[center][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/QWuwBAI.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/aU10lsu.png[/IMG][/center] ---- [center]Ｔｒｅｅ ｏｆ Ｌｉｆｅ[/center] ---- The dejected wealth of emotions permeating the air seemed to take on physical notions, in various colours and hues of willow wisp blue, and each and every singular tendril followed Magdalena; was grasped by ebony, spiritual wreaths of spirits, as if ingesting the despondency of her companions through the standards of a glutton until the eternal obscurity of her silhouette was swollen to the figurative edges of its mass. She felt it, and thus so despised it, her own empathy vulnerable now that her former, fickle belief on whatever swayed the world was shattered and now descending onto a path of hopeless prophecy. She would never admit to herself, or to anyone for that matter, that she couldn’t help but believe that whatever Samuel had been sputtering about in manic prose had seemed right. It made sense, to her, for she did not believe in the reverence of Kami, but could only hold light to the religion that whatever higher power dictated their existence was utterly malicious and cruel in design and sadistic by means of influence. And so what Sam had championed so strongly just fell naturally into that process, that this was something beyond their control and that, in some manner, had happened countless times before them. Tortures, deaths, a war that could not be explained but only fought on the universal belief that it just “had to be done”, the heralding of children to foster power in their hearts and ascend into battle with the crests of their master on their breasts. And if he was determined to stop that, that miserable, eternal chain of sequencing pain and agony - who were they to stand in his way? Now, not for the first time since they left Oak Ridge, Magdalena examined the pin to her tattered uniform, the wolf emblazoned was a heavy reminder that this was WARG and they did things no one else could, it set them upon a higher place, a bigger responsibility, and a much longer fall. The pale figure sighed, a pluming breath of white that hazed before her eyes before she picked up her chakram and slung it across her back, still disturbed by her former conversation with Emily, still helplessly tumbling from her failure and the lack of acknowledgment in that the blonde had unwittingly struck her to the core. Perhaps her words could be casually dismissed on catty bitchiness festered by the terrifying unknown of those pulsating growths, but Magdalena couldn’t be so easily forgiving in that she had only wanted to try and help and failed miserably in doing so. Her blue eyes, bearing a certain gleam in the gloom, flickered over the wreckage of this forlorn ruin, trying in vain intervals to find her smaller weapon. Somewhere in the transportation and infliction of vertigo, the circlet had been lost, but with that, also the reality that her red band was left behind, back at that hellacious office where worst fears were realized and now some of their beloveds too were displaced. Magdalena would mourn for them, probably for a long time until they were found - if that was even possible. She did not want to consider that secondary option and instead, fell to her knees and sunk her hands into the metal refuse and the mud, slicing open her fingers upon pointed scraps but the Anatolian girl could not care or bring herself to stop. She threw various pieces aside, barely seeing them, her body marginally flinching from the commotion she made when the debris clashed. Aaron could feel his newly acquired spirits burn deeply within him, his conversation with Olivia had set into motion something that he feared that he would not be able to control. Instinctively Aaron's hand reached for the handle of his new weapon, down the length of the handle he fingered the letters that spelled out "Kagusuchi". Ever since he had found this new sword while traversing down to the depths until they met...Sam, he had been pondering the name. The sound of clattering had caught Aaron's attention so he made his way over to where he thought the sound was coming from. To his surprise Aaron found Magdalena digging with furious intent in the rubble of whatever city they were in. Images of their interaction on the boat brought an almost sense of calm to his troubled mind as he made the decision to make his way over. [b]"Maggie, what are you looking for?"[/b] There was a jerking twitch in her right shoulder, the only indication of acknowledging Aaron's appearance and the timbre of his voice breaking through her feverish search that wasn't bearing any actual evidence. But her fingers did hesitate, blackened with mud and trembling with gaping slivers that looked to her as tiny, ruby smiles that mocked her. Her brow fell and her blue eyes darkened before she suddenly reached through the rubbish and plucked out a sliver of metal, random in figuration before she launched it over the twitch of her shoulder in a careless configuration of aim, only assuming by where his voice had come from. "Go away." She muttered, resuming her hopeless endeavor. Maggie's cold and harsh response threw him off guard as he dodged the random hunk of metal that she threw carelessly aside. The sense of yet another friend being disappointed in something that he has done sent his angry spirits into a frenzy, although Aaron was trying everything that he could to keep them calm at the moment, [b]"What's the matter Maggie? Have I disappointed you too?"