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[claritatis]

"You've reached Ignis Scientia. Leave a message and I will endeavour to get back to you post-haste."

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[claritatis]

Ah.

[Another one of them. Sorrow is an easy thing to not regret the loss of and Ignis has seen enough of it in his short life to not mourn its passing overmuch. The only hope can be that this won't last long.

When she grasps his wrist, he stops, and the soft kiss catches him before he can do anything about it. He looks at her and his eyes hold a wordless question, the guilt swirling in his gut bubbling up behind it.

Ignis kisses her back, fingertips sliding lightly along her jaw as he carefully sits.]

... Do you?

[dedikated]

( Too long for Kate's liking, but for all her time in Hadriel, she has yet to figure out a way to stop from being affected by the gods' abilities. Short of travelling out of the city every time, or taking Glacius up on his entirely crazy suggestion of moving to one of the abandoned cities.

It's easy enough to get caught up in the kisses, the soft touches and closeness, for it almost to drown out the guilt she can feel snaking through her veins like poison. )

I--

( She goes for another brief, chaste brush of lips, finding his hair and brushing it lightly back from his face.

No, she doesn't particularly want to talk. She's not very good at it. Especially not when it comes to herself. But that feeling refuses to leave her alone, dogged as it comes, calling up a million things she's promised herself in the past and never lived up to before. )

I think so.

( But she has no idea where to start, so her lips find his a third time instead, as though kisses will somehow unlodge the things she wants to say. )

[claritatis]

[Ah, but it's so easy to be weak in front of her. To let all the walls and fronts drop down and let her see that something is bothering him. It's in the way their fingers tangle together and the way he gently leans into her, taking the kisses as they come like a balm.]

Alright.

[He could talk, too, but when most of his guilt is directed elsewhere it's easy to push it to one side in favour of what she might have to say.

Ignis squeezes her hands, running his thumbs over her knuckles lightly.]

[dedikated]

( The words never mind linger on her tongue, the stock response she's so used to leaning on in moments like this, but guilt stabs at her with echoes of words uttered a month ago and hisses about deserving better. Far better than her ignoring everything for the sake of being able to keep some veil of denial over it all.

Ignis deserves far better than the habits built years ago, but so does she. She's come too far in these ten years to keep holding onto it.

Kate takes a breath, glancing down at their intertwined hands before she speaks. )

I... know I'm not good at talking. Wish I was sometimes. ( She speaks slowly to get the words right as much as she does because she has to fight to get them out, even in the face of all of Sorrow's guilt. )

... Never managed to tell my brother - ah... ( Her teeth catch her lower lip there, awareness that she's on the edges of rambling in ways she doesn't need to stopping those words. )

The point is, I know we don't have any guarantees here. Don't want to --

( rambling. Again. Can she blame being friends with Carlisle for this? )

I'm happier 'cause of you. Just... needed you to know that.

( She Tried, ok? )

[claritatis]

[He'd never contest that she wasn't good at talking. Ignis had learned to read the way she moved and the expressions she made, the tone of her voice rather than what she really said. He doesn't interrupt her as she stops and starts, and when she finally reaches what she really wants to say it's met with a small but undeniably warm smile.]

I do know that. [Ignis tells her, lightly squeezing his fingers around hers.]

You've never needed to say it. But it's good to hear.

[dedikated]

I did.

( The insistence is reflexive. She's spent too many years regretting what she never said for it to be anything else. And there's that knot in her stomach again, the one which isn't filled with guilt, the same one which seems to cling to her heart. It flares up every time he smiles, is enough to make her eyes flick away from his face to anything else - the walls, their hands...

She wonders if it is too fast to feel these things, if there's a minimum amount of time people are supposed to spend dating before things like this blossom. But Hadriel is all too good at making things progress too quickly, because Hadriel shifts constantly. She's trusted, liked and lost many people. Disappeared and returned. Fought and pushed through the way this city changes and the things which have happened to them.

She's done much of it with him at her side, as a friend and more. )

I love you.

