Work Text:
“You held the crystal up to your eye.
For some strange reason, just for a brief moment…
It looked like everyone else disappeared and..”
* PureCrystal was added to your ITEMS.
Now… I wonder what will happen between you two. Ha ha ha ha…
Seam's parting words still echoed somewhere in the back of your mind. Every step through Castle Town only seemed to make them louder. The town that had once been filled with Darkners now lay eerily still, its silence pressing in from every direction.
All you need now is the ThornRing. Then the TwistedSword is yours.
You step back out into the square. Noelle is waiting by the entrance exactly where you left her, looking out at the empty streets like she was searching for something that wasn’t there- or perhaps she'd forgotten what she was looking for in the first place.
The moment she notices you, her whole posture changes. She straightens almost immediately, her shoulders relaxing as she turns toward you.
"Kris!" she exclaims, hurrying over quickly. "Did you get what you were looking for?"
Noelle steps beside you, her body moving closer until her shoulder brushes yours. "I waited right here. Exactly where you left me."
"I didn't look around much. Didn't really feel like there was a point."
She glances at you quickly. "You always know what we need next. I used to hate not knowing things, you know? Not knowing what was going to happen, or what I was supposed to do about it." Her thumb brushes over the ThornRing slowly and rhythmically, until another thin line of blood runs over her knuckle. Her gaze remains fixated on you.
"It's easier now. You tell me, I do it, and it's easier." She smiles, bright and easy, like nothing in that sentence is strange at all. "So where do we go now? What do we still need?"
She steps closer with her radiant smile. That smile that seemed to only exist in your memory. You tried to match the child in your mind with the girl standing before you, but you couldn’t. No matter how hard you look, all you can see is the ThornRing wrapped around her finger.
Noelle follows your gaze until it settles on the bloodied ring around her finger. Her smile lingers for a few moments before slowly fading. When she looks back at you, something cold flashes through her eyes, gone as soon as it appears. She smooths the moment with a quick laugh, burying it all beneath her smile.
"What, this?" She holds her hand up, wiggling her fingers. "Oh, come on, you're not gonna tell me you need my ring, that'd be insane.” She tucks her hand behind her back, still smiling. "I'm sure it's something else. There's gotta be other stuff around here that'd work. Besides, you gave me this ring. I don’t really want to give it up.”
❤️ Unequip.
You keep on looking at her, or in this case, the ThornRing hidden behind her.
Noelle’s smile doesn’t waver, but the warmth stops at her eyes.
“Kris.” She whispers your name, “Let’s go now.”
The words are a plea, but her voice is hollow. She isn't looking into your eyes. She's looking through them, searching for the childhood friend she remembers. A suffocating urge begs you to stop, to just turn around, but your legs refuse to listen.
❤️Unequip.
You begin to move, not away, but towards her. You hold out your hand to try and grab her wrist, and-
She steps back. Just half a step, just enough to get out of your reach.
“Don’t.” she cries, her voice dropping into a fragile, childlike register that cuts sharply through the dead silence. “Please don’t.”
Your hand remains extended. She stares at your open palm, a look of fear mixed with utter betrayal.
It was a demand. The unyielding demand of a collector coming to claim their tool, their possession.
“Y-you don’t get it,” her voice cracks and shakes. “This ring isn’t just a ring. Every time it hurt, every time you made it hurt-” her voice gives out, but she forces it back up. “It made me stronger. It made me feel like I was finally in control for once. It was because of you, Kris… Please, please don’t take it away.”
Her hand presses hard against her chest, the sharp, jagged metal of the ThornRing digging mercilessly through her robe, right over her beating heart. Her face relaxes, welcoming the pain as her only sense of familiarity.
“I can’t go back to being Noelle. I can’t go back to watching my life pass me by . I can’t go back to letting everyone decide what Noelle should do.” She lifts her eyes to meet yours. Her eyes harden.
“You gave that to me. You showed me what it felt like to finally have a choice, to finally reach for something instead of watching it disappear. You don't get to take that back. You don't get to leave me with only the pain.”
She clutches the ThornRing tighter against her chest, wincing as another thorn digs into her skin. “So, please... just stop. Please don't make me do this. I don't want to fight you, Kris.”
