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ironunderstands · 1 year ago

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Yapping about why I love Aventio and what I feel makes it a great ship

(If you hate it I urge you to read this, because you don’t have to agree with me, but I want you to get where Aventio shippers are coming from at least)

I’ve just really wanted to talk about why I love Aventio because the people do not get it like I do and GODDD ITS SO GOOD WHEN DONE CORRECTLY UGHHHHH

Also this is gonna be VERY stream of consciousness I do not have a plan besides dragging you through my brain so enjoy the ride.

I guess the best place to start is the fact that Aventurine and Ratio are my two favorite characters in the game. Like even if they have no interactions with each other ever and might as well be from different pieces of media I would ship them, because I like seeing characters I like interact and the fun police cannot catch me. That’s a really shallow personal reason though and I feel like the rest I have will be able to be appreciated by others.

GOD THE DYNAMIC IS SO GOOD RAAAAAA

Two emotional constipated dumbasses circling around each other like black holes trying desperately to deny and run from their feelings when they have both fallen hard. The lack of acknowledgement of feelings on both ends is TRAGIC and it makes me want to rip my eyes out in a good way, let’s start with Ratio.

Unfortunately my glorious king Ratio has been mischaracterized to hell and back but we will get to that (and the Incorrect Reasons Why People Hate Aventio) later. Instead I will go over his actual character; a deeply insecure, intelligent man who desperately wants the rest of the galaxy to come to the realizations he has long since stumbled upon, but has been so isolated from his peers from such a young age that he’s doomed to fail in literally every social interaction he has and be misunderstood by both the audience in universe and irl (the autistic coding isn’t helping him either).

Ratio is tragically misunderstood again, both in universe and by the audience, which is why it means so much that Aventurine Gets Him. Aventurine pushes his buttons, tears down that literal cold marble facade masking the deeply silly and caring man beneath (this man bathes with rubber duckies in the privacy of his own home 😭), and that scares the shit out of Ratio. People aren’t meant to see through him, Ratio acts rude not just because he believes it’s the best way to help people, and because he believes he himself is mundane and the conclusions they come to should be their own, not his.

No, it’s also because on some level Ratio is afraid to be vulnerable around people. As much as he pretends like it doesn’t affect him, Nous’s rejection has hurt and haunted Ratio for his entire life. And I do mean his entire life, even in high school he had already set up a strict routine for himself, something commented on by his teacher, Ratio has quite literally always been striving for some sort of perfection and the fact that he cannot achieve it kills him.

Moreover, the guy just grew up way too fast, he didn’t have time to develop social skills. We see it in that afformentioned relationship with his teacher, in which they recommend Ratio (who is again in high school) to be moved up to college level stuff and transferred due to his success. He has quite literally never been able to just relax in a environment of his peers, Ratio for some reason we don’t yet know has always been dedicated to constant improvement and that leaves no room for dealing with failure.

On some level, he knows this too, that he can never be perfect. Ratio is part of the Mundanites in the Intelligenica Guild for a reason, he doesn’t just see himself as mediocre because he believes everyone is and that’s ok, but also because he looks down on himself for being too mediocre for the Genius Society, being too mediocre for Nous’s acknowledgement, being too mediocre for anything.

Which is tragic because Ratio is very accomplished and he is very smart, and his character stories aren’t even told from his pov, but rather in the style of documentaries and letters (his professor) and other works on his well acclaimed life. We don’t ever get to see how Ratio really sees himself, just the tiny cracks in his marble facade that let the real man behind the character shine through.

Because that’s what he’s playing 90% of the time, a character. Whether it be at the Herta Space Station in which his real goal was to uproot the researchers blind worship of the Genius Society, or in Penacony in which he plays up the arrogant, narcissistic scholar both people in universe and irl make him out to be, both to serve a goal bigger than himself.

Sincere moments from Ratio are RARE but god are they beautiful, his conversation from Screwllum in 1.6 and his note to Aventurine in 2.1 will forever haunt me in the best way possible. If you want to understand Ratio as a character, yes read his character stories, but just watch that damn scene with Screwllum it is phenomenal. He cares so much and is so, so bad at expressing it, he drives me nuts, Veritas Ratio the man you are.

