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fumifooms · 1 month ago

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Makima, devils and self-fulfillment

Dumping some Makima and CSM thoughts after a part 1 binge bc I think about her forever and ever. I’m sure I’m forgetting some devil lore, feel free to correct what i get wrong/what’s been confirmed. On the table of contents there’s why & how Makima got fixated on Chainsaw, her revealing liking for the country mouse and discussion of her nature & emotions & desires. Was the scorpion doomed to be a scorpion?

The most of this post was thought of during a conversation with @saccharineomens and I don’t think it makes sense to jump into the spiral it sent me on without first laying down the interesting groundwork theorizing she did:

"Thinking about how makima herself wants to be deified. I wonder whether she recognizes the difference between Love As Worship and the love that Aki, Power, and Denji had. She says she wants to help humanity by having Chainsawman eat the “bad” devils, but why does she want to help humans? Because she was ordered to by the Prime Minister? No, her drive seems much more personal than that, it seems like she teamed up with the PM for contractual reasons. (In the most recent chapters we see governmental members wanting certain devils to be eaten, too. What was Makima’s relationship with them? She’s too independent to just follow THEIR orders, she’s Control.)

So is she wanting to better humanity for the accolades, or out of the goodness of her heart? She sees the big picture. She sees any small sacrifice as worth it for the end result, and she’s ruthless. Perhaps she thinks that a more sedate human race would be easier to control? But Makima doesn’t loathe humanity. She never acts like she sees all humans as lesser. She loves humanity’s creations, like good food and movies. She just wants Good Things all the time

She says she prefers the country mouse BUT adds a story where she helps exterminate country mice like vermin. She likes the simplicity yet rejects the idea of being simple. Makima the complex individual you are"

The story itself seems to prefr the country mouse. Well- it strikes a balance, shows that a risk to live good & fully can be very worth it, but still that stability over ambition is preferable, proning having a simple happy life over fame, a simple job instead of a dangerous one, etc etc. And I do find Makima’s answer on this so so interesting, she prefers the country mouse, but this preference isn’t out of affection or sympathy but because of how relaxing it feels to exterminate them when they cause problems.

Order satisfies her. Her order satisfies her. She likes the action of rooting out disorder. Maybe this is the devil part, like how Power especially wants blood and drinking it, I feel there’s an itch to every devil, and for Makima it’s a very rigid world view/morality/standards & making things follow her rules and submit to her order.

And maybe this is why she’s attached to humans too, why she felt it was worth it to stick with the government- because devils are chaotic by nature (it’s a whole plot point that hell is essentially a free-for-all battleground for example), meanwhile humans are the species that universally rule Earth with systems they invented and instilled. They made then enforced rules, complex and intricate webs of them. She feels alienated amongst devils but she understands the humans’ need for an orderly organised society, and now she wants to be part of it. Control and conquest require social dynamics after all, requires civilizations or groups. War is chaotic while peace is, well, peaceful— Makima resents her sisters for being death, famine and war, things that throw the world in such chaos. She wants a world of perfect order, no matter how much collateral damage there will be if the end result is control.

This is even more interesting if you consider that yes, Makima is untouchable of her own design, she deifies herself with her omnipresent amount of control and the sway over others that she seeks and encourages— There is this urge to dehumanize her for it, that yes, she is the devil of control and that means she was never going to be any different, have any more feeling be any less uncanny. And I love part 2 so much for this, because it shows us the war devil and the famine devil and we see how frankly uncharismatic with poor self-discipline they are, Nayuta too, and it helps us realize just how much Makima’s success was self-made.

She admires Chainsaw Devil, the Hero of Hell, because he had his own code and his own rules and he made Hell, the chaos pit, submit to them unfailingly. Wherever he goes he decides what he does and what happens to the people he encounters but does so consistently, he has his mechanism and his rules that he always obeys, and he fulfills them every time. It’s still a mystery the why of Chainsaw Devil’s behavior back then and how it works exactly, maybe Pochita left hell because he was tired of these rules he lived by like chains, but still, he was a servant to his code. Makima would have been glad being killed and eaten by Chainsaw Devil because it’d have been becoming part of his design, his conquest, his domination, she’d have been part of that —his— order. Through her death she would be shaping his world and be part of a conqueror’s making history. Like how she appreciates the country mice that die for the sake of order. Like how sacrifices must be made to herself, like listing the name of every person whose life was lost to the Gun Devil— All for the ~greater good~, for her vision for the world. Conquest always thinks its reasons are justified.