“I'm not giving it up. Not to anyone. Not even you.”
❤️Unequip.
Your hand reaches for the ThornRing again.
Halfway there, your fingers jerk violently to the side.
Your arm trembles…
But something forces it forward, reaching to pry the ThornRing from her finger.
* Noelle cast ICESHOCK!
The air between you turns violently brittle. A sudden, freezing moisture fills your throat as the surrounding warmth vanishes in an instant, cutting off your breath as a sheet of solid ice rushes forward to your palm. The cold doesn’t stop at your fingers. It surges up your wrist and forearm, leaving a dead, petrifying numbness in its path. Your skin solidifies into a pale, blue crystal, the muscle underneath locking into stone.
You don’t even get a chance to pull back.
Your arm drops. It hits the stone floor, and shatters. Hundreds of small, glassy pieces skitter out across the ground.
You collapse in silence.
Noelle doesn’t move for a while. She just watches you on the ground, arm gone, breath gone. Her lips part as if to speak, though no sound follows. Her fingers curl against her palm before slowly loosening again.
“Kris-” She called out your name, but her voice is colder than the creeping frost across your shoulder. You look up to find her staring with unblinking eyes, with a stillness that felt almost unnatural. Her expression is carved from ice - unreadable, and utterly devoid of warmth.
She takes a slow step toward you. Though her foot never reaches the ground, it is suspended in the air as she freezes. The world seems to hold its breath alongside her, as though time itself has stopped.
"I didn't— "
Her voice was barely a whisper. She redirects her gaze toward her trembling hand…
And there it was, a thin layer of frost still clung to her pale knuckles, delicate crystals spreading like veins before slowly retreating into the ring wrapped around her finger. She stared at it like she saw it for the first time. She thought that maybe, just maybe, it would disappear if she stared at it for longer.
“I didn’t do that…”
She spoke the words with the same quiet disbelief she had repeated to herself many times before, clinging desperately to the hope that this was another dream she would soon wake from. Your shattered arm lay scattered across the ground between the two of you, each shard reflecting the same impossible moment from a hundred different angles.
She stops breathing.
Then her fragile resolve finally gave way.
"Oh God." Her hand drifted to her mouth, as if she could still catch the words before they settled.
The colour drains from her face. Her chest rose with one sharp breath before the next got caught in her throat. Her gaze never left your shoulder. Every time it finds the jagged crystal littering the floor, it is drawn back to the empty space where your arm should have been.
She takes an uncertain step towards you, then another, each one slower than the last, staggering until her legs eventually give out, crumbling to the ground in front of you. She hovers over your ruined shoulder, afraid that even the slightest touch would cause more harm . "I did that... I did that to you... Kris, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry—"
Her breath comes out ragged, closer to a sob than anything verbal.
"You're gonna hate me now." Her voice shrinks around the words like she can't bear their weight. "You're gonna leave me behind. Like I'm something that's no longer useful-" She chokes on the thought, gritting her teeth.
"Please don't hate me. Please. You're the only one that can give me this. I can't lose that. I can’t lose you."
“No-, no.. I- I can fix this Kris, I- I remember...” Her voice catches as she searches through scattered memories. “I had a healing spell. I know I did. I just... I just need to remember how it works.”
Her hands move closer, hovering over your missing shoulder as a faint glow begins to gather around her fingers. The warmth of her magic slowly spreads through the air as the light around her hands flickers unevenly. She struggles to hold it there, brows furrowing as if trying to remember something just out of reach. Thankfully, her expression shifts and the glow persists.
For a moment she allows herself to believe that everything would be okay. That she could take this mistake back and undo the pain she has caused.
* Noelle casts HEAL PRAYER!
… But, it failed.
Her eyes widened.
"No... no, that wasn't right."
The words tumble out in a rush as she shakes her head, already drawing her hands back before forcing them forward again, the glow around her fingers flaring brighter than before.
"It— it has to work.”
* Noelle casts HEAL PRAYER!
… But, it failed.
"No...!"
Her breathing became frantic, each spell cast faster than the last.
"Come on... please... please..."
* Noelle casts HEAL PRAYER!
… But, it failed.
