paradisalost | Recollection

Entry tags:

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.

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Abel's second endeavor into the world of magic castles, talking books, losses and memories came in a manner truly befitting him.

He was, of course, plucked from his bed shared with his wife in Paris in their cozy home to... another. And, in the only fashion true to the priest at heart... his first few moments were spent sprawled on his stomach with an arm around his wife, hair wily-nily on the pillow and -- of course -- drooling attractively. It was no different than any other day... wasn't it? There was nothing special to mark their sudden change in location... nothing to alert them that anything had happened at all. Nothing to warn or caution them that everything had... with suddenness... gone back to the way it should be.

He hadn't stirred, even when Lilith had; if nothing else, it could be said this man was a rather heavy sleeper at the least. He was blissfully unaware as she found herself assaulted by memories that had eluded them -- just out of sight, just on the tips of their tongues, for the majority of the past week. It wasn't until tears stained her cheeks and Abel's shoulder was being gently shaken, that he showed the first signs of life, so to speak.

Stirring sluggishly at her prodding, he gives an incoherent mumble, too drowsy to translate into anything sensible; but when he came around enough to realize Lilith was sitting upright on the bed beside him, he shook himself a little closer to something approaching cognizant. Blinking hard, he pushed himself up on an elbow and rubbed at an eye -- vision clearing slowly to reveal to him that she... was...

"...crying...? Lilith-- are you...?"

Al... right...

His eyes are shifting from her face, a furrow of confusion at his brow as he realizes that they are... not... in Kansas anymore, Toto. What in the name of...

Her head was aching in a dull throb as the memories from her life in Paris tried to slot into spaces where they didn't belong - two childhoods, two marriages. It was blurred, like a dream that didn't quite exist, and yet nothing was forgotten - her head was too full, and her heart ached.

Her children were lost.

Etoile, Charlie and Nanako. They had never been real, never been true, just a construct of a magical castle. Yet she could not deny that the love she had felt... no, still felt for them was real. They had been her children then, and they would always be her children, whether she was able to be by their sides or not.

Abel's question was halting and there was no flicker of recognition on his face yet, though she knew deep in her soul that it could not be far behind. There were no words that would make this easier, none that could explain the magnitude of what she was feeling and what was awaiting him... so she settled for leaning over to the nightstand and plucking up a familiar object to lay it on his lap.

A rosary. Hers, and then his, she couldn't think of a more powerful symbol of their lives. Their true lives.

He sits up further as he watches her reach for the nightstand -- there is none of the bewilderment in her face that he would have expected to see having woken up somewhere strange and foreign; his groggy surprise is apparent in his face, concern and worry etched in the knit of his brow. Her eyes looked almost... glazed with a sort of pain, a resignation, and it's got this terrible pit in his stomach in response. What is she doing...? Had something happened? --Had she found out, about... the, ah...

...

He stares, mutedly, at the item she has placed in his lap. The trinket is old, time-worn... bearing marks of age, yet preserved and so... so hauntingly familiar in a way that pricks at that terrible sense of dread-- and beneath that, a sick, sick iron masochism. A bubble of self-loathing burning right through; grim satisfaction; an urging from something inside that is fighting every instinct of self-preservation he's got in him. It's like he's torn right down the middle -- the message this piece of him has been trying to send is awake in earnest, now, and it's pushing to get through -- but the other half is clinging desperately in an effort to stave off what he seems to already know is coming.

"...no..."

Eyes fixed on that rosary and all color having rapidly drained of his face, he isn't aware he made the murmured denial himself... a denial of what, even Abel would not be sure.

But he already knows this is a battle he had fought and lost long... long ago... and the time for placating lies a castle placed over him... has passed, at last. Even so...

Some part of him selfishly begs, even as his eyes already blurring over with tears and the weight of a horrible guilt is returning before its source is even realized, that he could go back there with her. Ignorant and shameful, hiding from who he was... forever. He would hate himself for it, later... but for now, in a moment of pure and unadulterated fear... he wants nothing more than to forget what he knows he will and cannot ever escape.

