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AN - Just a heads up, the second half of yesterday's chapter got a bit of a rewrite. Honestly it's probably worth rereading if you got the first version. Maria should seem a little more like her actual character now. She's still gangster, but I didn't mean for the mommy side to get lost in the process.
***
My angel is distraught. She spent a large part of the night sobbing in my arms. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Of course I'm crying too. I try my best to hold it in but if someone I love is crying I can't really help it.
I thought something like this might happen. Once Maria took her into her office alone, I knew some bad shit was gonna go down.
Near morning, once her emotions have settled, I ask "What made you choose to kill him in the end?"
Sophia looks at me, stunned, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. She hadn't told me anything yet.
"I saw it all. From teacher Astrid's office. I almost ran to you when Maria handed you the gun. But Astrid stopped me. Said that I couldn't make this decision for you. I was ready then, for you to pick the Academy, or even to return to Arthurian. I hoped you would pick the Academy out of the two options… Arthurian seems really boring, you know. But I would have accepted whatever you chose."
I take Sophia's hand in my own. "But then you did something unexpected, and I don't know why?"
"Because Maria was right," Sophia replies. "I do not like that fact. But she is right - this was the third time that you have been attacked. It's going to happen again. If I chose to stay in the Academy I would just be burying my head in the sand."
She continues, "I will not be a person that holds you back, or puts you in danger. I still think that saving those people was the right thing to do. But Maria was right in that I did not think of the consequences of my actions, or even of the risks. I was naive."
"It isn't just you, you know." I cut her off, "back in the corpse smoke den, that vampire came pretty close to killing me."
"What?! But we were talking through Gestalt the entire time?"
"I… yeah, she was close to err… strangling me. Turns out, almost losing consciousness doesn't stop me from thinking clearly. Anyway, I should have used the coin then, but I didn't. I didn't even have a good reason like saving people, I just felt like I could win."
"I… you almost died, and you are only just telling me now?"
"In my defense I kinda forgot about it. It wasn't until now that you reminded me."
"I am feeling pretty angry about this revelation." Sophia mutters through clenched teeth.
"How did you think I felt yesterday when you pulled away from me?" I spat back.
"That was for a purpose beyond pride!"
"There are no reasons good enough for you to risk your life!"
"I bet you wished I chose to be locked away in the Academy."
"YES!"
Woops.
"I… yes, you would be safe here. Nobody could hurt you, touch you, or take you away from me."
Sophia sighs, flops back on the bed and stares at the ceiling for a while. "Yeah, of course you would think that. But you would not… could not stay with me. You would be called out into the city, eventually the realms, for whatever plans you feel inclined to follow. I will not be left behind. You are drawn to danger and I will be by your side."
I flop down beside her. "I'm not normal, you know."
"I am very aware."
"Yeah, apparently everyone is. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that even Maria is scared of me."
"You are an unknown."
There was a pause, before I said, "She had you kill a guy."
"She offered me a choice. I chose to kill him."
"How are you feeling about that?"
"More indifferent than I would like to admit."
"You spent the entire night crying." I said.
"That wasn't for him. He deserved the bullet. If it had not been me, someone else would have shot him. He sealed his fate as soon as he attacked Rift Walkers, and he sealed his fate with me when he fired into a crowded restaurant at you."
Holy shit, I know this is not the time, but ice cold Sophia is doing things for me.
"So, why were you crying then?" I ask, I probably should know the answer already but my frame of reference has been all skewed lately.
"I was crying for the Sophia that was. For the one that apparently was always a lie. I was a nun but even that wasn't taken seriously. Now I'm a soldier. I cannot pretend to be good anymore. Nor do I want to."
"You're not bad."
"No. Just in the middle, like everyone else," she says.
"There is nothing stopping you from doing good things still. We can contact Belly and find a good home for the cage kids. You saved them, not me. For me, they were an addition at best."
"Yes, we will. Please don't sell yourself so short," she says.
"I'm not lying. The thing is, I'm finding it hard to care about people. Even the kids. I do care about you, Gestalt, Lillian, Shiv and Daisy. I care about Maria and Derek and Emily, I even care a bit about the rest of the class. People like Belly and the fat cat, maybe even some of the teachers. But outside of that, people mean nothing to me. It's like I can only care about the people I personally know. I didn't love killing those people yesterday, I just didn't care. They were an obstacle in my way that needed to be removed, so I did."
I roll into Sophia's embrace and she begins to stroke my hair. "It wasn't always like this and it's getting worse. I feel like I'm slowly losing what makes me human. I understand why Maria is worried about me… I'm worried too."
Sophia stops stroking my hair and sits up. She reaches behind her neck and unfastens her necklace. The one with the Lord of Light's symbol; the necklace I have never seen her take off, not even in the bath. She detaches the emblem from the silver chain and looks at it for a moment before putting it in a drawer. She walks back to me and then gently wraps the chain around my neck. There is enough slack for it to circle it twice, before she seals the clasp.
I feel like I've been collared.
Fuck, that's so hot.
"It's okay Tangerine," she says. "Whatever comes, we will face it together."
I press my fingers against the chain that marks me as hers. My toes curl slightly. I know we are having a whole moment here. But fuck, I want her inside me.
I suppress a squirm and point to the drawer with the emblem. "How are you handling the whole Lord of Light thing?" I ask.
"I don't know. I'm still struggling to believe it. That everything I ever believed in was a lie. I'm going to need to think about it."
I may or may not be still playing with my chain.
Okay, I totally am, holy shit, it's so hot!
