Chapter Text
Magilou realized very quickly that she had made a mistake. But like most things, the revelation only arrived when it was too late to do anything about it.
Late.
She was very late.
Caught up in her morbidly whimsical take on flower fortunes, she’d spent too much time by the river—far too much for someone just taking a quick jaunt around the town.
“Magilou?”
So it really wasn’t very surprising when Eleanor came looking, her concerned calling of her name turning into an outright shout of fear.
“Magilou!”
Shoot, Magilou thought, trying to straighten up, but her throat was thick with flowers and leaves and vines and she couldn’t even make herself smile right. The facsimile that resulted only made Eleanor’s eyes widen in dismay.
“Oh no…It’s just like Bienfu said…”
…That annoying little Malak. Magilou lifted her head but couldn’t see him anywhere. Probably hiding somewhere nearby, though. He knew exactly what had to be done to cure this disease.
Her thoughts skidded to a half once Eleanor began to cry. It was stupid and cliché and positively enchanting, the way the moonlight reflected off of her tears, brighter than even the surface of the river behind them.
“M-Magilou…”
“Th-The return of the Crybaby Exorcist!” Magilou said with a shaky laugh, bloody fingers pressed against her chest as though she could reach through her ribs and tear out the flowers riddling her body.
“Why did you hide this for so long? Y-You have to let me help you! There has to be a way to—”
“You might as well save the tears. Oh, and artes won’t work either, so don’t waste your br-breath.” She met Eleanor’s gaze as the other girl rushed to kneel before her, their eye-contact breaking momentarily so Eleanor could take in all the red-stained petals and flora scattered around—funeral flowers for a witch’s grave.
“How can you say something like that? Y-You’re…” Eleanor swallowed hard, scrubbing fiercely at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re dying, aren’t you?”
Her voice was so quiet and fragile. Hearing that distress, seeing her so close like this, it just cemented what Magilou had already decided.
She would rather die than let herself forget about Eleanor Hume.
All the vital details were in her memoirs by now. Anything else could be supplemented later, by Eizen, or Rokurou, or Eleanor herself. Bienfu could just follow the latter around instead. Yeah. It’d be just fine. She’d have control of her heart for once; Melchior wasn’t around to take the choice away from her. This was what she had decided.
Again, how ironic. Death by flowers. Maybe she and the old man weren’t so different.
“Yeah.” Magilou’s response was soft. Delayed. “B-But…” Her throat seized, and she had to force down several flower petals and clots of blood. “Come on. Don’t look like that. It’s not the ideal way I w-wanted to go, but…I’m not exactly a stranger to heartbreak.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed as Magilou tilted her head back to look at the sky, laughing.
“So, I don’t ca—”
“Don’t you dare say you don’t care!”
Warm fingers closed around Magilou’s own, indifferent to the blood now staining them. Eleanor’s glare was ferocious enough to make a daemon turn tail, and Magilou suddenly couldn’t look away from how that green burned.
“You’ve been sitting here just…just suffering all this time, and you truly believe you can just play it off as nothing? You’re worth caring about, Magilou!”
She was still crying. Even with that righteous fury in her eyes, she was still blubbering away. For some reason, that made Magilou snicker despite herself; Eleanor’s concern only made the vines close tighter and tighter, but she was so beautiful in that moment that Magilou thought it a worthy price to pay.
Eleanor clasped her hands between hers, steadying Magilou’s trembling. When had she begun to tremble? Somewhere between the pain and the exhaustion, she’d grown so weak…
“You’re…You’re kind, in your own way. You’ve fought alongside us. You protected us, helped to guide us—you’ve been a real and wonderful friend, Magilou. Y-You’re funny, and charming, and even when you’re being absolutely just, j-just, infuriating, it’s always wonderful to have you around. I didn’t realize how much I missed you until we all went our separate ways. And being here with you, rebuilding the town…”
Eleanor finally broke her gaze away, smiling shyly, red scattering across her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose.
“It’s…been nice.”
Magilou couldn’t stop the coughing anymore. Eleanor clasped both of her hands over her mouth as what amounted to an entire bouquet practically emerged, causing even Magilou’s demeanor to finally break. She fell onto her hands as Eleanor steadied her.
“G-Glad to hear that you like having me around,” she rasped, the edges of her vision blurring from the pain. “You know, when you offered me a home…I kept refusing because I wouldn’t know what to do with it. Heh…even now, you’re…a real Shepherd, aren’t you?”