The rosary is a symbol of her faith in humankind and him, more than it had ever been a symbol of faith in God and the church. She had fought against him, because she knew he had not truly wanted to destroy the world... and then when she was gone, he had carried this for the same reason, to remind him never to be blind to his love for the world again. It was something she had lost when she came here, and yet to see Abel wearing it had seemed right.

Her hand comes over his and lays both their hands together on the wrought metalwork of the rosary, feeling the curves of it against her skin like an old friend coming home. She had known before she had placed it in his lap, what it would do to him. And though the tears in his eyes tore right through her heart, she knew they were necessary. He had to feel the pain in order to get through the other side, he had to embrace the bad memories to treasure the good.

Her lips pressed into silver hair at his temple, words quiet and calm against his head.

"It is always darkest before dawn... Breathe, Abel, and hold onto me."

Hold onto me.

Hold onto...

...

...He has seen how beautiful the Earth looks from space. He knows how small one feels looking down at it that way; insignificant and tiny, yet awed at that insignificance -- yearning for it, for the simplicity of being just another face among many. He's seen the mirror image of his hand against reinforced glass and he's seen his own face framed by blonde hair brighten in a smile and dissolve into grief and cry. He's seen green, piercing eyes and firm resolve, a small hand clutched in his sleeve. Seen red hair in the sunlight, and in the lamplight; he's felt dark skin under his fingers...

He's... been so angry...

Possessed... manic...

He has taken a life-- many lives... millions of lives...

He has tasted how sweet a real summer breeze could be, and how bitter blood is in comparison. He has been a monster, and he has, indeed, held onto Lilith even long after she, was...

Abel's eyes are impossibly wide, fingers trembling over the rosary he's gripping with white knuckles. --look, Abel. There's no more reason for concern... I've removed the negative eleme--

His eyes slide to hers, unaware the dampness at his cheeks -- looking hunted, haunted... unhinged as his hands abandon the rosary to touch her, instead. He's cupping her jaw, thumbing over cheeks-- memory of this very face ashen and gold eyes lifeless and dulled as they should never, ever be one he could've gone so many lifetimes as the castle would've given him without.

Holding onto her... this request is one he finds very simple to oblige, abruptly pulling her with fervor against him and clutching at her like he had no intention of ever letting her go. Lilith...

...She's-- back...

Or had she never really left? He doesn't... understand. But he doesn't need to.

She is here with him... that is all, and the only thing, that matters.

A-Ah...

The force with which she is pulled into him is bruising, knocking the air from her lungs for more reasons than just the constricting tightness of his arms. His pain is palpable, radiating from his skin and it almost seemed as though he were screaming even though the room was silent but for the hitching of his breath as he cried.

That he remembered now was not in question, she could see it in the horror reflected in too-blue eyes and feel the hollow reflection of it in her own chest. She too knew what it was to stand and see the Earth spread out below them, she knew what it was to feel the grief of loss and the heartache of facing those she loved across a desolate battlefield. But she also knew hope, she knew salvation, and she knew absolute love... these were the things that had always kept her afloat in the past and would always keep her afloat in the future, embodied in this man clutching her so tightly.

Her arms fold around him in return, fingers stroking down his back and silence between them now. It was painful, a tsunami of emotions razing away everything else, but it would ebb eventually and she would still be there to hold him when the dust had settled.

Her precious boy, her Abel.

His head is swimming. Reeling, overwhelmed -- there is too much time to account for, faces that had become so important to him to recall... but so much of his long life was spent in mourning of her that the rest... it seems...

Surreal.

Paris is a big, long... beautiful dream. It was everything he had ever wanted and yearned for but could never have; it still feels real and all of the love he had for everyone he had met and known and... truly, whole-heartedly adored would stay with him forever. There would never be a day he did not look at that time as precious, as... paradise. The real paradise as Paradisa advertised to be.

Perhaps that was the true bliss granted one by this place. Their suffering, their turmoil, all they endured... one day, it'll be washed away by pleasant memories of a wonderful and perfect life in which a soul is eternally happy... and the only catch was that it was all based around illusion and lies; deception.

