#but right now my brain is spitballing angsty ideas at lightning speed and i'm just spitting them out on paper

[sergeantsporks]

Can You Die of a Broken Heart?

Teen

Gen

When Nari said "the order will rip your soul to pieces," Douxie thought she meant literally. Turns out, they can do it figuratively AND literally.

Ao3

Series: I Can Make RotT So Much Worse

Based on this post by @spellcasterdouxie

“Why don’t we try to get a little information out of him, first?”

Douxie’s head jerked up. He couldn’t betray his friends—but if they were interrogating him, it meant they wouldn’t have Nari for just that much longer.

Bellroc rolled their eyes. “What information could he possibly have?”

Skrael shrugged. “A secret weapon? An idea left behind by Merlin? I think we should take a look around inside of that stupid, stupid head of his. Since he’s around, anyway.” His hands glowed with magic. “You made a mistake, wizard. You put your soul in the body of another. That makes it… vulnerable. Exposed.”

Magic pulsed out of Skrael’s hand, striking Douxie’s head. At first, it seemed like nothing had happened. Then hundreds and hundreds of glowing strands erupted from his head, stretching out.

Bellroc’s eyes seemed to light with a cruel glow. “Memories…” they hissed, reaching out.

When their hand touched a glowing strand, it erupted into a scene Douxie knew well—a lecture from Merlin. Over something he’d broken, of course.

“Useless,” Bellroc growled. They seized the glowing thread, and with a flick of their wrist, it snapped off.

Douxie felt a tug in his gut, and an overwhelming feeling of something being… missing. He’d just seen the memory—and he knew there was something that he’d remembered before, but it was gone, and no matter how he tried, he couldn’t find it.

The order tore through memories like a wildfire, pulling up and discarding them. Planning the subway trap with the other guardians of arcadia—gone. Krel’s designs for the amulet—Bellroc and Skrael watched for a bit, then ripped those away, too. The empty pit in Douxie’s stomach grew wider and wider, and the missing memories left him with a spinning head. It didn’t hurt, per se, it was just… disorienting. He knew he should feel upset—but it was hard to feel upset over losing something you didn’t remember having.

“Remember when I told you magic is mastery over life?”

Douxie lifted his head. “N-no,” he gasped, trying to pull back, “That’s—that’s—don’t—please—”

“My, Hisirdoux, what a life you’ve lived.”

Bellroc grabbed one of his horns and yanked him up. “What a pathetic life you’ve lived.”

“What a wizard you’ve become.”

“P-please—”

Skrael seemed to take special delight in ripping that one away.

“N—” Douxie’s heart hurt, but he didn’t know why, he just knew that he’d lost something, something important to him.

“A wizard does not make mistakes. He makes unexpected—”

Douxie screamed as the Order ripped through memories, until he wasn’t sure why they were important anymore.

A gentle purr—nothing but stone.

Smiles and laughs—a circular room

Moments with his student—train tracks and darkness.

A being made of ice tilted his head up, sharp claws tracing his face but not breaking skin. “Have you ever heard the Egyptian’s theory on the soul? They believed it was made of several parts. One was the ren—the name. But it was more than the name—it was memories.”

His head was spinning, and spinning, and he couldn’t remember anything but this room of stone and darkness. He managed a guttural moan—he wanted someone, needed someone so badly it hurt, but he couldn’t remember who—

The ice being jerked on one of his horns. “Your memories are an important part of you, wizard.”

Wizard? What…?

“Experience makes you who you are—without your memories, you’re just a sad, sad husk.”

A fire being spat. “Enough. We have spent long enough on this creature. Return it to its body. Without its memories, it would not even know to attack us.”

“I’d rather not take the risk.” The ice being leaned back. “When you see its soul…”

“We’ll get Nari back. But he… he will not go home.”

What… he was too tired, too sick, too lonely to figure out what they were talking about.

And then the two beings started chanting, and the world dissolved into pain, soul-crushing pain.

At least, he’d thought it was soul-crushing. Until he felt himself tearing out of his body, and the ice and fire being grabbed hold of his soul and pulled.

Turned out, there was a feeling worse than soul-crushing.

Soul ripping.

They tore at his being, and even though he was out of a body, he somehow still felt it, in every fiber of his being, that horrible, horrible tearing sensation, like taffy that had been pulled just a little too far.

Some instinct, some nagging voice in the back of his head screamed at him to end it! End the spell now, before they destroy you!

