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Shiori's archiver situation was a bit complex. Not just the way she became one, but how it treats her body as well. It's not something the rest of Advent is consciously aware off, only knowing she isn't quite human, and that is all they needed to know in Shiori's opinion. She doesn't want them worrying over her.
The changes had been hard to accept at the beginning, fraying her mental state the first years. But by now she's had centuries in this body, discomfort turned into stability. knowing. And really, not all of it is bad. She technically can't die, no organs to keep in check or risks of diseases, hell she technically doesn't even need to breathe and eat. There's nothing really pulsing in her body, only her mana. It's what made the cells livable for her compared to the rest of her group.
It's hard to kill the narrative after all.
She still had scars from before her transformation, from way before she became the archiver at all, but shapeshifting made it quite easy to morph or hide them away. She doesn't like having visible weakpoints, mentally or physically. As Advent's leader, she is driven by her role to protect. She doesn't like wearing her weakness, and she doesn't want Advent to question her either.
Despite all of this though, being a former human still comes with it's drawbacks. Especially when that body was never meant to handle becoming a deity, and it's what has her collapsed in her bathroom with peeling black skin and ink like substance around her face. Her eyes rapidly switching between their normal glowing gold and the dark brown they used to be before her transformation.
It happened ever so often, way more when she just converted, but it seems her body still had some semblance of human cells. Human cells that, when realizing their infection with what might as well be a virus, didn't respond too well. It led to this, what looked like auto immune disorder and graft rejection on her skin. Throwing up ink like blood, skin rejecting and peeling in layers like the splitting of a tree, her eyes and nose leaking the same ink like substance as well.
It didn't hurt as much anymore, not like before, but it is still a nuisance, still a pain. She shivers a bit as she repositions herself, more upright instead up hunched over. Hopeful it might keep some of the ink spill of her eyes and nose inside, or at least slow the flow a little bit.
There's nothing to do but wait it out. Her archiver cells win in the end, they always do; human biology is nothing to a god. But gods, does it always take longer than Shiori wishes it would. She always wondered if she could manually speed up the process, but her magic reserves always tend to be a bit wonky when these flare ups occur and she'd hate to accidentally make things worse or more gruesome instead. She prefers keeping her shape shifting to a minimum after all, outside of morphing her skin to hide scars and the ink choker she wears to hide the particularly large neck gash she has.
It's a handy ability, but she prefers to at least appear as human as possible. Something to keep her sanity at bay, pretend she's still herself. It's the same reason she still eats, despite not needing too. She doesn't really care to find out the mental break that would happen if she robbed herself of all human actions, who knows how much more of her hair can turn white before she looks completely like…..
Oh? seems her face stopped leaking finally.
She leans backwards a bit to reach the edge of her bathtub, where she luckily had managed to leave a towel for clean up. The moment she turns back to wipe her face however, she is disturbed by knocking on her door.
"Shiori? Are you ok with me coming in? I wanted to discuss our plans for tomorrow"
She freezes at the spot.
Nerissa
Gods why now, why did the raven time her visit right this moment. Shiori sneers at the ink on her tile floor, wishing it away. She stifles her anger at Nerissa, the demon didn't deserve her ire for a situation out of her control, really this was Shiori's fault for forgetting the other woman would probably come by tonight at all. She should have had the foresight to puke up her mana in the sink or something.
Maybe it's her nerves, or her rising irritation at herself, but she feels another shot of pain crash into her body and she hisses very audibly. Watching the skin on her forearms again turn a dark black and morphing without her permission, ripples of mana underneath the surface.
Shiori realizes the trouble she's in the second she hears the door open and Nerissa's hurried footsteps. Nerissa is the demon of sound, there's no way that she didn't hear Shiori's pain, and there is no way the demon would ever leave her in a time of distress. Her mind races to find anything, something, a solution to not have to explain the situation or make Nerissa see her in a state of weakness. Her heart chills at the idea to use her magic to lock the door shut, morph it stuck with ink, but she again worries her mana going haywire and accidentally overextending and potentially hurting Nerissa. Her mind races more every second, and the panic is what does her in. Her skin peels at her face from it, more pain rips through the dull sensation she normally has and she hisses again. pawing at her face and the black freckle like scales showing up from under her normal shapeshifting.
She looks like a kicked puppy when Nerissa opens the door, knowing she sealed her fate. Nerissa just looks at her like her own world came tumbling down, red eyes blinking from the harsh lights of the bathroom they're in.
"Oh…Shiori"
She hates it, hates the feeling of pity. Hates forcing Nerissa to see her like this, fuck did Nerissa ever see her scales before? How is she going to explain that to her. She looks away, hoping to safe face.
They say nothing for a while.
