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In another life, perhaps they were closer than just acquaintances. Perhaps they were closer friends. That’d be a nice thought, right?
As Hyacinth stared at her shallow grave, flowers slightly wilted were clutched in her hands. The remnants of blood had cruelly stained her face. If she hadn’t left the settlement with AJ out of her parental worry, would she still be here?
“Hyacinth? What are you doing here?” Marion’s voice almost seemed to linger as he walked into her bedroom after the funeral. He instinctively winced at the sound.
Sometimes he’d just sit on her bed as she wrote something down, and like a sponge, absorbed her presence without a word needing to be said between them.
Maybe they would’ve met at the auction house or at ANAKT Garden. Maybe he’d have stopped her from leaving that day as he should have if they were a little bit closer.
He truly didn’t want her leaving the settlement, for she would barely be able to defend herself, but she looked so determined that he couldn’t get the words to convince her to get past his lips.
There was a possibility that he could be to blame for her death if he had just said something but as Hyacinth looked over her desk, a small book of time-worn pages sat on the surface, buried amidst piles of paperwork. It stood out among the clean white sheets with black lettering. The muddied pages distorted most of the writing and dating back to when she was still a child.
Marion had nice handwriting, yet seeing her childish scribbles on the pages that could barely be considered words, it was nice to see that she wasn’t all that perfect as she tried making herself out to be. Then he found more recent pages.
“I found a settlement. I don’t know what to think of this place yet but the people are nice. Maybe this time I can open up.” He could hear Marion mumbling under her breath as she wrote her early days at the settlement. “They assigned me to the infirmary. I met Callisto and S̷̷e̷̷s̷̷ Sezim today “ They don’t seem too bad. All they did was show me what was where.” The ink had blended into the page, not as weary as the other pages yet still partially faded.
The next page had caught his attention. “Hyacinth is the name of a flower that blooms in spring. They’re often purple.” was the very first sentence on the next page. A spaced line and then more writing. “I saw someone walking around. I wanted to talk to him but I got nervous. I believe his name is Hyacinth, though.” and to the side is more recent writing that confirms that in small, smudged writing, it was his name.
“I hope I get the chance to talk to him eventually.” and immediately after is a handful of completely unreadable writing, hurriedly and smudged writing from Marion’s panic.
As he flipped through the pages, each of them had a small profile as to her early thoughts on each of them before she had truly integrated herself into their group. After he had gotten through the handful of them, he had reached what looked more like diary entries. Dated by day, month, then year.
Several weeks after Marion had first entered the settlement had been written on each piece of parchment
“They’re trying hard, so I have to do my part too. I can’t just loaf around just because I escaped. I’ll work hard and earn my place here, too.”
“I think I’m sick, but I’ll be fine. It’s just a small cold.”
“Callisto wouldn’t let me leave my bed so I couldn’t get up to work. He’s nicer than he looks.”
“Jizi blew up over half the settlement today. He’s resting in the infirmary while some of us are working on repatching up his workshop. How he managed to make something that explosive is beyond me.”
Several things listed over the span of several days, some of the days were missing or just unreadable, stained by water spilling against the pages with even more illegible writing over the dried pages.
Marion had written down every experience up until her death.
“I’ve decided. I’ll head out with AJ tomorrow. If I die, then so be it. It will be my fault because I didn’t think ahead if I died. I’m sorry to anyone who may want to stop me but this is my choice and I choose to live by it.”
“I hope he won’t blame himself if I die.” was the final entry, written mere hours ago. That very morning.
It was like she knew in advance that she would die.
She was indeed a cruel person, even if she didn’t plan on it.
Sure, that last sentence wasn’t directed towards him, but Hyacinth took a deep breath and closed the book. For her sake, he wouldn’t blame himself no matter how much he really wanted to.
Marion might smack him if he told her as such. Perhaps she'd say something along the lines of “It was my decision to go off and die. Don't worry so much about it.” or maybe he convinced himself of that to keep himself from blaming himself for something she had expected.
As days passed, Hyacinth had taken her diary as a sort of reminder that she existed, keeping it in his room. Could he be any more pathetic or was he just hoping he would wake up from the cruel dream that she had died?
He'd rather be asleep than confront the fact she was gone. It was easier on his heart than to believe he was helpless to save yet another person he cared about.
“Hyacinth? What's on your mind?” Her gentle voice echoed in his head.
“... Can you say hi to Hae-won for me?” He asked.
Marion just sighed.
“You see me for the first time in well over a month and that's what you ask? … Fine. I'll do that for you.” She stepped closer and placed her hand on his head, not doing much else.
"Bye Mari." "Bye Hyacinth."