And she does mention with the country mice thing that she goes out to a friend’s farm every year! She has a human friend?? That she visits yearly and she genuinely likes it?? Ultimately she lives a busy city life because of her goal and drive and her urge & satisfaction with overseeing shaping the world herself, but part of her, like so many characters including Angel and Aki and Reze, wishes she could live a slow peaceful country life. Moviegoing and dogs and mice in a farm- Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if Makima could find fulfillment and happiness in being a farmer, in keeping control of her own farm, getting satisfaction from exterminating vermin and expertly getting everything right, the right crops grown at the right time on the right soil? Here, too, in a way it’s trying to have full control of an ecosystem, but her goals would be easier to achieve and better, without ceaseless sacrifice or much pressure. But Makima wants grandiosity and her goal does matter to her on a fundamental and moral level, she does think she knows what’s best for the world, and with the power to change it why wouldn’t she strive to? Visiting the farm is just a break, just something she does in fall to help out and just in time to see the vermin extermination. It calms her, then it’s back to actual work.

In capitalism, even the one at the very top of the ladder is ultimately alienated from others and often unsatisfied by their lifestyle, always wanting more and more power because surely that’s the extra edge they must be missing to be content— like how Makima thinks she wants to dominate Chainsaw Devil instead of being his equal. And she says it herself too, she likes humans the way humans like dogs…….. And she keeps so many dogs :( Makima prefers the country mice because they’re calming to root out, maybe because she usually mainly deals with city mice. It’s very easy to equate humans to the mice in this allegory because it’s pretty direct and she’s already likened humans to lesser animals compared to her. She’s self-isolating by design for her design but she still craves relationships and contentment, and the dogs are the embodiment or her want for bonds and occasional simplicity because there is no possible ulterior motive, no way they tie back into her wider plan. They’re her personal life— something that feels so alien when speaking about Makima. Personality and individuality and likes and preferences and friends they visit every year. She likes how easily she can train a dog and how they become putty in her hands, at her beck and call, how much they love her and how much she enjoys their love. How simple and straightforward and easy it is. She keeps them because she likes being loved by them and loving them, and she’s gotten and raised so many. A conqueror always wants more and more and more, is never satisfied.

Devils and agency

Like Power the blood devil wanting blood and having a fixation on drinking it like with Denji’s, or how it was shocking that the violence devil was pretty tame and nice and how he himself theorized it was because he was a fiend and possessing a human body… There’s something to be said about nature vs nurture with the devils. The way they reincarnate and always embody their fear makes it seem categorically like nature, that they always always end up fulfilling the role they were named after and born to fill… Outside influence they’re helpless but to conform with. Like the humans accepting their spot in the social ladder and the shittiness of their living conditions and job under capitalism. Makima craved being equals with someone despite being the control/conquest devil, Angel Devil despite claiming to be a devil who likes to see humans dying was haunted by their deaths and wanted to avoid ones like Aki’s. The Ghost Devil being ironically haunted by Himeno, seemingly helping Aki in her memory out of… Lasting affection? Or maybe it was less about being haunted itself and more about it recognizing how Himeno haunted Aki, and acknowledging that, with the memento, paying her respect to the ghost of her. It’s Angel Devil’s devil nature that makes him like human suffering, so then is it his angel nature too to still care about their deaths? Is there truth to this or is that just personality, just our confirmation bias haunting every part of their identity like it might in their own view of themselves too? We do know different reincarnations of devils do have different personalities after all.

Yoru, war devil, is the most interesting one when talking about the nature vs nurture debate with devils. There is how through her we see the perhaps the most the consequences of a devil stopping being feared— we see a horseman for a concept as universal and horrifying as war be reduced to some bird who needs a contract with a human to have any power even just on the situation when meeting Asa. And through the story we get to know her better, and it becomes clear that her goal is fueled in good part by simply wanting to be remembered and respected through fear. Liked, validated, seen a powerful. But what is more isolating than war? Or control? We also see Nayuta accepting others’ house rules. If part 1 shows perhaps the futility of running away from the truth, with Denji’s memory, with escapist coping mechanisms, with passivity and denial under a corrupt system and with abusive relationships- running away from your own feelings and from the reality of things and from all that you are, more complex than simply human or devil or both or neither— part 2 builds upon the theme of cult of personalities, the chainsaw church, etc. The apocalypse is coming, but this celebrity superhero might save us all, or doom us all uh, dunno. The hero of hell reliving the cycle of pressure from responsibilities and expectations, maybe the part will end with Denji running away like Pochita did~