Nerissa still says nothing when she walks forward, gently taking the towel out of Shiori's hand. She'd been clenching it, she knows, it's like a primal human reaction to cling to whatever gives you comfort in times of discomfort and the unknown. And Shiori, for all her knowledge, doesn't know what to do. She just stays perfectly still, head slightly drooped down, while Nerissa observes her in silence.
She is broken out of her stupor when she feels the material of the towel softly move over her head, gently patted against her face taken care to not press to hard on the parts that are still slightly peeling. She dares to look up at Nerissa, citrine against crimson, she looks back down again.
Nerissa doesn't question her, doesn't prod, not yet at least, just moves the towel over her face to dap away any ink mana dripping it's way out of her. When she feels the material is to soaked she drops it on the ink splash on the floor instead, covering it. Shiori is only vaguely present through everything, still feeling her mana go haywire inside of her.
It's a level of adrenaline she hasn't felt since they escaped the cells.
Fabric on her arms now, Nerissa seems to have grabbed a new towel to help clean her up. Again so gentle, so soothing, caressing skin where it flakes, careful not to put to much pressure on anything that might hurt, holding her still with such controlled power it makes Shiori want to cry somewhere in her mind.
The silence is broken eventually, when her arms are cleaned and her skin calms down, and Nerissa is softly rubbing her hair dry from the ink.
"Do you want to talk about what happened? We don't have to if you don't want to"
Shiori shrugs to keep her aloof persona intact, but inside she panics more. Nerissa should know, she can't hide this anymore now. So she opens her mouth, foolishly.
"i don't know, it just happens sometimes. Has been a thing since i became the archiver. It's probably caused by whatever cytokines i still have left in my normal human tissue, it's kinda like graft rejection in a way"
Nerissa narrows her eyes at her in confusion.
"Cyto- what? is that some human magic i don't know about?"
Right, that's not a topic Nerissa would know anything about, curse her need to sound too robotic and explanatory when she's freaking out like this.
"no no my girl, it's like. Well i guess you can call it human magic in a way. It's like…little chemicals in our body that protect us from sickness, they make cells in some way that protect you against things. Mine just probably are confused because being the archiver means i also have an intruder in some way, with the archiver magic, and they react like as if i'm sick. If that makes more sense" she fiddles with her hands in her lap, eyes to the side as she explains. Eye contact always makes her nervous, but eye contact with Nerissa makes her feel especially stripped down.
Nerissa just nods and continues cleaning her hair, correctly identifying that Shiori doesn't want to elaborate more. If she understands, Shiori isn't sure. She's quickly broken out of her thoughts however, by the sound of soft methodical tapping on the floor of her bathroom. A glance to the origin of the sound gives her quite the surprise, a thin feathered tail blooming from Nerissa gently tapping away on the tiles. Shiori wonders if Nerissa is even aware of it, has noticed her own cloaking magic slipping out of her grasp, wonders if it's intentional.
She wonders a lot about Nerissa.
"Reese"
A pause in the motions, her hair must be cleaned by now, it must be.
"Yes?"
"I didn't know you had a tail"
It's eerily silent for to long, Shiori already feels apologies crawl up her throat but Nerissa is faster. The towel is thrown to the side, Nerissa finally makes eye contact with her again, almost as if in surrender. She doesn't quite get why, until she sees more. Ears, more pointed and slanted down. Nerissa's hands, which she only knows as soft and gentle, suddenly seem to have claws instead of nails. retractable, Shiori assumes, they look rather feline in nature.
She swallows for a second, nothing changes.
"Why do you hide them? your demon traits"
It's an assumption, like everything is with Nerissa. Eons of knowledge falter simply in the presence of a demon who has only seen the outside of a cage for 10% of her life. Nerissa moves to inspect Shiori's arms again, seems to map out every slight scar and tear in her arms, usually covered by her arm sleeves. She feels exposed again, but Nerissa must feel the same.
Nerissa probably did this on purpose to make her feel better.
That thought makes her strangely emotional, especially when Nerissa's thumb trail kindly across the groves the chains in the cell made in her skin, the only scarring she has ever received as the archiver. Nerissa doesn't look at her again, is so so silent that Shiori again feels herself panic, the need to spill apologies till her throat becomes sore. Nerissa seems to notice her panic, gives her hands a gentle squeeze.
"Same reason you hid all of this"
There's more silence after that, Nerissa looking over Shiori for any other damages or ink spills. It's when she has Shiori's face gently cradled in her hands when Shiori notices the tears in nerissa's eyes, the slight redness to her sclera.
Nerissa's hand trembles at her cheek.
Shiori just waits for her, patiently.
