miss maycourt

you wish you didnt say goodbye

The Arch-Being curls in on themself, infinitely churning lengths of scales and holy armor that all twist together into a massive mass. They hold their head high still, but every other part of their body is compressed, shrinking in on themself. If Maycourt had to say, they looked guilty. The set of their toothy mouth, the angled away look of their head. One taloned hand clenches. Unwilling to look at their worst mistake. She is not a thing to be ignored. Not now, not by them.

There's so many things Maycourt wishes to say, so many different speeches she has planned for this very moment, but all she can manage is a weak, "I prayed to you." She prayed more than anybody could possibly know, sung hymns under her breath when alone and hissed platitudes with blood on her hands and spoke so, so many words up to the starry night skies in hope of the smallest of answers. Her mouth was a church, echoing with a lifetime and more of prayer and she didn't even know if they had ever been heard.

"I know." Their voice was more powerful than strength, more holy than any host of angels, and more sorrowful than even McBride's had been when he held Maycourt's hands close and looked deep into her eyes. "I heard them, dear Maycourt."

She remembers her first flash of the Arch-Being she remembered. The sensation of talons digging into her arms and her wings, the rumble in her chest as Thule spoke and begged for her forgiveness without words. Begged for her understanding. And she thinks of how much was ripped away from her. "That isn't my name. I had one before you cast me down."

Thule's wings pull closer to their body. They look away a little more. "You are not the disciple that I cast down. You are not her. She never knew all of the people you have grown so close to, never listened to Charlotte's laugh and Edward's gentle tones, never sutured the wounds of a mortal. You may wish to reconnect yourself with who you once were, but do not feel an obligation to seek a connection with a past self that you are so utterly separated from now."

"I wish I was still her."

"Do you?" Thule uncompresses by the barest of increments and looks more straight on towards her. "You wish you had kept your wings? Remained gilded in clouds and feathers, bearing the armor of your host? Disciples asked after your wellbeing, down there with the mortals. Questioned why I had done what I did. You were missed. Were ranked low enough to take part in the latest of defenses against the hatred of the Furnace, yet high ranked enough to avoid the truly suicidal missions. You could have lived good." Their voice lilts up and their head tilts a little, a hint of humor as they uncurl more.

Maycourt felt rage, familiar as an old blanket, clench around her heart. "Yes! I wish you had never cast me down! It hurt, missing something without being able to remember it."

"You never would have met Charlotte."

That causes her to pause. She had thought the very same thing countless times tucked up in whatever she was sleeping in and under the gaze of the moon, straining her ears to seek out the soft sound of the other woman breathing. She never would have met Charlotte. She never would have experienced the thrill of discovery and the sweetness of interest, all sorts of little cocktails that her angelic self had seen as forbidden. Companionship. Friendship. Love.

The way that Thule smiles, with a touch too much of smugness in the face of her, Maycourt knows that they know. They were the Arch-Being. She would be afraid if they didn't.

"I never would have met Charlotte. I wish you didn't cast me down, but I don't wish it at the same time. There's so many things I would have missed, but I already missed so much because I wasn't here. I just-" Thule's attention is so much more horrible, so much more focused than she imagined it would be, "I just wish I was normal."

Thule sighs a sigh that ruffles her hair and makes the air smell like sweet cinnamon. "You... Never will be, Maycourt. You are completely and totally alone in your experience. Others may be able to relate and empathize, but they cannot truly sympathize in the way that you yearn for. You must acknowledge that fact and accept it.

"You have found so many people who accept and love you for you who are. You do not have a host, but you have a family, one who you chose. What happened to you wasn't just. It wasn't fated, and it wasn't for the better or the worst. It just was. And while you are not weak for being affected by it, clinging to it affects the future and present that you currently have."

Maycourt mulled over the words, then slowly nodded. They made sense. All outside input seemed so well put together and informed at first. But then she looked up at the great horned helm of Thule and realizes something. "You speak as if this was something that just came to be. Some unavoidable beat in history. You are responsible for this. You cast me down."

Thule reels back a little, but does not anxiously wind their tail and look away as they had before. They recover, look to meet her eyes. "I cast you down, and it was one of my biggest regrets. I allowed myself to be swayed by the words of Fluisau and forced myself to see you as a mere thing to be studied. I did not wish to, Maycourt, but-"

"I don't care about your excuses, Thule." She trembles when speaking the name, almost loses all will to continue. "Knowing the reason won't take back the decision. I don't care if you listened to my prayers or kept an eye on me from the clouds, I don't want to hear about how the pain you caused me was a double edged sword. I just want to hear you apologize. That's it. A genuine apology."

They seem to wilt at her words, all the speeches and monologues they themself had prepared released in one low breath. They see her stance and taste her brew of fear and defiance, and know that she is being serious. The Arch-Being lowers their head down, down to be equal with her own, and drops the mass of their body to the floor in a bow. Through one of the barely there slits in their helmet, Maycourt can see an eye peering out from the darkness with nothing but regret in it.

"I am sorry, Maycourt. I am so, so sorry."