[/b] His own response gave her pause, once again with trembling digits poised above blood spattered scraps and disturbed, ancient remains of time. Magdalena's shadow, having drunk off of the air peppered and coiling with emotional disturbance, lazily reached out and spun around Aaron's feet as if attracted by his spirits boiling away within his soul, she could relate to that turmoil, her skin constantly wrapped into a vicious heat similar to his often righteous fury. Her palms lowered, balanced atop her knees before she tossed her cerulean gaze over her shoulder and merely gazed at him with apathetic indifference, her eyes ticking up his body where her shadow danced about in slow rotations. His inquiry drew her from the depths of her conflicted thought as her head inclined gradually in a curious notion then. "Disappoint me?" She repeated, her lips turning down at the edges. "Hardly. If anything, I'm just disappointed in myself." Magdalena admitted. Aaron watched as Maggie's thick shadow slinked its way over to him and began rotating around him with slow and lazy currents. Hearing the tone of sadness in her voice Aaron forced his spirits to calm before he made his way over Maggie and sat beside her. As he looked down at her hands and saw the crimson moons on her fingertips he grabbed one hand and looked at the wounds. With an uncanny fluid motion Aaron grabbed the minor first aid kit he kept for minor wounds, he couldn't help but smile, [b]"Sheesh Maggie, what were you digging through the trash for. Who knows what could happen if you weren't careful."[/b] Carefully wrapping each finger with care, Aaron looked up at Maggie's deep cerulean eyes, which kept darting away from him in hopes to avoid his gaze, [b]"So tell me Maggie, what's going on...really? This isn't like you to sit alone digging through rubble."[/b] Magdalena remained quiet, observing his motions while trying to keep from meeting his eyes or being caught in her scrutiny, his intentions seemed genuine, gentle, an attempt at something good and thoughtful and she sort of admired that whilst envying his ability to do so. Her skin flared up but he wouldn't be disturbed by the heat, she knew, that same conflagration was seeded within his own body, it made her think of Olivia when she had bid her to endure treatment much like this one. But there was that smile and the humourous scolding that was light, holding a slight tremor of careful teasing. Magdalena though dejectedly kept her stare to the fragments she had been riffling through, nothing there but a hole of refuse and dirt. "I was looking..." She drifted off, her eyes flickering back to the careful wrapping as he dressed her fingers with the minor kit he provided. Her lashes swept low on her cheeks as she felt his stare flick across her face, another attempt in which she avoided as usual. Eyes were the gateway to the soul and she was terrified of what he - they - would see in hers. "I just wanted to find my stuff." She muttered, unable to really admit what was bothering her, she didn't want to confess to her inner struggles, much like on the boat that seemed so far away, Magdalena wasn't able to open up at all no matter the concern he expressed. He could sense the hesitation in her demeanor as he continued to bandage her fingers, her words belittling what was actually mulling around her head. After bandaging the last finger on the last hand, Aaron placed a gentle hand under her chin and brought his gaze to hers. After dealing with everything from the road to his last conversation with Olivia, Aaron was not going to let anyone feel like he did. [b]"Look, remember what I said on the boat? If you need to talk, I'm always right here...and I know that somethings bothering you? So why don't we skip the cat and mouse part and get right to the heart of it, hmmm?"