"The cell…..when i first entered, i was the only one in them. The only being they deemed dangerous enough to be in the maximum security prison. I….the wardens back then, they weren't kind. To me. I was treated more like an experiment at times, or a convenient punching bag. I couldn't do anything back whenever they did something, they had me stuck or tied up to all kind of godly inventions. At the start of my imprisonment, everyday was just waiting till they came back to clip my wings. Or put on that muzzle again. It wasn't odd for them to hurt my tail, or try to rip out my claws, and with the people's response to me before my imprisonment, i just. i just figured that…. it was better to look as human as possible."
Tears had silently started to fall, Nerissa shaking with exhaustion just recalling all the memories. Shiori's powers, which was finally starting to stabilize again, started flashing inside of her at the overwhelming power of memories seeped in trauma. Doing her best to not get distracted by her own nature to comfort the woman, holding her hands like a lifeline.
Anything to tell Nerissa she's here.
"It- It took me a while to even like my wings again, when we got out. I don't know if it was noticeable but, the clipping and the constraints. I really couldn't like any part of myself after that, all of that. So i just hid them, hid them from myself too. But i think you understand that right, not liking some parts of yourself?"
Nerissa gently squeezes back, looking her in the eye again. Shiori struggles, desperately for anything to say, to comfort her. And her brain, for all it's power, comes up short. Outside for one thing.
"I don't know if it matters, but i think you're beautiful. In any shape you want to be"
Nerissa just….stares at her.
The tension returns, and Shiori seriously starts to doubt her role as the archiver with how horribly she is coming up short with wisdom to comfort Nerissa. Somewhere she expects Nerissa to take it as a flirt, joke back, make fun of her confession in some way.
None of that happens. Instead, Nerissa just smiles back. Shy, unnaturally so for her.
"Thank you, Shiori"
There is silence again, but it feels calm now. All that pent up tension slips away, and Shiori only slightly flushes when Nerissa moves in next to her face to check on her. Probably checking for any ink leaks she missed, or weird archiver things. She feels overly self-conscious about her scales, but decides to bite through it now. Nerissa is being vulnerable, so open with her, she should return the favor.
She only thinks briefly at how perfect Nerissa looks in the stale light of her bathroom, thinks shortly of how it would feel to kiss her. Nerissa moves away in time, seemingly satisfied with her check over, before Shiori was going to fall victim to her own impulses.
She still feels clingy however, emotionally exhausted from all that happened, so she can't help herself from tugging on Nerissa's sweater sleeves in desperation. The demon just looks at her in confusion, but she stays.
Nerissa will always stay if she asks.
She feels herself flush at that.
"Would you- would you like to sleep over. Here?" She hopes she doesn't look to pathetic asking, but her red cheeks probably don't convince Nerissa. And she is, is desperate for the raven's touch, for her to stay, just a bit longer. Nerissa kindly tries to turn their dynamic back to what it usually is, but she feels resistant.
"Oh? Do you want me in your bed that bad darling~"
She does
"Yeah, i want to sleep together."
Now it's Nerissa's time to turn red, Shiori notices the slight twitch in her pointed ears at the confession. Stunned.
She looks cute.
"Well…who am i to deny a pretty lady what she wants"
They fall asleep pretty much as soon as they get under the covers of Shiori's bed, constricted in each other's bodies. Nerissa's wings, free again, drape over her like a secondary cover. Shiori falls asleep with the idea that maybe, these flare ups aren't so bad if they get her these results in the end.
"Shiori? I can't find Nerissa in her room and we were supposed to be the one on the grocery run today, do you know where she is?" Bijou stands in front of the dark mahogany door that separates Shiori's room from the rest of the house.
"Uhn! Yeah Shiori can we switch with her then!!! Fuwamoco really want to go outside today, we saw a cat this morning that we have to fight" Mococo states a bit further down the hall, Fuwawa dragging herself through the hall towards the commotion as well.
When she doesn't hear anything at all, she gets concerned. Shiori's always a hard person to read, her emotion magic doesn't work on her after all, but she wouldn't disappear on them without a warning. Their leader was far too serious about her role as their protector for that. And she is also a notoriously bad sleeper, frankly Bijou wonders if she even sleeps at all. If she isn't responding to her, what's going on.
Internally debating for a second if it's worth getting kicked down the hall for, she ponders asking the twins to bust the door open for her to check nothing is wrong before she realizes the lock is already off the door.
The only person with a back up key to Shiori's room is Nerissa.
Putting two and two together, she opens the door as gently as she can, hoping that the sound of her wings and gems don't disturb anything. She peeks in, just a bit, to see if her feeling is right.
There, hidden in the covers, can she spot her leader and her special one curled against each other. Shiori looks so unguarded like this, hair a mess and hidden under Nerissa's chin. Nerissa in turn looks completely at peace, her horns glowing a faint pulsing blue in her rest.
Bijou closes the door again, softly, making a hushing motion to the rapidly approaching twins down the hall with a smile.
Guess they're the ones going out today instead.