But yes, on the reverse, I think Famine is a very interesting example of how a devil’s namesake may be more innate than coerced by circumstances. One would think that a famine devil would only like inflicting famine upon others, not being famished itself, but Famine has a bottomless stomach that can never, ever be satisfied, sated. I struggle to find a psychological explanation for this, except that maybe instead of her being hungry it’s her feeling empty when she’s not eating, tasting and having that high sensory experience that releases serotonin in humans, sort of like drugs? But I do take this as a step towards the compulsion theory overall, feels like a reach in the consistency otherwise. And compulsion does not mean it’s something that they like nor that it’s something that they fight against, pretty neutral, just a nature that nudges you towards one path. Maybe it’s even just their go-to for entertainment. Maybe it’s the only thing that makes them feel right and whole. But still the debate remains, what is it, a compulsion or an urge or an itch or an active desire or a conscious chosen want? Does it change anything in practice?

And because of all of this earlier, devils being self-fulfilling prophecies with their role is not in unsignificant part nurture, because doing their atrocities is how they stay remembered— feared, powerful, known— hell and devils are a very isolating place and breed after all, and we do see devils can want companionship. Existentially, it’s their purpose and how they justify their place in the world, in the terrifyingly vast and unknowable cosmos.

We still know so little of what makes Chainsaw Devil so special, why his carnage is so self-controlled. Despite a chainsaw maybe being possibly one of the most "nature" thing you can be— a tool to cut things, a human tool that can be helpful for many things, something to be wielding by another at their judgement on what they decide, but mainly something to cut, a tool suited for carnage, to hurt and to destroy. A blade with a toothed chain, spinning around and around and around endlessly on the same road at the same pace. Such a…. Innately circular concept. And yet the Chainsaw Devil is his own, not driven by an urge or by chaos but his very own brand of order, his own unique assigned purpose, a "if you call i’ll come running to help" policy equalizing everyone. He chooses to withhold his destruction and interference otherwise, and then he chooses to be used. If it’s a choice, of course.

Maybe this is what inspired Makima so much, that Chainsaw Devil could decide what to make of himself despite expectations or innate role. Because even Hell he decided & managed to subjugate under his will and whim, with a precise vision and process. When Chainsaw Devil acts like Denji or is defeated, Makima clicks her tongue and loses her admiration and respect. Makima admired and liked Chainsaw Devil, but only as long as he matched her great image of him in her mind, as long as he followed he rules for what she thinks he should be like. She admired him for his unrivaled self-made success, but once he stepped out of that to truly embody self-fulfillment and agency, disappearing from hell to live on his own road at the beat of his own drum… Well. Surely that was a mistake she has to correct. However their second battle ends, the better conqueror will have prevailed and she’s happy about that, all in the spirit of domination and subjugation.

Imo Makima’s biggest tool, similarly capitalism’s most helpful effect for its own purposes, is complacency. Resignation and passivity helps uphold the system and go along the flow of the will of the people in power. Aki and Reze go along with orders even when knowing their job is trash, etc. In Angel Devil especially we see him go along with the flow uncaring about anyhing, and we discover it was in part due to Makima taking away memories that motivated him. If every devil decides this is just how things are and how things should be that’s what they’ll continue to be and do mindlessly, not pursuing a better life like Chainsaw Devil and Denj and not seeking to change the world like Makima. I think even Makima veils herself to a lot of things, she doesn’t like to think deeply about some things, like her desire for connection, or how making bad movies disappear is strenuous and unsustainable and requiring sacrifices at best— how her judgement is as subjective as anyone else. How liking the country mouse and her friend back at the farm and her dogs could be not devoid of sentimality. Wanting bad movies erased is her one biggest show of selfishness, of pettiness and individuality, it’s about her tastes, simple as. About how she can have tastes, and cry seeing a scene of people hug, and want things that aren’t logical, her ideology and mind twisted into a pretzel to avoid acknowledging that she doesn’t live and breathe purely for the mission she’s made a single-minded robot out of herself to accomplish. Nayuta is assertive and selfish and loud, Makima is manipulative and strategically both for her goals and for coping hollow.

