A black motorcycle stops at a curb as the driver parks it before getting off. With a sad sigh, they head to the front door and knock on it three times. "Hello?" Luna says standing in the doorframe. Eris takes off her helmet before saying “Hey”. She’s a bit banged up and looks melancholy.
Luna cannot believe her eyes. In fact, they almost immediately fill with tears.
"um,, eris..?"
“yeah, it’s me”
What the hell is Luna supposed to do here? Go right for the hug? She's frozen stiff, worried this is a bad dream or something.
This is going to make what I have to do very hard but… maybe I can just put it off? Eris just hugs Luna before crying, a lot.
Luna embraces her, tightly. Her tears just flow. She never thought this day would ever come again. The constant nightmares of watching Thrall end her life over and over plagued her dreams for months now.
"I can't believe you're finally home.."
“Neither can I.” She tightens the hug.
"erm,, like the new looks? kinda..fluffy now," Luna is struggling to get words out.
“You look great” Eris attempts to say something afterwards but stops herself. I’m… not going to ruin this moment.
Luna feels something's up. Even so, she doesn't say anything and chooses not to ruin the moment.
"Thanks.. So.. um,, I'm sure you're aware but um,, I found the blog. It was keeping my hopes alive. That.. I would finally see you again." Luna's tears begin to slow as she says all of that. "Just.. glad you're safe and home again."
“Oh…you found it.”
"Yeah.. there's this website called The World Reached and the person who keeps it.. had your blog on it. They're fucking weird, but they often publish my journal entries on it too, so I can't complain." Luna chuckles a little bit, her usual bright smile is still all there despite her new feline form.
“you have a blog too?” Eris missed that smile.
"I do, but I haven't really posted on it since my birthday. Um, here." Luna shows Eris her blog on her phone. https://diaryofanarchivistcatgirl.blogspot.com/
“It looks great.”
That smile just becomes all blushy. "Thank you.. yours is great too."
“Thank you, that means a lot.” Eris sighs while drying her remaining tears. “I take it you haven’t read the one from Friday?”
"The one on the 19th? I was going to this morning but then I heard the knock on the door. And then... I saw you."
“o-oh”
"um,, something.. wrong?"
“I… we should have a talk about us… and our relationship”
Luna sighs. She knew this was coming. The phrase 'burning bridges' pops up in her mind. "Of course."
She’s trying to hold back tears. “It’s not healthy, I’m hardly around and I.. I know it hurts you, and… and I don’t want to be the cause of something that’s hurting you. I’m not the best at relationships. The…ones I have had in the past are like this one or its me being the one who’s waiting, and they all hurt and damage both people. I.. I… I think we should break up…” Eris is crying and sobbing, she didn’t want to do this but the right thing often isn’t.
{- Be strong for her Lunes. -}
Luna takes a deep breath.
"I'm aware it's unhealthy. I've waited six months every day waiting for your return or even just a sign that you're alive. In June, I was given some hope by Rosella that you guys had been able to escape ink dude's place.. And that was probably one of the best pieces of news I've ever gotten. And.. even if I had to wait even longer, I would have. Wasn't allowed this with..." Luna takes a really deep breath. She embraces Eris regardless. "Even so, I still would love to be friends with you Eris. Even if... we're not together."
Luna chuckles grimly. 'Luna Grimalkin'? what a fucking joke this is.
"Yeah. Even if we're not girlfriends, we can still be friends." A few tears fall.
“Th-that would be n-nice..” Eris starts to stutter while trying to stop her crying, returning the embrace while she does so.
"Okay, Eris. Glad we're still able to be friends." Luna shows her the biggest smile she can muster, which is admittedly difficult.
Eris lets go before drying her tears. “Me too”
Luna lets go as well.. "yeah,, so uhh hows,," oh god it's awkward "life?"
“It’s…life I guess? No real upsides or downsides.”
"right.. um, how's Rosella and all of the others doing? Did they escape alright?"
“I.. don’t know. I woke up in some woods near an abandoned asylum by myself. I’m hoping those two are.”
"odd. well uh hopefully we can go rescue them,, y-you know as friends and allies and um.." Oh she is so awkward right now, someone help her.
“This is p-pretty awkward right? I-I should go”
"No no, it's fine, just glad to see you again. not to mention, I haven't heard your voice since... you know."
“..yeah”
"Um, will I see you again? Like you'll come back to visit right?"
“Definitely, I still need to tease Snowball right?” She cracks a smile.
Luna chuckles. "of course, though I'm not entirely sure where he went. Something about bunbun or whatever."
“Ah, well I’ll try to visit often. You lot tend to get attacked like 6 times a week.”
