[color=gray][CENTER][img]https://i.imgur.com/r8gXLww.jpeg[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=978184][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]Ünterland.[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=#978184][b]Human #5.099:[/b][/COLOR] [I]to create something new.[/I][/right][/sup][/indent][center][sup][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#928b85]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#9b948d]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#928b85]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][/sup][/center][INDENT][sub][color=#978184][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR]&[/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=#978184][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [color=gray][I]vertigo.[/I][/color][/right][/SUP]
[indent][INDENT][color=#808080]As if entirely on cue, thunder rolled and clashed with streaks of crimson lightning that lanced from cloud to cloud, igniting a fresh wave of tumbling trepidation through Amma’s core. Self-directed anger churned bitterly there, sluicing as tar through her entirety and clinging to the rungs of her ribs flexing under her sharp inhales that fell against pressed lips. A scarred palm nestled and flitted over her belly, a helpless seed of doubt, fear, and powerlessness taking root through her shredded soul, and the abilities without that, had she possessed them, would be fissuring across her skin in unease. Whilst she was undoubtedly whole, her hand still woven intimately with Gil’s (his only one, of which she tried not to think about), it was the prospect of simply waiting for an inevitable return of the dragon that inspired sour notes to muddle through her head. There was no denying that it had known her. Loathed blue eyes reminiscent of her own, a reflection of what wailed within, and without.[/color]

[color=#808080]Kylmie and Gil had denied her entirely, another testament to a newly acquired emotion she wasn’t prepared to confront. While she did not have to face her monsters or demons alone, Amma knew that some of her fears and woes could only be undone by her own hand. It was a burden she had taken on years ago, hated eyes and hated needles impaled beyond barriers of flesh and into the fragile remains of her heart, as both child and woman that would stand against the world as its fated destroyer.[/color]

[color=#808080]But that had been then, when she had sworn vengeance and wrote the script of her hate in phosphorescent remains wedded to her blood, and this was now, where Amma pushed more pieces of hair behind her ears and observed the interactions between her grandmother and her -[/color]

[color=#808080][i]Whatever Gil was to her.[/i][/color]

[color=#808080]Now alone, Amma glanced down to where their hands remained joined. She marveled at the anchoring effect it had on her before another rumble of thunder withdrew her from her wavering thoughts.[/color]

	[color=#978184]“I’m tired of resting,”[/color][color=#808080] she admitted, her voice gone soft, her accent spun loosely through her annunciation. The storm was rolling back, evident by the encroaching roar of thunder and the immediate humidity that signaled impending rain. [/color][color=#978184]“I’ve been [/color][color=#978184][i]asleep[/i][/color][color=#978184] for a few days or so since I crawled out from Limbo. I don’t like not being able to do something, I’ve never felt so…”[/color][color=#808080] Amma turned her palm up, mapping out silver scars and flexing her trembling fingers where no wealth of scarlet threads came to her gesture. [/color][color=#978184]“[/color][color=#978184][i]Helpless[/i][/color][color=#978184].”[/color]

[color=#808080]Gil spun in place, halting their slow amble back to the hut and instead taking a moment to survey the village and the buzz of activity in place to repair it. Kylmie had returned to the other women of the coven, overseeing strange words whispered and intricate gestures made, intentions and intonations imparted into the earth. Furrowed brows and weary eyes belied the effort that went into what otherwise appeared to be quick work. For a moment, he allowed his rationality to spiral out from his circumstances, brought amidst witches in the realm of the dead by a woman unwillingly an insect, besieged by not-animals and a dragon. He looked at Amma, the center of that very whirlwind. It was worth it.[/color]
	[color=#fce205]“I can’t say it hasn’t been a hard journey, but I agree. Amongst all...this, sleep feels impossible. We can help, if there’s work to be done.”[/color][color=#808080] He looked back to Kylmie. [/color][color=#fce205]“So...your grandmother, huh? It kind of makes sense.”[/color]

	[color=#978184]“Does it?”[/color][color=#808080] Amma nearly drawled, dismissive almost to understate the revelation that she had [/color][color=#808080][i]family[/i][/color][color=#808080], standing amidst an unknown place, sown into a realm of chaos that she could hardly understand. [/color][color=#978184]“My mother came from here, this Ünterland, she crossed over [/color][i][color=#978184]somehow[/color][/i][color=#978184].”[/color][color=#808080] None of it made sense. Amma herself was clearly Hyperhuman, but she could not help but contemplate the nature of her powers, if these sudden origins contributed to her domination. [/color][color=#978184]“She never came back, she…”[/color]

