#greenmagicked

“ YOU RIPPED OUT all my parts. and worst of all, for me to live, i gotta kill the part of me that saw -- that i needed you more. ”

To say it was a complicated dynamic would be an understatement. But did anyone have a simple relationship with Death? Agatha had just taken the complications to a more literal level. Lilia had seen pining before, the ache in someone's eyes, the yearning, wanting to fix things that were too broken to ever be repaired. She just didn't think she would ever see it in Death's eyes.

"You want her back, don't you?" She asked Rio. "But you also want to punish her, to make her pay for all the balance she upset." And continued to upset, really, if you didn't consider ghosts natural, which considering Rio's apparent hate for them, Lilia assumed she didn't. "You just don't know which you want more."

Sofia feels small. Vulnerable in ways she promised herself she never would be again. Her lips lift into an expression too sad to ever be considered a smile. She looks at Rio, like maybe she is considering begging. But, in this lifetime, Sofia has spent too much time on her knees. The skin is raw and scabbed, and she won't find herself pleading with anyone. Even if she thinks Rio has information she wants.

Agatha had never expected to be back in front of Rio, after everything that had happened, she had hoped the other would leave her alone, as she had told her she wanted. But, she also knew the woman didn't exactly like ghosts, so being here, before her, as the one thing she hated most? It was a bit ironic, if you asked her.

"Have you come to take me?" She asked, knowing that she was not ready to go, not ready to face their son. No matter how much she loved him, she also worried he would never love her again after all was said and done.

She  sat  with  Death  Rio  like  it  an  old  friend  did,  at  peace  and  unbothered.  It  was  quiet  around  them,  perhaps  a  bit  too  quiet  but  this  was  how  Maerose  liked  it  best.  "How  many  poor  souls  beg  you  for  more  time?  And  how  many  are  disappointed?"  It  was  a  fascinating  question  to  her,  one  she'd  truly  like  to  have  an  answer  for.

→ @greenmagicked : rio &. mae, just a casual conversation with death.

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“ DON'T YOU GO PLAYING COY, ” agatha voices her discontent with a narrowed gaze and a stiff uncoiling of an index finger toward her lover, words kept low so the boy basking in the sun on the lowest step of their porch doesn't overhear their bickering. a child raised in harmony is an emotionally sound, healthy one. or something.

the siphon takes one full look at rio's doe - like eyes, the poorly concealed crook of amusement at her mouth, and averts her attention back to her task with an exasperated exhale. nicky's clothes could be mended with a simple flick of her hand, but in times like these, when her chest is tight with an unnamed emotion and her mind rushes with a violent river of thoughts, she likes to keep herself occupied. repetitious movements with her hands. so she continues scrubbing at the stains on his trousers, lips curdled into a pout she won't admit to.

FOR ONCE, ALL OF AGATHA'S THOUGHTS GO QUIET. the sight of rio on one knee, her face a dichotomy between lip - thinning exasperation and that eye - crinkling fondness that sends flutters through her heart, a velvet black box propped betwixt her fingers has sent her reeling into utter stillness. for a moment, not even her lungs expand.

it isn't the fact of the proposal that renders her speechless, per se. that in itself really isn't much of a surprise if she could lend a fraction of her mind to the concept of it. they've spoken about it before. it was, like many other instances in their relationship, a wordless evolution that they simply glided into. they simply are.

but the last few weeks . . . a scrutinizing eye kept to all of rio's strangely out of character moments, an evasiveness she has never utilized against agatha, the questions or complete lack of conversation some mornings before their carpool to work, and the distance agatha feared was inching its way between them like ice stretching over a pool of shallow water ― all of her brittle edges crumble in an instant, gripping rio's opposite hand tightly in her own. ( probably too tight, since she can barely feel her own fingers. )

for once, agatha had read the case all wrong. and it's an excruciatingly silly feeling, the embarrassment creeping up her collarbone in the shade of amaranth alongside a distinct shame coiling like guilt in the pit of her stomach, heartstrings knotted together. all those petty arguments she goaded in the last few days, those nasty words, trying to rile the truth out of rio . . .