Content Warnings:

Verity

Mine was a tired and bitter laugh.

Of course they were scared of the rain. What hovered above us and dripped paint was not even a real Storm.

But, then again, neither was I.

Opening myself up to the black painted rain helped me center myself. Here, exposed to a facsimile of something I triumphed over in a much more lethal environment, I found a certain sense of peace.

This wasn't strictly speaking what the Chorus had intended, but I think I understood it enough. That lesson would have to suffice for the other students. The object that concerned me craved conditions that even I found intolerable.

"Verity, what's wrong?"

Oh Verse, if only I only had the heart to tell you.

"I'm scared," was all I could bring myself to say. I had been scared of becoming myself in dozens of small ways. What if I got something wrong? Or worse, I became something that everyone feared just as much, if not more than the Stormfolk?

Verse had stopped listening to the voice that uttered these lies. She had taken a knife entrusted to her by someone who cared and carved out what held her back.

How could I bring myself to do the same?

There was a part of us that took it upon itself to learn behavior and instincts that kept us alive. It was the voice that convinced us that there were redeeming qualities to being a Storm. Sure, I could find ways to fly without relying on clouds and Verse could find a voice that did not harm others. But where did that leave the part of me that doubled down trying to be a Storm? Had I not mastered some part of being a Storm, would I have ever been given the freedom to flee?

"Scared of what?"

That I could not bring myself to silence that part of me.

"GOOD QUESTION."

Black ichor spattered through cracks that opened in my chest. A thunderous voice issued from within, one I no longer internalized as mine.

I felt a familiar pain, yes, but only so far as separating myself from another distinct part of me.

Verse flinched, a trauma response. I turned to see them torn between fight or flight responses. But Verse knew that voice.

It had been mine, once. I knew better than to say it ever belonged to her too. Some things I just knew in my broken heart to be true. It is why I took the name I did.

Other thoughts needed to be worked through. How could I put it into words?

I sucked in a pained breath. This was taking a lot out of me, and I had so little of me left to give as things were. "First, I just need you to understand that I do not intend for any of this to apply to you."

"Well, that is a given. It should be more than evident enough by now that we are different entities. Alike in many ways, but not all."

A sigh of relief. Verse was saving me a lot effort. If I wasn't clutching an open wound, I would hug her. "I cannot bring myself to cast aside the parts of me that doubled down and attempted to fake being a Storm. It would feel like discarding you."

"Okay. I think I can see why you feel that way."

"During those days, it truly felt like there was someone else taking over for me so I could hide in the dark and not have to think about what would happen if I screwed everything up."

"NO. IT WAS NEVER YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!"

The black heart quivered and cracked as it shouted. I petted the little black orb into silence before easing some of the falling paint into filling the freshly formed cracks.

"Hush now, you need time to gather up your strength." I shook my head. "I tried to spare you this part of me, even back then. I did not understand this dissatisfaction of mine well enough to draw clear lines where I ended, or you and it began. Not until I saw you flourish without it." I only wish I saw it sooner.

With that dark weight off my chest, a hollowness filled its place. A problem for another time.

Verse understood immediately. "It is a smothering presence. For me discarding it felt like a relief. But in you I see a burden and responsibility still. Whisper carries something similar, I think."

The black core began to shudder in my hands. Rain began to fall faster and with increased intensity. Good, it was embracing itself as a part of the Storm. That much I had intended. Anger soon followed. Another shout was coming and heating up the heart in the process.

I gave it a stern expression that probably looked more tired than anything else. "We are better than this, even you!" 

"YOU DISCARDED ME!"

While not intended for me, the force of the thunderous shout left me unsteady on my feet and demanded I put effort into maintaining my grip on the rapidly heating heart.

Turning, I found Verse swept off her feet and shoved to the ground several paces away.

Behind her, a concerned Whisper came into view, silken clothes long since painted black by the rain. "No, Verity. It was you who crossed a line." Her voice had a forced calmness to it, despite looking like she was trying to prevent herself with shaking. "Drawing upon and manipulating the fears of others is something I cannot allow, whether you understand what you are doing or not."

