Look at the time it's taken me to get away from what was said
I'll never leave, I'll always love
It seemed Aura had struck a nerve. Croe’s smile vanished with more speed than it had arrived, her new expression striking in its similarity to the one Mallos adopted when his guards went up. In spite of that, she was surprisingly open, verbally.
Mallos hadn’t really talked about his cat much with Aura, either. The most she’d had was the throwaway phrase, Sperantia’s gone, buried among a list of worries. Gentle probing hadn’t gotten him to elaborate, so Aura had let it go. From his silence on the matter, at least compared with other personal concerns he had opened up about, she could only assume that the parting had been unpleasant. It also didn’t take a genius to guess what had driven the cat to walk out.
Croe, it seemed, had come to the same conclusions. Listening to her, Aura couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy, whether deserved or not.
“I don’t know either,” she shrugged a little helplessly, “but it probably wasn’t just you. They both like to play a game of innocence but they’re as fallible as each other. And… they’re more forgiving than people expect them to be.”
Aura didn’t really know Sperantia well enough to make that assessment of her character, but it seemed a safe enough bet. No one could live with Mallos for so long without a forgiving nature.
She hadn’t been sure what to expect in response to her question. Croe would have been perfectly within her rights to point out that her relationship with Mallos was no one else’s business. The actual response, frank as it was, felt like an answer for privileged ears. Little of what Croe said was especially surprising. Mallos had always lived for the now and hang the consequences. I never regret anything, he’d told Aura once. Because at some point, everything I did was exactly what I wanted.
What Croe said about Mallos may not have come as a surprise, but the way she spoke about was… unexpected. Partly because Aura could imagine Mallos saying the same thing, partly because she hadn’t been ready to hear it, and partly because…
“You’re not like her.” She said without thinking. There was a pause in which Aura mentally kicked herself. “The last person he got this close to, I mean. I thought you would be. Thought he had a type.”
It seemed really stupid, now she was saying it out loud. Of course Croe wouldn’t be like Kiya. Aura shifted uncomfortably.
“Sorry.” Apparently dying had done nothing for her charisma, or lack thereof. She tried again. “It sounds worth fighting for.”
me and you, we are ghosts
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