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WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
neon.
text β audio β video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
neon.
text β audio β video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
neon.
text β audio β video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
neon.
text β audio β video
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[ She doesn't want it to be normal, but she also doesn't want to be the only one this is happening to. Sometimes misery just needs company. ]
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neon exhales quietly. ]
... Yeah. I think it just - has to be. Normal, I mean. [ the soft sound of pen on paper fills the brief silence for a moment. ] Does - do they still call you - [ he almost says it, mila, only out of habit from the past month, but catches himself, ] - by the name they gave you? [ beat. ] The last person to call me by my name was my mother. I... kind of liked when that was still true.
[ but also, he can't pretend it wasn't kind of nice to hear mila and kieran say it - lucien. ]
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[ That didn't use to bother her this much. It was jarring at first, but so was everything else as a new recruit, so it fell down the list. It started hurting after a while, and now β especially after last month β it became heartbreaking. They're never going to call her Mila again, because they'll be dead before her contract is up. Why didn't she think of that before she said yes? ]
She made them forget that, too.
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[ neon's in a similar boat. though he doesn't really remember it, he's almost certain that signing his life over in exchange for his father's health was a no brainer. now, though, he hardly know his parents, important memories and details plucked from their minds as if they'd never been there. they call him neon like it's what they printed on his birth certificate, like they've never called him anything else. they talk about a job he quit eight years ago, the never comment on his age or how he hasn't changed in nearly a decade. it's hard. it's sad. it is what it is.
neon exhales quietly, wets his lips. ] ... It's pretty. [ mila, he means. ] I guess that's fitting, though.
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Thanks. I really liked yours. Sounded so fancy.
[ How shitty that she can't risk using it anymore. ]
French, right?
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Yeah. It was my grandfather's name on my mother's side. [ he pauses for a beat or two, just kinda drifting through bits and pieces of his life before raiz. ] Up until I was about five or six, she would only speak to me in QuΓ©bΓ©cois. My dad spoke to me in English, so that I would learn both.
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[ They named her after a family member, too, but that name was replaced way before she met RaΓz. ]
I know some French, but like, France French. Would you teach me the differences sometime?
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Yeah. [ he sounds quietly surprised but also honored that she would ask him to teach her anything. ] Yeah, of course. A lot of it is just - different pronunciation and nuance, but uh. We can get into all of that... whenever. I'm sure you'll pick it up quick.
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I'll do my very best, teach.
[ A beat. She remembers how vulnerable Neon was back at the chapel, so. Cellar thinks she can afford to be the same with him now, voice slightly more fragile. ]
Are you as freaked out about this whole thing as I am?
[ Being family, having all those connections, acting a certain way, and then... not. ]
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neon exhales, absently rubbing his forehead with a couple fingertips. ]
I - ... I mean. Yeah. [ it bothers him that it happened, it bothers him that everyone seems to just be moving on like everything is just... normal. he's been combing the network for information, making physical notes, trying to find anything that might point him in the direction of some answers as to what may have happened and how. so far, he's come up with very little. ] I don't like that someone or, or - something here can just rewrite our lives like that.
[ he snaps his fingers for emphasis even though she can't see it. ]
It freaks me out that nobody really seems to be concerned. One quick dip in a mysterious pool and everything's fine now, I guess. Who cares, right?
[ neon cares. ]
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[ Even though it pains her to say that, and to admit that she's been doing the same. Horrible things happen and she moves on, because she's got a support network of people who love her and she'd rather be happy with them. For their sake as much as her own. ]
Compared to stuff we've been through before β¦ this was pretty tame, I think. In terms of people getting hurt, or worse.
[ She'll have to contend with those words when one day Saber messages her to announce he's dying as a result of what he's been through. ]
It's justβ there was a passenger in my body. She was me, but written all wrong? We were all, like, fanfic versions of ourselves. And my hair! How the hell did it get so long overnight?
[ Priorities. ]
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but there's no sense in arguing. if cellar thinks the last month was tame, then neon believes her, or at the very least believes that she believes as much. he'll keep coming for information where he can find it, he'll keep and compares notes and that'll have to be enough until he can piece together something useful.
neon laughs a little bit under his breath, perhaps a tiny bit forced. ]
It looks nice though. Do you like it, or do you think you'll cut it? [ honestly, he almost kind of forgot what cellar looks like with shorter hair after spending a month with mila. ] I didn't have any of my tattoos, now that I think about it.
no subject
βno, I think I wanna keep it. At least for now. I used to have it long like this before I went to college.
[ She wonders if whatever caused 'Mila' knew that, and that's why it changed her hair. ]
D'you think you would've gotten them again eventually? If it lasted long enough?