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“They changed.”
He says it like an accusation. Like she made a deliberate mistake.
Lu hums to herself. She knows it as fact. But they both know why he sounds accusatory, too.
Stirbargen’s usually hyper expressive face falls flat, completely unreadable. Lu has a faint suspicion it’s artificial. His form shifted and melted to make the situation more uncomfortable for her.
Or maybe he really doesn’t feel any way about it.
‘They changed, they changed.’
The words repeat in her head. He’s right. They changed. She knows, he knows, they’re both aware. She didn’t think he would care.
‘I wish Ciel was here,’
passes through her head. She bites her thumb.
‘I really don’t want to have this conversation alone.’
Tyr—no, he’s not Tyr to her anymore. Stirbargen stares down at her. It feels odd, Lu wants to stand up. But she’s faintly aware her legs might collapse out from under her if she tries.
The silence stretches on longer. Stirbargen points to her head.
“There’s no spikes. And they’re coiled.”
‘Yes,’ she wants to say. ‘I know what they look like. They’re attached to my head.’
“Sorry,” she says instead. It comes out softer than she means.
Stirbargen pauses. He opens his mouth, and closes it again. Something in his expression changes. He gets sadder. Maybe he dropped the mask; maybe this is the real him.
After a minute, he speaks, it comes out just as soft as hers did.
“Why?”
And it’s a simple word, and she understands. She understands that he just wants to understand—but she can’t explain herself. She doesn’t know either. It feels more right. It makes her happy. It makes her safe .
He’s looking at something that is her and asking why. Like it’s something saddening. Like she should be pitied. She hates it. She scowls, gritting her teeth as she stands up.
Timoria expected him to be taller than her, shifted to make her have to look up. She looks straight ahead instead, straight into his eyes. She can’t tell which one’s fake anymore.
(Faintly, she’s glad they’re the same height. She might have punched him otherwise.)
“Why, what?”
Because it’s not that she doesn’t know, it’s that she’s hoping. Hoping and she doesn’t even know what she’s hoping for.
“Why do your horns look like coiled lollipops?”
It comes out more like a statement. In the back of her mind, she wants to laugh.
But no. No, they don’t look like lollipops.
Lollipops
look like lollipops. Her horns look like— well, horns.
Maybe years ago she would have understood. Back when she had cared, back when Stirbargen was still Tyr to her. But back then, her horns wouldn’t have looked like this, would they have?
“They grow themselves. You know this,” she says. She has to stop herself from sticking her tongue out at him. This isn’t the time to be childish.
“
You
changed.”
In a backward way, it’s just a statement. There’s no accusation in his tone, he’s only pointing out an observation. The air feels a little lighter. Only a little. He brings a hand up, slowly, inching towards her head. He pauses.
She glares but doesn’t make a move to stop him. He continues, fingers landing over the smooth bone. Timoria can feel faintly the way he traces over the spirals, running his fingers along the edges almost sharp enough to cut—almost, but not quite. She stares back at his, tall and spiked. Like the crimson tower.
If he was still Tyr to her she might have asked if it was deliberate.
He seems to calm, like he’s accepted something.
“They're real,” he says. It catches her off guard.
“I’m sorry?”
“I didn’t think you could change. I thought it was a facade.”
If she was the old her she would have hit him, she would have screamed. But if she was the old her, he wouldn’t have said that, would he have? She looks away, staring at the wall.
“Not all of us are good at shapeshifting.”
“Is this about him?”
Timoria blinks, hard.
“Ciel, I mean. It’s because of him, isn’t it?” he smiles.
Lu shoots up, fingers cracking, crackling, sharpening into her gauntlet. She blinks and Stirbargen is pinned to the wall.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I wouldn’t go after something that’s yours.” He doesn’t make a move to dodge at any point. It’s unnerving.
“I was going to suggest it was all the years being chained up next, but your reaction is pretty telling, Luciela.”
His left eye glows faintly as he disappears and reappears behind her. Lu falls a little closer to the wall from the lack of volume.
“It’s alright. I don’t really care either way. I didn’t have anyone to bet on it with.”
“Then why bother asking?”
He only smiles at that, heading towards the door. “I just wanted to test something.”
He reaches for the doorknob and Lu looks away, collecting herself. He’s leaving, she’s fine. She just has to get to Ciel first, just in case. Vaguely, she misses being able to reach for him through their contract. But it’s okay she’ll—
The lock clicks into place and Stirbargen looks back at her. Timoria shudders and shoots up, tensing, readying, moving to defend.
“I’m not going to do anything.”
Timoria doesn’t move, energy gathering at her fingertips. She knows Ciel will notice that; she prays he won’t come. (The irony isn’t lost on her.)
“I only want to play a game,” he smiles. “It’s been getting boring around here with nothing to bet on.”
Clenching her teeth, Timoria nods ever so slightly.
“I think,” he begins, “that you’re going to go right back to the way you used to be. And when it happens, they’re going to look at you like you’re a monster.”
“I won't.” she says, and she means it with every ache in her body.
“If you say so,” he shrugs. “How about the winner gets one of the losers’ horns as a souvenir?”