And the thing is, it seems like he’s always been playing a character and doesn’t know where the real him ends anymore so he just sticks to the way people perceive him a lot of the time. Like as a kid he was constantly striving to be the best so he missed a lot of necessary developmental shit, and as an adult he’s a celebrity so it’s hard for him to attach himself to others anyways because society and his students will hound him for it.

And then you throw Aventurine into the mix, and oh boy does shit get interesting.

Veritas Ratio, perfect “unfeeling” Veritas Ratio and the one person who gets him well enough to push all his buttons and expose the vulnerable underbelly he thought he hid so well. On a fundamental level, Ratio understands this, which is why he doesn’t bother with the alabaster head, as pretending the real him is just as unfeeling and uncaring is easier.

So he brushes off Aventurine’s jests as if they are an insult to his very existence, he can’t look in Aventurine’s eyes when he “betrays” him because his poker face would break, he leaves as soon as he’s done talking because lingering would allow the weight of their conversations to sink in. Part of it is because for pretty much all of Penacony, up until the note Ratio gives him, Ratio is acting, trying to play up the role of the arrogant, unfeeling scholar to make Sunday buy the betrayal plan, because to Sunday this behavior is signs of a bad relationship between the two (honestly the fact that the audience also interpreted it this way makes me mad like did yall seriously not pay attention, but also happy because if even the players were fooled that means Sunday buying it is believable).

However, even if it feeds into his insecurities, Aventurine knows that false facade and loves tearing it down. It’s very telling that the second time we see Ratio really freak out (the first being at Herta Space Station) is at the suggestion that he came to narrate Aventurine’s demo not because of knowledge or respect for the show or whatever, but because he genuinely likes the guy. What makes it even better is that Aventurine is the one who suggested it, and already figured out the excuses Ratio was going to use to deny it. Ratio can fool everyone else in the galaxy, but he cannot fool Aventurine, and on a fundamental level that is what makes their dynamic work, because Ratio knows Aventurine in the exact same way.

Aventurine can shove away people who care about him, out of distrust and fear that they will leave him like his family did. He can believe he’s unloveable and a person so detestable that even the actions he performs in order to stay alive condemn him to hate himself as much as the rest of the galaxy hates him. But, Ratio doesn’t see him that way.

Aventurine doubts his intelligence, if he has really earned anything he’s done and in his voiceline about Ratio, doubting if Ratio even sees him as smart or worthy. However, Ratios voiceline about Aventurine is about how he believes Aventurine is smart and worthy, and that his doubt will be his downfall if he doesn’t come to the realization that he isn’t worthless.

Ratio knows Aventurine’s one weakness, the one thing that could stop him; himself. That’s why he gives him the note urging him to stay alive and keep on living because ultimately Aventurine will only ever fail if he gives up. And The Note Is Enough, Aventurine walks into the event horizon of a black hole, confident he can return alive on the other side because someone cares about him, BECAUSE RATIO CARES ABOUT HIM, and wants him to live on even if Aventurine doesn’t feel that way towards himself.

In the metaphorical and literal manifestation of the meaningless of the universe, in the face of overwhelming nihility, Aventurine survives because someone loves him, and with that love he’s strong enough to brave even that.

Even if they can’t admit it out loud, these two deeply, deeply care for one another and trust each other perhaps more than anyone else in the narrative. The betrayal plan would have never worked if there was not mutual trust, Ratio wouldn’t have gone to Penacony in the first place if he didn’t trust Aventurine, and Aventurine wouldn’t have asked him to come if he did not trust him. We don’t just see this trust between Aventurine and Ratio either, and Jade and Topaz both trust him with their cornerstones, but ultimately it’s Ratio who’s physically with him the whole time, risking his life alongside him for the sake of their plan.

As much as people like to ignore it, lying to the Family members, to Sunday, is extremely dangerous and puts Ratio’s life in danger as much as it does Aventurine’s. Ratio is not an irrational person, he wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t have faith Aventurine would succeed, he would not have done if he didn’t think he would return. They have absolutely faith in one another and it’s beautiful.