[color=#808080]It was a subject they had never approached before, their pasts, simple nuances of another traded into the night when they’d first kissed in exchange for simplicity and the burden of implicated titles and nature. Of course, Gil had an idea of what she had endured across the sea, The Trials had broadcast it all as cryptically as her memories allowed. Did any of that matter, though, when he had risked everything to come and find her now?[/color]

	[color=#978184]“...I’m assuming when she met my father, it convinced her to stay. She spoke of him sometimes, from what little I remember. She gave me to The Foundation when I was ten, it’s all dark before and after that.”[/color][color=#808080] Amma pushed the words out, struggling to yield pieces of herself that none had ever known before. A flicker of doubt crossed over her features, speaking of her mother always leaving her out of sorts, her memory lingering through her listing thoughts, twinged with frustration over the secrets abound. [/color]

	[color=#978184]“I had someone... Help [/color][color=#978184]me find letters that were written to her—one from my father, one from Jonas. Right before the dance, they were given to me. Someone messed with them, scratched it all out, and didn’t want me to know. I’ve always wondered why,”[/color][color=#808080] She made a simple gesture with her opposite hand, attempting to summon a rational explanation in the face of the irrational and unknown. [/color][color=#978184]“Maybe this is why they never wanted me to know who he was, to know all of this and where she came from.”[/color]

	[color=#fce205]"Isn't that always the way? Pieces of the puzzle, but nothing in full. You think you've broken a chain, just to find more shackles hidden beneath. Whatever was retracted from those letters is just one more link in the bonds they forged to control you. Something else to keep from you, because it didn't serve the purposes they wanted to use you for."[/color]

[color=#808080]Gil paused, his own ties suddenly at the forefront of his mind, as well as his half-hearted efforts to shuck them before undertaking this journey. He thought of his last phone call with Artie, his final words to a longtime friend, shouted expletives. He thought of his goodbyes to his parents, accompanied by a hollow promise of his safe return, and he thought of the diary entry left behind in which he admitted there were no such plans to do so. He thought about never having given Elenora a proper farewell, unread messages that had still been looming over him from his phone when he'd given it up before coming here. He thought about how he never really knew what he wanted to do, but he had found mild success in acting early on, so he'd done that for lack of a clearer passion; and then about how he'd given it up, and found the same uncertainty lurking underneath as it always had been, and how he'd quickly covered [/color][i][color=#808080]that[/color][/i][color=#808080] up with finding Amma.[/color]

[color=#808080]And now, he had found her; the path to returning home still lay in front of them awaiting action, and yet the [/color][color=#808080][i]'what next?'[/i][/color][color=#808080] already loomed over the horizon, and Gil realized he didn't know. He'd never known - he'd just found the most obvious thing, the thing right in front of him, and pursued that with a bullheadedness that enabled him to ignore everything else. But 'everything else' had never gone away, just been sidelined, and with it any proper opportunity for introspection. Gil realized, in an instant, that he truly knew as little about himself as Amma did about [/color][color=#808080][i]her[/i][/color][color=#808080]self - but he at least had the luxury of history, of family, of a net to fall backwards into when he finally collapsed; boons he'd taken for granted, but which Amma had none of. She'd only just begun to discover her roots, and they were, quite literally, unearthly, raising more questions than the answers they provided. Another nebulous, mysterious place, bearing its own secrets and teeth.[/color]

[color=#808080]He took a deep breath, holding Amma's twisting fingers in his own, trying to anchor them both amidst this foreign, unnerving place.[/color]
	[color=#fce205]"The Foundation sunk their fangs into you, warped you, changed whoever you were and could have been into an image they chose. I can't begin to fathom the damage you have to live with, the weight you have to bear...but those letters - this place - Kylmie's very existence; it's all proof of an Amma who lived [/color][color=#fce205][i]before[/i][/color][color=#fce205] the Foundation, and it's a support network for the Amma who came out the other side. I don't know who you are. I don't know who [/color][color=#fce205][i]I[/i][/color][color=#fce205] am. But there are centuries echoing behind both of us, and more ahead, and now the [/color][color=#fce205][i]only[/i][/color][color=#fce205] person who has any claim to who or what you are or want to be is you. [/color][color=#fce205][i]You[/i][/color][color=#fce205] get to figure it out. However long it takes. However much darkness you have to shine a light on."[/color]

[color=#808080]With his stump, he gestured first out toward Kylmie and the coven, and then thumped his own chest.[/color]
	[color=#fce205]"If you can't remember before, there are people here who can. If you can't figure out after, there are people who need to work that out for themselves too, side by side with you."[/color]