* Noelle casts HEAL PRAYER!
… But, it failed.
…
…
“Why isn't this working? Wh- Why! It’s supposed to heal people”
The glow sputtered weakly around her fingertips before disappearing altogether, leaving only the sound of her uneven breathing.
"No, no, no... please..."
She stares at her hands as if they had betrayed her. Those were the same hands that had done impossible things, the same hands that had proven her wrong many times. But when she needed them to undo a mistake, they offered her nothing.
Tears stream down, but her face doesn't waver. Her eyes stay wide and unblinking, fixed entirely on you as the water begins to spill over. She stares at you with a hollow but frantic look. Then something in her snaps. Her expression goes blank, a sudden, freezing chill washing over her features that doesn't match the wet tracks on her cheeks.
"Okay." She grabs her own arm, nails burying into her skin. "Take it. Take mine instead. Cut it off right now, I don't care. If it makes it even, if it makes you feel better- just tell me it's okay. Tell me we're still a team?" She stifles a sharp, breathless laugh that dies instantly. "I'll give you anything. Just don't look at me like that. Please don't look at me like that”
Her gaze drops to the sword by your side.
She reaches for it before you can stop her, wrapping her hand around the hilt. She jerks the blade up, before pressing the cold steel against her shoulder, her chest straining. She doesn't look at the weapon. Instead, her eyes lock back onto yours- wide-eyed, bloodshot, and devoid of anything but a desperate urge to comply. Ready to sever herself at your command.
❤️Proce-
…
"Kris... Kris, stop. STOP!"
Noelle's voice tears through the silence as she rushes towards you, the sword falling to the ground as she grabs onto you, her hands trembling as she tries to pull your hand away from your throat.
"Why are you doing that?!" she cries, her voice shaking as she looks at you. "Why are you trying to hurt yourself?"
She doesn’t understand why you were silent that whole time, just to try to suddenly choke yourself to death.
"Kris, please... stop."
Her voice trembles as she holds onto you, her eyes darting over your face before slowly widening as her previous words return to her. The fear in her expression twists into something far worse, a sickening realisation that she had made another mistake.
"Kris... this is because of me, isn't it?" The question barely leaves her mouth before her expression breaks.
“I thought I could just... I thought I could make it right. I thought if I gave you something back, if I made it even, then maybe-” The rest of the words die in her throat.
“You’d really rather die than-..”
For a moment, she just stares at you. Her lips part, but nothing comes out this time. There are no more frantic promises, no more desperate bargains, no more pleas. Her hands loosen around your arm, trembling as though she is afraid she no longer has the right to hold onto you.
Her eyes never leave yours, lingering on every flicker of your expression as though afraid to miss whatever comes next.
You try to get up slowly, but you quickly lose your footing. Your knee scrapes against the ground before you manage to catch yourself halfway.
"Kris—"
The name leaves her mouth before she can think, panic rushing back into her voice as she reaches for you. For a moment, she hesitates, her hands hovering inches from you. They twitch forward, then stop, drawing back again before she finally forces herself to close the distance.
"No, wait, don't—"
She catches you before you can fall any further. Steadily pulling you upright with both hands before she speaks again.
"I've got you." "I've got you, okay? Just- lean on me."
You get your feet under you. She doesn't let go until you do, and even then, her hands hover close, like she's ready to catch you a second time if you need it.
You look at her.
❤️Unequip.
And just reach for her hand again.
She flinches upon your movement, but she doesn’t move away this time. She just watches your hand hover closer and closer. Slowly, she turns her hand up and moves it towards yours, exposing the ThornRing resting against her finger. Her gaze lingers on the ring instead of you.
“Yeah,” She murmurs with a hollow voice, “Of course.”
A bitter laugh escapes her throat, weak enough to disappear as soon as it leaves her lips. “I knew this was coming, especially after-” She swallows hard “After what I had done”
Her fingers twitch beneath yours, but she doesn't pull away. Instead, she forces them to relax, leaving her hand completely still.
"Take it," she whispers. "You should."
“...It meant nothing without you anyways,” she admits quietly.
Your hand hesitates. It almost reaches for the ring again.
Then, slowly...
Your fingers close around hers instead.