Aventurine’s first constellation is named “Prisoner’s Dilemma” for a reason. A social experiment in which two prisoners are captured and separated, if they sell the other one out and remain silent, they go free but the other remains in jail for 20 years. If they both sell each other out, they get a sentence of 5 years.

But if they both remain silent, trust the other, they even if they physically can’t communicate and don’t know what the other says, they get the best possible outcome, only one year in jail each. It requires a sacrifice on both ends, they both still have to go to jail, but only for a year, and only if they trust each other completely, as if the other sells them out they will be in jail for 20.

The prisoners dilemma relies completely on trust, and it’s the exact situation Aventurine and Ratio face in the Penacony quests. Aventurines doubts if Ratio’s betrayal was real or not, even if he set it up himself, and Ratio worries about Aventurines survival, if continuing this plan will end well. “You can’t expect a featherless bird to take flight” isn’t just Ratio chastising Sunday, he’s genuinely worried that this plan will put Aventurine at too much of a disadvantage to continue on.

But they both trust each other, and if just like in the Dilemma neither come out completely unscathed (although it’s much worse on Aventurine’s end), they ultimately achieve their goal.

God is it sweet and corny in the best way possible

I want to kill this fandoms perception of stoic, emotionless Ratio because once people realize he’s actually the corniest mf ever is the day I sleep easy. He makes statues of himself doing Jojo poses, he plays chess versus himself, he named himself Veritas (truth), he loves rubber duckies, he literally sits in a bathtub couch, and Aventurine breaths and he gets flustered.

Ratio so deeply silly, chronically corny, it’s a crime he needs to be locked up someone stop him.

And Aven brings that out of him. His teasing reveals the goofball trying so desperately to disguise himself as a serious scholar. Ratio is very smart of course, but that only makes his silliness better, as you watch this absolute genius of a man behave like a tsundere schoolgirl.

It’s not like Aventurine is some paragon of seriousness either, he’s the one teasing Ratio, fucking around even in a serious mission. Yeah it’s partly because he wants Sunday to think he’s incompetent, but it’s also because Aventurine genuinely is having fun, enjoying himself before the serious part of the plan kicks in, and the meantime he does that by messing with Ratio.

Their dynamic of Aventurine messing with Ratio, and Ratio trying desperately to pretend like it doesn’t affect him is as hilarious and heartwarming as it is tragic, and that dichotomy is why I love them so much. It’s fun and it hurts so so much because their interactions being this flavor of silly leaves almost no room for the sincerity they both desperately need from one another.

AND GOD I NEED IT TO HAPPEN. RATIO MENTAL BREAKDOWN SCENE PLEAASEEE LET HIS WALLS CRUMBLE PLEEEEAASEE PLEASE PELADE PLEASEEEE EPLES DOLS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

They’ve gotten closer and closer and closer and soon something’s gonna snap because they are so close yet so distant and if something doesn’t change the tension is just gonna boil over AND I NEED IT TO HAPPEN. I need more Ratio scenes I need more interactions with him I need him with his guard down I need him to profess out loud that he cares about Aventurine I need him to break please he needs it, it would be so good for him. It doesn’t even have to be from Aventurine, just Ratio snapping and revealing the fucking mess he is under his facade and not being rejected by the people he cares about for it is enough.

I honestly doubt it will happen in the story though, as much as I want it to. Although Aventurine’s character demo somewhat changed my mind against this, I feel like hoyo is like “ok they get the vibe between these two we can move on” and the shippers are left to extrapolate how this relationship would go beyond what it is now. As much as I want a breakdown scene for Ratio in general, it probably wouldn’t happen in a while but devs if you are reading this PLEASEEEE.

The only time Ratio ever gets slightly out of his element is with Aventurine but I need it to go further because god it would be interesting.

Well I’ve deemed that enough yapping about why I love Aventio (for now 😈) so let’s talk about why people hate the ship and why most of the reasons behind it a fucking stupid. (Massive disclaimer of course you can dislike it it’s just a lot of the “oh it’s a horrible ship and anyone who likes it sucks” shit isn’t grounded in reality in the slightest and I’m tired of the slander)

“Ratio was racist to Aventurine”

Now this is a spicy one because if this post was made in 2.0 I would 100% agree with you (during that time I shipped a non canon version of them in which that did not happen because how dare u do my boy like that hoyo). However 2.1 changed a lot and I mean a lot, and basically reframed the 2.0 quests for everyone.

