what breaks my immortal/semi-immortal OCs after their spouse's death.
I'm only doing my favorites/the ones I thought of off the bat, so they're kinda disorganized.
Content warning: memory loss, mentions of dissociation in Xena's thing, heavy depictions of grief.
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Xena:
- when Herc's scent fades from his former belongings
- when she starts to forget what he felt like, little by little
- and it hurts
- and she starts to question herself
- and she wonders if that white and blue hoodie was even his
- and sometimes she hallucinates so bad she forgets he even died and those are the best few moments of her life
- till she wakes up at least
- and his memory haunts her for thousands of years till she is finally killed and she can see him again, maybe
- maybe
- maybe she'll see him again, she thinks, as she happily lay bleeding on the forest floor
- and she doesn't fear death anymore because maybe then, she'll see him after all these years
Daedalus:
- when he starts to see Joyce in everything and everybody
- but he can't fully recall her exactly
- he starts to forget
- "that girl has her smile...wait, did she have dimples...?"
- and he panics
- trillions of years from now, when he is still walking this shell of an earth in one of many new forms, he will faintly recall Joyce
- but not all of her
- and it will drive him insane.
Alyxander:
- when he dreams about Theo
- when he starts to hallucinate and see her face everywhere
- when he desperately tries to grab her in the reflection of the river only for her to disappear and leave nothing
- when he can't hear her voice anymore and he can't feel her beside him and he can't stop thinking
- "it was my fault, wasn't it?"
Lin:
- when she wants to accept their death
- but she can't shake that lingering feeling
- when she begs the Creator to bring them back
- to rewrite their story
- as long as she knows they're alive she doesn't care if they don't love her in this life or the next
- only to hear the Creator's soft voice reply with a sorrowful, "I didn't write them."
- when she's left with nothing but their memory and she can't help but sob as she clutches that shirt that looks almost exactly like theirs
- and she can't do anything to cure this pain
John:
- when he rolls over in bed the next morning and hugs empty space
- when it finally sinks in
- "oh. she's gone now"
- and he acts calm about it and he says he's fine but he's suffering and he hates himself and if only he could have helped her
Dusty:
- when she's sitting at the foot of his grave in the rain reading the inscriptions over and over and she's gripping those flowers he loved so dearly and she can't remember the last time he said her name
- when she starts to lose sleep and obsessively wear his clothes and desperately try to keep his memory alive
- when she cries at the dead of night and her tears are freezing cold and oh how she expects him to hug her and tell her it's okay like he always did
- but the room stays cold and all that's left is her and herself and his memory
- how long has it been?
Tero:
- when he waits for them at the steps of their home, staring expectantly down the driveway
- when he waits for years and years and they haven't come back
- "they'll come back, right? Lynette came back. they'll come back."
- but he's lying to himself.
- and he knows it. and it hurts
- where are you, dearest?
Duvessa:
- when everything reminds her of them
- when she looks deep into that glass of red wine she had been binging and she sees their eyes
- their smile, their cute skin blemishes and their birthmarks
- everything reminds her of them
- "changing into a humanist form was a mistake," she hisses through tears, downing the wine in one shot
- and yet she never erases their memory from her mind
- they were the only one who saw through her, who were daring enough to put her and her prideful ass in place
- "tell me, Icarus - who will ever do that again?"
Yijin:
- when he can't hear their humming when he wakes up
- when he forgets their heartbeat and their voice and their smell on the bedsheets have long faded
- when he stares at that photo of both of them for hours and their face starts to warp to the point he can barely remember their true face
- and hundreds of years later when he's rebuilding his ruined castle, he dedicates statues and carvings and illusions and animals to them.
- if only they were here to see it.
Onni:
- when her royal family start asking
- "where's your price/princess? are they alright, dear? we miss them - bring them to the next ball, alright? we'll send you lots of clothes to choose from!"
- and she doesn't have the heart to tell them they're gone
- and she can't cry because they'll ask again
- and they'll try to pamper her and she'll have to resist
- "the only one who can take care of me is [spouse]."
- but...they aren't here, are they?
///•///
this is ✨extra angsty✨ bc I wrote this in my notes app when I had an existential crisis about mortality and made this to cope with it till I was okay again
