#highspecs

He began wearing it around his neck—fixed the string with the utmost care. Aranea would catch, out of the corner of her eyes, how he would sometimes hold it between fingers, stroke it while whispering soothing mantras to get himself to calm down when whatever creature lived in his head started acting up. In moments like those it settled in her—the truth she had long realized and accepted way before he had gotten down on one knee before her: Aranea had married a broken man. Fit her just right, though; she wasn't any less broken than he was.

Maybe too many blows to the head will do that to you, but she found it harder and harder to discern reality in her mind. She would spend minutes trying to separate her dreams—and nightmares—from the prior night from her actual life, try to make sure that the memory she was playing in her mind was an actual memory and not a thought or a story someone had told her.

She would sometimes watch Ignis as he talked to her, stare at the scarred eyes behind his glasses, follow the movement of his lips and wonder to herself who was this man talking to her so intimately and why did he feel so familiar. Some mornings, she would leap out of bed when she saw him and reach for a spear that was not there. Ignis would gently, lovingly coax her into believing that yes, they were married, this was her house, she was safe. No, the war had ended long ago, they didn't have to worry about that. Niffelheim? No, they were in Insomnia, she had defected from the Empire years ago. Why was the Sun up? It was because the True King had sacrificed himself to bring the Dawn back. The world was saved.

And, as sick and twisted as it was (because it was very sick and twisted), the few tears that would sometimes escape Ignis as he said those words aloud would at times turn out to be just the thing that spurred Aranea's memories back. She would come out of her episodes just in time to see her husband try to hide his sadness. But Aranea, always one to have things done her way, would have none of that. And, as sick and twisted as it was, comforting him helped ease her mind away from painful memories and destructive thoughts.

In a sick, twisted, miraculous way, having to care for each other's burdens helped ease their own pain. It was easier to be strong when you had someone who depended on you, warmth was easier to find with arms holding you or another body lying beside your own in bed. Yes, married life suited them just fine—to live is to suffer, but at least they weren't suffering alone.

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