A mole near the left breast.
In a desperate attempt to deny reality, Mash buries her face in her hands. If she can’t see it, then perhaps she can convince herself that this isn’t real. That this is a dream, or an illusion, or- or anything at all.
“Well. This is a tad crude.”
Morgan, of course, does not care to shield herself from the cruelty of the real world. It’s the one quality that allowed her to survive for so long as Tonelico. Unfortunately, that quality is also detrimental to Mash’s current efforts to ignore the neon YOU CAN’T LEAVE THE ROOM UNLESS YOU HAVE SEX sign holding the door closed.
“This is quite fine magecraft.” She continues, unaware, or uncaring, of Mash’s embarrassment. Slowly, she opens her eyes again. Morgan is pacing around the closed door, a hand on the smooth wood. “Interesting. Yes, there is quite a lot to learn from this, I believe.”
“Does this mean you figured out how to get us out of here?”
“Well, yes.” Morgan makes a vague hand gesture towards the neon sign. “It’s written right here.”
Mash winces. “I… meant another way out.”
“None that are available to us right now.” She speaks very calmly, as if the matter was of no importance. “The array in this room drastically reduces the flow of prana I receive from my Chaldea. I still have enough to stabilize my physical form, but it will take me time to find a way to brute force my way through with the energy I have right now. It would be much faster and efficient for us to have intercourse.”
Aaargh curse you facts and logic!
Morgan kneels in front of the door. “You will have to give me some time to pick this spell apart. Fear not. I will not force you to anything you did not consent to. I am not this sort of witch.”
“I know. I never thought you would”
It’s a mindless statement, but it gives Morgan pause. She has fairy eyes. She must know that Mash meant that. It’s… really sad that this is genuinely how Morgan thinks she is perceived.
Mash sits on the bed- the one piece of furniture in the entire room. She could stay here for however long it would take for Morgan to lockpick the spell. It would be easy. She would just have to lay back, stay next to the sole woman she has ever loved, confident in the knowledge that she couldn’t even offer her a clean death, and be silent for entire hours.
… Intimacy might be the lesser evil here, actually. At least it’d be quick.
“We could do… that. ”
Morgan turns to look at her. “Sex?”
“Yes.” Mash nods. “I wouldn’t mind.” Then, after a short pause, she amends: “I could bear with it.”
Morgan stares at her for a few, profoundly uncomfortable seconds. Mash almost apologizes for even suggesting the idea, but Morgan finally gets up and walks up to her.
“You should disrobe.” She says, as she reaches up to undo the ribbon on her neck.
With a nod, Mash starts doing the same.
It is… painfully awkward. Neither of them are speaking. Morgan does not show any emotion whatsoever, be it affection or disgust.
Once naked, Morgan climbs on the bed with her. She doesn’t look like Tonelico much; she’s a grown woman now, with fuller curves, and longer limbs, and so much more weariness in her eyes.
Mash catches a glimpse of a mole near her left breast. A mole she’d traced with her thumb multiple times.
She doesn’t know if it’s better or worse to see the undeniable proof that her old lover and this woman who calls her a stranger are the same person.
“If it makes you feel better,” Morgan finally breaks the silence, “I will not enjoy this any more than you will.”
A pang of hurt ripples through Mash’s chest. “You won’t?”
“Nothing personal. I am actually quite fond of you, for some reason.” (Another pang hits Mash’s heart, for different reasons this time.) “It’s only that the pleasures of the flesh grow boring after a thousand years or so.”
Ah… that makes sense.
Morgan’s hands land on Mash’s shoulders. Their warmth surprises her; Morgan constantly acts so aloof, it’s easy to forget she’s made of flesh and blood.
Their faces are close. Mash would just have to lean down to kiss her. Oh, how she had dreamed of this; Tonelico’s lips, Tonelico’s tongue, these brief moments of respite they’d shared. Mash would just have to lean down to get this back, to experience this all over again-
or maybe she would end up feeling unfamiliar lips, kissing her mechanically without an ounce of love, a mere facsimile of who Tonelico used to be.
“Do you mind if we don’t kiss?” She asks with a small voice.
Morgan blinks, then nods. “That is acceptable.”
Mash expects her to move to something else then- perhaps her neck, or her breasts- but Morgan doesn’t. She keeps her hands on Mash’s shoulders. Softly, her fingers start kneading her flesh in a… massage?
The confusion must show on her face, because Morgan speaks up: “You are tense. There is no need to make this any more unpleasant than necessary. You need to relax.”
Ah… yes. That is Tonelico alright. The mask is different, stone rather than smile, but it’s still the girl Mash used to know, this girl who cared too much against her own will.
Mash closes her eyes, steadying her breathing. She still feels nervous and awkward (how could she not be?) but… less so. She can do this. She can do this.
“Thank you.” She opens her eyes again. Morgan is staring at her. (Does she recognize anything, she wonders? In her frame, in her expression? Do these sleepless nights echo in any part of Morgan at all?) “What about you? Do you… need anything in particular?”