"Whisper," a winded Verse spoke between gasps for air. "It's fine. I'm okay. I turned out okay."

"No. This is many things. None of them are okay." Her voice then softened, long enough for an apology. "But I'm not entirely blameless. I should have said something long before now." She stalked forward with a dispassionate expression settling into her features.

I turned before she stabbed out with her needles, yanking the black heart out of the way.

The second needle went straight through me, piercing two hearts with one thrust. "For what it is worth, I am sorry."

"NO!" Verse cried as my strength left me, withdrawing to my core before being replaced with soul numbing pain.

Dying rumbles of a distant thunder could manage only a pained whimper as Whisper withdrew the needle, threatening to take my consciousness with it.

She left an expanding hole in the black heart that I clung to for dear life.

I was fine enough.  There was so much more of me imbued in the rest of my being.

The blackened heart did not have that luxury.

It needed more, but what did I have left to give? I could not pull the rain from the sky any faster.

I could hear Whisper turning to help Verse up. "To shape and wield the fear of others is the domain of Nobility alone. This is for the best."

"Best for who? You hurt her."

"Efficiently. She'll be fine. But I'll understand if relationships between us never recover."

"Whisper. You put thought into hurting her, and followed through with it."

"To protect you. Neither Ruin or Amari would have been as gentle or precise as I."

"Did it even occur to you to let her defend or explain herself?"

Whisper made a choking noise before falling silent. "Verity, no."

Block out the voices and distractions, focus on what matters.

The black core responsible for me living this long was hollowing from the inside out, collapsing under its own weight and losing the ability to maintain a solid shape. Before long it would be ringed outline and then nothing at all.

"Just. Just tell me." I did not recognize my own voice. It was so weak, so frightened. "Tell me what you need of me."

The desperate words I reached for had once passed from Whisper to Verse.

I clutched the black ringed remains close. Nobility, the word rung through my being.

An idea that could sustain itself in the minds of all who had been made to live under it.

If this echo would not survive without me, we could be rejoined. 

I lifted what I now perceived to be a crown and froze it in place atop my head.

Whisper took my head in her hands, her words dying before they could leave her lips.

What was there to be said?

The Crown cracked.

With my own fears now added to the mix, a tide of black liquid broke free from the crown and washed over me.

My vision for what Verity should look like became just one of many lost in a sea of countless ideas shaped and informed by trauma.

My everything melted away until there was only black liquid slipping through Whisper's fingers.

***

Whisper

"No."

I did not want this.

"No no no no no no no!"

Anything but this.

I tore and dug through a stream of black liquids before screaming at an artificial sky.

"You can't have her! I won't let you!"

All in vain.

"I don't understand." Verse said, for the third time with a patience I truly did not deserve.

"She's gone."

"You said that already." There was a hollowness in her voice. She was talking around it, like she had not seen what I saw. "What does it mean?"

We were up to our ankles in black paint, ink, and melted ice. I resumed digging.

There was no Crown or Bolt Stone to be found. No material component I could identify as Verity.

"Whisper. Please. I need you to start making sense."

I could try, but I was starting to panic. "Nobility has always been small and delicate. They fall apart at the smallest challenge."

"Okay. I am not sure where you are going with this, but I can work with this." Verse said, a tired relief settling into their voice.

I clung to the relief in her voice like a lifeline.

"Their power has always come in the shape of a crown and the fear it projects. A fear I projected onto her when I felt her reaching out to shape something with it."

It wasn't working. I couldn't do this. I couldn't handle causing this. I knew better.

"Are you saying that you caused this?" How did Verse sound so calm? I wanted her to hit me or yell. Anything that acknowledged what I did was wrong. I did not consider myself a good judge for such things. It was why I craved someone else to cling to, a guiding responsibility to make sense of my actions.

"No. I mean, maybe, I'm not sure anyone completely understands it, but that's just it." I was shaking now. Some Soldier I was. "There's always a vacuum that another noble with a crown steps into and takes up once more."

"So it's an Archetype. One that really does take over whoever wears it."