Essentially, Ratio and Aventurine were both acting in that argument scene, making the things Ratio said to Aventurine not how he really sees him, and actively something Aventurine wanted him to say, so you cannot blame him for what he said. I’m not even joking or exaggerating, retrospectively it quite literally does not make sense if you view it in any other way, and honestly even with just the knowledge of 2.0 the scene doesn’t make sense if played straight, so let’s get to why.

a) Ratio and Racism do not mix fundamentally. Ratio is a person who believes that everyone deserves and education regardless of background, that it is a scholars duty to help others achieve that, and no matter who you are, you are capable of intelligence, learning and becoming the best version of yourself, and that those qualities are just limited to geniuses.

THIS AND RACISM DO NOT MIX. “Oh yeah education and improvement is possible for everyone except this specific group of people for some fucking reason!!” Like not only would this scene being serious contradict Ratios entire character, the man who believes people should not be judged for their educational background judging Aventurine for his educational background (that’s actually what the Sigonian upbringing line meant, it was mistranslated in the EN version)??!?!! Make it make sense.

Moreover, half this perception also come from the fact that hoyo made the incredible writing decision of naming Aventurines planet after a slur for Romani people, so unfortunately literally anytime its name, Sigonia, is brought up you’re essentially saying a slur. It’s much worse in the CN version, in EN it’s not obvious at all, because our version of the slur (it starts with a g and ends with a y that’s all the hints you’re getting), doesn’t look like the version of the slur that the name for Sigonia was derived from, which is partly the source of this misconception as I’m pretty certain most people assumed Ratio (and by extension Sparkle) said a slur elsewhere in the conversation when in reality them referring to Avens ethnicity/background/planet IS the slur.

Anyways terrible writing decisions aside, Ratio supposedly being racist doesn’t just contradict his core motivation, it contradicts his job. He’s a scholar, for fucks sake, and racism is inherently illogical. Mmm yes I’m gonna base my identity around finding truth for myself and I will believe government and social propaganda about specific groups of people! Very logical, very scholarly, we all clapped.

So yeah, doesn’t make sense on a character level, to the point that in 2.0 I concluded that they must be using Ratio as a plot device in that scene to deliver some of Aven’s backstory to the audience due to how OOC it was for him 😭. However I wasn’t necessarily wrong, Ratio was delivering some of Aventurines backstory to AN audience (not just us), and he was behaving OOC in the 2.0 scene, but it was on purpose.

b) The betrayal plan

Aventurine forms a plan in which him and Ratio pretend to betray one another in order to sneak the Aventurine cornerstone into the dreamscape by replacing it with the Topaz stone (red herring + black hole scene dialogue implies she and Jade are there for other reasons) and the Jade stone (perfect dupe).

Now this betrayal hinges on Sunday, their main antagonist buying it, actually believing that Ratio would betray Aventurine on a mission as important as Penacony, and it requires Sunday also buying that he is winning the whole time, that the loss of the cornerstones was somehow a fumble on Aventurine’s end rather than something he planned all along.

So, they stage the 2.0 conversation. Ratio yells at Aventurine for losing the cornerstones, something which was part of their plan the whole time. He then insults Aventurine’s background allowing Aventurine to reveal key details of his past that Sunday would not have learned otherwise, which he uses in the trial against Aventurine. Seriously, Aventurine only found out he was the last Avgin when he became a Stoneheart, do y’all think Sunday summoned that info with his mind or something during the trial (like do you guys genuinely think Sunday read his wiki or something)

Moreover, Ratio not only insults him, but portrays Aventurine as useless, disposable to the IPC because he is apparently already sentenced to death. Why does he do this? Well, so Sunday feels confident enough to do the same to Aventurine. Seriously, sentencing an IPC member, especially a high ranking one to death is a risky move, even for someone as convicted as Sunday, he would need the confidence to do so and learning Aven might already die would give him that ability.