[color=#808080]Ever-so-delicately, he plucked the flower - the impossible, remarkable flower - from Amma's hair and swiveled it in his fingertips, admiring the red light of the moon playing across the folded petals.[/color]
[color=#fce205]"At the dance - you told me I was free. I laughed then, but you were right, and it was frightening. It's frightening [/color][color=#fce205][i]now[/i][/color][color=#fce205]. But I remember something else you said, at the foot of a hospital bed cloaked in darkness and the light of a very different moon to this one. The world is dark, and it is afraid. But it doesn't mean [/color][color=#fce205][i]we[/i][/color][color=#fce205] have to be."[/color]

	[color=#978184]"Mend. Instead of sunder."[/color]

[color=#808080]The words fell from her lips in a whisper, barely heard and uttered, but the magnitude of the phrase plummeted as a stone, one endowed with an amber and scarlet thread that glimmered as a jeweled cord of fated hearts. He twirled that flower, so simple a motion, as one would twist a key embedded into a lock, delicate tumbles clinking and falling with rusted hinges and frayed shadows whisking away at a thought whilst gargantuan barriers trembled. A prison, a shell, the obsidian walls of her heart barred and guarded with teeth and wire, her vicious words and malcontent, her denial of every soul that had sought to encroach her harsh and barbed thorns of cruel intent. Yawned bridges that connected Amma with others, yielding glimmering lights of yellow, gold, and blue, configured as a singular construct that finally worked through that obsidian wall she had forged around herself years ago. Revenge had soiled her life, made it barren of light and enveloped in eternal shadow, a mountainous darkness, a hellacious climb that sought to ruin her in laments of a broken soul. With a shredded spirit, Amma had been clawing along such a bloodied path with little abandon or care; she carved her way through the void as a gluttonous fiend stricken with wrath and hubris. Bridled in the machinations of her mortal sins because she had paid the price for power and devastation, for she had said yes all those years ago, and paid for it still under the light of a sanguine moon.[/color]

[color=#808080]A mirror of mirrors, having splintered into two paths, then cleaving and fracturing more as prophecies of her would be self and many others. It fell as glistening, silver tears that spiked her lashes and welled, unchecked and unbidden. Carved through cheeks aflame and slid down a clenched and locked throat whilst she shook with the magnitude of Gil's soft, pleading words that called to a girl that had long since perished. It also called to a memory shaded in twilight and the twinkling voice of her mother, garbed in French whispers, loosely uttered as she soothed her fretful child, intertwined with scarlet wrath. For Charlotte Cahors had seen all, was burdened with the stars in her eyes and the world in her hands, as she spoke of a time, and a place, and the strongest self that Amma would become. All the power she would come to hold and bear, and all the pain of many others that had come before her that would be worn and stricken upon her body, but in the ditch of darkness she would also swear promises spoken in tears and agony, to swear that none else would befall a similar fate.[/color]

[i][color=#808080]For the world has enough monsters.[/color][/i]

[color=#808080]Once upon a time, Amma Cahors did not care. It was okay. And she told herself this over and over again.[/color]

[color=#808080]But it was no longer who she was. For Amma Cahors [/color][color=#808080][i]did care[/i][/color][color=#808080]. She wanted more than revenge, now, and though she would have it one day and claim her name anew, it did not mean she had to play the part, the role she was meant for to achieve it. The reputation she held at The Foundation, The Force, the whisper of Tiamat at her back, the Amma of PRCU that carved wicked smiles into fragile hearts and perched upon their hopes and dreams as a deviled wraith. The Amma who saved people, who saved Haven, Aurora, Lorcán, who beheld Katja as friend, who silently watched over Harper at her sister's pleading quest, the Amma who stood before Rory, and the Amma who once stood in the gardens, the barn, the beach where sun and surf beheld her as the world moved on and on, lost to the whims of her chaotic regalia. The Amma who comforted Gil in his nightmares, the one who returned under the guise of moonlight to sleep beside him, and the one who came to him in his room to provide solace and comfort. All of these things, pieces of herself, that she could no longer deny, just as she could not deny the name unspoken and the word tattooed onto her neck in remembrance of a life she had once before. A vow to never forget.[/color]

[color=#808080][i]Immortal.[/i][/color][color=#808080] And the everlasting love that was her name. [/color][color=#808080][i]Ammaranthe.[/i][/color]