Everything in her plans and goals she says is for the greater good, necessary evil, manufactured happiness the way she’ll have decided for people— and that’s the thing isn’t it, like with War, it’s the crack that shows it was all truly about herself after all. Her self-made deification still had the flaw that a self made it. Makima is not omniscient, and it’s not Chainsaw Devil the not-so-fellow-kindred-soul conqueror who gets the best of her, but a city mouse, a dog, someone she would have never thought to respect, Denji.

#Fumi rambles #Chainsaw man #makima #analysis #meta #The goal is moreso me dropping thoughts than being flawless on every aspect of the lore so if and when i get things wrong b merciful….#Maybe her liking of control is why she remembers the ww2 authoritarian fascists. I don’t want to say the word jic for tumblr search #Pity is never a factor When mercy is a sign of a talentless actor #And as you grow its hold on your throat starts to falter And once you go beyond pure humanity's border #You will come back like a dooooog 😭#This’d be a different topic but. I don’t think makima likes denji as much as one of her dogs. If so i’d say it was in the moments where #she brought him to movies but even then….. i think she has more fondness for her dogs bc w denji it was indifference and derision #I love you please humiliate me / strip my dignity and laugh my honey #God. God i’m fine. I’m so okay about csm #Makima has a cryptic but strong sense of morals?? That doesn’t align with ours obvi but #‘Someone like you has no right to wish for a normal life do they?’ What do you meannn what do you meannnnn #What is this contempt for denji. Does she see herself as moral or part of those that are city mice bc they’re undeserving of a calm life???#Maybe famine only feels fed on humans and their blood 🤔 or their fear. man idk idk idk idk but i wanna see more of her quirks #And before someone says ‘but every demon likes to drink blood’ power is especially fixated on it tho cmannnn #Did Angel lie when he said he liked seeing humans die?? Did his haunting thing become worse after meeting Aki?? Did he suppress it #because he feels like he doesn’t belong as a devil??? bc he’s suppressing his memories of the villagers he cared about??#Has he just been trying so hard not to care for so long. Passive bc he thought that’s all he could or should be #AGHHHHH #Spoilers #There’s a lot more i’d have liked to touch on like the popular theory that Makima was *raised* by the government #and i’ve seen a take that the ‘my friend at a farm’ thing is all euphemism from makima about her troublesome human killing job ykyk #but i think the phrasing is too literal and natural for that. The snow and soil talk everything. It’s a perfect allegory but it can be both

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asnowdriftsomewhere · 4 months ago

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Daylight pt8

Cassian x f!reader

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

AN: we have a longer one here, folks. Buckle in, I hope you enjoy!

Summary: You and Cassian have a difficult conversation

Warning: talking about illness, loss, and death.

Words count: 3317

The next morning, Cassian woke with dread in his heart and fear in his bones. You had not told him anything as you watched the stars together in taught silence. You had refused to say more than ‘not tonight’ when questioned by Rhysand and Feyre, who had approached you after more than an hour had passed. You simply stood and thanked them for the meal before taking the Illyrian by the hand and walking out to the front lawn. He understood without needing asked and shot you both into the sky towards the House of Wind. When he'd set you down on the veranda minutes later, you smiled at him. A small, brittle thing that made whatever vice around his heart squeeze and he'd struggled to let you go.

You saw the conflict in his gaze. The fear and need that wared in his hazel eyes as his fingers wrapped around your slender wrist. His hold on you wasn't painful, but it was unyielding, and you found your free hand going to his cheek in a gentle caress. You pulled his head down to your height so his brow rested against yours. You inhaled his scent of fire and wind and the first light of dawn and closed your eyes. Content to just breathe and just exist within this moment with him.

When you'd opened your eyes again, Cassian's hazel eyes had closed, and he was also breathing deeply. As if memorizing the scent of you, the feel of your hand on his face. You kissed the corner of his mouth. Just a quick press of your lips against his skin before you slipped your wrist free and disappeared into the hall. He stood there, frozen as he watched your retreating form vanish from sight. His heart beat wildly in his chest, and his soul longed to follow after you. To take you into his arms and never let you go. To protect and serve you for as long as he was able and find a way, any way, to convince you to fight for your life and not let whatever disease gripped you win. He didn't know what ailed you, which of the few fae illnesses had sunk its claws into your blood or bones, but he knew they all were deadly and that your chances were slim. But they were even slimmer if you did not wish to survive. If you did not wish to fight.

