guitar back up and flew up to the window.

"Y..yeah?" Marivel brush some hair behind an ear. "I'm sorry if I was being pushy. I thought--I listened to my dumb parents' dumb advice."

"The great crimson noble apologizing huh?" Ana laughed.

"I'm serious--!" Marivel's temper flared before she could pull it back.

"Oh--no, no. I'm sorry, Mari. I shouldn't be teasing you right now." Ana gestured, blushing herself. "Please, please I like the song. I promise."

Marivel tested the strings. "Y..yeah?"

"Yeah." Ana smiled. "It wasn't anything you did, you know. I know you wouldn't have done anything I didn't want. I just... I don't want to die and I got scared and.... Isn't that just pathetic..? Wanting to live in times like this?"

Marivel came to a realization about herself and about Anastasia, then. She cared about her people, of course, but all she really wanted was to spend as much time with this woman as she could.

"I don't think it's pathetic at all. Wanting to live in times like this... That's the bravest thing I know." Marivel hugged her guitar close. "Do you... have a problem with people like me? By most definitions I'm dead. I was born that way."

"I made you feel that way... No, Mari. You're nothing like the Dead."

You're nothing like the Unsent

"I'm just afraid that I couldn't live for that long." Ana said. "Thirty years? Forty? Gosh even a hundred? Easy. But ... forever? I don't know if I could manage that. And then where would I be? I'd be so lonely without my friends. That kind of isolation... that'd be a fate worse than anything I could imagine."

The Unsent lose themselves... Maybe not right away... maybe not for a long time, for a truly extraordinary will. But in the end... if they are never Sent, they become the most terrible monsters of all. Resentment over their deaths, given flesh by the pyreflies, becomes hatred for the living.

It was strange to hear it. For Marivel, being Forever seemed as natural as breathing. Her parents had warned her that no matter how pure her feelings for Ana, eventually death would separate them. She wasn't sure if she could handle /that/. But...

"Then... don't be forever. If you don't want to. I'll stick with you forever. Even if you're not here, I'll always be thinking of you. I won't be alone. You'll still be with me. Like a stake in the heart! And neither will you. No matter where you go... No matter where I go. Neither of us will never be alone, okay?"

Ana laughed. "You promise?"

"Yeah...! I promise!!" It was Marivel's first real promise. It should be easy enough to keep.

That's why I say you're nothing like them. Because it's obvious that... no matter what happens, or how much time may pass, you're still very, very much yourself. Maybe even....Growing a little.

The two shared a long laugh and then, with renewed energy, Marivel strummed her guitar singing with Anastasia until the sun rose.

"Yeah, all I really wanna do
Is spend all of eternity with you
Yeah, all I really wanna do
Is spend all of eternity with you..!"


"Yeah, all I really wanna do
Is spend all of eternity with you
Yeah, all I really wanna do
Is spend all of eternity with you!"




Marivel slid her eyes open. Harmaus's repeated burns against her body still ached. The little inn room Boudicca rented out might not be a place of respite for long. Would Yuna still think she wasn't one of them if she showed her how she really looked right now?

...

Marivel smiled. She probably would. That nerd.

But she has been avoiding a difficult talk with Yuna. Should she try singing it again? She could figure it out along the way over. She placed a stack of gil on the counter, opened up a window, and leapt out through it and into an uncertain future.