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[demonicbeauty]

[The feed springs to life without warning, as so many of the share memories have been doing, lately. At first it's mostly a wash of shadow and golden firelight, difficult to pin down to an exact time or place or person.

That changes as a mirror appears. A little girl is standing in front of it. She can't be terribly old. Maybe ten. But she's unmistakably green. It's Ariadne, no question. Skin the color of the underside of a maple leaf. Hair blue as candy floss, pulled into a tight braid over her shoulder. Little girl or adult, she has the same look of wonder in her gray eyes. Like she's completely fascinated with every single thing she encounters.

Right now, that wonder is her reflection.

An older--impossibly beautiful--woman appears at her side. She seems to be Human, with pink skin and black hair. She puts a hand on Ariadne's shoulder. Very, very carefully. Her voice is equally gentle.]

How do you feel?

[Ariadne looks at her in the mirror.]

Tired, mostly.

[The woman nods.]

Yes, that's to be expected. Does it hurt?

[Ariadne frowns.]

A little.

[She turns, looking back over her shoulder to keep her eyes on the mirror. The back of Ariadne's dress is stained with blood. Two long lines of it, running down each of her shoulder blades. She gasps, looking more startled than hurt. The other woman holds her steady.]

There will be scars. But they'll fade. In time. And you'll be able to pass for a Human, once you've healed. We'll survive. Together.

[Uncertainly, Ariadne wraps her arms around the woman's waist, burying her face against her side. The woman strokes her hair lovingly, as the memory fades.]

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[demonicbeauty]

She stepped inside, giving him a gracious smile, holding up the basket so he could see. "For you. From the garden. They're just at that perfect place where they're not sour, but they're not mealy yet." She wiped her boots politely on the mat. "I would have brought some pears too, but I don't think they're nearly ready yet."

Another few months, at lest.

Her smile faltered after a moment. She stood there, looking at Dean with a thoughtful expression. "Dean, I'm so sorry you had to see that."

Not that it was the worst of her memories. But still. What a terrible way to find out the truth about someone.

[venatoris]

"Awesome, thank you." He gestures to the table in the kitchen, if she wants to put them down. He's mostly alone in this big ass house, so the place is a little dusty, neither he nor Claire or particularly in depth cleaners.

"I'm sorry that was blasted all over the network," he says, because yeah it was a weird way to find out, but he's more concerned about her at the moment. "It seemed pretty personal."

[demonicbeauty]

Obediently, she set the cherries down, frowning a little bit at the dust. On instinct, she immediately went into one of the kitchen drawers and took out a dish towel, wiping down the counter. Perhaps she knew the house a little too well. But that happened when you spent nearly a month holed up in a place, clinging to the people you loved as the world around you kind of disintegrated.

Not an experience she was likely to forget.

Then again...people were forgetting things all the time, around here.

"I guess I should have expected it to happen," she said, sweeping the dust into the sink. "I've been seeing other people's memories all week. There was no reason to assume that mine wouldn't show up. I just wish it had been a happier one."

[venatoris]

It's cute, seeing how at home she is here. Kinda warms his bones, cracks the ice around his heart.

"Yeah, I noticed that too. Been kinda trying to avoid the network thing, the arcade is busy, the garden needs tending." And he's mostly alone, his entire family gone - not that he personally knew they were there, but his journals make him yearn for things he can't have.

"Sucks you had to deal with it, though."

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne paused. Just briefly. "Yes. It does...suck." She desperately hoped she was using that correctly. She'd spent enough time around Dean to know what it meant, by this point. Still, she knew that she stumbled over quite a lot of the idioms of his world. And she knew it sounded stilted, a little unnatural.

There was nothing she could really do about that.

She would have to study some more.

Anyway, she went back to dusting quickly enough. "I don't regret it, though," she added. "Because of that surgery, I was able to have a real chance at a life."

[venatoris]

Correct word usage indeed.

"That isn't fair you had to do it," he says, but he guesses it makes sense, if anything like that can make sense.

"Do you regret it?"

[demonicbeauty]

"No," she said automatically. And then she paused. "I don't regret it. But...I guess it would be lying to say that I don't...miss them sometimes. My wings. I miss flying. It's such a wonderful feeling."

The Chocolatier had reminded her of that fact. And Ariadne chose to believe it was a gift, rather than a taunt.

But that was just Ariadne's way.