Because well, it doesn’t matter that much if he’s already going to get disposed of in the near future. I also think the IPC plans to use Aventurine’s “death” as leverage against the family because they were pleased to hear of his death sentence according to Dr. Ratio, meaning a) he likely did not have one from them at the time, although in the past he was sentenced to death and b) even if Aventurine succeeded in getting the cornerstone his seeming loss in the rest of the conversation wasn’t actually a loss at all, getting sentenced to death/“dying” at the very least was part of the plan all along as the IPC could still use it as leverage if things went south.

Continually, Ratio treating Aventurine in the exact same sh1tty way the rest of the galaxy does perfectly slots him into the arrogant, uncaring scholar role, which Sunday knows are some of the most easily manipulated people in the galaxy, considering he tries to bribe Ratio with knowledge about Stellarons it seems he bought this idea hook line and sinker. Sunday isn’t even subtle about it either “I heard you and your companion haven’t been getting along lately” where did he hear that from? Ratio didn’t tell him, and even though we know Sunday was 100% watching the two of them on their little adventure pre-meeting him (the bird and hound statues) that scene hasn’t happened yet so where did he get that from?

Some other interesting proof for it is that the Final Victor lightcone likely depicts Aventurine trying to convince Ratio of this plan of his, the events of which must occur pre-Penacony for several reasons, the least of which being that we just never see it happen on Penacony which if you think it did we would see it. Moreover lightcones are canonically condensed memories and the Final Victor lightcone released in 2.0, meaning it’s the memory of something that happened before then.

All signs point to the 2.0 scene, the one people use to paint Aventio as toxic being staged. And I have so much more evidence for this, (Ratio would never agree to go without a plan, Aven clearly formed his pre-Penaocny, so much of the plan like Ratio opening the cornerstone box, which he can’t do up until the betrayal as it’s in Sundays possession, rely on him arriving knowing how to do so, the time discrepancies, the complete 180 in personality Ratio would have to do to go from distrusting Aventurine to putting his whole faith in him, etc), but I will reupload one of my old slideshows to elaborate more on it. Basically the one thing that people use to say it’s toxic is not true and is in fact a greater show of the trust between those two.

“The shippers are all weird and racist”

Now this one actually has some truth to it because yes there are some incredibly fucking weird Aventio shippers and I do not blame yall for disliking them.

HOWEVER, most Aventio shippers are normal and hate that shit just as much as you guys do. Like do you realize most shippers also really like these characters and have something insane called morals so they don’t automatically excuse racist fujoshi goobers just because they are making content for their favorite ship. Trust me someone doing that pisses me (and most other Aventio shippers) off significantly more than people who hate the ship. Also free Ratio from this shit man poor guy is getting mischaracterized as a slaveowner by his fans and haters 😭

And like guys, have you ever been in a fandom before, like ever? Weirdos are always gonna be weird and it’s not Aventio’s fault they are this months victims. For a fun little example of how gross other fanbases can be, one of the most popular Overwatch ships on ao3 is Genji Shimada X Hanzo Shimada WHO ARE BLOOD RELATED BROTHERS. THERES LIKE 300+ FICS OF IT, SHIMADACEST IS LITERALLY A TAG ON THERE. I WAS IN THE TRENCHES SEARCHING FOR GENJI HANZO ANGST FICS (Hanzo killed Genji it’s complicated doomed siblings will always get me) AND HAVING TO COMB THROUGH THOSE ABOMINATIONS IN THE PROCESS.

Like please I’m relatively new to fandom culture but yall cannot be acting like this is weird for fans to do, it’s weirdo behavior but it is not unique to the HSR fandom or even Aventio. And even if understandably this makes you not like the ship, don’t paint the people who enjoy it as being the people who do this kinda sh1t. It’s not our fault peak gets tainted by miserable creatures ok, let normal ppl have their harmless fun and stop lumping people together into a monolith.

?????

Well that’s it that’s all the “valid” reasons people have for hating Aventio, at least the ones I can remember. Everything else is just personal opinion and not at all an objective reason.

“They’re so sibling coded!”