"I'll be honest, there was like a couple months when we weren't, almost like there was protection on the house again, but it's ramped back up."
“Damn.”
"not gonna lie, it feels good to be back to normal. Single, getting attacked, the nonferals are back. All that fun stuff." Luna smiles widely, giggling a little
“I saw that. what exactly happened to them to cause them to disappear?”
"A catboy God got really salty because Madelyn wanted to be left alone and wouldn't respond to his jokes, so he deleted the entire timeline. Like not just the iteration, but all of them at the same time."
“He did what?”
"Fenrir deleted the nonferal World."
“I- why would anyone do that just because of their jokes falling flat? That man gives us feline folk a bad rep.”
Luna sighs. "I know right. I have to keep telling others that not all cat people do that shit. In any case, I'm still not entirely sure how the nonferal world came back. I do have a theory that someone physically recreated the nonferal Index, which is apparently what the Veil is called... kind of a fucking joke though, as that's what I call my omni docs. I don't get it. But the new nonferal World is really similar to what we had before, but almost like a reboot in a sense."
“Could be that it returned because something of that magnitude getting deleted would most likely be a huge problem.”
"It's possible. Maybe it upset the balance within the multiverse? I dunno. Anyway, I saw you were fighting a battle somewhere?"
Eris thinks for a minute. “Oh! Yeah, a small town was kind enough to let me stay there for a night so I helped them take down this huge beast.”
"Sounds fun."
“It was, considering the ‘huge beast’ was a bear-like creature that tore through steel like it was paper.”
"Oh gods, that's scary as hell. How did you manage to beat it?"
“It took a lot of fire power and tricks, We managed to lead it into a 30 foot deep pit that it couldn’t get out of. We lost some people but that thing won’t be bothering anymore people at least.”
Luna's eyes glimmer with excitement. "That's so cool. I'm really happy you managed to help them out."
“Yeah, hopefully it doesn’t escape anytime soon.”
"Indeed. But if it ever does, lemme know. I wanna fight it." Luna grins.
“Are you sure?”
"I'm not the weak cat holding a sword from 7 months ago. I leveled up quite a bit, plus I'm a magical girl now!"
“Okay… I’ll let you know if it comes back.”
"Alrighty. Anyway, wanna head inside? It's kinda warm out here."
“I’m good but you can though. I’m going to head out in a bit and see if I can help anymore people.”
"Alright, well, don't be a stranger. And be safe out there Eris." Luna says with a smile
“See ya later Luna and good luck.” Eris puts her helmet back on before heading to her motorcycle and riding off into the distance.
Luna waves her off and returns inside.
---
Luna reenters and sits on the couch quietly. A couple tears manage to escape. Even so, she knows that this needed to happen. Why does it sting so much though?
"Are you well dear?" Sparrow looks over.
Luna shakes her head no. She snaps her laptop onto her lap and finally reads the entry from the 19th.
"...she sees my twitter, so lemme just.." She deletes a tweet saying Luna Grimalkin is a fucking joke quickly.
Sparrow watches a bit worried before tossing a pillow by her. Get therapy pillowed.
Luna sighs. "Are we doing this right now?"
"You obviously need it dear"
"Thank you." She takes a deep breath before speaking. "So Eris, someone who I've loved... someone I watched die in my arms back in January, then revived, then rescued from Astro, and then got kidnapped for six months... then returned today. We erm,, we broke up. I guess she was more worried that she wasn't there for me and that it wasn't fair to keep me hanging. We broke up on good terms of course, still going to be friends regardless. But it still hurts. Look, I'm used to getting physically broken, legs trampled on by possessed Orpheus, dying twice. Almost dying a bunch of times. And each time, I feel like I can stand back up and fight on. But this... genuinely hurts more than any of those." Sparrow can see she's shaking, trying to catch her breath. "I still love Eris deep inside. I would've waited until the Ends of the Worlds happened for her to return, even unhealthy as that is."
Sparrow puts her head down some in thought. "I’m sure things will be better dear."
Luna sighs. "I'm sure it will be. Two failed relationships now." she grimly chuckles. Does Jane dying count as a failed relationship? she wonders.
"Don’t look at it that way, think of it as completed relationships?...sounds awful but Im sure you get what I mean"
Luna chuckles. "Yeah. Completed relationships. It's a good way to look at it."
"Think of it as like pro wrestling. You already have two wins under your belt."
"...maybe one win."
{- No no, Lunie, it's two. I promise you. -}
"..." She goes silent, as if deep in thought.
"right... well if you need any help just let me know"
"Appreciated Sparrow. Just need a moment to... think some things over."