[/b] Tending to her hands was one thing, that she could marginally handle and endure without so much as a flinch or an attempt to draw back, psychical contact was gradually becoming regular for the pale girl despite her reservations and nightmares. But when his hand gently coaxed her eyes upward, her breath hitched and sputtered out in a gasp as her inhales became quick and sharp, her left eye snapped with the vermilion circle, glowing with the hellish magma and darkness that was threaded around her heart and soul whilst her opposite stare remained unchanged - half in and half out of her panic and discomfort of meeting the steelish azure of his veneer. Magdalena only spared him maybe a flickering flash of a second before her lashes fell and she felt a pulsating tremor across the left side of her visage. He mentioned the boat and her memory of it brought another wave of discomfort about the entire experience and the confusion of it all; she still couldn't describe entirely what it was and most of it paled in comparison to what occurred in Doral. She drew in a long breath, trying to soothe the emotional distress of the current circumstance before daring to answer to him - she owed him that, at least. "I remember," she started. "I do." Her eyes snapped open. "But - I just. With everything that has happened, I don't know what to believe anymore. I've never really followed the Kami, my family didn't believe really, but what Sam said. And all that we have endured, it just almost makes sense to me. And that creature he became." One of her hands seized up over her fatigues, clutching over her heart with the WARG emblem digging into her palm as she rushed her admission. "I saw something when it looked at me..." Aaron could see that something was bothering her, that whatever it was that she saw had truly shaken her to the core. In his best attempt to comfort her Aaron placed an gentle hand on her cheek, his hand warming unintentionally as it made full contact with her alabaster skin. He wasn't sure if what he was doing was helping her but he couldn't stand to see any more of his friends suffer. [b]"Hey...whatever it is I won't let it hurt you. I promise."[/b] There was a snap beneath her skin, a hissing vibration when his palm curled against her cheek, spindles of what she could only assume as fire made fissures across her face in a clarifying touch of heat. Slowly the sclera of her untouched eye began to darken with the wisps of ink and ebony shadows, boiling into a deep, festering black as the molten ring that was trademark in her stare coiled tight around her iris like serpents borne from hell fire as she gazed up in a reminiscent of shock. "Can you stop a monster?" Magdalena inquired, her voice pitching high in her afflicted soul as the swirling hell and fire in her eyes reflected the wailing creature within her - Chaos laughing as she remembered the vision of a darkened, dead world being swallowed whole by that thing, the thing that had been swarmed half in and half out of a golden, burning and sweltering darkness just like she was. The spirits with their flat faces, their masks of human grins and human teeth and their howling song that rose higher and higher until it reached a peak of ear-splitting screams that made her teeth clench. "Can you stop a god?" She nearly tore his hand away from her cheek. "You can't even stop yourself." She whispered, ending her bash of inquires by lowering her eyes and head, cradling one of her bandaged hands against her face and spearing nails into her skin, clawing at her temple to banish the orchestra of death inside her head of white plains and black suns. As she tore his hand away from her cheek, Aaron listened patiently as she went through her series of questions. Everything she said was something that he had been pondering since they met back up with Sam. As her spirits began to act up and flare up Aaron could feel his well up in challenge of hers although he fought to keep his temper in check. [b]"For you...I could burn the world to ashes if it would mean that you would be safe. I may not be able control myself now, but I will use my anger against anyone that makes the mistake of threatening you."[/b] Aaron moved to be face to face Magdalena meeting her gaze with an almost fierce determination, an unnatural fire that all could see. Putting his hand back onto her cheek he leaned close and lightly kissed her ruby lips softly. It wasn't something rushed but passion could be felt from it. He wasn't sure what it was he actually felt in that moment but he know how he felt about Maggie and that is what mattered to him. It was such a light kiss, a one soft yet bridled with a passionate spark that seared across her mouth as her eyes widened, bled molten tears and around them her shadows - thick, swollen, black, jagged and sluicing like ink and sludge and boiling in their wake - burst from the seams of her body when Aaron Nyles did the one thing that was the pure, dark, epicentre of Magdalena's nightmares. Her body jerked back and she fumbled in her desperation to banish the emotion that had blossomed from it, the fierce gaze, his promises and the perfect image planted inside her head of the world burning under Aaron's temper; she had seen it in the sewers, this man bathed in thick, writhing blood and laughing gleeful over it, and she did not doubt that he would herald a terrible blaze to keep her safe - to keep them safe. Her fingers carved thick tracks into the mud as she put distance between them, her eyes still boiling and widening in shock and near disbelief that addled her heart so strongly that it hurt to breathe. [i]She saw the dark door, that terrible door with the mocking shafts of light that beamed through that terrible room and darkness. His voice dripping a horrid venom of malice and pain and promise of terrible agony.