Anyways again obviously you can still dislike it not everything is for everyone, I really just wanted to make this post to demonstrate why I and many others like it, and why the reasons people use to say it’s problematic are incorrect. Feel free to call it mid, block it whatever I don’t care, just don’t harass shippers for having some harmless fun, because the characters aren’t real but the people who like them are and in doing so you are really just being a jerk for no reason. If you somehow hate Aventio and read this the whole way through I congratulate you on your ability to actually listen to other people, and regardless of whether you changed your mind or not I respect you for doing so anyways. Thanks for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts.

#Hsr #honkai star rail #dr ratio #aventurine #aventio #raturine #ratiorine #golden ratio #tags for reach bc I need ppl to read this sorry #Also apologies to the Genji/Hanzo shippers for catching strays yall tend to mind your business and tag ur shit #So I can’t blame you that much for it even if I find it gross bc if I don’t wanna see it it’s very easy to not see it #I just wanted to give an example of how the hsr fandom is not unique in its weirdness #Ppl are horrible at tagging shit in this fandom #The next time I read an Aventio fic w surprise dubcon I’m gonna die #Anyways I hope you enjoyed reading bc this was sm fun to write #Aventio is peak we all cheered #aventurine hsr #dr ratio hsr

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bonesxbows · 5 months ago

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Once Upon A Dream - Chapter 3 (Lucifer X Reader) (Alastor X Reader)

My Masterlist

In a sleeping beauty-inspired AU, a curse is placed over you when you strike up a deal with Heaven to protect baby Charlie, causing you to lose your memory. You remember nothing once the curse takes over; not your marriage with Lucifer, not the family you had with the two of them, nothing. So when a strange smiling demon offers you a place to stay when you can't remember where 'home' is, you take him up on his offer.

(WARNINGS)

Gendered terms used (mom, good girl, wife) but otherwise gender neutral pronouns used

Heavy depressing themes

Loss of a parent (temporary)

(CHAPTER WARNINGS)

Minor assault

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 (You are here), Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16

Banners by @strangergraphics

The palace was empty, eerily quiet. Deserted. He was a ghost walking his own halls, looking as dead on the outside as he felt on the inside. Hollow, scooped out like an orange peel and left out in the sun to rot.

He was by your side, again. He always seemed to end up back here, his feet mindlessly bringing him into your room. He didn’t know where else to go. It had changed so much over the years; the curtains became drawn at some point, blocking out all possible light in the room, your fingertips had turned a worrying shade of blue, your body was so cold to the touch all the time now, and all memories of your time spent with Lucifer had been erased from the room, pictures being flipped over and trinkets the two of you had collected together shoved into a box deep within the closet. The room looked empty and uninviting now, it had lost that personal touch you had brought with you when you had moved in with him, but it was all too painful to look at. He had to be rid of it all.

His arms were folded on your lap, his head tucked into them as he stared up at your sleeping face, his red-filled eyes brimming with tears as his yellow pupils trailed over your delicate features. His tail flicked angrily behind him. “She’s gone, ducky.” His voice was hoarse from disuse. In truth, it had been months since Charlie had left, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at you and tell you he had failed. The fact that you were unconscious and in no position to look down upon him made little difference in his mind, he would fill in the blanks for you. You had thought the world of him, uplifting him about what a wonderful father he would be when his doubts would get the better of him, and yet now here he was. Surely you would have been disappointed in him had you still been awake. Would you have left him too? Like Charlie had? Was he doomed to drive everyone away?

He sat up, grabbing a hold of your hands in his, dragging his clawed thumbs over the backs of your knuckles softly. “I…I’m so sorry.” He gave them a slight squeeze, praying for a reaction from you, but of course, none came. “You should have never gotten tangled up in this mess…” tears were freely flowing down his face now as he spoke, his mind a whirlwind of emotions and negative thoughts, all aimed at himself like spears and swords.

The dam finally cracked, a shiver running down his spine as an awful thought stung his brain, the epiphany of his rumination hitting him like a lightning bolt sent down from the sky. “You…you would have been so much better off if we had never met.” He sobbed, refusing to look away from your face as he told you what he considered to be the truth. Maybe Heaven had been right, with what they had told him all those years ago, repeatedly spitting it into his face until they knew it was stuck in his brain.

