[attr="class","piequesttitle"]ascension

[attr="class","piequest"]

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The last thing Quynh remembers is shouting at her familiar through their mental link.
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You're the one who lost control this time, Addy!
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You were going to die. I had to do something.
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We'll both die like this—!
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She wakes up.
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Well, she thinks she woke up. But instead of feeling sand beneath her fingers and the heat of blinding sun in the sky, Quynh sees nothing. Feels nothing. No pain. She can't even tell if her eyes are open or not. She can't tell if she's standing up, lying down or sitting.
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She blinks. Finds her feet set on unknown ground. Blink again and the room snaps into view. It's nothing much to look at, but a simple wooden chair, spotlighted within the infinite abyss.
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Quynh is quick to understand her situation here—after all, this is now, what? The fifth time she has died?
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Last time, she found herself away from the bells and whistles. Her mother-figure wasn't there that time to lead her to the room with the deity behind the curtain. Last time, she fell right in there, and the conversation they had was hardly a conversation.
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Deimos must have been surprised at how wild her return to her living was. Leaping from one end of the desert to the other while still numb with third-degrees could almost be seen as impressive.
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Ah. Her mind is wandering.
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That's right. She's back here because of Deimos. An actual traitor. There should be anger, somewhere in there.
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Quynh continues to stare at the lone chair. It's silent this time. She doesn't hear the multi-frequency voice welcoming her back with a bitterness... or anything really.
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She moves to sit down anyway. Tense, the girl fully expects to see a monumental hand of god emerge from the pit of darkness and grab right at her. Her knees tremble in anticipation, ready to dodge at a moment's notice. This isn't her first rodeo; she just has to survive until the other side brings her back.
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Her sister... Ives is over there. Quynh had told her to find Tiur at least. She'll know what to do.
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Footsteps are heard, but not the click-clack of high heels of her mother or any human tracks. The sound is soft and muted, like a padding of...
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Paws.
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"Addy..." Quynh breathes out. "Thank God it's you."
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But the relief is short-lived. Him being here doesn't change the fact that they're once again toeing the line between the living and the dead.
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"Quynh..." he sighs before seating himself in front of her. "You didn't make it."
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"I didn't make—? Addy, if you died on me, I'm still as good as dead." Her voice drops to a near inaudible mumble. "Well, doesn't matter now considering we're both here."
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She raises her arms—huh? Her hands are so small. Suddenly, Quynh's feet aren't touching ground anymore and the girl had already buried her arms and face into the lion's overbearing mane.
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"... What is this now, number five? We only have four more left."
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"What? You're not a cat, Quynh."
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"But you are, so I actually am!"
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Her voice becomes something of a light childish giggle. Innocent. Sweet, like molasses coating truth. Cats don't actually have nine lives. Quynh isn't actually a cat. And neither is Adelais—he may be a manifestation of her mana in the form of a lion, but he is not a lion.
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Quynh pulls her head away and grins up at who looms over her. "We gotta get the Philosopher's Stone before we run out, hey?"
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Just silence, except for the whisper quiet swish of his tail. She waits, peers over his shoulder to see if the deity approaches in. There's nothing.
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"Expecting someone?" Adelais asks with a low rumble. Quynh blinks, and leans back to stare back at him, bewildered.
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"Yeah," she says quietly. "You never met them? I guess you haven't. You're never around then."
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She waits a little longer.
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"Usually a God comes chasing."
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Adelais blinks slowly. Before Quynh realises it, he's already laying down with his head resting atop his paws. She blinks, and then the chair is gone. It feels like she's sitting on grass in a meadow, leaning against the lion's flank, drafts of wind against her hair. But the darkness still prevails.
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"What do you think, Addy?" she asks with sudden revelation. "Of living forever?"
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When he speaks, he sounds like her. Overlapping, echoing, male and female voice in harmony. He sounds like the deity behind the curtain.
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"... Why do you suddenly care about it? You never did before the first times."
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Remember the times your veins courses more drug than blood.
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Remember the times you wake suddenly in a stranger's bed with only a mere name to memory.
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Remember the blur of lights, the booming wave of sound, the fun you had.
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Remember your existence.
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"It's scary. To not exist. Come on, Addy, you wouldn't want to not exist, do you?" Quynh swallows thickly in between, "Why did you get in the way like that? Was I really going to die?"
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"Yes."
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Well, fat load that did for them.
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"Aren't you scared of death?"
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"Why would I?"
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"Because...? Because it means you don't have a say where you go next."
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The lion's eyes are closed and stay closed, tail swishing against the null grass as he seriously contemplates the reply. His ears flick once.
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"... You're being contradictory, Quynh. Do you not exist, or do you go elsewhere after you die?"
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"Why are you being so... ugh! I don't care! Either way sucks! I don't want to die!"
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Silence befalls them. If Quynh still had a body, she'd be heaving in anger. But hold her breath or hyperventilate, nothing changes the baseline heartbeat in her ears.
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Heart... beat...
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In the far-off distance, at a direction unknown, they hear a faint, incessant echo of noise: palms slamming against a wall, steady like a heart. It pauses and a voice calls out... to them? Or it whispers? To the void? What is heard is indecipherable; Quynh doesn't recognise any of the words, but her would-be bones feel a precautionary chill, as if she's heard the voice yell and whisper at her before.
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A head turns away, fingers grip tight onto fur and skin. "It's here!"
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The unknowable thing, god, deity, monster continues to bang against what feels like a barrier, a barricade that seems to be keeping witch and familiar safe. Quynh feels the fear of a child well up inside her as she buries her face against Adelais.
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"Addy..." she says, whines, croaks, pleads, cries. "Are you really not afraid? Do you really want to die? Do you really want to leave me?"
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Her familiar finally opens his eyes. He lifts his head to turn it over his shoulder, peering to see the back of her head as her face continues to press against his fur. She is no more than a frightened child hiding away from the monster in the closet.
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"Is it so bad?"
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"Yes, it is!"
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"Even though everyone you know and will know will leave you? You know that they will all pass away eventually—"
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"I'll have you and that's all that matters!"
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It's quiet again. Too quiet—belatedly, she realises that the thudding had ceased, and she is reassured by the low rumbling purr of the lion beside her.
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Adelais curls his body around her more as he lays back down.
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"If people around us keeping dying and dying, they won't remember us."
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Quynh stills for a moment, and reluctantly peels herself away from her musing familiar. Philosophy is never her strong point—so how can Adelais, another part of her, think about death so detachedly?
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"Will we continue to exist when we're forgotten?"
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Her lips press into a firm line. Quynh begins to crawl her way towards where he rests his head and wraps her arms around his mane.
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"I have you... and that's all that matters."
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His ears flicker; he blinks slowly once more. And then he closes his eyes again, in comfortable rest.
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"Alright. I'll hold you to that, Quynh."
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She wakes up.
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Well, she thinks she woke up. But instead of feeling sand beneath her fingers and the heat of blinding sun in the sky, Quynh feels a cold thick surface under her body. Paralysed body? She can't move. She's not drowsy either—it was more like a switch that had flipped her consciousness from a simple off to on. Is this another part of her mind that clings to the remaining energy of life? Did she actually fail and the God had found her?
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Something is there: a blob of maroon red. It's not beating.
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It's a heart.
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It's her heart.
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Even if it's not, that piece of flesh belongs to Quynh Le.
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Her eyes round wide, mouth agape in a shrill, distressed scream as darkness begins to pepper her vision. Again it comes: a dreamless sleep of non-existence.