[/i] Magdalena only shook her head, hard in denial, her fists bashing against her temples before she struggled up to her feet, only to fall again at the thick pools of shadows that tried to drag her down into their world. Their inky hands and writhing touch suctioned her ligaments into that figment of ebonette safety and blankets of despair from her intense emotions that were swirling around inside her heart. She gave Aaron once last look before she tore her body free from her shadows, the rest rising high in a cloud of black and pulsating red before she ran away as far as she could, stumbling over the wreckage and ruin. ----- [i]'That wasn't the reaction I was expecting....'[/i] The sheer terror that Maggie was experiencing was something that Aaron hadn't expected, there was a moment that he thought that she was feeling the same thing that he was but it soon became clear that there was something far more menacing that she hadn't told Aaron of. As she took of across the ancient ruins Aaron felt his feet instinctively take off after her, whatever she was experiencing...he had started the chain reaction. [b]"Maggie...wait!!"[/b] Once again he had let his emotions get away from him and began kicking himself with every thunderous blow of his feet. Hopefully he could fix the mess that he had set in motion. The panic and terror that Aaron had unknowingly unleashed was eclipsing her reasoning and banishing her basic reflexes, Magdalena fought against the deep sludge of shadows that had been grasping, tugging, trying to pull her into a netherworld of darkness as she ran, the boom of Aaron's voice and the sharp footfalls of his attempt in pursuing her making her quicken in haste. She dared not look back, afraid of the mass of spirits conglomerating behind her by the assuaging of her fears and nightmares surfacing in reality. Now her waking world was tampered, damaged by the softest, barest hints of skin on skin. Magdalena didn't know where she was going, only that she had to get away, away to a place where Chaos didn't mock her, where spirits didn't wail inside her soul and where the world just wasn't. Now she sort of wished for a blackened, dead world to be swallowed whole, because then this wouldn't be happening. She couldn't blame Aaron, could she? He didn't know, no one knew, or perhaps Kimberly did, of what happened so long ago in a terrible span of two years of due torture. But wasn't he in love with Olivia? Everyone had been aware of the infamous hothead's affections for the brunette, having been a long time admirer of her beauty and a champion of her heart. Maybe it was the realization of Samuel being very much alive that swindled his attention else where, but Magdalena couldn't, wouldn't be that secondary option in this game of desire, in which she was now an unwilling participant. Her demons were too much, too powering, unable to be drowned beneath the light of her friends and her own attempts to change, whatever it was that Aaron was seeking out in her, Magdalena was afraid that she wouldn't be able to give it to him. To anyone. And her heart broke at that. The pale girl stumbled once again, her palms scraping hard against the dirt as her knees dug harsh rivets into the earth when she fell. Her body trembled with exertion and she curled her arms around her torso to hold herself together as she struggled to capture her breath hitching within her chest and choking her throat in a harsh grasp. She counted out in her head, Anatolian numbers blooming across the fore front of her mind as her shadows began to blanket across her frame, smothering her in a film of black as a dull, vibrating ring began to sing out in her head. It wasn't her hounds or Chaos for that matter, they were eerily silent with the new drone that was cloaking over the entire scene. Magdalena looked up, her eyes slowly rising and ticking up across the mud as the ground became tinged in the faintest touches of an azure glow. The sapphire tones brightened, burned, slowly began to intensify as she realized exactly where she had run to. The Tree of Life. "No..." She whimpered, grit her teeth and watched in horror as the gleaming tree thrummed, pulsing with the plethora of spirits housed within those skeletal limbs, so perverse and twisted, reaching up towards a sky of ash. The often rumoured, lauded over tree utterly terrified her, she saw it as a pinnacle of death for the amount of apparitions swirling around it, some gesturing towards her. It was a tantalizing notion when she gazed upon the flora of white and blue, the molten fire in her eyes gradually bleeding back inside her as her eyes of similar grace began to glow with the tide of light bathing across her frame. A single web of white threaded from her chest to the roots of this pallid myth and the pale cord gradually began to darken with black