#Though Adeleine...is a wee bit more traumatized as a result

[desultory-novice]

...My muse is fickle and HIGHLY opportunistic and hearing @deepseamuse share their idea for a bad ending to Apologies where Adeleine refuses to leave Noir's side at Shiver Star, we~ll...

:guilty cough:

I-found-myself-writing-my-own-take-on-how-such-a-conversation-between-the-two-of-them-might-fall-before-I-knew-what-was-happening-I'm-so-sorry!

My apologies, Noir Defense Force... Unlike other writers, I have only tragic siblings for you today...

"Snowflakes"

Warning: This story is SO self-indulgent of me 200% pure melancholy, bittersweet Dess (scriptfic) angst

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:At the gates, Noir sees his sister off with a pained smile: :But she plants her feet, spinning back toward him:

Adeleine: "...I won't go."

:Noir shakes his head, gently chiding:

Noir: "Adeleine. C'mon." Adeleine: "Not without you, Noir!" Noir: "It's...It's not possible, okay? Not on this ride up, at least." Adeleine: "Okay. Then my going is impossible too!" Noir: "Don't be stubborn. Why're you acting like a kid about this?" Adeleine: "I AM a kid. And you're only three years older, Noir!"  "Are you my brother or are you trying to be dad...?"

:Adeleine is beginning to shake, worry taking root in her:

Adeleine: "...Let's just wait till we can go together, please?" Noir: "We're already here. This is the better option. Trust me." "And I'll find you again soon. I swear it." "It'll be so fast you won't notice I wasn't there the whole time!" Adeleine: "...I don't want us to be separated, Noir." "Not for any length of time!" Noir: "It's not..." "Adeleine, that's..."

:Noir grits his teeth hard, the pressure building in him snaps:  :In a moment of weakness, he voices his own fears aloud:

Noir: "We're going to be separated anyway..." Adeleine: "...Noir? What do you mean by that...?"

:He looks away, regretting ever opening his stupid mouth:

Adeleine: "What is it? What's going to happen?" Noir: "...Nothing. It's nothing, okay?" Adeleine: "Noir!" Noir: "Just forget I said anything, all right?!" Adeleine: "Now who's being stubborn?! Talk to me!"

:He tries to turn away from her, she grabs his hand to pull him back:

:He yanks it away quickly, only for his glove to slip off with it: :She sees his withered, blackened hand:

Adeleine: "...Your hand..."

:She looks up at him in shock and finally sees it: :That's not just his turtleneck pulled up extra high: :The decay has extended all the way to his jaw:

Adeleine: "Your neck too...? "...What is that? I-It's all over you..." "Noir...? Are you sick...?"

:Noir balls his fists, unable to face her: :Facing her means telling the truth:

Noir: "Just go... please..." "...I'm begging you." Adeleine: "N-Noir... Noir, I'm scared..."

:Adeleine is shaken, her gaze unfocused: :Noir kneels down next to her, trying to calm both of them:

Noir: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I messed up, Adeleine... Badly." "And this time... was worse than all the others." Adeleine: "Y-You're gonna be okay though, right?"  "Tell me you're going to be okay?"

:He take a half-hearted shot at faking the worst lie ever:

Noir: "......Yeah. Yeah, I mean, when have I not been fine? It's okay...!"

:But even if she wants to believe this lie too, she can't:

Adeleine: "No... You don't mean it though... Tell me the truth, Noir!" Noir: "The truth is..." "...I can't stop what's happening to me."  "And I don't think I've got long left. That's why you have to go."

:Adeleine shakes her head, panic taking over:

Adeleine: "Mm-mm. Mm-mm. No, no. Noir, no. Nononono..." Noir: "Adeleine..." Adeleine: "Nononononononononono..." Noir: "Get on the ship, Adeleine." Adeleine: "Nononononononononnononono...!" Noir: "Ade-..." Adeleine: "Wa...-Waaaaaahhhh!!"

