http://nyochhavar.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] nyochhavar.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] paradisalost2011-12-29 03:12 pm

Recollection

Who: Abel Nightroad and Lilith Sahl
What: Regaining their Paradisa memories
Where: Floor Six
Warnings: I don't think any will apply, possible eye bleed from tl;dr? EDIT: Now there are warnings for marital nudey times.

In truth, Lilith had been in two minds about the 'travellers' that had come to Paris over Christmas. On the one hand, she had been exceptionally grateful to see Nanako again, the small girl who she knew in her heart that they had loved as much as if she had been one of their own children. However, on the other hand, she had been disquieted by the knowledge that she had forgotten someone so important to her... several someones, and that they were apparently embroiled in some world of magic and uncertainty.

It had raised all sorts of questions about her reality... her world. Was she who she believed she was? Were the feelings she had for Abel real? Was she a doctor? Was she insane and imagining all of this? She didn't want to believe that her life was a lie, it tore at her heart to even consider it. Yet to forget people and events which had been equally important was just as distressing, and she honestly didn't know which way to turn for the best.

It was harder on Abel than it had been on her, she knows her precious silly boy bottles these things up and tortures himself with them. Especially after Christmas, he had become different somehow... he could never hide from her, not properly, but she hadn't pursued what was bothering him, as she trusted him to come to her when he was ready. Patience. Though even her limitless patience was being tested to the limits here, with this confusion and mystery.

Always at the back of her mind, growing stronger for the past few days, was a niggle, a sensation that if she could just concentrate then she would understand. Memories just out of reach, hiding from her and evaporating like water under a hot lamp. It was frustrating, almost frightening, and yet it was a comfort to know she was not going through it alone. Nor was it just Abel, there seemed to be a few of their friends and neighbours who were experiencing this tug from deep inside.

Troubled beneath the serene exterior, she had not slept easily that night, as though she could hear an internal ticking countdown to... something. And that something was clear when she woke. Opening her eyes before Abel, as was usual, she found herself looking at a stone ceiling in a room that was decorated unfamiliarly... or at least, it was only unfamiliar for a moment. But then the colours and patterns took shape in her memory, this was the style of the Vatican from Abel's ti...me...

Vatican.

War.

Crusnik.

It all came tumbling back in a dizzying whirl of memories, a confused jumble that made her physically double over as though she had been punched in the gut. A life in captivity, an angry-eyed boy with a bruised heart, a smiling youth with a horrible future, a small green-eyed and bitter girl. A war, Armageddon... the pain of facing her family over a battlefield, and the peace of knowing Abel's eyes would open with her final sacrifice. She had... she... And then here, this place, a second chance. She had seen her precious Abel's pain of centuries and tried to ease it, and they had married here as well.

There are tears on her cheeks, mingled grief and happiness, as she let her life wash back over her and settle where it belonged. Reaching out a slightly trembling hand, she laid it gently on Abel's shoulder where he was still sleeping beside her and shook him. Would he remember when he woke too? Her heart ached for the pain and guilt that would no doubt take residence in his heart again, for the horrific grief and loss he would feel with recollection, and yet there were good things there too... and she would be beside him the whole time.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 07:48 pm (UTC)(link)
He doesn't quite recall time the way it's supposed to be, just yet -- but he knows that he missed her. It was a common thread throughout his life... his real life -- that yearning after Lilith would seemingly always be a part of it.

Abel gently rests his forehead against hers, relishing the feel of her palm on his skin in an age-old gesture that never ceased to ease some of the tension from his shoulders, from inside his chest. A reminder she's here, and real... solid and his. He has to keep it that way. He needs her by his side... however much there is no doubt in his mind that she is with him, even when she is not.

"I missed you," he repeats; she knows his meaning... he's sure of it, nuzzling her slowly before his arms folded her more gently, close. "...I don't make the bed half as nice as you do. It's... really good, that you came back with me this time..."

Getting his wits back, slowly but surely... trying to find someplace normal...

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 08:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Godsend indeed...

He gives no resistance when she tugs him back down and onto the bed -- not even bothering with the grace to do little more than flop and tug her tightly into his chest. Lilith... the memories of old and these strange ones of a new lifetime are disjointed and odd; part of him recalls how little a chance he'd gotten to do this before she had disappeared, and the other half has had years with which to indulge to his heart's content.

Either way... he has her, now.

His fingers softly ghost at her shoulder, an idle affectionate gesture as he watches the ceiling. "...Nanako... will be happy, won't she...?"

