Tell Me

Canon: Luceti-verse
Characters: Harry Dresden & Syre Atries
Rating: PG for some language
Misc. Bits: Monologuing ahoy.

"Just because he went around flirting with everything that moved, doesn't give you any excuse to play mad scientist!  I thought you were better than that!"

The Ecliptian was silent as Harry yelled, her eyes averted.  He had a point, she knew -- she should have known better, should have been more cautious.

Should have feared the worst.

The silence that hung in the air after he had finished berating her was almost palpable.  Then, with her voice heavy with guilt and sadness, Syre spoke.

"Perhaps I'm not."  She looked up at him, green eyes filled with self-hatred.

"That, that was the me that my world normally sees.  The ruthless mad scientist, the violent alchemist.  Why should I give them any reason to think otherwise?"

She took a step away from him, spread her arms as though baring her very soul to him.

"Should I show them the hopeless romantic with false hopes instead, Harry?  Should they see the weak fool--" her voice was shaking now, a crack in her facade "--that let herself be taken with kind words and a charming face?"

"Should they see the youth orphaned by war and uncared for by her peers?  The young adult who had nothing left to turn to but her work, fearing the day it would drain the the last traces of life from her body?"

Syre's voice was an angry, sorrowful shout now, tears streaming down her cheeks even as her eyes burned with indignation.

"Tell me!!  What should they see, Harry, when the Gods-damned Malnosso play with my emotions, my mind, and make me who I'm not!?"

She was shaking now, rage and sadness and self-loathing coursing through her even as she tried to keep herself from sobbing.

"Tell me."

Revelation

Canon: Luceti-verse, Event
Characters: Arsene Lupin III & Syre Atries
Rating: A sad G.

This isn't the way things are normally.  We... We aren't like this.

The short note confused Syre, and a faint frown tugged at her lips.

"We're... not?"  There was a worry in her voice, a twinge of hurt.  "I... I don't understand.  We're so happy together."

She looked down at her lap, wringing her hands together anxiously.  There was the sound of pen on notecard again, and the thief passed it to her once more.

I'm sorry... but we've never been like this.  This is a Shift, and a cruel one, at that.

A pang of sadness lanced through Syre, and she looked away from Lupin.  It couldn't be true....

A hazy, unfocused memory rose unbidden to the surface of the Ecliptian's mind:

A farm over-run.  A mob, unruly and chaotic.  Lupin's voice, calling out.

"I've told you once and I'll tell you again -- stand down!"

Syre's hands went to the sides of her head, her expression slightly pained.

Through the white haze of her thoughts, she heard her own voice.

"Stand grown and leave, lest I stain the ground with your blood."

"Do you think I'm bluffing?  Believe me, I'm not joking."

"I'll slay the lot of you in an instant, if need be."

She clenched her eyes shut, fighting off a headache.

"Syre.  That's good and all, but this is neither the time nor the place -- and it's not my call..."

Only the feeling of being pulled forward pulled her out of her trance.  She was suddenly aware of the wetness that streaked her cheeks, aware of Lupin's arms around her.

She knew, then, that he was right; knew that the happiness she had felt, the love for Lupin that filled her heart, was just another experiment to sate the Malnosso's curiosity.

Almost immediately, she wished she hadn't remembered anything at all.