:She breaks into childlike, inconsolable sobbing: :Noir bites his lip, realizing she won't leave on her own now: :He gets up, shouts at a guard some distance away:

Noir: "You! This girl's a passenger, right?! Get her on board already!" Guard: "I'll need to double-check with-..." Noir: "She's already cleared for passage, dammit!" "Could we have gotten this close to the gates if she wasn't?!" "Get...her...on...the...ship! Now!"

:Noir is as threatening as your average scrawny teenager: :But he is right about passing through all the gates:

Guard: "...All right. Come on, you." "You had time to say your goodbyes." Adeleine: "Noooooooo!"

:Adeleine cries as the guard lifts her up off her feet:

Noir: "Goodbye, Ade-..." "...Gh?!"

:Noir falls to his knees, negativity causing the corruption to spike: :Adeleine kicks and punches to free herself from the guard:

Adeleine: "NOIR!" Guard: "Hey! Stop struggling!" Noir: "...G-guh! ...H-Hgh...!!"

:Bent over, Noir vomits sizzling black goo onto the ground:  :Cloudy, dark particles rise menacingly into the air: :Adeleine slips free as the guard backs away in shock:

Adeleine: "Noir! Noir!" Noir: "S-stay...away..." Guard: "?! The hell is that stuff?! Shit!"  "Security here; I need the bio team on this, stat!" "We got some kind of potential toxin or pathogen or something! "Tell the launch team to seal the shuttle and go!" Noir: "N-No...!" Adeleine: "Noir... Noir..." Noir: "A-Ade...leine..."

:Adeleine clings to Noir, sobbing: :The "bio team" arrives. Fully suited and fully armed:

Team: "You said there was some kind of contaminate?" Guard: "Over there! It's them! It's the children...!" "I think they're carriers for some experimental disease!" Team: "...Sickos. Thinking they can get by us using kids..."

:As the the security guard masks up and flees, the helmeted bio team leader looks impassively at the two huddled children; Adeleine in tears while Noir, still sick, stares daggers at the leader:

Team: "Hate to do this when there are hardly any of you left but..." "...We can't risk anything getting into this sector. My apologies."

:Flamethrowers are aimed at Noir and Adeleine:

Team:"Squad. On my command-!" Noir: "Rgh...! DAMMIT...!!"

:Noir hugs Adeleine in his arms and squeezes his eyes shut; the Dark Matter Blade is summoned before him as he uses his powers to teleport them away in a swirling vortex of darkness:

:They reappear in the familiar back alleys of the shelter district:

Noir: "...Huff... huff..."  "Adeleine?! Are you here...?!" Adeleine: "Yeah..." Noir: "...You're not hurt, are you...?"

:He touches her cheek with a gloved hand to be sure she's there: :He had never teleported with another person and wasn't sure he could:

Adeleine: "No. But, Noir..."

:She's too shaken to finish what she was saying: :He lets go of her and falls back into the cold snow:

Noir: "Heh... I really ruined everything, huh...?" Adeleine: "Nuh-uh... You didn't. Cause you're still here..." 

:Adeleine nestles up as close as she can to him:

Adeleine: "...Stay. We have to stay together, Noir..." "Mom and dad made us promise to watch out for each other." Noir: "...I know. That's how I know...I messed up as bad as I did..." "And it's all thanks to this stupid thing..."

:He yanks at his scarf, revealing the control gear turned collar:

Adeleine: "Is that...the thing that lets you call your sword...?" Noir: "And some other stuff. Like that teleportation trick."

:Adeleine sits up and attempts to take it off him: :She can't even slip her small fingers through to pry at it:

Adeleine: "Ngh! It's...so tight around your neck." "...How does this come off again?" Noir: "It doesn't. Not anymore. Heh... I told you I messed up..."

:He smiles, blocking his eyes with the back of a withered hand: :He is finally confessing all the things he should have earlier:

Noir: "I thought I could protect you with it. Become stronger." "So, I kept on wearing it... Way longer than I should have."  "And...I used it...to do some really awful stuff..." "Raquelle... I'm the reason she's gone..."

:This day has already been so traumatic for Adeleine she doesn't even know how to begin to react to the news of their friend's death:

Adeleine: "Noir..." Noir: "Whatever justifications I thought I had..." "...I wish I hadn't done any of it now." "You and I could have just stayed as we were." "But wearing it connected me...to something dark." "I feel it now, always at the back of my mind."