He stumbled, half asleep, into the dining room the next morning feeling as if he'd been fighting an entire army for hours with no end in sight. Rage and dread swirled around in his head like a cyclone fueled by his fear for what had not yet passed and what would become of him when it did. He hadn't known you long, but that didn't matter. His heart yearned for you in a way he had never experienced before. And he didn't know if he ever would again.

“You look awful,” your voice was small as he snapped his head up to see you curled in one of the low backed chairs at the table. Your knees were pressed to your chest, and a throw blanket was draped over your shoulder as you pushed eggs around on the half finished plate in front of you. And while you still glowed like the morning sunrise, just beginning to peak above the horizon, even that seemed dimmed as you rested your chin into the valley between your knees.

“So do you,” he breathed out heavily as he took his usual seat up the table from you.

“I couldn't sleep,” you admitted with the smallest shrug Cassian had ever seen before. If you hadn't been the subject of his entire focus, he would have missed the gesture entirely. “My thoughts kept circling like vultures.”

He nodded once, “Same.”

A plate of food appeared on the table before him and the two of you ate. That same taught silence from the night before stretching between you but heavier now. As if weighed down by every question and answer that neither of your dared to voice. Too afraid of everything that might be said once you began.

But you had to begin.

“A question for a question,” you whispered in a small voice. Your eyes never strayed from the plate in front of you.

You heard him swallow once, “Okay.”

There was another beat of silence while you both struggled with where to start before -

“What is the strip of light that follows you?” He asked suddenly. Your eyes snapped up to meet his in surprise. “I've seen it a few times. It reminds me of Azriel's shadows but…”

You lifted your head to nod once. “It is very similar.” You set one hand on the table and let the daylight slide from your skin. It pooled into a sphere, the size of a chicken egg, just beyond your fingertips before it moved. It seemed to stretch like a cat waking from a nap before it slithered across the dark wood to where Cassian watched. Something akin to wonderment flickering in those hazel eyes as he tracked the daylight that wrapped around his wrist.

“My sister and I were born different from the high fae of the Day Court,” you explained, watching his face closely as he marveled at the slip of light traveling up his muscular arm. “While your brother is called Shadowsinger, we are called Lightbringers. We glowe like sunlight lived in our blood and answered to our every whim.” Another ball of light slid from your fingers to pool on the table. A third appeared. A fourth.

“Like Azriel's shadows, my daylight can listen and whisper. Though they are significantly less stealthy.” You tipped your head to the side. Four sunbeams danced and played across his skin. One ducking into General's long hair only to pounce on one of the others and chase it around his thick neck. “And far more unruly.”

He laughed once, “They're like kittens.”

You laughed as well, “That is more true than you know.” Your face turned serious for a moment. “When did you first see them? They've never allowed themselves to be viewed by anyone other than my sister - my twin - and I before.”

“In the library the first time we met,” he answered as the daylight on his shoulder wiggled and jumped as if trying to get to the table. Only to slip and tumble down the arm below it. “When I was leaving, I saw it return back to you.”

Your expression became unreadable as you bit your bottom lip, “Interesting.”

“What is your twin's name?” He asked, his voice softening as he watched you.

You told him, a deep sigh escaping from your chest as you looked down at the table. “She died in the last raid of the Grand Library. Just before Amarantha was put down.”

“I'm sorry,” he offered. “I didn't know.”

“It's hard to talk about,” you admitted.

Another moment of silence passed between you. The Daylight on Cassian's skin was still swirling and playing. One of the beams appeared to be gnawing on his fingertips as they lay splayed across the table.

“Do you want to see something I've never shown anyone but her?” you asked softly, and he tipped his head to the side before nodding once. With the snap of your fingers, the daylight slid from his skin and gathered on the table. All four slips of light began circling each other. Swirling around and around as they lay flat and expanding against the dark wood surface until there was a swirling void of light the size of a dinner plate in front of him.

He blinked in confusion. “What…” his words trailed off as images and pictures began to form within the light. The Grand Library, with its towering pillars of gold and silver. A veritable mountain of books within the clear quartz structure. Courtiers and scholars walked through, some acknowledging you in the memory as you walked among them. Some were too deep in their debates to see the female who passed them. It never bothered you. Gods knew you'd been that way plenty of times. You smiled and looked up at Cassian, whose jaw had gone a bit slack as he looked from you to the memory playing across the table.