Maybe he truly had been a mistake.

The thought made his body want to shut down. Made everything want to shut down inside of him. He leaned closer to you, shakingly placing a gentle kiss on your lips before he pulled back abruptly, dropping your hands into your lap and forcefully removing himself from your personal space as if mere contact with you had set him ablaze. That was all the affection he deserved after all he had done, all the pain he had caused. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself if he didn’t put distance between himself and you. He sighed, shaky fingers aggressively running through his blonde hair, pulling at the strands.

Maybe he deserved to be alone, selfish child that he was.

He had stopped seeing you after that night, vowing for that to be the last time. He didn’t deserve you, whether you were sleeping or awake. He deserved to be alone, just like Heaven had wanted him to be.

But something had changed within the walls of your room once he shut that door for the final time.

A mistake. A failure. A disappointment.

These words rattled around your skull, whispers tugging at your subconscious until they roared into screams.

Disappointment. FAILURE. Selfish, SELFISH child. Mistake. Mistake. MISTAKE.

Your head began to pound from the words, your lungs kicking into overdrive as you gulped in air, your eyes flashing open. You coughed, the inside of your mouth feeling as if you had swallowed a mouthful of cotton, and you were grateful it was so dark in this room you were in. Your head still ached, pounding behind your eyes, those awful, awful words echoing around your skull. You tried to sit up, but you were met with excruciating pain zinging up through your bones. Your whole body was sore, muscles cramped and limbs weak. Just what the Hell had happened to you? And where were you? This room was unfamiliar; a bed covered in dull-colored, but soft, blankets, empty and blank dressers and shelves, surfaces covered in a thick layer of dust. This place wasn’t home. It looked too dreary, too sad, too much in despair to be your home. Where was the color, the personality, the energy you loved to bring to your spaces? No, this certainly wasn’t your place, it didn’t have your mark on it. And whoever it belonged to you weren’t sure you wanted to meet.

You threw the blankets off of your body, swinging your legs over the bed and standing up, albeit shakingly. But you were determined, and you stayed upright. You surveyed your choices, a door across the room and a window closer by. A few small, and slow, steps later and you were by the window, throwing back the heavy curtains. Well, you were still in Hell, so that was at least a good starting point, the hellish red familiar sky greeting you up above through the panes of glass. But everything else was strange to you. Lush gardens laid out in intricate paths, rows of apple trees dotting the landscape, with a faint golden spiked-tipped metal fence surrounding it all. Certainly this was not your home…but where was your home? You couldn’t seem to recall, racking your brain for details led to nothing but static between your ears. Wherever it was, it wasn't here, and you felt an urge to leave.

Your body moved before your mind could rationalize, your fingers prying at the bottom of the window, trying to get it to open. It creaked and groaned, clearly having been disused for a while, but you managed to open it a foot before the rusty gears gave way, halting all progress. It would have to be enough. So you led with your feet on the sill, attempting to slide but practically throwing yourself out of the window as your limbs were still stiff. You tumbled, somehow landing face-first into the dirt and getting a mouth full of grass on contact. A groan hissed through your lips but you picked yourself up quickly, not wanting to risk being seen by whoever lived here. Scurrying across the yard as fast as your unacclimated legs could carry you, you arrived at your next obstacle; the fencing.

No gate, not enough space between the bars to squeeze through, and the spikes adorned on top would prevent you from climbing. You mulled the inside of your cheek between your teeth. This may have been a bigger problem than you anticipated. But the thought of going back into that strange and unfamiliar room was enough to spur you forward. You thought, and thought hard, willing a way out to appear, somewhere. Pleading with anybody listening. “I want out. I don’t want to go back.”

You honestly had doubted anything would come of it, so you nearly jumped out of your skin when a circle of golden and blue light appeared in the middle of the metal bars, creating a straight shot through to the other side. A tunnel that led into the streets of Hell, all you had to do was step through it.

You didn’t hesitate.

