Memory Aftershocks

Adelasta sat on the bed, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her glacial poise fractured by the storm of emotion churning inside her. She had seen everything. From the moment Vastarael entered that cursed place, to the final, frostbitten second he crawled out of it alive, if one could still call that living.

Her breath hitched. Tremors rippled through her otherwise still frame. The memories she'd absorbed weren't just observations. They were immersions. Her eyes glistened and though her expression remained cold, her fingers betrayed her. They were trembling, clawed into the skin of her own arms as if holding herself together was the only way to stop from fracturing like glass.

Every scream of the ice winds, every bone-jarring echo of his glaive colliding with an unrelenting foe, every ragged breath he took while teetering on the edge of oblivion, it all replayed with horrifying clarity, burning itself into her soul like frostbite disguised as flame.

Tears slid down her cheeks. 

"…How the hell could anyone survive that?" she whispered, voice brittle as crystal.

And then, behind her, the silence broke.

"What's wrong, Adelasta?"

It was Vastarael's voice. But it wasn't warm. Not this time. Not even close.

He stood at the edge of the bed, his golden eyes faintly glowing as he stepped forward. His tone was detached. Adelasta turned slowly, her tears still trailing down her face. Her entire aura sparked with the friction between fury and pain.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?! You endured all that for what? For us? To kill the Winter Labor? For a meaningless trial?!"

"Seemed like the right thing to do. Besides, it wasn't so bad. It's just how things are, you know?"

The indifference in his voice sparked something in her.

"'Not so bad'?! You call that not so bad?! You slaughtered thousands in your first trial, Veneri! Then you were dragged into an underwater tomb—sharks tearing at you, ice giants crushing you, your own mother haunting you! And you still had fifty-three days of hell left after that!"

Her voice grew shriller, filled with disbelief and agony.

"Fifty-three days making that Control Circle while your bones snapped under pressure, your veins bled out and you had to build that damn thing alone as everything around you screamed failure if you even blinked wrong! And then the Winter Labor... you let him trap you just to turn it around?! Do you hear yourself, Vastarael? Do you even know what you went through?! No one and I mean no one can suffer that and still be…"

She choked on her breath, words faltering into a whisper.

"…still be sane."

The room fell back into silence. Adelasta's shoulders heaved as she tried to calm her breath, the tears she hated so much refusing to stop. Vastarael stood still. Then he smiled. But it wasn't warm. It wasn't teasing. It wasn't him.

It was something else.

"Do I look sane to you?"

Adelasta flinched.

"I haven't been sane since I saw them. The cosmic horrors. The ones no mortal—no immortal—was ever meant to comprehend."

She stood still, unable to speak as his gaze intensified.

He took another step. Adelasta couldn't tell if she was rooted by fear, concern, or something deeper.

"You think what I went through in that spire was the worst part?"

He continued.

Her eyes brimmed again. Her lips trembled, but she forced herself to speak, voice trembling but unwavering.

"…But you still did it. You still fought. For us. For Shimmer. For Runner. For me. How can you say life is meaningless, and still bleed for it?"

His smile softened just a little. The haunted look remained, but now there was a sliver of something else in it.

"Because meaning isn't something you find, Adelasta. It's something you make. And if I have to suffer, whether a little or enough to unmake the mind itself, to create something worth living for… then so be it."

Her icy facade fractured further and for the first time in years, she stepped toward him, her fingers trembling as they pressed against his chest.

"You shouldn't have to endure this alone," she whispered. "No one should."

He reached up and gently placed his hand over hers.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't pity me. I'm used to it, Adelasta. This... this is just who I am now."

"You are not used to this," she snapped, the ice in her voice returning. "You shouldn't be used to this. You're not a machine. You're not some husk."

She clenched his coat tighter.

"You're still you, Veneri. I don't care what happened in that damned spire. You're mine. You don't get to just fade."

He exhaled slowly.

"Maybe. But the previous 'me'? He died. Somewhere along the way. And honestly... I don't mind. We all evolve."

Then, with the faintest smirk, just a flicker of the Vastarael she used to know, he added:

"Besides, crazy suits me, don't you think?"

Adelasta blinked, then let out a single, watery scoff. "You're insane."

"Damn right I am," he replied with a ghost of a grin, before the shadows in his gaze swallowed it whole.