I let out a wail. It would be so much easier if Verse just understood what I could not put into words so she could be angry at me for it. "It's not like that." All eight of my eyes closed shut. "She was so tired, so uncertain of herself. All she had to do was briefly fit the mold and it would embrace her."

"So, where is she?"

My next breath did not come.

"Whisper. What happened?"

I cast my gaze to the black clouds that obscured our view of the ceiling. "She opened her heart to the Storm."

For some reason, despite interacting with her the least, Verse had found the patience of Lady Night to deal with whatever wild words came out of my spiraling soul.

"I think it swallowed her." I finished. There was no trace of her. Washed away in the downpour.

"So. She is gone."

I stood, motionless.

"Whisper-"

"I don't know! I only served them, okay? I never saw one crowned. I can kill them, but I don't understand them. They don't listen to reason."

"Slow down. Where is this coming from?"

"They say they're trying to help but they just take and they take and they're never satisfied and I never wanted to see royalty in Verity and then she just reached out, plucking that fear from my soul like paint on an canvas. I was terrified of how many students she was channeling into the Storm. She had to be stopped. I wanted to save her from herself, but now I'm not sure if I can even get her back!"

I felt a weight crushing me. I was unsure when I had curled up into a ball, or when Ruin joined us. Suddenly I was in her arms. I truly did not deserve it but the intensity that she crushed me in her arms felt enough like a punishment that I could accept it.

"Hey." Ruin said. "We've fought a Storm and won before. What's one more?"

How did this big dumb brute so effortlessly cut straight to the heart of any matter she bumbled into?

"Verity won." I said, punching the big dumb fish lady in her shoulder. She didn't budge an inch.

"And only you and I saw how. Now, are we gonna keep that to ourselves? Or are we going to come clean to our friends? Traumas and all?"

I wondered what it was Amari and Verse saw in her.

"Fine. Okay. I guess I owe you all that much." I glanced around, no Amari in sight. "I don't know how much of that you heard. Do you blame me?"

"Oh I'm upset, but no one here has the full picture. So up ya go."

I wanted to complain. Verse was the one that had been hurt by the Storm, not me. She did not give me that opportunity.

"I can walk." Verse said. "I'm fine."

"See? Verse is fine. You on the other hand are being carried away against your will."

I sighed, there was no use arguing. I was not sure how much leg I had to stand on in this situation.

A whole lot of pain going around today. I briefly wondered what the instructors would have to say about this.

***

"Words cannot express our disappointment, Phaedra. These students consented only to a safe exercise light on the heart."

The air in Marble Hall was getting colder. What had once been raining paint had progressed to something approximating black shards of hail. Nothing big enough to hurt anyone, but who knew how long that would last?

The Once Imperial Librarian narrowed her eyes before catching sight of our group approaching. A wicked smile showed off her venomous fangs as she began to relax. "Ah, Whisper, Verse. It is good to see you are both safe. I can drop the act now."

Verse and I traded confused looks that did not go unnoticed by a scrutinizing Ruin.

"Verity belongs to the Storm now?"

Three shadows turned their masks from Phaedra to look at me. Ruin took that as a signal to put me down, adding to the sudden feeling of smallness. "She disappeared. Both her and that black thing that hurt Verse."

An ugly cry interrupted me. Amari thundered towards me. "What have you done? You should have known better!"

She stopped in her tracks when Ruin stepped between us. "Librarian, were you planning to make a point anytime soon?"

"If I may borrow a phrases of yours, Chorus." The shadows shifted uncomfortably, but did not interrupt her. "There are infinite ways to express one's self but not all are sustainable."

"What have you done?"

"Relax." Phaedra drew out the word and silence that followed. "All is proceeding according to Verity's stated intent!" She clasped her hands together like that was that.

Amari turned on Phaedra, glaring daggers at the serpent. "You let her hurt herself."

"Tsk tsk tsk. She hurt herself long before she came here to Orbital Hall, and forgive me for saying this, but none of you are equipped to handle her trauma. So when Chorus asked for my assistance, I took this opportunity to make helping Verity my priority. The rest of you I would leave to the Chorus. Verity was my only concern."

"You could have run this by us first."