Morgan shakes her head. “There’s nothing you can do for me, worry not. My body simply isn’t that sensitive to touch anymore.”
This body has grown immune to pain is what Mash hears, which fills her lungs with incomparable sadness. She almost drops the subject here, lets Morgan take the reins, but… it doesn’t sit right with her.
“Can you turn around? I want to try something.”
Morgan quirks up an eyebrow.
“Please?” If it doesn’t work, she won’t do anything else. But Tonelico had liked this, so maybe Morgan still does…
Wordlessly, Morgan turns around, presenting her bare back to Mash. She’s so much taller than she used to be. Her skin is paler, almost sickly so.
Mash licks a long stripe along her spine, from the lower back to the nape of her neck.
She feels Morgan’s entire body shudder under her touch. She takes a sharp inhale- a small, barely noticeable thing, but from the Queen of Winter she might as well have started moaning Mash’s name. Her breathing is still stuttering after Mash parts from her skin, and that little fact is making her proud and giddy and horny all at once.
“I’d… forgotten this part of me was so sensitive.” Morgan says.
There is the slightest tremor in her voice. Internally, Mash is latching on that detail and rabidly shoving it in her mouth. “I’m glad that worked!”
She’s about to do it again- just set two fingers over Morgan’s spine to scratch her up and down, in fact- when Morgan turns to look at her. Her facade is cracking. There is a light flush up her cheeks.
She’s also frowning. “How did you know?”
“Huh?” Mash hurriedly parts her hand from Morgan’s back. Fuck, she should have realized Morgan would find that suspicious- Tonelico was nothing if not perceptive. Being on the run for two thousand years will do that to you. “Ah- I knew someone with that sort of kink. I just figured-”
Morgan grabs her wrist, and she falls silent. She brings her face closer to Mash’s, her frown deepening. Her gaze rakes her up and down. Mash doesn’t feel just naked in body, but in soul as well.
“I… do not remember you.” She brings her free hand closer to Mash’s face. Her long nails graze her skin. Mash has never believed Morgan to be a witch, but right now, she can’t help but feel like a little prey animal in front of a tiger. “But you knew me. You knew me.”
Cold dread settles in Mash’s stomach as an epiphany brightens Morgan’s eyes. “You are-”
“Don’t say it!” Mash slaps both hands on Morgan’s mouth. (They have the same lips. They have the same lips. Morgan and Tonelico- she’s felt this mouth everywhere on her before, they have the same lips, they have the same lips. ) “If you say it out loud, you’ll speak it into existence. Don’t say it. When I said it, I remembered, and Totrot- please. Don’t make me go through that again. Don’t make me lose you again.”
Totrot, she’d said. Totrot, not Habetrot.
A silent confession.
anta_permana: AUUUUUUHHHHHGHFGFIGDIGB
Halcyon722: I made the fatal, unimaginably horrid mistake of listening to Ever-Present Feeling while reading this. Isn't that an appropriate phrase? Even torn apart by fate and so many other factors outside of both of their controls, the love between Mash and Tonelico was ever-present, always burning within Mash even though it laid dormant within Morgan. I am downright inconsolable at the thought of Morgan's body remembering Mash even if her mind does not. The tremendous, colossal agony of Mash seeing her lover in Morgan even as Morgan sees only a stranger in Mash is more than I can bear. Something so simple as the titular mole being what solidifies that Tonelico and Morgan are truly the same person is also astoundingly poignant, that I had to turn away and stare at the wall for a bit as I started attempting to imagine how anyone could possibly hope to parse that in the moment.
Above all however, I curse you, Verse, for where you cut things off! Often have I read some variant of "If you say it out loud, you’ll speak it into existence" in your works, and it's sublimely painful every time. However, here and now, more so than any other time do I wish I could strike those words from the story. Let them say it! Let them speak it into existence! The love was there and it mattered, and how I wish Mash and Morgan could foster that love once again. Am I truly to think that they are each happier staying apart? Am I truly to think that now, free from her burdensome quest to save Britain, Morgan would not find some small solace with her ever-faithful knight? Am I to believe that Mash truly would pass up on reconnecting with "the sole woman she has ever loved"??? It's all so horrible I feel like my ribcage could burst at the seams with how loudly I wish Morgan could just look Mash in the eyes and finish her sentence. Fool that Mash is, for what would be spoken into existence but a rekindling of love that had smoldered all this time? Fool that she is, worrying about losing Morgan again when she could have her right now, I am eating my fucking fingers over this.
Anyway, all this to say that this is a masterfully composed piece that had me pulling out my hair and wanting to die in a hole. You've done an astonishingly good job capturing the ruthlessly heartbreaking tragedy of Mash/Tonelico. I felt like it was a dynamic that was criminally under-explored insofar as Fate pairings go, so imagine my surprise at just fucking stumbling across some of the most grievously beautiful Fate fics I've ever had the pleasure of reading. If I could, I would carve these stories into my bones, so that even when my flesh is gone others could look upon what remains and only guess what drove me to such madness.