"Erm, what does that mean?" Aegeas said, frowning. "What happened to that body?"
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
"When...When you end up like this, your actual body goes into a coma. I don't know if my...if my parents decided to let me die, or if there was a complication, but..."
She glanced up.
"This is the only body I have now," she said, giving a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Ow. So her parents, family, and likely a few friends thought she was dead. No wonder that smile looked a little fake.
"I'm, sorry to hear that," Aegeas said, looking away.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Murmured apologies were uttered around the group - Liz hadn't realized it, but most of them had fallen silent when she started speaking. She wasn't really sure how she felt about leaving Earth behind; it had never been much to her. Now she had friends, and a boyfriend, and technically a brother or two, if she ever went the next step with Aquarius. She wouldn't trade living in the End for anything.
But she was a player, first and foremost, and she never could fully forget her heritage - especially when she was like this.
"Sure," Aegeas said, starting to walk away. He wanted to say that he hadn't meant for that conversation to go as far as it did, but he knew that was a lie. He'd asked quite a few personal questions, and he'd gotten quite a few personal answers. Still, as awkward as it felt to end that conversation, at least she seemed (sort of) happy with her current situation. Which Aegeas could relate to.
It also wasn't too long before they caught up to the others.
At the end of a half-destroyed hallway with a few narrow sections and jumps to make their way through, Aegeas and Kellach found Mal standing beneath a hole in the ceiling. The lion scowled, looking down at all the tears in his robes.
"Mal," Aegeas said, looking around. "Where is Lunis?"
The lion pointed at the hole. "Up there, doing something stupid," Mal said.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
"That's worrisome," Apophis said - what sounded suspiciously like a sigh left his lips.
Ari tried to peer into the hole, but it was easier said than done; the others were crowding in front of her. She could ask Zion to lift her up, but something told her that wouldn't help much.
Mal stuck claws through the holes in the robes that littered his arms. Ugh, these robes were ruined. And it was so hard to find new ones in a damp and hot place where everyone wasn't exactly inclined to buy or sell cloth.
"He thinks he's found the steering wheel," Mal said, starting to peel off his robes (he'd been starting to overheat in any case, and he wasn't going to deal with it if he couldn't even look alright). "And he's trying to see if the thing he took from that one room does anything around it."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
"Yes," Mal said, face covered in fabric. "Don't be weird."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
"You're the one who suddenly got undressed," Pride said, a hint of embarrassment to his voice. The tone almost made him sound like the child he appeared to be, but the words spoken were a staunch reminder of how old he really was.
Apophis was still having trouble getting over that. He was far older than the homunculus, but he was also talking to a character that was supposedly fictional. And while he had enjoyed seeing canon Pride, this alternate Pride was far more enjoyable by comparison.
"Because I don't want to wear something that's full of holes," Mal grumbled. He slipped his robes off, rolling them into a ball and setting them down on the ground. The lion, dressed in brown boxers, twitched his tail as he pushed Aegeas and Kellach out of the way to stare up at the hole.
"It's not that high up," Mal said. He looked at the wall, pointing to a few bumps and ridges. "And there's some footholds."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
"I'll go up," Ari eagerly volunteered, craning her head to get a better look at the hole now that some of the people had been moved out of the way. Her shadow gave a silent nod from beside her, lingering close by in a protective way.
"I think we all should go up," Apophis suggested. "There's strength in numbers."
Aegeas had the unsettling feeling that he knew exactly which room they were heading to, but nodded anyway. It was better for them to stay together, even if that meant being around Lunis.
He headed over to the wall, watching as Mal scrabbled his way through the hole. Taking a deep breath, Aegeas grabbed onto the big bumps in the wall and hauled himself up. It didn't take long for him to pull himself to the top. He pulled himself onto his feet, turned around, stretched a paw back to make sure he wouldn't run into anything into this large and dark room, and crouched down to haul Kellach up.
"Oh great," Kellach said, as he and Aegeas rose to their feet. "This place."
Sure enough, it was the room with the enormous glass walls. Past the steering wheel, those walls looked even more pitiful than before; the sand almost climbed to the top, the sun casting a thin line of light that radiated down the hallways and rooms above them. Most of the glass panels had been cracked or smashed entirely, while the metal frame had been bent inwards at a few places. Lunis was currently preoccupied with trying to clear the sand away from a bent steering wheel, the device lying on the ground beside him.
"What took you so long?" Lunis growled, not looking back. As Aegeas's eyes adjusted to the light, he could see Mal head over to Lunis and join him. It was strange how well they were worked together when they weren't trying to hate each other.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Brushing off some more sand, Lunis gave the back of the wheel a smack. It creaked, the wheel bending away from the base that attached it to the floor.
Trying to step carefully to avoid stomping on Mal, who was preoccupied with clearing sand from the base, Lunis shook his head. "Not really - it looks like the thing's busted anyways."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
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