and glow like a tendril of lava; swirling in hues of vermilion and scarlet with black edges of bleeding ebony. She gasped aloud as her skin grew cold, like a film and thin sheet of ice in her veins as the eternal spirit in her skin left, along with the often boiling lava that could be summoned from her mouth. A cord of white also snaked and corded from her lips next, along with the threading across her entire body until Magdalena was left pale; drained and a washed out shell of the former tortured soul of molten shadows she once was. She felt so cold, empty, alone and trembling before the Tree of Life and submitted to her knees as she gazed helplessly at the coiling threads connecting her to the roots of it. The swollen attachments slowly began to twine together, shaping and sweltering into what lived inside her. Chaos loomed before her, dwarfed from the actual mass that it was, given a mere shadow of its true and actual form for whatever reason the tree had delegated. It was a writhing mass of shadow and fire, boiling seams and molten blood that dripped in falls of burning colours and hues and snaking across the hardened shell of Chaos's hideous veneer of a splitting smile that held within the various bodies and helpless victims her shadows had touched and consumed. She recognized the man she had watched die, the soldier she had fought against upon the behest of a treaty and her body convulsed, her back arching in the pain as her veins were shot through with a viscous red that thrummed, pulsed, and beat with the coiling form of Chaos as it beckoned towards, reaching, offering and the tree behind gleamed ever brighter. As Aaron followed Magdalena back to the tree what he witnessed was beyond his comprehension. It was the physical manifestation of her spirits. The coiling shadows lined with molten frames only accentuated the monstrosities figure as it loomed ominously over Magdalena. Aaron could only stand in awe as he gazed at what must surely be something from the deepest corners of his nightmares, he could only imagine what Magdalena had to deal with every day with that thing living in her head. Suddenly his mind returned to Maggie who was crouched before the legendary tree staring up at this creature. Without a second thought Aaron jumped between Maggie and the creature with blade in hand. He wasn't really sure what he could do but he was ready to do it. [b]"Don't worry Maggie...I wont let it near you!"[/b] That slow resonating drone gradually quieted, panning out in a eerie silence as Chaos' gesture loomed back, as if dropping back down into the swathes of shadows enveloping his mere representation while his eyes of thick black and reds bore down onto the offering before him with a blade drawn and poised to be a protector. The creature bore a still frame before it began wailing, a sharp piercing screech that boiled into a laugh, the harsh cadence shattered across Aaron's conscious thought as Magdalena gazed on with an appalled expression with blue eyes dull and broken, not hearing the usual, horrific sound in her mind. [i]Such a brave thing.[/i] The cords of glimmering carmine and golden hell fires pulsed in time with the scarlet veins across Magdalena's skin. [i]You think you can protect her when it was [b]I[/b] who has done so for years now. You are nothing but a warrior lost in his vengeance and anger, consumed by your wrath.[/i] Chaos' form wavered just so, breaking just enough as the Tree of Life's ethereal glow bloomed across Magdalena and filmed her in a sheen of azure. [i]You do not belong here.[/i] The horrible screeching noise that pervaded his mind was almost overwhelming to the point that it drove him to his knees. The spirits within him roared to life as he stared down this creature with more anger than resolve at this point. As the screeching cleared into coherent words it felt as if his spirits began speaking for him. [b][i]"I haven't been consumed yet, but if it means that you can't riddle Maggie's mind with your evil anymore then I will gladly let it consume me."[/b][/i] A sharp exhale gave a quick burst of immolation from Aaron's nostrils as the knuckles that gripped his sword turned white. In the back of his mind he couldn't wait to see if the creature would make a move, the anticipation of battle was almost too much for him to bear. Magdalena's eyes snapped over to Aaron finally, acknowledging that he had indeed followed her all the way here, his declaration directed entirely to this shadow projection of Chaos whom was still connected to the Tree. The spirits of her molten skin and tongue pulsed abroad on tongues of gold as the thicker waves of her despair and shadow desperately tried to reach back for her, the thread that held them to the roots straining in the peculiar essence that it was. It took her a moment to realize entirely what Aaron had meant and she felt a peculiar quiver of fear in her breast, her fingers clutched up across her throat at the mere thought of her spirits and Chaos no longer being a