“I didn't know it was possible to share memories like this,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “Outside of the Veritas, I mean.”

“It wasn't,” you smiled fully at him then, pride rippling off you in waves. It made you look younger, somehow. As if you were not weighed down by all you had endured. “This is new magic. A spell of my own design. You do not need to be a Lightbringer to perform it, but it certainly makes it easier.” Your expression fell as the image rippled and changed within the void. A female, a mirror image of you, smiled broadly and without restraint as you wandered the stacks collecting books. It rippled again, and now the two of you were standing on a balcony at dawn, as the winds of Day swept through your hair. Another ripple, and she was waking you up. It was the dead of night based on the darkness that could be seen through the wind behind her, but she didn't care. She wanted to show you her latest magical feat. A spell to allow fairies without wings, the ability to fly.

“It was a deal we made with each other,” you told him, not daring to drag your eyes from the image. “Any discoveries we made we were to show each other first. We were each other's biggest supporters. We wanted to share in the others' joy… And… And then…”

The image on the table changed. Every scholar and Courtier within the Grand Library went still as the warning from Helion's father went out. Amarantha was coming to sack the Day Court.

“My sister and I managed to hide a great many priceless books over those fifty years with our… talents.” You spoke as the images showed people grabbing tomes and scrolls and shoving them into a few sections of the library. You and your twin coming together to weave your magic around the stacks until every book and artifact vanished from sight. “Amarantha's cronies didn't know what we could do - Why we glowed. They just thought that it was some quirk of our bloodline and didn't bother to look into it. If they had, then they would have gotten rid of us much sooner. Whole wings of the library became barren under our glamor. Beyond a regular sight shield, our magic made it not only look empty but also felt vacant. Unworthy of the time it would take to explore it.

You sighed heavily, dropping your chin back onto your knee. “For fifty years, I rose with the dawn, and my sister woke at dusk to make sure one of us was always awake to maintain the spell that kept our most prized collections safe. But as the years went on, we became more and more tired and weak. We could never relax, never truly rest. And then…”

“One of you fell asleep,” he murmured.

“My head dropped for just a moment, but it was enough.” You closed your eyes as the memory played in the light. You were sitting by the window, the evening sun so low in the sky. A moment of black, and then you shot out of your seat. “The power of those books rippled through the library, and she woke up. She ran to the doors just as Amarantha's soldiers did, and they cut her down.”

Rage, old and familiar burned in your chest as the images played on the table. Your sister, your twin, beautiful and strong, unleashing a wave of daylight that burned the soldiers from the inside out. Boiling them alive at the cellular level until they were nothing but husks at her feet. And then she fell among them. Her injuries were too severe for her immortal blood to stave off death. You ran to her, held her in your arms, and cried as the light of her skin slowly dimmed and then winked out all together.

“A few hours later, Amarantha was dead, and Helion had returned to us.” You swallowed down the emotions that had risen up your throat and lifted your gaze to meet his. “He gave her a hero's funeral. Every honor he could bestow he did and I…” The image flickered to show you walking through the library. There was no light, no joy in the memory. Everything had gone dull and lifeless. Helion approached at one point, concern clearly expressed across his features, but you just pushed past him.

“I think part of me blamed him for not ending it sooner.” You admitted in a small voice. “I know it's stupid, but I was so angry in those first few months. I'm still angry at him, though, for a different reason now.” The image rippled to Helion coming to you and whisking you away to the Night Court where Rhysand was waiting for you with an offer to use his library below the House of Wind for the next six months. A look at your High Lord told you it wasn't a negotiation. And while now, a few months later, you could see the love and concern in his eyes, you remembered only feeling betrayal and rage in the moment. Helion was doing what he thought was best with the information he had. You couldn't fault him for that.

You looked up to Cassian, who had sat quietly enough through your story, to find him staring at you in return. It wasn't pain or sympathy that you saw there, but something like grim understanding. He knew what it was to lose someone and to rage at the world for it.

“Can you fly?” He asked, a nod towards the light that now swirled blankly over the dark wood of the table. “That spell she showed you… Can you still do it?”

You nodded once, the corners of your lips lifting just a bit, “The cost of magic is great, but yes. With enough rest, I could fly alongside you. Maybe even faster.”

He snorted, “In your dreams, Glowbug.”