"You seem to be quite enamoured with that chain?" Sophia asks.
"I… yeah, it feels like you c-claimed me," I stutter.
She giggles and wraps her arms around my neck, sitting herself on my lap. "I did."
I am as red as a tomato. "I'm yours, forever. I love you."
She smiles, presses her forehead to mine, looking down on me, "I love you too." And then she takes my lips, claiming them, like everything else, as her own.
***
Sophia and I are at Maria's house for dinner. Not quite the invite I was expecting. Sophia was understandably in two minds about coming. But ultimately decided to come.
The dinner itself was a little tense. Sophia was quiet throughout and I personally didn't know how I felt.
I obviously didn't like the fact that Maria had caused Sophia stress. But I understood everything, well actually no… I still had some questions - a whole lot in fact!
Once dinner was finished, Maria took the two of us up to her study.
"I believe that Gestalt has some information for me. But do I have your consent?" Maria asks me.
I shrug my shoulders, it's no skin off my nose. 'Hey, Gestalt, I consent for you to share what she wants to know about me.'
[You are awfully trusting.]
'Should I not be?'
[We cannot share information about other hosts without their consent.]
'Yeah I know, but also I can feel you. If you were worried I could feel it and you are not. So share away.'
[Oh. Well, that is certainly an interesting loop hole.]
I can feel Gestalts amusement.
[Okay, we're going to loop everything in so they can hear us as well.]
[Good evening Sophia, Maria. We have completed data analysis on Tangerine's unanchored rift creation six days ago. We found significant overlap with the first recorded signals of the Gestalt. Secondly, we also found significant overlap in deltawave signals between Tangerine and the Gestalt's slug base. Our working theory is that we and Tangerine have some sort of kin relationship and that we both have some connection to the unanchored end of Tangerine's rift.]
"Wait, so you are saying I'm part brain slug?" I ask.
[Clearly not. But yes we are linked in some way.]
Maria sighs, "I was hoping for answers. Not yet more questions. But am I alright to assume that you are saying that you are both from between the realms?"
[We have no evidence for that, but we would not be surprised. We would like to observe Tangerine completing the rift for more information.]
"Absolutely not," Maria says, "Tangerine needs some proper rift training before we attempt that. And we will not be doing it in the shattered realm. This place is frayed enough. Once Tangerine is trained up, I will find a suitable place to try."
"When will I be able to start rift training?" I ask.
"When you have a good handle on your mana core. You are far too uncontrolled to try anything safely," Maria replies.
"Ugh."
"I can help Tangerine with that in our free time," Sophia chips in.
"Thank you, Sophia."
I'm still feeling a lot of tension between these two, which is very understandable.
"Thank you, Gestalt. I'm assuming the two of you have some more questions for me?" Maria said.
[Finally, ugh, talking directly to other humans is distasteful.]
'Thanks… sibling?'
[We like buddies.]
'Thanks, buddies.'
I pipe up first, "So as I'm related to the terrifying brain slug, I can understand why you might be concerned about me. But why are you going about any of this? Why test Sophia? Why allow me to have any freedom at all? I would ask why you were setting me up with all those women, but you know… thanks for that."
Maria chuckles at that, "I was not in fact setting you up, merely introducing you and letting nature take it's course. I did not force you into any of those girls beds, that was all you."
My eyes go wide, I turn to Sophia, "It was only one girl! And nothing happened!"
Hey, wait! I turn back to Maria, "Hey, no dodging the questions!"
"Why am I doing any of this? I do in fact, care about you, and while you are definitely a dangerous unknown, I would not rob you of your freedom unless I was forced to. You also show a natural inclination to this world. would be foolish to try and suppress that."
"As for why I tested Sophia; she is your weakest link. I fear if something were to happen to her, that you would become uncontrolled. It was a gamble on my part but I believe that Sophia has the nature to be a fine Rift Officer. I may have had to give her a push earlier than I would have liked but you both have a penchant for getting into trouble. It was that, or keep her protected in the Academy. She needed to be more in tune with her ruthless side, lest she hesitate at the wrong moment and get herself killed."
Well, that's certainly some fucked gangster logic. But it makes sense when you consider who I'm talking to. I dread to think how high Maria's body count is.
Not like that. Gross.
Sophia asks "Were you really telling the truth about the Lord of Light and the Mo… the other one?"
Maria shrugs, "I cannot offer you proof, I'm afraid. Other than to say I have seen similar situations before. Gods are an awful sort. I could possibly be wrong, but it is unlikely."
"And what happened to those who faced this situation before?" Sophia said.
"They did not have a Tangerine to help. Unfortunately, they did not survive their god's game."
Sophia was silent at that. I put my hand over hers, "It's okay, if I have to kill a couple of gods to keep you safe, I will."
Maria laughs, "If anyone could…"
***
It's evening and Sophia and I are curled up in bed. She is gently snoring on my shoulder.
'I feel like I should be more distressed about everything than I am...'
[About being related to us? Or Maria turning Sophia into a killer?]
'Both, I guess.'
[As human as you are, you are also not. You are just finding out who you are.]
'I should at least feel bad about the Sophia thing though, no?'
[Unfortunately, if she is going to survive in this world with you by her side, this was probably the correct call. She will need a degree of ruthlessness to thrive. But she took the gun, she made her decision, trust in her.]
'...'
'Could we do some dream training together?'
[Certainly, I will load up the bank robbery. Good night, Tangerine.]
'Good night.'
And I promptly was sent to sleep.
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