It's enough to break her heart. If she had one... If she still had one.
"I'm still here." At least, someone should be. As Xayah clutches at her clothes, Ori feels something swell in her dead heart. Something old and forgotten, like rusting gears. She hears the whispers still - foolishly sympathetic! - but she pushes those thoughts away. Pushes away the monster, the villain, the foretold apocalypse. One day, she will be the ruin of all things. But not yet. After all...
"I'm still here." She understands. No hospitals. Not always possible. There's a nod of her head. Xayah looks more and more like a wounded bird. Like her. And oh, how she hates mirrors, how she finds them disgusting, nauseating, mind-numbing... Where's Janna? Where's Sona? Where's Jinx? Why doesn't anyone talk to her? Why does everyone hide everything from her? Why does she always end up alone? Orianna closes her eyes, and a slow, mechanical, creaking breath escapes her - machine-like, fried, exhausted. She feels she's faced with a mirror. She knows the feeling of being forgotten. Of being a friend, abandoned. Of being nobody.
Because you are nobody. No one cares if you're not a machine, if you're not an apocalypse.
Orianna's expression returns to neutral soon after, as she mulls it over. And she isn't sure what to say. How to say it. It's made worse when Saki speaks to her, tries to glean into Orianna's true intentions.
"My true intention... Is that I find myself tired. Tired of seeing friends burn themselves out. And especially tired of knowing that heroism is conditional on love. When the world ends, will your friends be too busy? Will we still be saved? Will we be important enough to save, to care about, to not be forgotten?"
The voice in her head, the machine, hisses at her. You're saying too much. But she doesn't care much. Orianna is honest even when she shouldn't be, unfiltered, with emotions she can't comprehend. A liar that cannot lie.
"My back is already turned, Miss Bird. It is why I am here. Outsiders find outsiders, abandon outsiders, forget outsiders, and die as outsiders. But... if I may say this..."
"I'm still here." Orianna lifts Xayah, her body creaking, and begins the long trek home. It's empty now. An empty place. Sona won't come home, and Janna won't meet her eyes. So it will be fine. And... You idiot. You don't even know when you are, so why are you assuming?
Because the Sona she knows would have leapt into her arms in an instant. And the Janna she remembers would have patted her head. And she would not be so alone. Perhaps, she's been saying it to herself. Perhaps it's been more to herself this whole time. She doesn't know. She isn't sure. Orianna sighs as her body creaks, fighting against the exertion as she carries Xayah, one step at a time. And she says it again, to Xayah, to Saki, to herself.