CCCC/HMS Oneshots

asphodel (soul/mind) (soul/heart)

A/N: tried a new thing with the title.
anyways kind of important story i guess?  i suggest going back and reading calamity THEN reading this, but its your choice. if you haven't seen me write the juno incident yet, "calamity" is
kind of vital to understand this, so def go read it. it's long i know i'm sorry </3 thx for putting up with me, luv y'all. enjoy.

It's grim. The silent, unexpressed agreement that our counterpart is deceased.

After all, how could he not be? We skewered his eyes and confiscated his gift of sight, then abandoned him to rot in a grave, with no source of sustenance or victuals, and no chance at hegemony or purpose. We served him a gruesome fate. I admit– and I came to terms with it long ago– Whole is changed. There's no possibility we can return to how it was before the incident, and there's no more space for emotions. There's no more space for empathy, for weakness, for love. All that we believe now is apathy and logic.

At least that's what Mind has convinced me. Though admittedly, I haven't had much other influence. Initially, after the numbing shock took its leave, I had taken Heart's place in arguments, trying to scream over Mind as his booming voice refutes pity and blame. Unlike my prior, though, I had never taken our persistent disputes to a physical level, and neither had Mind. It was practically a resident, nightly matches of howling about the incident, who's to blame, where to go from here. It never ended in us retrieving our missing piece, though.

Eventually his influence had managed to seduce my own mind into apathy levels similar to his, believing that the bird deserved it. After all, he was the predecessor in the concept of homicide, the one who attempted it first, and simply received what he tried to give. Mind argued we're better off without him, and his points were rather compelling: admittedly true claims of Heart being the primary cause of violent tussles, and a colossal source of emotional drainage. And so emotionless I became.

It felt wrong, like doing drugs for the first time, or murmuring a bad word under your breath as a toddler, but my mind eventually left that behind. For the most part. The feeling still lingers, an instinct in my splintered heart, I suppose, though I try to ignore it. It makes me feel ill. It's like a scratching at the back of my skull, a venom that subtly flows through my veins, yet refuses to take effect and instead decides to leave me ailing.

I suppose the lack of emotion and eventfulness eventually took a toll on Mind as well, as he decided we should take a walk today. A simple stroll through the forest infiltrated by a gentle, pleasant breeze. I assume we've made an unspoken pact to avoid the gravesite. Urge tugs at me, but it stirs with dread in a draining concoction of stress.

And so we step rhythmically, our legs synchronized with the other's. The quiet hum and chirps of insects and the occasional winged friend harmonize as an unremarkable sound, the type that goes to the back of your head like a blues instrumental as you work. Grass hisses under our soles, as I try my darndest to keep on beat with Mind's oddly broad strides.

Only a pair of footsteps continue as I pause, Mind taking a moment before he processes my halt. He turns, grumbling begrudgingly, to glower at me. "What?"

My eyes direct my legs to their target, carrying me over to a contrast in the greenery. I stand before a tall, reed-like plant, the gutter-like leaves bestrewn from its base as a throng of funnel-shaped flowers extend from its tip, crowned with a cylinder dressed in pale, unbloomed blossoms, standing at about my ribcage.

I pull my partner's attention, grasping the long stem and sloping it to the approaching man. "Look! It's an asphodel!" I observe cheerfully, running my thumb down one of the thin, white pedals. At my thumb's leave, it springs back to its equal scatter, lying peacefully with its identical friends with purpose. Huh...