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[erbier]

Shame on us; doomed from the start.

May God have mercy on our dirty little hearts.

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[crowned_clown]

[He holds out his hand, not sure if she'll want to take it or not but the offer is there.] I didn't see much... Do you feel yourself again?

[erbier]

[ She lays her fingertips against his palm, a light touch. ]

I think so. Just...

[ She doesn't even know what to say. ]

Dispirited.

[crowned_clown]

[He sits quietly for a moment. He doesn't believe he can find some sort of perfect way to word it, so he just speaks from the heart.]

I'm glad you're here.

[erbier]

A part of me will always live in that place.

[ The Otherworld was not so terribly different from her life in the Godking's palace. ]

[crowned_clown]

I know. [He says, quiet as before. After all, there's part of him that will never leave the circus or the streets or the Black Order. And yet -]

You live in the present, too.

[erbier]

Yes, sometimes. But my mind is never really mine alone, even when it is quiet... I know it is there.

[crowned_clown]

...Do you mean literally or figuratively?

[erbier]

It is true. Madelyne and her visitor banished the creature when it showed itself, but I still hear its voice in my mind. I always have.

This thing that drove the Godking mad. A demon?

[ She really doesn't know what it is, but it brings madness and destruction and suffering. ]

[crowned_clown]

I have something like that too. I couldn’t always hear him, but I have for a while now. He wants to erase me.

[Followed by destruction and suffering and death, and Allen doesn’t find the idea that he won’t be there to see it comforting.]

I know how hard it can be, even after such a short time…

[erbier]

[ She turns her head and really looks, hand inching the rest of the way into his. ]

I am afraid of what it will do. If it will drive me mad, or if it is a beacon for the creature to find me again. It has already been here on the Barge once, what if there is no one here to beat it back?

I was... so certain it had come again, that it had turned the Barge into that corrupted place.

[crowned_clown]

I don't know.

But I think that if it comes here... there will always be people who'll try to fight it back.

[erbier]

I don't want to be its herald.

[crowned_clown]

Then you shouldn't be.

[It's often not simple, but sometimes he wishes it could be made such through pure force of will.]

[erbier]

Hm. [ A familiar small noise of agreement. ] I thought I might be safe on the Barge, that if I had to live this might be the only place to hide.

[ Then it appeared, and it's no wonder she had a paranoia freakout as the madness and fog rolled in. ]

[crowned_clown]

I don't know how safe the Barge is, but I think it can grant safety.

That's why I'm here. To erase the Fourteenth, so I don't have to hide from everyone.

[erbier]

I hope you get your wish.

[crowned_clown]

I will, unless I die first.

[A statement of fact. He's not going to stop trying. He shifts to look directly at Ilde.]

If it would take a wish to banish whatever demon might want you for a herald, I'd stay for that too.

[erbier]

I would never ask that of you.

[crowned_clown]

No, but I'd want to.

[erbier]

[ A frown, so stubborn... ]

You should rest first.

[crowned_clown]

[He's stubborn enough to have remained himself, no matter what. He's even more determined when it comes to his friends.

He smiles at her.] It's good to rest when you can.

[erbier]

I used to sleep on the ground in the garden. This is the first real bed I have ever had. The first room that I was allowed to claim as my own and share with no one.

[crowned_clown]

And you've made a really nice room.

[erbier]

It was empty, at first.

[ Because nowhere had even been a home, and she had been presented with a blank slate to make her own. ]

But it became this way after I requested more plants. The warden and the Admiral were very generous in their planning.

[crowned_clown]

[He nods.]

You've made it into a good place.

[One she's built, with the help of others.]