apart of her, they were all that she had left and despite her endless tortures, she couldn't bare that thought of giving them up to the Tree or Aaron for that matter. Magdalena had only ever known darkness and she was bred within it, molded entirely by her own pain that had conceived this vessel of herself that attracted spirits of shadows and fire and despite what Emily had said, or what anyone thought, there was a reason for it; an unforeseen prophecy that was connected to them all entirely by the concept of repetition and fate. She clenched her fingers and let out a soft sob, no matter the temptation of finally being rid of her dark shadows and molten liquid, to finally relinquish the pain and isolation, the emptiness within her now was more antagonizing than her burning skin and howling apparitions. She had to accept it and Chaos all over again and she couldn't help the new sensation of wholeness at that prospect. It terrified her, but it was all she knew, [i]there was nothing else.[/i] Chaos felt this, knew this and let out a wailing squeal of laughter as snaking cords of hell fire shot around Aaron and connected to Magdalena still knelt down behind him. [i]You'll be consumed by a different type of evil, one that is within yourself. Don't be so quick to judge who the demon is until you face your own reflection.[/i] That terrible visage slowly began to dissipate, billowing out in cords of russet and ebony as Magdalena accepted her spirits anew and trembled with the over all emotion that corded her body tight in hell fire. She cried out in the affliction of pain, of the swirling attachments and seams of shadow that bled lava in torrents as they sunk beneath her skin and brought with them something new, something beyond their former existence and capabilities. Magdalena's eyes clenched, her left eye once more surrounded with vermilion and boiling black, unable to see the last spirit that slipped away from the Tree. It hissed, much like a serpentine of whatever species deemed by ancient times, it slithered across the muddied earth on wisps of white and coiled around Aaron, staring up at him with obsidian fangs and eyes before it retreated back to Magdalena. Scales of alabaster cinched tight around her trembling frame before vanishing entirely in an ashen cloud that she unknowingly breathed in, a festering poison that hazed in and out before vanishing entirely, leaving the pale girl prone upon the dirt and unable to cease her spasms as her spirits resettled themselves within her soul. ---- As the shadowed visage slowly retreated Aaron turned back to see Maggie uncontrollably convulsing, wrestling with the spirits that she housed. Before he could make his way over to the alabaster angel a snake composed of shadows reared its head at him bearing fangs and giving a loud hiss before it slithered its way into Magdalena's body. Aaron took long bounding steps to bring himself kneeling beside her as a small cloud of odd vapors escaped through the pair of ruby lips as Aaron tried to check on Maggie, [b]"Maggie, are you ok?[/b] Her body gradually stilled, no longer assaulted by harsh tremors as her spirits nestled themselves within once more, the sensation of pain was euphoric as she gradually opened her eyes, her left eye still snapped with vermilion and ebony, but no longer boiling and swirling as if in turmoil, it was still and cracked with the barest hues of blue as if the sclera and iris were stained over with her spirits like fissures in glass or marble. When her stare fell upon Aaron knelt down beside her, something within her warred up in defense, her skin burning alive in a vicious heat from his close proximity as she was vaguely reminded of his kiss. "Why did you do that?" she verbally hissed, her voice cresting into an odd pitch of emotion that wasn't her usual bell tone of ominous dread. The shock of her oddly pitched voice caught Aaron off guard, it wasn't something that he was expecting to hear. With his own anger rising up into his voice Aaron couldn't help but feel a little ungrateful that he at least attempted to come to her aid, [b]"I came to help you...are you saying that I should have let that thing get back inside you so it could hurt you?!"[/b] Magdalena's fingers balled into fists, nails bit into her palms and her scar burned in reminder of the one time Chaos had been summoned in full Limit Break - they said she had almost died. Is that what she had allowed back inside her soul, death? "I didn't ask for your help!" Her voice rose, her own anger and confusion merging into a hellacious emotion as her empathetic shadow, now back in loyal place, began to bloom wide around them. "I had to accept it back! Otherwise I'm nothing!" She recalled back to the Caudata in the sewers when their spirits had been sectioned off from them and she couldn't feel them anymore, that same hopelessness had consumed her so strongly then that she had never wanted to feel like helpless again. Confusion turned to anger as she snapped at him about being nothing without her spirits, and as he talked to her his voice distorted as his spirits forced themselves into his conversation, [b]"You are not worthless without that monster! You are twice the woman without it and yet you ALLOW that THING back in?!"