he couldnāt reach her. displacement, he could handle, his hard-won power being ripped from him, he could handle, being rendered `helpless` by the everymanās understanding, he could handle. he was a beast with snapping jaws, and to be backed into a corner was the folly of the enemy only.
to take her was a death wish. this had happened before, once, twice, her transportation to the future ( the connection had severed and he had been prepared to raze namimori to the ground to find her, ready to kill every plaything heād kept there until she was returned to him ), her kidnapping by daemon spade ( his only regret in this life was in not spending the eternity on daemon he had promised, in allowing his hubris to align too easily with daemonās theatrics and release the scum from hell too soon ).
he would not suffer it again. to reach out and feel nothing. he would pull from the deepest pits of his fury and the mistās creation would not stand up to hellāsĀ destruction, if needs be.
heād tried to quell his nerves in his pretty ( not pretty enough ) cage, paced the rooms, frightened a bystander or two, but every attempt he made to establish their mental connection was met with nothing, not the wall of a girl who wanted some privacy but nothing, it trailed into the aether like falling into a yawning pit and gave him vertigo while sitting down. he needed some fresh air.
he took the stairs outside the condo two at a time, rushing his way down to the ground floor and prepared to go anywhere, anywhere, he could stretch his legs now in a way he hadnāt been able to for years in vendicare and sometimes he did so just to prove he could, just to say to himself that he had more agency than ever and whatever he was going to do, he could do it whenever. but even as he power-walked away from his temporary abode, something tugged at him, some baser instinct, and he turned back just before he rounded the corner--
just in time to see her approaching the very same building heād just left. good lord.
ānagi,ā he breathed her name with all of his affection and none of his worry; the worry was instead communicated in his hands, fretfully caressing her shoulder, brushing her cheek, in ways unbefitting his usual unearthly calm.Ā āi couldnāt reach you,ā he tried it again, reflex, and still found the void between them.Ā ā..are you alright?ā