[color=#808080]Amma carefully took that flower back into her trembling hands as the symbol of their bond forged with forgotten pieces of themselves, now woven intricately and delicately together as one. Gil sought and answered her doubts about her forgotten past and her uncertain future; he stripped it down to the most raw and unfiltered part of her heart that swelled with an emotion she could not name.[/color]

	[color=#978184]"I had a nightmare, a dream, I think. Of you. About you. It was [/color][i][color=#978184]you[/color][/i][color=#978184] in what I assumed was the many roles you've also had to play. All those lines whispered and fed to you, all those times you had to pretend. The way you were with others, with Blackjack. With fans. With [/color][i][color=#978184]her[/color][/i][color=#978184]."[/color][color=#808080] Amma did not know her name, but implied it nonetheless, the pretty brunette who spoke to her and denied any sort of love Gil might have for her. [/color][color=#978184]"The fear, the pain, so many copies and bodies, lost in a sea of masks of this Gil and that. All of the many you's and yet alone, lost, just as I was in Limbo, and even before it all. The doubts of who you were and who you are, every piece of you laid bare and stripped down from every time you performed for them, that's what your Trials were about. I know. I saw. I felt it."[/color]

[color=#808080]Whisper soft and delicate, Amma continued, a gentleness never known finding home in her words.[/color]

	[color=#978184]"And though there were many of you, all different and yet the same, I could see and feel and know which one was you. You didn't pretend, you were honest under those hours of moonlight, with me- [/color][i][color=#978184]just us[/color][/i][color=#978184]. I once thought us similar: always in the shadows, while others stood out in the light. Simply just being as we were, uncertain of what and who we tried to be. Lost under the weight of masks, the performances and reputations that surpassed us."[/color]

[color=#808080]She had allowed fear to hold her, had allowed hate to bridle her in chains turned inwards to maim and bleed her dry for all she was and could ever be as a wrathful being consumed of the void within. Amma had once thought she could never choose another way, a path, for all that she had done and had yet to do, she believed she had never deserved a choice to be anything other than the monster she felt crawling beneath her inked skin. So involved in her pain and denial of life, she had refused to look elsewhere but straight ahead onto her path of retribution. But, now she stood here, not alone, and leaned in close, eyes beholden to Gil's stare as Amma finally allowed a calm to envelop her, delicately and carefully, the girl once thought dead slowly rose to life as a soul that just wanted to love and be loved in return.[/color]

	[color=#978184]"I see [/color][i][color=#978184]you[/color][/i][color=#978184], I choose [/color][i][color=#978184]you[/color][/i][color=#978184], I want [/color][i][color=#978184]you[/color][/i][color=#978184], [/color][i][color=#978184]the real you[/color][/i][color=#978184], side by side in this dark and afraid world. I'll help you find it, find him. Whatever that part of you looks like, and whatever part of me that looks like, I know that I want to try and be free too."[/color][color=#808080] Amma confessed, breath heavy and low as she pressed her lips to his in a kiss, the most gentle display of affection, of acceptance, of Gil and his struggles.[/color]

[color=#808080]A gossamer kiss, delicate and fragile but channeling a depth Gil hadn't yet known through it all the same, a pact between two stray souls lost down here amidst the gutters of reality. Gil lifted a gentle palm to Amma's cheek and held it there as mouths broke apart and they instead rested foreheads against each other, eyes closed and simply breathing in the moment, pausing in the vow. The breakthrough did not come lightly to either of them, and now they stood coupled at the precipice of unknown territory, electric and unstable, but together.[/color]

	[color=#fce205]"I'm still defining the [/color][color=#fce205][i]real me[/i][/color][color=#fce205]; but I at least know one thing above all else. I want to be with you."[/color][color=#808080] He smiled, eyes still closed, floating in her scent and the feeling of her arms wrapped around him. [/color][color=#fce205]"Whatever we discover, we can build it around each other. There will always be roots here. Now we can grow out from new foundations, without being afraid the brick might crumble."[/color]

And there a smile forged, darling and delicate and blinding, one unburdened by the sorrows of a past undone or a future unknown, it glimmered behind the veil of a woman sown deep into the fluttering beat of her heart, emotions sweeping low and high, a purity of home flourishing under the confessions gleaming under crimson moonlight. Thunder roared and rolled, echoing through the brightening shimmer that smoothed over Amma’s usual severity of expression, and even as the rain returned and soaked them down to the bone, she had never felt so warm in her entire life.

The always desired, but never chosen.
Until now.

Amma Cahors allowed herself to want and choose for herself rather than the misery of her weighted darkness. His words nurtured that kernel sunk into her chest, and there it slowly bloomed, unraveling into tendrils of warmth that spread through her body as something new.


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