She waits for the familiar sting of the ThornRing as you pull it free. Every muscle in her body tenses in anticipation. But the pain never comes, the ring doesn't move. Your hand simply remains where it is, gently wrapped around hers.
Confusion spreads across her face. She looks from your hand to your eyes.
"...Kris?"
Unequip ❤️ ...
Unequip ❤️ ...
Your hand begins to violently shake.
Unequip ❤️ ...
Unequip ❤️ ...
You tell her that it was okay. You tell her that you won’t leave her.
She stays frozen for a moment. Waiting for you to tell her it's not real. But, there was- nothing. There was nothing that followed.
Her face goes blank, but tears keep sliding down anyway.
Then she moves. She throws her arms around you before you can react, burying her face to your shoulder and holding on like she wanted to bind herself to it.
“Thank you”, her voice comes out muffled and broken, “Thank you, thank you, thank you-” She echoes the words again and again as they slowly lose their shape. Until they’re barely words at all, but just breaths punched out of her.
You feel her fingers claw into your back as it digs deeper and deeper.
Slowly, her breathing begins to steady. The tears still cling to her lashes as her frantic sobbing gradually wanes, until all that remains is the quiet rhythm of her breathing.
She slowly pulls away. For a moment, she says nothing, simply watching you as if waiting for something to change.
Though it doesn’t change. The world remains silent. And, you are still there, with her.
"You're..."
Her voice catches, and she looks down at your hands again.
"You're really not going to leave."
The words linger between the two of you.
...
...You're still holding my hand.
Why...?
You were supposed to let go. I was ready for it.
I kept telling myself it would hurt less if I expected it. If I accepted that eventually, you'd take away everything you’ve gave me.
But you didn't. You're still here. You're still looking at me.
I can feel something tight inside loosening. It hurts. It hurts in a way I don't understand, enough to make my eyes sting.
...I forgot what this felt like.
Every time something good happened, I was already waiting for it to end.
Kris.
I learned a long time ago that if I loved something, I should start grieving it before it disappeared. It was easier that way. Easier than believing someone could actually stay.
...You taught me that.
I still remember when we were little… I thought we'd always be together.
You were my best friend. I could spend days with you without reason.
Then one day, you stopped coming around. You stopped talking to me.
I replayed every moment, searching for the reason you left, but I never found one.
Eventually, I understood. People leave. That's just how things are.
So when you came back… I didn't know what to do. You looked like the same person, but something was different. The way you looked at me. The things you asked me to do. It felt like I had been given another chance with someone I thought I lost, but they weren't quite the same anymore.
I told myself not to get attached again.
But you kept reaching for me.
You kept believing in me, even when I couldn't.
And then, just a day ago, you found me broken outside my house. You sat beside me. You took the thorn from my hand and told me it was all just a dream.
I wanted to believe you.
I wanted you to be the Kris I remembered.
I thought... maybe I hadn't really lost you after all. Maybe everything would go back to being the same boring Hometown... but that was okay. At least I'd have you again.
…
That, was until you came back the next day.
Just to talk to me in that horrifying voice. And force the thorn deeper into my hand.
It hurt.
Everything inside me screamed to pull away to rip it off.
But after the pain… After it settled...
...
I had that feeling, that sense of certainty that
For the first time in my life..I wasn't just waiting for the world to decide everything for me.
I should've hated you. I know I should've.
No one who cared about someone would ask them to do those things. No one who cared would force a thorn on their finger, especially if they begged you to stop.
So why couldn't I? I didn’t understand it at first, but I think-
I think it's because you never looked at me like everyone else did.
Everyone else saw someone fragile.
Mom, Dad, Susie.
They'd already decided who I was. The quiet girl. The gentle girl. The Noelle that they painted themselves...
You didn't… You looked at me...and expected more.
You expected me to be capable. You expected me to do impossible things.
Every step terrified me. But every step proved you were right. I had always been capable, I just needed you to tell me I was.
I thought I could do anything if it was you that told me to.
That's why I tried crossing the lake with you yesterday.