Ignorance is bliss.

There have never been truer words than this, here and now.

He can't stop... crying; it's pathetic, and he's aware of that fact -- but the realization doesn't help him in getting it to ease up. All he can seem to do is clutch at her like he's afraid he'd lose her if he let go, eyes squeezed shut tight. He can't think straight at all... this is so confusing, disorienting, but--

...Thank you. Thank... God, thank this castle, or... whatever forces are at work for giving her back. Thank you. ...Thank you.

Lilith is still unaware that she had 'left' before her husband, she could only recall their short honeymoon and then her life in Paris beginning with him by her side. It was clear now that their lives had been another fabrication of this castle, which seemed to be able to play with them as easily as though they were clay to be moulded.

Even if it was a fabrication, she was grateful for it. She was grateful to have experienced that peace and that happiness with Abel by her side. She would always hold her children in a special place in her heart, and be thankful that she had the opportunity to remember what it was like to have a family that way. It had been short and snatched away, but that did not make the memories any less precious... perhaps it even made them more precious, for she knew the time spent with them had been a gift.

Her lips meet Abel's temple again in a tender kiss, a gentle reminder that he is not alone and she will be here beside him if he needs to cry for another ten seconds or ten years.

There is a mix of grief and gratitude and relief -- of old losses recalled with clarity and a sincere happiness that's stayed behind, even if... even if it was no longer real. Even if Paris, if their lives there, were not true... or merely some warped... shifted offspring of something that might be tangible, somewhere...

...The happiness absolutely was.

He had known what it was like to live as a human among kin and kind. He had married the woman he loved; he'd known the joy of having children with her, of seeing the light in her eyes, of holding a life so... surreal for its small and fragile wonder. He had a happy brother who had not lived a life oppressed and hiding his pain behind masks. He had a life-long friend with whom he could trust his life to, and protect -- this time, without all the lies that shielded them from each other's true hearts. He had friends... real friends who had known him as a man rather than a monster and loved him for it.

And now... some of that must be... gone, but...

Pieces would stay with him. And he got pieces of the life before that... ones just as precious... back.

When her lips touched his temple, he shifts -- firm, moving to press his lips to hers instead in a fervent kiss. Lilith is... here; the whirl of time and memories that doesn't quite make sense and hasn't found itself in the right order can come later.

Lilith is here. And so, he will be okay, no matter what comes next.

The kiss is flavoured with a tang of salt from his tears, a perfect bittersweet combination of affection and the need for comfort. Though they may have lost something so precious to them both, they would forever hold it in their hearts and be able to share anecdotes of their friends and family left in Paris for many years.

Her arms twine around his neck, pulling him further down to deepen the kiss. There might not be words that can offer a comfort against the storm of emotions and memories, especially the grief of centuries he must be feeling, but perhaps she can offer him solace in other ways.

Whatever has happened and whatever will happen, she loves him and that will never change. Whether they are on Mars, Earth, a magical castle or even a false life in Paris, they had always ended up side-by-side.

There's so much he wants to know...

...How had they ended up back here? How long has it been...? Their children, and what will happen to them now... Cain, Caterina, Jacob, Ed, Rose -- so many familiar faces he was realizing, now, were tied to Paradisa and always had been.

But he puts them aside -- perhaps selfishly, pressing little kisses to her lips and thumbs running over her cheeks where he cups them, just... desperate like a man dying of thirst finally given the first cup of water. She's... here, and alright. Whole, with him. This is their second chance, and it isn't over, yet. It isn't over...

In some ways, the castle for all its trials and tests of endurance, was as much a paradise as Paris in its own right when its halls were filled with her. He can't deny that ignorance had been so... inexplicably kind to him -- but that life... that happiness... it was one he didn't deserve. One he sadly would never earn... here, or at home.

But he could pay his penance, and have her by his side, now. That... was what he needed. He wanted to believe it was where he belonged... with her. His brother; Caterina... their children, their friends -- however many of those pieces he's lost, he'll pray they are still in that happy place they deserve. He's grown enough to know that sometimes, separation is the best way to protect someone else's heart.