( The words spill from her lips before she can bite them back, reconsider or overthink them. They spill forward through the memories of the last time she saw her brother and all the things she should have said or done then, and the ache of waking up in Hadriel in a bed which shouldn't have been empty but for her and all the things she didn't say then. )

[claritatis]

[He's wondered the same thing himself. Too much and far too fast. Too soon to be able to say the words and know that he means them with every inch of himself. Things are better with her around. A little brighter. Softer yet sharper all at once. Ignis has no frame of reference for what falling in love feels like and he never imagined that it would feel quite like this, but he has no doubts about what it is.

Hadriel forces things from them in ways that he doesn't particularly appreciate, but while it may have set the groundwork for the feelings between them in certain ways, they had continued to build it on their own. He never doubts how Kate feels, even though she's never told him.

But... she tells him now. He hadn't considered how hearing it would feel. It curls in his chest, a warm weight but not an uncomfortable one, and he doesn't kiss her but pulls her close to him instead, never a single thought given for the ways she outmatches him in strength and how she could so easily resist if she wished to.]

I love you too.

[dedikated]

( There's a breathless moment where she feels all too light, where the reality of the words just said settle in and her heart seems to stop in her chest, everything still around her. It's easy enough to pull her in as those three words - still a physical thing in her throat - echo in her ears, foreign and distant sounding all at once.

And yet, they feel right. Some far off part of her heart and mind burning bright until it pushes away all the usual fear and doubt, the preferences towards caution when it comes to such things, out and away, like light piercing the shadows.

It takes a moment - and a long one at that - but her arms wrap around him, hands splayed against shoulder blades, and Kate rests her head against his shoulder without another word. It feels right to say that. Feels right to get words out that she'd so often keep bottled up until the last possible moment, or until it was too late. )

[claritatis]

[It helps, taking the sore edge off the forced sensations washing over the both of them, and he holds her as if he could protect her from it.

Soon enough, though, the tide of regret-ridden sensation washes back up, tightening in the centre of his chest and pushing intrusive thoughts back into his mind. There's so much that he doesn't want to consider, and it's as if there's some underlying knowledge of where to direct the guilt as his thoughts turn to her and all the things he hasn't said.

Things he hasn't been thinking of as important, but knows she'd want to know about.]

There's something I haven't told you. [He mutters, turning his head to lightly rest his chin atop hers.] ... About what's going to happen to me in my future.

[She knows by now that he has awareness of things that he shouldn't. Through the presence of an older Noctis, and Hadriel's own events... He has never made much issue of it, but he shifts back slightly to look at her as he pulls in a breath that faintly shakes on the last moment of the inhale.

Doesn't she at least deserve to know, so that she might know what's on his mind in those moments where she speaks to him and he seems a million miles away?]

Should I leave here... Within a few days of my return to Eos, I'll be blind.

[dedikated]

( The silence hangs heavy and thick and even those words aren't quite enough to silence the guilt entirely, but the gnawing becomes a quiet hum instead, a familiar thing which is easier to ignore.

And is entirely forgotten when he pulls away and explains the thing that's been on his mind. Her expression flickers, brows knitting together, lips twisting, the weight of knowledge quickly settling against her chest. It sits next to the mix of things she doesn't want to think about - the inevitable fact that one or both of them will have to leave, that they're two people from two vastly different worlds with lives and responsibilities that can't be left to one side.

And the fact that, when that happens, all the memories disappear.

Emotional responses sit on the tip of her tongue, but don't make it out. What good would any of them do, anyway? )

I see.

( She keeps her voice even, hands shifting and finding his, clasping tight around them in place of any further words. )

[claritatis]

[He'll let the poor choice of words pass to one side. Now isn't the time for the pun he might have made of it. There's a reason to tell her this now - worrying her over something she would never have to be concerned with isn't the driving force - and he looks down at their joined hands before he quietly goes on.]

I've been aware of it for some time. I didn't know how to tell you, I...

[Isn't it funny? A man of such education and fine words as he had no idea of how to express such a thing to someone he cares so much about. His jaw tenses briefly, fingers squeezing over hers. Measuring his words is difficult under such conditions.]

... I know that I might come back here after it happens.

