Chapter Text
Shiori remembers the prison, “The Cell” as it’s called.
She remembers how dark it gets, the only visible light source being the occasional red hue that bleeds through each crack and crevice of the walls, seeping into every space imaginable. It’s as if she’s forgotten what natural sunlight even looked like, what it felt like.
She remembers a prison break.
An explosion or two, maybe even three. The falling debris, the echoed footsteps. Each lined with a sense of haste and excitement, the carefully-orchestrated chaos of it all. Of course she remembers, the breach was all part of her plans after all.
What happened after felt like a blur, even to someone like the Archiver. But she remembers…something.
A glow, a lustrous orange glow.
A human? But not quite like it.
A familiar face? But alas oh so different.
She remembers now, a name she thought had long been forgotten, a name she thought she’d never utter again.
“Ina?”
After being wrapped in near-darkness for so long, it’d be enough to drive anyone desperate to cling towards any sort of light as a form of comfort. As for Shiori, her ‘light’ was right then and there, arms reaching out in preparation for a warm embrace.
She remembers a hug, a few tears, a small kiss on the cheek. There she stood, wrapped in Ina’s arms, illuminated by the glow of her halo. Shiori’s found her light, her sunshine, her Priestess.
Moments like these make her wish that very sunshine could stick around just a little bit longer, to bask in its warmth for one more minute, one more hour, one more eternity, even.
A selfish wish to some. But fortunately for Shiori, this sunshine would never set.