scrapdraught | Asa Mitaka

No kidding.

[She stoops to pick it up and set it aside, trying to get back at it. Girl what happened to us.]

...How are your scars looking?

[so many things happened to them. asa shrugs her shoulders, sighing.]

They could be worse. [her face is very visibly scarred up, in that familiar way. but the rest of her is bundled up so only her hands are visible.] Though, the stupid swamp didn't even heal everything all the way.

[... an awkward pause.]

Yours?

It didn't fix me up much, either. [What use was putting up with the hallucinations if they weren't even properly fixed?] It's...not pretty.

[There's a beat.]

I...Asa, I do have to ask. I know there's a lot going on already, and I know you've got your own partnership, but I wanted to know. Is there anything you wanted changed back home?

[Maybe left of field, but this wish is weighing on her. She thought she didn't know what to do with it. Now that she's got an inkling, she's twice as desperate to give it away.

There's better causes out there. Worse off people. Worse off worlds. Asa's in particular haunts her.]

Figures. It's better than bleeding out, but it's still annoying...

[they experienced the Horrors and for what?

at the subject change, though, she pauses. furrows her brows and looks at camille in confusion, not quite putting it together.]

... To be honest, there's a lot I want to change about my world if I could. It would be better for everyone if devils and humans could coexist peacefully, though I know that's a contradiction. But — I don't think I could get that through a wish. So I already planned to use it on something smaller, to help someone I was trying to rescue before we woke up here.

[because she's heterosexual.]

...Ashlyn said something similar. When I'd asked.

[Camille is more fiddling with the sandwich ingredients than she is assembling. She clears her throat, tossing her hair back over her shoulder in a losing battle.]

I guess even with a bonafide saving grace, it's too hard to work out the root of the big problems. I understand. But if you think of something extra, let me know, okay? My world is only fucked on a mundane level. I don't have to deal with devils or sorcerers, any of that crap.

Or... [And here she does pause, knife hovering over the butter.] There's the things in the swamp. If any of them would help.

[...]

You should use your wish for yourself. Even if it's only on a mundane level, there has to be something you could make a little better for yourself.

[be more selfish! use that wish!

but as for the second thing... she hesitates for a long moment. she can't deny that some of the things from the cabinet could do way more than just save the life of one boy, but.]

I know... we already decided who's going to die. But I already helped kill you once. Do you really want me to kill you again?

[isn't there another way she would rather go?]

I'm not going to wish for something superficial, not if it means one of you has to keep going through hell.

[Superficial to others, perhaps. Everyone would see it as a vanity. Especially considering what the plan is. Why bother heal herself if she's going to be dead soon anyway?

Except that her words aren't just whispering to her anymore. They're shrieking, in warped and cacophonous voices. Consumed by the burns, three doses of flame and miasma rendering her skin into an unknowable bubbled mess. She's lucky to still be mobile. Or alive. She keeps crying whenever she gets a moment to herself, grief not just for friends but for her slipping sanity. The reflection.

Her scars, as damning as they were, had calmed her. Been carved by her hand, chosen, arranged. The fire wrote them over with an alien mess. Stole her own body from her. Frankly, she misses it more than the hand or the eye.]

...Well. I don't — [Camille closes her eyes, sighs long. Wets her lips.] Asa, it's not that I want to put more on your shoulders. I can take care of it myself, really. I don't want you feeling obligated.

I just know that there's a lot of useful things in the swamp, and a lot of problems that need to get solved. Of all the worlds I've gotten to see here, yours ranks top three in the most fucked up.

I don't want you getting out of one hell and landing in another. So, if this is how I can help, then...I'm open to it. But I don't want to weigh on your conscience, either. I can't demand that of you, not after all that you've been through.

Asa Mitaka

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cw: self harm talk/mental health/body trauma shame