Lord knows how long it takes, and his head is a mess when the can finally see without the blur of tears even if the sting is left behind, but... finally, he can look on her. Smooth red hair from her brow... stroke the backs of his fingers down the side of her face. His wife... is here. And despite the pleasant sense of waking up from a dream they shared together... he knows, he has--

"...I missed you."

Missed her?

She knows that this is not the grief-stricken words of a man who has known her as dead for centuries, they have been through that and come out the other side. Which means that... she must have left before him, she must have disappeared from the castle and its consciousness some time before he joined her in Paris.

A pang of true regret makes her heart thump harder, golden eyes lowering. She had never intended to let him walk alone ever again, nor let him carry those heavy burdens without her there to let him rest from time to time. But Paradisa was indiscriminate and cruel sometimes, and it seemed her prayers in that area had not been answered.

Raising a hand to cup his cheek, gentle as ever, she pressed another kiss to his lips before answering.

"You don't need to miss me, I am always with you, even if I cannot be by your side."

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...

She knows that this weak attempt at humour is his way of trying to regain his footing, trying to not let himself be swept away by the enormity of what had happened. The mask was, of course, useless before her... she had always known his truth and she always would, but she would let him keep his coping mechanisms this time.

"...I would hate to think of your bed as messy, Abel, truly it is a godsend I am here."

Smiling against pale skin, she allowed him to draw her closer and leaned her bodyweight against his to nudge him back down to the pillows once more. The time would come soon when they had to leave their room and face the friends they had left behind - see their grief at having lost them, perhaps feel their own for friends no longer here, and deal with explanations and reunions.

But for now, that could wait. They could take their time here, healing one another, until they were strong enough to face the world.

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.

It's a difference that she's feeling herself - a mere week of honeymoon, versus years of marital bliss. Yet some things had not changed, Abel had been every bit as awkward and shy courting both times, and the flush of his face on their wedding night was identical whatever world they had been in... it was a private realisation that made her smile softly to herself, just a nice symmetry that gave her peace. It meant he had truly been Abel there as well as here, no copy or mimic, and so the others they had come to love and cherish had been real as well.

"She will be delighted, I have no doubt about that."

Nanako was a strong girl, not one to hold bitterness in her heart for being left, but only love for being reunited.

"...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.

"Sometimes it is better not to question."

She was curious herself, she could not deny that, but she was content to merely accept her good fortune and that of Abel lest questioning have it taken from them. The whims of the castle, so she remembered, were hard to predict and there would be no telling quite why they had been chosen to return with their memories in tact.

"Be grateful for the chance awarded to us this way, and the relationships we do not have to begin anew."

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."

Shifting on his chest to get a little more comfortable, she pressed a kiss to his throat very gently. His skin was always so soft, so warm...

"I never left home, silly boy."

Chuckling, she pressed another kiss there and another, feeling peace settle over her heart slowly.

"As long as I am beside you, no matter our surroundings, I am home."

"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...

She knew what he meant, although she could not find the words to express it very eloquently. Their lives there had been simple and unfettered by huge decisions of world importance - they only had their own little lives and little problems to worry over, and it had been wonderful in its way. But it had not been entirely them, and this was much... sharper, clearer...

"It will be home when we have a child with us again."

After knowing the joy of motherhood, it would be awful to have their home empty of small smiles and children to love and care for. Luckily, they had Nanako to care for, and she was sure that the little girl would be happy to live with them again.

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?

Abel's question tugs her memories in the direction of that Mother's Day... a small girl for Abel and Esther, and a little boy for her and Xellos. She nodded, recalling how Etoile had been that exact little girl... though the realisation came with a small pang of disappointment as that meant she wasn't truly Lilith's. The red hair had come from Esther, the child had been created as theirs and then given to Lilith in Paris - though this would not change her love for Etoile in any way.

"I remember... then perhaps we shall see them again when that time rolls around this year."

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.

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Recollection

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