V

━━━━━━┓༻❁༺┏━━━━━━

Arc V Chapter 21

━━━━━━┛༻❁༺┗━━━━━━

26th Ignis Solar 753 AAC

“I must admit that such is curious indeed ...” Her doll fell silent. Reluctant she might be, and yet she came to accept her words. Not that she had much of a choice considering her situation. “Still, I do not understand ... So, we are now one ... What does that mean? How ... How is this even possible?”

Aurora leaned back, her eyes scrutinising her loyal companion. “It is far from impossible. Quite the contrary. Otherwise, I would not stand here now before you. You must have already realised it, Lady Aurora, but you died that fateful night. Your life ceased that night.”

“...” Little Aurora looked at her with a feeling of uneasiness.

Aurora elaborated, “I think you understand the implications, Lady Aurora. The moment you died ... The moment the light of life in you began to fade, but was not yet extinguished ... That was the moment when your soul was the weakest. It was the moment when the boundaries between reality and the metaphysical blurred. Your dying soul crumbled, already decaying and disintegrating. Your fleeting consciousness dwindled. That was the perfect opportunity. You were the suitable vessel I needed. That was the moment when my soul entered your body. That was the moment when our souls fused, when mine and the surviving fragments of yours joined. What was once separated, was now one.”

“So ... So ... So, you took my body, after all! You stole my body! You are a thief!” Little Aurora clenched her tiny fists. There was a trace of indignation in her voice.

Aurora, however, took her accusations with a sense of humour and a good laugh. Especially, since they were not completely baseless. There was a grain of truth to them. “Lady Aurora, I will not deny the veracity of your words ... You are correct, in a certain sense, yes, I took your body. You might even say that I stole it from you. And yet, I must insist that yours is a rather ... narrow point of view. ‘Thief’ is such a harsh word.”

“Elaborate.” Little Aurora narrowed her eyes, her voice laced with anger and what could be regarded as open hostility.

A polite smile was her answer. “As much as it might be to ask, Lady Aurora, I must urge you to rein in your emotions and consider. The fact is that you were dead, deader than dead. The wound you have suffered was lethal ... You were stabbed through the chest. The inescapable truth is that your body was beyond salvation. Your death was merely a matter of time, of minutes, of seconds. You were a corpse living on borrowed time. And yet, ... you survived. And yet, we survived. Now consider, whom do you owe your miraculous salvation, Lady Aurora?

The answer is obvious. It was I, Lady Aurora. It was I who saved your crumbling soul. It was I who sustained your dying body, albeit through the brute force of my mana rather than finesse. The fact that you are even here, the fact that you still exist, the fact that you still live, you owe it all to me. Without me, your body would be nothing but a rotting corpse. And yet you possess the impertinence to call me a ‘thief’? A thief of what? A thief of a dead corpse? A thief of a life lost? Because it was I, through my efforts alone, who gifted your dying body with new strength. It was I who reignited the light of life. So, tell me, Lady Aurora, what did I take from you? What did I steal from you what you had not already relinquished? Answer me.”

...

...

...

“... ... ...” Her doll fell silent in the face of her poignant question. Not that it surprised her. Not every question was meant to be answered.

“...” Aurora folded her hands, a sense of satisfaction crossing her lips. “Your silence speaks for you more than any words, Lady Aurora. I think, you know the answer. And so do I.”

Little Aurora lowered her gaze. “...”

“Though, I must admit that I cannot hide my surprise, Lady Aurora ... The mere fact that even a fragment of your consciousness survived is nothing short of a miracle, a miracle against all odds, a miracle unlikely to a degree that is hardly fathomable. You are a very lucky doll, Lady Aurora. A very lucky doll indeed. A part of your soul must have separated during the consolidation phase when our souls merged and attached itself to the nearest suitable object, your doll. As it turns out, your doll proved to be exceedingly receptive to your soul. You share a strong emotional bond with your doll, which probably facilitated the process. It would make sense. Nurtured and stimulated by my latent mana, your spirit then reawakened and regained consciousness. This is how you came to be.”

“... ... ...” Her doll's shoulders deflated, and yet there was a glimmer of misplaced hope left in her eyes. “Do ... Do you think that I will be ever able to return to my body?”

“... ... ...” Aurora hesitated for a moment, but her doll deserved the truth. “I will be honest with you, I strongly doubt so. Such is unlikely, to say the least, if not outright impossible. Our souls have fused on such a fundamental level that the process might be very well already irreversible at this point. In fact, And even if ... In order for you to live, it would always mean that I would need to disappear. I am sure you understand that I might be reluctant to do so.”

“I understand ...” A heavy sigh escaped little Aurora, a sigh of realisation. Her doll despaired, a cloud of depression hanging over her cute head. The girl resembled a heartbroken kitten. It was a painful sight to behold that moved even the most unyielding heart, hers included.

Whether it was her motherly instincts or her remaining sense of humanity, she couldn't tell. Her arms acted on her own, propelled by her inner desire to hug her doll, to cuddle her. Her arms enclosed her doll in a tight embrace to shield her from all the evils of this world. Her tender hands caressed her doll, patting her in a soothing manner. Little Aurora needed her. The girl needed a hug and love. “Shhh ... Shhh ... Shhh, don't cry, Aurora~. All will be fine~. All will be fine~. I promise~.”

“Do ... Do ... Do ... you think so?” Little Aurora stopped sobbing, her tiny doll fists rubbing her tearful eyes.

Aurora nodded, her smile radiating an aura of unshakeable optimism, albeit born from necessity rather than from genuine belief. “I do. All will be fine, Aurora~. No matter what, I will always be there for you. We will always be together. You will never be alone again. What you see, I see. What I feel, you feel. What you think, I think. What I say, you say. We are now both one, in body, in soul, in spirit, and in mind, our destinies intertwined, Lady Aurora. Not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but to the end of days.”

━━━━━━┛༻❁༺┗━━━━━━