[dedikated]

( How do you find the words for such a thing? Do such words even exist? Kate couldn't find them if they were, but then, she can't find the words for far simpler things all too often. Her fingers tighten around his hands automatically, a silent plea of not yet, he's not allowed to leave yet.

The first noise to escape her lips is a laugh, a soft and humourless one, because that's exactly the kind of bullshit Hadriel would pull. She nearly says as much, but catches herself at the last minute, her grip loosening on his hands slightly, enough to allow her fingertips to stroke the skin underneath. )

I'll still be here. ( Kate pauses. ) As long as the Door doesn't change its mind.

[claritatis]

[He's already had another unspoken question more an answered. Would it bother her, or change anything between them? Everything tells him that the answer to that question would be 'no' (or, potentially, 'don't say such a stupid thing, Ignis'), despite the way he can't help but feel at the moment.]

I... sincerely hope it doesn't. [And is that selfish, he wonders, though if it is he certainly doesn't feel guilty about it.]

I already know a great deal that I shouldn't. [Ignis mutters, shaking his head.] But it's a comfort that nothing would change between us.

[dedikated]

( Definitely the second one. It's hard to be certain, because she doesn't know how being blind will change him - not physically, that's obvious. But everything else. How would he react to such a thing? She likes to think he'd fight, that he'd stay the same person he is or close to it, but she could be wrong. They don't know. She imagines Ignis doesn't know the answer to that any more than she does. )

I hope not.

( She admits. She can only hope that it doesn't. That they weather the storm together. )

[claritatis]

[That's one thing he doesn't know, either. Noctis - the elder one - and himself never got the chance to go into that. He doesn't know how it will affect him and what kind of person he will be afterwards, save that he will not stop fighting.

Ignis squeezes her hands, still troubled but more quietly so. It presses on him like a weight but one that, at least right now, he can bear.]

Are you going to be alright?

[dedikated]

( It's one of those moments, the ones that come rarely now, where she remembers just how young Ignis is, despite all behaviour pointing to the contrary. He's in his early 20s, barely (if at all) older than she was when she left The Agency, and this future has to weigh on him. He should be worrying about normal things, like paying rent or the workload at his job. Not... this.

Kate simply looks at him for a long, quiet moment, as though trying to memorise the exact colour of his eyes and the light and life that's normally there. As though doing so will prevent the decay of time or the Door's erasure of her memory, should it happen. )

Yeah. ( She'll have to be. There's nothing Kate can do about this, not by a long shot. Even if she affected the Door, somehow, how would it be better to keep him where he isn't supposed to be? ) ...Eventually.

( For now, she needs to process it. )

[claritatis]

[Ignis has never had the luxury of being able to worry about normal things. From the age of six, he was never afforded that, and the things that he has to concern himself with in Hadriel are still not as pressing as those he will have to consider when he returns to Eos.

He sits quietly under her scrutiny, his eyes never leaving hers as if he knows what she's doing. At the same time, he look at her, trying to hold her face in his memory.]

I should have told you sooner. [His fingers press lightly around hers again.] I didn't want you to have to worry about it.

[dedikated]

You should have. ( She echoes it firmly, the words almost sounding like a scolding as they roll from her tongue. ) I... want to know these things.

( Knowing that she can't do anything about it hurts, because Kate has an almost compulsive need to try and save those she cares about. To protect them. But she would rather know this. She would rather he wasn't staring down the dread of his future alone. )

[claritatis]

[He takes the admonishment elegantly, ducking his head slightly and subtly clearing his throat. It's about as chagrined as she'll ever see him look, but he doesn't let go of her hands in the meantime.]

I'll keep that in mind. [Ignis murmurs. They love each other. They should be able to talk about anything. It's not that simple, because it never is, but in the ideal world...

He looks up at her, apologetic.]

[dedikated]

( She hopes he does, as well. Doesn't even consider the fact that she should be heeding her own words as well.

For now, that guilt is a light hum instead of a screaming bird, and it's easy for Kate to distract herself by pressing a kiss to his lips, hand curled around the side of his neck as she pulls them both down onto the bed. )