He will find all the good in thing and steel it in his chest. He won't think of all the things that could be frightening or wrong, now... the faces that could've appeared or disappeared in the unknown space of time they'd been away. Those are worries for later.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"...it feels a little like one very strange dream," he murmurs, quiet, his fingers straying to thread into her hair slowly. How will they explain this to her?

How long has it been...?

How long...

How much has changed...?

"How are we back here, Lilith?" Their memories were supposed to be forfeit, weren't they...? He had never seen someone return with their recollections of staying in Paradisa previously intact... not once in the two years he could remember of his time spent as a resident of the castle.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
He mulls this over a moment... but he supposes she's right.

He's learned, this week, the damage that too much curiosity can do. And that in his heart, he shifts to draw her a little closer still, pressing a kiss firmly into red hair atop her head with the utmost affection behind the gesture.

"Then... welcome home again."

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 09:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"Home is where the heart is... mm?" He muses, a faint chuckle leaving his lips as he continues to idly run fingers through beloved red hair. Slowly but surely, that pain of remembered memories and forgotten loved ones brought back to life inside him is dwindling... quieting. Her touch has always had some placating effect on him...

"It was nice... to live like them, Lilith." A human... no Crusnik; no clones; no Mars, or colony, no war. Just... the city; their world narrowed down to much humbler beginnings and endings than any they'd had before.

"But this feels much more like 'home.'" And that is true... however bittersweet. This is solid in a way he hadn't realized his pleasant Parisian daydreams were not...

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah. He feels the tug in his chest acutely at those words...

He wonders about this, more than anything. Were they real...? Were they 'real,' like Lilith and Abel? Etoile...

--ah. He sits up, slightly, trying to draw her attention and have her look into his face. "...Etoile. She was-- the daughter Esther and I always had on Mother's Day... do you remember?"

Then maybe Charlie and Nanako, too...? Those mysterious children tied to the castle in some way... ones who reappeared each year like clockwork with smiling and happy faces. They would be taken care of, wouldn't they? If they weren't here, then...

...They would see them again... Wouldn't they?

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
He won't let his mind wander down the path of how much of their lives were real and fabricated; if he did, he wasn't sure where it would stop... especially considering there was no way to get answers, regardless. He had done enough driving himself mad with the possibilities ever since learning of the whole mess after Christmas...

"...I hope that we do," he says softly. The love for them is very real... and it will not be dying, regardless what the truth of their existences might be. They were a family...

And that was that.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 10:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah.

...Lilith.

His own expression softens in response, and despite it all... maybe there's a slight infusion of something pinker in his cheeks at thsoe words. No matter how much time passed... years, decades... centuries, he would never not be touched in the deepest parts of him to hear them.

He smooths his palm over her cheekbone and splays fingers into her hair. Soft as ever... velvet and perfect. Everything about her always was, and is still.

"...I love you too, Lilith."

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Haa; he chuckles, unable to help himself at her gentle tease... his arms folding around her familiarly. He had never envisioned a day in which he would have left this castle to return... and definitively not like this.

He's so grateful the slate had not been washed clean. He had learned so much... so, so much he might never learn again, otherwise. He had grown with her, and...

"...luckily, I think we left him behind in Paris. You poor thing..."

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
O-oh. ...Oh.

Out of all the muddled mess of their heads... did that have to be something that she'd recalled with clarity? Why yes, that is a familiar shade of red beginning to seep into his face... thank you for asking.

"--I have no idea what you're talking about," he bluffs, pretending to feign firm ignorance. FIRM IGNORANCE.

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
He will never not be intimidated by the fact his wife is a complete and total fox. Not to the day he dies and then some... Honestly, one would be hard pressed to blame him.

And far more prone to wonder how, exactly, he'd managed this catch himself.

"Really?" He watches the ceiling thoughtfully as if trying to wrack his brain about the subject. It was... comforting, this; something normal and silly and... simple. Something that was just theirs. "...No, no. I'm sorry, Lilith, that isn't ringing any bells at all..."

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com 2011-12-29 10:47 pm (UTC)(link)
"What kind of attitude is that?! Do you really want to see a considerably less attractive man than me in my sort of underwear? I-- I think I might be offended, Lilith!"

He gives a look of mock hurt, holding his chest dramatically before flopping bonelessly on the bed as if he'd been slain by her UTTER CRUELTY.

1/2

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com - 2011-12-30 17:05 (UTC) - Expand

done

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com - 2011-12-30 18:32 (UTC) - Expand

2/2

[identity profile] custodismundi.livejournal.com - 2011-12-30 19:39 (UTC) - Expand