Work Text:
Death was as old as stories.
Even before the common word was established death always left behind a story: who that person was, how they died, what became of their legacy if noticed at all. A tale of misfortune, a word of caution, the cries of grief. Anything and everything laid bare at the full stop of every mortal life.
Shiori wondered what it would be like, just as a far flung thought in the middle of the night, what stories would arise from the death of the world. Would survivors speak of the horrors saw? Would they use what happened to fuel their own agendas? Would she be alive to archive them?
In the end, none of it matters.
Not in the existential crisis, nothing matters way—but because well… the end of the world was here, and Shiori didn't let it die.
Ink falling from the skies was liquid ash, unsavoury residue from a wild flame. It drizzled down like the first touch of snow. It wavered in the air, carried further with the winds and hails of debris. The monster who threatened the death of the world crumbled away, corroding under the forbidden magic Shiori willed out of her.
Shiori heard of smog. She read in those long and winding novels dubbed as the classics. When she escaped the Cell, the world has long moved on from something unclean as smog. Black, dirty, full of soot and decay. Staring up into the sky, watching the clouds darken, stained in her ink, Shiori imagined that this was what smog looked like.
What it did to your body when you inhaled it. What happened when it pools into your system like ill-maintained machine.
Weakened legs, an unsteady breath, the cold creeping everywhere spreading like a long outstretched hand. Tar stuck to her heart, slowing down the mechanisms. Scratchy throats, an urge to spit something out. Stickiness lodged itself along her throat, an inky phlegm.
Of course, it wasn't smog.
But Shiori was always a reader before she was an archiver. She could afford to ignore the truth and return back to her youth… reading books and escaping reality…
"Shiori!"
She even had a friend by her side. Someone she trusted with her life, someone she loved with her life.
(The urge was there to make the bookmark, but her dear Elizabeth was already too much of an Atlas).
"Shiori!" Elizabeth repeated again, pulling her into a hug. Arms anchored around her body, promising to never let her go. Shiori closed her eyes, accepted the warmth her body so desperately craved. She did not hug her back. She did not have the strength. "Shiori you did it!"
Elizabeth sounded happy. No—she was happy. The unique passion of her joy was infectious once more, and Shiori used what little she had left to smile, wide and aching. Careful not to show teeth in case something slipped through the lines. With hand one hand, she clenched tight to Elizabeth's shirt. Just the fabric, she didn't want to scare her.
"I didn't think it would work."
Shiori made the effort to laugh, life was after all too short not to laugh. Her voice was weak, hidden away as fatigue. When Elizabeth laughed along with her, holding her closer, Shiori buried the tears against her shirt. Head against the flame, one final crown to wear.
"Well it worked," Elizabeth huffed, love so achingly fond. Shiori breathed in the flame, tasted the blue along her tongue. It tasted of nothing in reality, despite the magic nature it was still a flame. Flames were just Plasma, a state of matter created by ionization. An external combustion of heat, a fuel and oxygen.
But Shiori was ignoring reality and so it tasted like Christmas because Elizabeth loves Christmas. It tasted like melon soda, and hearty comfort meals of Great Exardia; of roses and lions and penguins and dogs; and anything else that Shiori would take a photo of and send to Elizabeth with the typical quote of "reminds me of you" or "thought of you".
Every inhale filled her lungs with warmth and not the cosy blanket kind but the deliberate fire of someone incapable of harming her, every lick of blue against her lips was the touch of hot cocoa on a cold day. The heat against her cheeks, dancing over her hair, held a softness almost cradling here where Elizabeth couldn't. The quiet roar of combustion was a purr mixed in with shared laughter amongst friends.
Elizabeth's flame tasted of joy, laughter, love and everything Elizabeth ever gave to her because it was her soul and her heart, and Shiori… Shiori loved her stupid dumb heart.
"And you're a hero."
Time was slowing down. Reality reared it's truth. What Shiori thought was a minute of thought was only a second passing by. The delusion was nice whilst it lasted but Shiori was never one to run away. If she did, the world might've ended.
Shiori pushed herself from Elizabeth's body, trembling in everything but her smile. It was steady, certain. She had to be brave for Elizabeth—she loved her too much to hurt her even more than she was already going to do.
"A hero huh?" Shiori laughed, because life was too short not to laugh. She closed her eyes—she avoided reality. She wanted to imagine Elizabeth was smiling at her, she wanted to imagine her happiness. "That's a good thing to put in the history books."
It was better than being labelled as a criminal.
But Shiori didn't say that. The tar along her heart was becoming too much—she pushed herself too much smiling and laughing. Final words ending half way, finishing in her head instead.
At least she looked beautiful. Elizabeth always loved it when she smiled. She's glad to leave behind such a pretty death.
She can pretend, just for a moment… that her ink, always cold and heavy, transformed when it landed on her face. The story will end with her ink, raining down on her skin, was warm and light. It will end with imagery of Elizabeth holding her close with a smile on her face.
A happy ending.