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The door clicked behind her after she waved them goodbye and thanked them for taking her on a journey to see what remains of her, as soon as she was out of peering eyes her shoulders slumped. She lets out a tired sigh, her feet drags along the floor as she moves
Past the workshop and up the stairs, there were photos of her and her siblings, but in the center of it all, the one she had kept closest to her heart despite everything, was her and Cocolia. Her eyes lingered on the portrait of them, it was them together, smiling. It was taken around the time they had started playing together, and around the time Cocolia had started making her own prototype of a guitar she later gifted the blonde
Her hand touched the frame, dust rubbing off on her finger as she ran her hand over the frame of it. The frame was a gift too, it was wooden with swirls of purple and gold, Cocolia had painted it and given it to her as an anniversary gift of their friendship.
Serval blows off the loose dust, wondering just how it all went wrong. How such a sweet and kind person could turn as cold as their eternal winter, she often wondered if there was anything she could've done differently, something she could've done to help.
Her eyes trails the portrait, the dusty photo and untouched frame, she looks up to the numerous different portraits all new and old, not a single dust on them. All had been routinely cleaned and dusted, all of her siblings and her or with friends. Yet, this single frame was dusty
Her grip tightens on wood that protects the photo inside, her eyes stings as she pushes it all down. She was never worth her tears, yet just this once, just this time it didn't feel like it would be wasted, the tears weren't for her, but her.
These tears wouldn't be for the loss of Cocolia, but instead for the love she had for that Cocolia, for the grief she held at arms length with the refusal to acknowledge it with the excuse that “she wasn't dead” And despite the facts it left her empty for so long, it left a bitter taste on her tongue and stings her heart every time she was brought up
And wasn't that pathetic? She was grieving the person that hurt her, and yet somehow, she missed her. She missed her so much it hurts, she doesn't miss Cocolia she missed Cocolia. The Cocolia she would call Lia and share inside jokes with, she missed her, she missed her Lia.
She missed the coffee they'd grab at ridiculous hours of the day, of band practice, of making music together, of stargazing and wondering if there was a world where they could just sit still in time and stay forever in that perfect moment, of intertwining their fingers afraid of people realizing what they actually were
The fear she had buried so deep she no longer knows it, the fear numbed out after their falling out, in place of that fear now sits an empty void of feelings that she isolated in a bottle till it dried up into dust, and now she would never feel that fear again. She doesn't know if that should make her feel relief or sad
The things that went unsaid between them, but they both always knew, and now she is the only one that knows.
The only one that would ever see the former supreme guardian at their best, at their worst and most vulnerable. No one else will know, not even her own daughter, she will be the only person to remember her as Lia instead of supreme guardian Cocolia
Serval chokes back a sob, her shoulders shake in an attempt to hold herself together. She holds up both her hands to her mouth muffling the pitiful noise she makes, then time stops
She realises her mistake too late, the sound of glass shatters her, a step back and a crunch of glass under her shoes. She looks over to the broken frame, the glass shattered and the frame broken in half, but the photo is still intact, but still inside.
Serval takes slow steps, bending down as she slowly brushes away the broken glass to grab the photo, she picks it up, her vision blurry, tears dripping down onto the paper. She stares at the photo, ruined in her own sadness for a woman that's long been gone
For someone that's changed for the worst, the one person she thought of as her best friend, the one she had once kissed under the moonlit sky on a trip across the snow plains and had sworn to her that no matter what, nothing would separate them. Look at them now
Broken promises and rubbles of what was once there, a shell of a person she once knew and loved.
And didn't that hurt? She had promised, she had a plan, she always did. Yet the plan never came, the ring that laid in a box in Serval's nightstand now only collects dust, they had a promise.
They had the rings.
And didn't that just make it worse? They were supposed to get married one day, to live this happy ever after that they were supposed to experience together, yet now only one of them was left.
The other left to be known as a show of sacrifice, they had been each other's everything.
They were supposed to get married this year if Lia's plan had gone through.
That broke something, something she hadn't even realised was there.
Her shoulder shook, the photo held to her chest with her arms holding herself in place as she sobbed these sharp and painful sobs. She sobbed for them both, for the way it ended and for how it should've ended, each tear for every time they'd be called disgusting for, for every time they shared fleeting kisses afraid anyone would catch them even in their own space
For every change that happened, for the fleeting person that she once called Lia instead of supreme guardian, for the empty shell she used to share clothes and food with, the person she'd go on coffee dates with at odd hours afraid people would see them and piece together they were what they called parasites
The tears are for the person who never had the right to grieve, yet now she's dead, and it feels real. It feels like she's losing her all over again, like she's losing Lia again but this time she won't see her, she'll never get to steal glances at her or even hear news of her well being. Lia was dead first, but now Cocolia too was dead, and that just means Lia would never come back, not ever.
Her knees pressed against the floor, shards of glass pressing against it as she continued to mourn what was lost. She always loved her. No matter what she did, her love was enough to look past all she had done, because under the facade was that same girl she used to play guitar and go star gazing with.
Why was the universe so cruel?