Something in your chest fluttered at the nickname. Your cheeks blushed a faint pink as you smiled more freely at the Illyrian across from you.

The light on the table flickered and changed. The image of Cassian appeared, and you went entirely still. The Illyrian was lying flat on his stomach in his bed. His arms were wrapped around the pillow, his face was half concealed within, and soft snores could be heard coming from his body. You were sitting on the floor beside the bed. Your chin rested on your crossed arms as you watched the warrior sleep. There was a look in your eyes you weren't expecting to see. Something like soft bewilderment as you studied the smooth lines and rugged features of the General before you.

Your blush burned deeper now as the Illyrian at the table arched an eyebrow and looked to where you tried to curl in tighter on yourself. “The quirks aren't completely worked out,” you mumbled. “The magic tends to show what it wants.”

He cocked his head to the side. “You were in my room,” his lips curled in devilish delight. “Watching me sleep.”

“You'd been watching me,” you pressed your lips together as you looked away from the male across from you. “It only seemed fair that I returned the favor.”

“You fell asleep in a communal space of the house,” he pointed out. “And all I did was cover you with a blanket.”

You sighed heavily, your cheeks on fire as you made yourself look at him. “Do you want me to apologize?” There was no defensiveness to your tone. No aggression or irritation. Only a genuine offer should he want it.

Cassian shrugged once, “Don't worry about it. Trust me, Rhys and Az have done much worse than just watching me sleep.”

You laughed once, “Brothers usually do.” And another one of those smiles drifting across your face. The ones that made his heart beat unsteady and his lungs constrict in his chest. He found himself answering it with a grin of his own before your words from last night flitted through his mind.

“I'm sick.”

Like a wave of ice crashed over him, his body went rigid. His mind quickly counted questions before he slowly opened his mouth to ask. “What-”

“Don’t,” you stopped him. Your eyes turned pleading before they dropped to the table between you. “Please, don't ask.”

“Y/N,” his voice was soft as he reached a hand towards yours where it still rested on the table. “I want to understand.”

“You don't need to know what is killing me to understand that I will soon die.” Your own voice came out weak as you pulled your hand away before he could touch you. Wrapping your arms around your legs as you curled in tighter on yourself.

“You don't know that-”

“Come now, Cassian,” you laughed once, a sound with no joy in it, only cold resignation. “You know the statistics when it comes to Fae illnesses. This,” a nod towards yourself, “is worse. Trust me, there is no surviving it.”

“Then why the research?” He asked, anger leaking into his tone. “Why look into it if you don't have a chance?”

“Because despite what you think, I don't want to die.” You spat at him now. Your own rage rising to meet his. “I wished and prayed and researched, hoping to find something, anything to give me the barest hint of a chance, but there is nothing. Nothing to stop this. Nothing that can save me.

You swallowed back a sob as you pressed your eyes into your knees. “Last night, I went over it all again. Every scrap of research I had. And it all just confirmed what I already knew in my heart. In my soul.” You looked up at him again, tears spilling down your cheeks. “I'm already dead.”

Cassian didn't back down, his hands balling into fists on the table between you. “There must be something we can do. Someone we can ask- Madja-”

“You think I haven't been to every healer in the realm?” You demanded, your nails digging into your skin. “That I didn't think to seek a medical professional when I realized something was wrong?”

“I don't know what to think,” he nearly shouted at you as he leaned forward in his seat. “Because you won't tell me-”

“I am dying, Cassian!” You shouted back, “You are not entitled to any more information than that!” But even as you spoke, the light on the table shifted and changed. It showed the memory of your sister's death again. The glow of her skin slowly dimmed while you held her and wept. But it also showed you. Your own light flickering, your cries turning from devastation to pain as you collapsed to the floor beside your twin. It showed the bond between two bodies lying on the floor, one alive, the other dead. And it showed what you had always known, but no one ever understood. A sphere of light, gentle and sweet, with ropes of gold that touches the hearts of both females.

One soul, two bodies.

And the rip that severed you completely.

You heard Cassian's breath catch in his throat but didn't give him time to react before you were running. Out the door, across the veranda, and jumping over the edge so that you were in free fall. You only just saw him diving after you before you winnowed away entirely

#fanfiction #acotar #acotar fanfiction #cassian #cassian x reader #cassian x y/n #cassian acotar #cassian x you #helion acotar #did someone say lore dump?

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