[/b] Something in Magdalena snapped, it made a line across her heart and broke into a fissure as her eyes bore endlessly into Aaron's, her teeth baring almost as her own spirits rose up in a near challenge to his own leaking into his voice. "I wouldn't expect you to understand, Aaron, all of this." Magdalena gestured abroad. "Is much bigger than anything we've ever faced. And I won't allow myself to be left behind and helpless! And if I have to become the THING within myself to do it, then I will!" She couldn't stand to just sit there, something inside her told her to move and get away from him, he who had unwittingly chased her to the last place she had wanted to be. Magdalena didn't spare him a chance to answer, she wouldn't be left behind again like she had been so many years ago when her father and brothers left to go fight. She had always been alone and in the dark, always in pain from her past, and now she had accepted them all back into her. She didn't know what that meant, not just yet, but Aaron wouldn't be able to understand unless he knew exactly what happened but despite this, she couldn't bare to say. Her shame was just too much and her soul felt aching and raw from the over all experience. The doll that she was was slowly beginning to fracture and what lurked within would probably destroy her entirely. "And another thing, don't kiss me again." She bit out, her fingers trembling as they touched over her lips where his affections still spurred her. "I'm not fucking Olivia, I won't ever be her. I won't be some replacement just because she rejected you. Figure out your own feelings before you start jumping to the next girl who happens to be there." Magdalena's eyes bled tears of magma as she fumbled to her feet, her fingers falling from her lips as she once again began retreating from him, pausing only briefly. "Besides, wouldn't want to bother you with this THING inside me." Aaron felt his heart sink and his spirits recede back into the depths of his soul. He had started this whole interaction with one of the most important people in his life, disappointed at his lack of control, and now it had ended with his inability to control himself. Her last statement hit him the hardest. He hadn't meant what he said to make it seem like it was her that he was disgusted with but because he couldn't control himself he had directed his anger on her. Now, once again alone and miserable, Aaron watched as Maggie turned and left him standing in the rubble by the Tree of Life and as he turned and stared at its beautiful glow a tear rolled down his face. [i]'I suppose that it would be better if I was alone anyway...if no one gets close to me, the less chance I have of hurting anyone.'[/i] ----- Whatever underlying meaning had come with accepting her pain and anguish, had undoubtedly began to alter Magdalena from her indifferent infamy, the usual apathetic scrutiny and deduction was shattering just so as she cut a path across the ruins - seeking whatever refuge she could in distancing herself from Aaron. There was a hiss in the back of her mind, as if warning her and advising against the harsh words she had spat back at the hotheaded boy; they were cruel and stabbing, directed entirely to his heart that was begin tugged between their beloved Captain and herself. But Magdalena had never known that he harboured affections for her, back on the boat she had assumed it as a method of tending and care, but now she saw it as Aaron trying to find solace in his heartache. Magdalena had now shattered that. She clenched her eyes shut, a preference to be blind as her left hemisphere pulsed and pounded with a cranial infliction. Not watching where she was going now, her shoulder made harsh contact with the broad breadth of flesh, connecting for a second that lasted for what seemed like forever as she snapped her gaze skyward and met the blank and slightly apologetic peer of Kimberly’s ebony eyes. Meeting them rocketed a sense of regret that shook her to the core of her being as she slapped her palm over her lips, as if trying to banish entirely what she had said beforehand, if Kimberly had heard and saw it all, what would he think of her now? Cruelty was not her penchant, harsh degradation towards her friend was utterly repulsing, would he judge her, did he see Chaos earlier? Magdalena fought for words, something to explain the wealth of fear in her stare, her left optic shimmering in the stain of fire and shadow. But she knew that with Kimberly, speaking aloud wouldn’t avail to any conclusion so the shattering doll only stepped around him, her shadow clinging to him in familiarity before it reluctantly disbanded and followed after Magdalena in a dismal slink that reflected her newly acquired inner turmoils.