And he didn’t know what that meant, he didn’t know what spell, but maybe the little voice in the back of his head took over because he was waking up in a completely new place, in a body that was different, but felt… more familiar.

“Wha—huh—I—”

“Douxie!” A cat barreled into him, and he instinctively hugged it. It just felt… right, but he didn’t know why.

Some kid with scars on his face stared him meaningfully in the eye. “Douxie, do you know where they are?! Where’s the order, where do they have Nari?”

That sure was a lot of words that probably meant something. He shook his head. “I—I’m sorry—I really am—but—who’s Douxie?”

Xxx

“I can lock onto Nari. We’ll get her.”

Jim glanced back at the vacant Douxie, who was patting Archie, apparently with no clue of who he was. “We might need his magic.”

“We can’t take him along like this! It would be murder!” Claire twisted around to look at him, shaking his head. “Besides, I… I don’t know if he remembers how to do magic. Jim, what if we lost him?!”

Jim brushed her cheek with one hand. “Hey… look at me. Look at me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Douxie, it’s that he always finds a way to come back. He died, remember? And he still came back to us. He’ll get better.”

“He doesn’t remember who he is, who we are! What if he can’t come back?!”

“Then we’ll find a way to bring him back. We’ll find a spell, or Krel will be able to invent something—we won’t leave him like this. I promise.”

Xxx

Douxie—apparently that was his name. That’s what they kept telling him. He didn’t know. All he knew was the last hour of his life—the last horrible, painful hour of his life.

He hadn’t known it was so bad—not until he came here, where there was light, and everything was soft and kind, instead of harsh and painful.

And there was Archie, the cat.

Jim and Claire approached. “We’re heading out,” Jim said quietly to Archie.

Archie jumped up with a hiss. “Douxie’s not going. He needs to recover.”

“We weren’t planning on it,” Claire soothed, “No taking Douxie into dangerous situations right now. Promise.”

Archie leapt into Douxie’s lap. “I’m staying with him.”

“But what if we need—”

“Douxie needs me more. Go.”

Claire and Jim exchanged a glance, then left without a word. Archie snuggled down further in Douxie’s lap. Douxie absentmindedly stroked the cat. “Who’s your owner?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Then… who takes care of you?”

Archie gave him a look that was just so deeply sad it made Douxie want to cry, although he wasn’t sure why. “I… have a friend. My familiar.”

Douxie settled back, petting him. “What happened to him? Why isn’t he here?”

Archie started to shake a little bit. “He… didn’t come back from a fight.”

Douxie gave the cat a little squeeze. “I’m sorry.” They sat in silence, then, “Tell me about him?”

And Archie did.

He told Douxie about a wizard. About all of the adventures they’d shared. All of the hardships they’d endured—but all of the good times they’d had, too. He told him about a strict master who’d eventually given his own life for his apprentice. About how his familiar had taught Claire magic. How he’d saved the world, at the cost of his own life—then had come back from the dead.

He told him about how strong the wizard was. How brave. How kind. How clever, even if sometimes his “cleverness” backfired in his face.

Douxie’s heart ached for the cat and his familiar. It was obvious how much Archie had loved his wizard—and he’d lost him. Would have to live without him. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “He sounded…”

Archie buried himself in Douxie’s jacket. “Yes. I have to believe…”

“Believe what?”

“I have to believe that he’ll come back.” Archie twisted out, his eyes desperately searching Douxie’s. “That you’ll come back.”

An eerie sense of familiarity swept over him, the worst déjà vu.

Those stories.

They were… his stories?

He was the wizard?

What had the order done to him?!

Tears for his lost life sprang up in his eyes, and he hugged Archie, mind whirling in a thousand directions at once. It was like the Order was shredding his soul all over again—he’d had a whole life, 900 years of it, and it had been taken away. He didn’t know who he was—the only thing he had was stories of who he’d used to be, echoes of friendships he used to have. And now? What was he supposed to do?

“Douxie?” Archie asked quietly.

“I want to be him. I want to be him again, I want to be your familiar, I want to be Douxie again.” He scrubbed at his eyes. “There has to be some way to get back the memories they took, please—I… I don’t want to lose you.”

Archie purred. “Memories or not, you will always be my familiar. Nothing will change that. You won’t lose me.” He tilted his head at Douxie. “I know the world might be ending soon and all, but… how would you feel about going on a different adventure?”

“What?”

“I don’t know if we can get your memories back, Douxie. But we can certainly make new ones.”