Magilou wheezed a sardonic laugh. “I mean, that do-gooder heart of yours…it’s what…I love about you.”
Eleanor gave a soft little gasp. And then, before Magilou knew it, her hands were framing her face, gently bringing the witch’s eyes up to meet the former Exorcist’s once more. The tears were gathering anew in Eleanor’s eyes, and they were tender now. So very tender. It wasn’t a look Magilou was used to receiving, if she ever really had.
“Magilou…that’s the other cure, isn’t it? If…If I understand Hanahaki Disease correctly.”
She brought them closer. So close that their foreheads were touching, resting upon one another, though Eleanor was practically supporting all of Magilou’s exhausted weight.
“…I love you too.”
For a moment, Magilou could breathe, her reply filled with the most honest display of emotion she’d indicated in a long, long time. “…Eleanor—?”
“And if you don’t care…I’ll care enough for the both of us. I-I…I love you, Magilou, so please don’t die…!” She wrapped her arms around her and tightened her embrace to the point that Magilou couldn’t breathe for an entirely different reason. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too!”
Velvet’s absence burned between them all, along with Laphicet’s pseudo-absence, Maotelus that he now was. Still, the words—I care, I care—filled Magilou’s heart, made her exhale a little cleaner, a little clearer.
She pushed Eleanor off of her, but it was just so she could start clearing her lungs of all the flowers without getting blood and petals in her hair.
“S-So you love me, huh?” Magilou didn’t have to force a smile this time. In fact, she couldn’t stop smiling, the elation causing her lips to twitch in a sincerely wide way. “That’s a preeetty big mistake you’re making…”
“Don’t try to play this off! This is a serious—!” Eleanor blinked, chuckling a little as she pressed one hand over her heart. “…I take it you’re feeling better then. Are you going to be all right?”
Magilou nonchalantly picked a stem from between her teeth, pulling a face at the mess she’d made of her clothes. Ugh. Well, at least she knew a good method for cleaning blood out of fabric; a necessity for anyone that fought battles as much as they did. “Who, me? More or less. I mean, once I’ve coughed out the rest of the flowers, should be smooth sailing from here on out.” With the pain fading fast, she was able to slip back into her usual behavior without much trouble, though Eleanor seemed to be seeing her in a whole new way now.
“Thank goodness…” Eleanor closed her eyes, letting out one long sigh.
Once Magilou was certain that most of the foliage was gone from within her, she used the river to scrub her hands and mouth clean. Nothing to be done for her clothes at that very moment, but at least she didn’t look like she’d come out on the wrong end of a fight with a Therion. As she turned, though, she noticed Eleanor watching her.
“Something on my face?” Magilou inquired, arms folded behind her head, as casual as she could make it.
“…You should smile like that more often.” Eleanor brushed some hair behind her ears. “It’s nice to see you looking so carefree again. I’m sorry for not noticing what was troubling you before.”
Magilou meant to reply with a joke about how great her acting was, but Eleanor surprised her. She stepped closer, gloved fingers gently guiding Magilou’s chin toward her—
“I-If I may—”
Magilou might’ve blushed for the first time in her life. Briefly. But seeing Eleanor’s whole face catch fire, pausing just before their lips touched because she’d lost her nerve, it quickly turned into the witch giving her most spectacular smirk yet.
She could complete the kiss for her. But what would be the fun in that?
“Well, I don’t know! May you?”
“Magilou—”
“Isn’t this pretty much like stopping just before spearing a monster? It’s a little late to ask.”
“Y-Yes, but you’re not a monster!” Eleanor huffed.
~***~
“Miss Magilouuu! I’m so glad you’re okay!”
Later on, back in their inn room, Magilou grabbed the sobbing Malak by his hatted head, lifting him up to eye-level so she could fix him with a glare.
Eleanor was going to meet her back up here soon, having gone to retrieve food, insisting that Magilou eat something and then rest after her ordeal.
So it was just her and Bienfu, as per usual.
“Now, maybe I’m just forgetting, but I’m pretty sure I told you to keep quiet.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Magilou! I was just really, really worried! Your condition was getting so bad, and I—”
Magilou placed him down safely upon her bed, causing him to look up at her in surprise.
“…Thank you, Bienfu.”
(Of course, once Eleanor returned, Magilou pushed him right off the side.)