:He pulls his hand away, his eyes a thousand yards away:

Noir: "It's like a void... But it's teeming too... Constant whispers..." "It's coming for me, soon. It even has a spot lined up special." "There's no escaping it now... When it gets out, e-...I..."

:Adeleine slips back into the crook of his arm, holding onto him:

Adeleine: "...You're not allowed to leave." "You're not allowed to leave, Noir." Noir: "...I don't want to leave you either..."

:His voice cracking, he turns to hug her tight: :They stay snuggled together in the cold snow: :No more painstakingly crafted illusions and lies: :Just two kids facing a cruel fate with aching honesty:

:After a time, Adeleine whispers softly:

Adeleine: "...I just want to lay here until we become snowflakes..." "You and I...would melt together. Then we'd never have to be apart..." Noir: "...Heh. You're so warm, you'd turn us into water in no time..." Adeleine: "I'd still follow you... Wherever you flowed off to..."

Noir: "...Maybe the ocean. We could finally have that beach trip?" "But, Adeleine, you deserve so much more than that." "Not being stuck with me..."

Adeleine: "Don't you deserve anything nice, Noir...?" Noir: "...That's a silly question."

"...I already got something beyond precious."

-

It was a most unusual form of salvation...

People who believe in The Theory of the Four Matters have suggested that the various types can counteract or overpower each other, existing in a cycle of destructive mutual domination. Still others believe that when two forms of matter come into close contact, they are capable of peacefully transmuting into a third.

...Darkness and Soul...

Is it any surprise Dream would emerge from their union? 

Those who saw the sleeping "snowflake" children, whom nothing could wake nor separate, nor could anything harm, had no doubts they were protected by a most powerful form of Dream Matter. All that was left to question is, were their dreams happy ones...? 

Though that too could be answered with a glance at their faces.

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[Apologies AU Masterpost]

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Author Notes:

The last part is based around the theory that Soul Matter is related to life (the soul forms being based around a powerful desire to live) and that art in Kirby is often treated as "the giving of life."

So, in this situation, while Noir is a perfect container for an immense amount of Dark Matter (why he is unusually powerful and capable even as a drone) Adeleine is the same for Soul Matter (why she is unusually good at imbuing life into her creations)

After the disastrous, highly traumatizing events at the spaceport, with nothing left but each other, the two privately but simultaneously wished for time to stop and to never have to be separated. It came true as they fell asleep in each other's arms...

"Will this version of them ever be saved?"

^^; Like the text says, it's a most unusual form of salvation, but in a weird way, they kinda are saved? At least from present dangers (Noir's corruption has ceased while they are like this, and both are protected from starvation or freezing. As implied by the last line, they are living better (?) happier lives than they ever got in reality within their everlasting, idealistic dreamscape.)

Even as I was writing it, I realized once the situation rolled out of hand and Adeleine learned Noir's fate, there was no simple way to solve this. He could force Adeleine to leave him or talk to her until he had convinced her leaving was the best choice, but she would never be truly happy knowing what she knows. (And they were never getting that good of a chance to get her off planet again either.)

Meanwhile she could stay with him and try use all the powers at her disposal (drawing magical hacksaws and drillbits XD) but Noir had only been holding on as long as he had to see her off, and in main Apologies, dies soon after she leaves. She has no means of saving him nor freeing him from eternal bondage to Zero. Not alone, that is.

...But if you prefer your Shiver Siblings alive, conscious, and free of the looming specter of death, luckily, Kirby of the Stars is a powerful enough channel for Dream Matter that he could awaken/free them.

At least, XX number of years later when he finally visits Shiver Star in Kirby 64. Plus, Zero would be gone by then! Though 02.... >.>

(I'm betting there's a crystal shard near them also! You probably have to use the very cursed Burn-Spark power combo to melt the snow to get close enough to the two; red + yellow being the puzzle's color "hint," courtesy of Noir's perpetually ugly scarf XD)

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PS: I'm rather shocked how well my fake game hint above works with the power combos, their colors, and Noir's scarf?! Go, muse~!