You soon discovered that whatever had happened to you had left your memory fragmented. You knew this town, these streets, these houses and buildings. But yet your feet didn’t know where to go. The location of home was fuzzy, no matter how hard you tried to focus. Surely you had one, Hell itself still felt like home, you were meant to be here, but beyond that the details were jumbled. Did you have a family down here? Were they looking for you? Just whose house had you been in? And what exactly had happened to you? The amount of questions and lack of answers was making you nauseous.

You walked aimlessly, hoping something would trigger a memory inside of you if you continuously walked these familiar streets. But with your mind a mess you were preoccupied, an easy target for the more criminal citizens of Hell. It wasn’t long before someone tried to rob you, threatening you to give them what you had in your pockets ‘or else’ and becoming increasingly aggressive when you accidentally ignored them, too caught up in your own thoughts to hear them. You were pulled out of your contemplations when a hand violently yanked your hair from behind, almost pulling you down to the ground from the force alone.

“Are you stupid or something, you bitch?! Can’t you hear when someone’s talking to you?!” the man behind you screamed in your ear, his fist still entangled in your hair. Tears began to prick in your eyes as pain burned at your scalp, his pull relentless.

An anger flared in you that you didn't know you were capable of.

“Fuck off! Leave me alone you piece of shit!” you yelled, twisting in his grip and kicking behind you, aiming for his feet and hoping to stomp on his toes. His hold loosened and you wiggled free, whirling around with your fists balled and raised, two seconds away from decking this bastard straight in the nose. But your arms fell limp to your sides, your mouth falling open in shock when you saw the scene before you; someone had beaten you to it. He was lying on the ground, body thoroughly bloodied and broken, limbs twisted in odd angles as a large pool of blood began to form, bones glistening with sinew in the light. A puff of black smoke dissipated into the concrete around the splintered man as a faint clicking noise came up from behind you, making your ears twitch toward the sound.

“I believe they asked you to leave them alone.” the clicking noise stopped as someone came to stand right behind you, their voice pitched with a thick layer of static. You turned around on your heels and came face to face with a leering smile, red eyes staring down at you with imposing curiosity. His arms were outstretched to his cane in front of him, his hands resting on the microphone box on top and his weight leaning on the accessory, diminishing his true height by a good deal. He wasn’t quite at eye level with you, but he wasn’t quite towering over you either.

“I…um…thank you. But I could’ve handled him myself.” You stood tall, not exactly sure what to be expecting from this obviously threatening, but oddly charming, demon in front of you.

His smile grew impossibly large on his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Well of course you could, dear! But who can’t use a little help now and then, hm?”

“…right. Well uh…I appreciate the help mister…?”

“Alastor, dear. Pleasure to meet you.” He shifted his weight, standing up straight and swinging his cane to one hand as he held out the other towards you. You took it, hesitantly, but he was having none of your timidness, firmly grasping your hand and giving it a sturdy shake. “And you are?”

The question was simple, but it struck a chord in your mind, making electricity shoot through you right down to your toes. Your name?…What was your name? Why didn’t you know your own name?!

“I, ha,…I don’t know?” you couldn’t help but laugh dryly. It was funny, in a pitiful way. How could someone not know their own identity?

He hummed, eyes squinting as his gaze seemed to consider you. Whether he was scrutinizing you or feeling sorry for your predicament you couldn’t tell. His plastered-on smile hid everything. But his observing only lasted for a few moments before he suddenly sprung up, his eyes lighting up as his ears perked upwards. He let go of your hand, wagging his finger in the air pointedly. “Well that just won’t do! Say, I know of the perfect place for someone like you, run by the most charming gal this side of the Pentagram who just loves helping those down on their luck. Sound interested?” His hands found their way to rest atop his microphone again as he proclaimed his offer, his grin growing twice in size.

You didn’t trust him, something about him just seemed…off. But what other choice did you have? If you followed him you would at least have a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, a place to stay and rest while you figured everything else out and pieced your fractured mind back together. You nodded curtly, “Alright, Alastor. Lead the way.”

“Splendid, dear! Simply splendid!” He hooked an arm through yours excitedly, his height making it a little awkward but you had no time to oppose as he began swiftly guiding you down the street. “Oh you’ll love it there, I guarantee it! She hosts one of the best hotels around!”

To be continued in Chapter 4...

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