But I don’t understand…
You were supposed to say proceed. You were supposed to say it over and over again like all the other times. Why did you stop? Did you really give me a taste of what it felt like to be free, only to take it away the moment I reached for it? You know we could have—
No. No, no... it has to be more complicated than that. You need me too, Kris. Without your command, I can't do anything. Without me, you can't do anything.
So why? Did I push you too far? Or do you only want the weak, fragile version of me—the one who needs you to tell her what to do before she can take another step? I... I can be that. I just need you to keep saying the words.
…
Your arm, I’m sorry for what I did to your arm.
Kris. I'm sorry. I couldn't have given it up until I realised it didn't matter anymore.
This ring meant nothing without you.
Without your command… I-I don't know what to do…
…I thought it was over, no matter how strong I felt, I couldn’t make you do something the way you made me.
But you didn’t leave me. Kris… You, stayed? Despite yesterday? Despite what I did to your arm?
W-Why? It doesn’t make sense. I’m hurting you more than I’m helping you now. I can barely be controlled at all, so shouldn’t you be scared? Shouldn’t you be angry that I hurt you? Shouldn’t you be letting go instead of holding my hand? If everything between us was only about using me, then why are you still here? Why didn't you just leave me behind after everything I did?
Wh- Why?
I don’t understand it…
I-…
Was I wrong all along? Were you just scared that we would drown? I-is that why you tried to keep my head above water?
…
I... see.
Part of you still cares, doesn't it, Kris?
You still remember us. You still remember everything we meant to each other…
I thought the Kris I grew up with had disappeared, and that the person standing in front of me only happened to wear the same face.
I... I guess some parts of us never change.
I'm… happy to know that.
I don't know if I'm right... Maybe I'm just trying to make sense of everything. Maybe I'll never really understand why you did those things.
I kept asking myself how you could hurt me if you still cared. I thought those two things could never exist together. I thought that if you really wanted me beside you, you would never push me, never make me cry, never ask me to become someone I wasn't.
But... maybe I had it backwards.
Maybe you never wanted the timid girl who always waited for someone else to make the hard choices. Maybe you saw someone capable long before I ever did. Someone worth believing in.
Maybe... you thought I could become that person, even if it meant I'd hate you for a while.
...
Thank you, Kris.
Really... thank you.
I... gosh... sniffle... I'm really crying, aren't I?
I spent so long believing I was the only one trying to hold onto what we used to have. I never realised... you wanted to hold onto it too.
I want that too, Kris.
I want us to stay together.
We'll figure everything out together, won't we?
Just like we promised when we were little.
Before she says another word, her gaze searches your face as though she is trying to memorize every detail.
Her fingers tighten around your hand.
"So..." A soft laugh escapes her, "We really are together again."
She glances down at your joined hands, smiling to herself before looking back up.
"I knew it." Her voice is barely above a whisper. "I knew there had to be a part of you that remembered."
But then her gaze drifts downward, and the warmth in her expression falters as she catches a fragment of your arm on the ground. Her fingers tighten around yours, not wanting to let go.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
Her eyes remain on your hand for a moment longer before she looks back at you, a small, trembling smile returning.
"But I'll make sure you don't have to miss it."
"I'll be your arm, okay?”
She gives your hand a gentle squeeze.
"I'll always stay with you, Kris."
"And... you'll always stay with me."
Her smile grows brighter.
"Come on."
She laces her fingers through yours and gives your hand the smallest tug forward.
"We've spent enough time apart."
Through familiar streets and unfamiliar paths. Through places bathed in light and places hidden away in darkness. Through places you hadn't seen in years, and places that neither of you had been to.
Everywhere you went, there were traces of the two of you left behind. Some paths held the imprint of your footsteps. Others were marked by frozen figures that would never move again.
Eventually, you found yourselves somewhere quiet.
A field filled with flowers stretching beneath the sky.
Noelle walks ahead, humming softly as she searches through them. Carefully choosing each one, holding different flowers against her chest before deciding which ones feel right.
Eventually, she finds hers.
The ones she loves most.
Then she searches for yours.
The ones she thinks you would like.
When she finally has both, she turns back toward you.
The sunlight catches in her hair, flowers gathered carefully in her arms. For a moment the world around her feels impossibly quiet.
…you saw Noelle smiling at you, with arms full of flowers.