Chapter Text
She doesn't want just any pact, if she's going to do this she's going to do this right. It's her soul and she's going to make him work for it, hard. This demon is no prince, in fact he’s barely anything at all, but together they might both make it out of here.
Kyrie is 6 going on 7 when she first meets her friend. She's run off to the attic, frustrated by her parents fussing and strict rules about how she and Nero can't share a room now that he's moved in with them. It isn't fair that Credo gets to share a room with Nero when she and Nero are much better friends!
She storms out of the living room and all the way up all the stairs in their townhouse to the cramped attic to stew in her anger. Biting on her thumb to quell her anger she directs herself into pushing boxes around until she can sit down unseen from the doorway.
It's up in the attic sitting on an old trunk that she finds the brooch, it's a wide and flat, brassy gold thing, tarnished from years in the attic, but still shiny enough to entice a little girl. Her fingers find their way to it while sifting through an old trunk in the back corner she's made for space for herself in.
The brooch is empty upon opening it, but holds spaces as if for gemstones to frame the small clock resting inside the jewelry. It sits in her hands warm like a heart, it reminds Kyrie of a hug from her grandmother. She's instantly captivated by it, incapable of putting it down as she worries her fingers over the grooves of the moon designs on the face of it.
When she eventually cools down from her earlier indignity, she slinks down the stairs and into her room. She takes the brooch with her, clutching it to her breast where it seems to blend with her pulse. She doesn't even feel guilty at the thought of stealing from the attic, the metal so apart of her it would feel more wrong to leave it abandoned upstairs.
Her parents have obviously left her to cool off tonight as her mother doesn't try to come into her room that night, just stands by the door as she says goodnight. Kyrie calls back a half hearted goodnight and slips the treasure under her pillow. She goes to sleep that night dreaming of all the fun games her and Nero can play together now that they can see each other all the time, even if they can't sleep together.
It's a couple weeks later that she runs up to the attic again, this time mad at Credo for making fun of her trying to practice hymns in the bath while pretending to be a mermaid. Kyrie chews her nails raw in anger thinking about his laughter. she'll show him . Credo can't even hold a note during the psalms at church. She stomps to her corner in the attic in a huff, trying to think of how to embarrass her older brother. Nero would never laugh at her!
She devotes herself to digging in the trunk. That, and gnawing on her pointer finger, her current victim of frustrations. It's then that she finds her next puzzle piece. An old journal, almost miraculously preserved, lays under piles of smaller boxes and old yellowed fabric. She doesn't resist her urge to slip the book out from its spot in the pile and lay it in her lap.
Most of the writing is in fancy script, and even then Kyrie is certain it's in another language entirely. She's not the smartest girl in her classes, but she can read well enough to realize this isn't something she should be able to understand. If anything, it seems to resemble the books they have in church, the ones that are simplified phonetically for choir practice. Regardless of her ability to understand, Kyrie continues to page through the journal, seeing occasional geometric drawings on pages throughout.
The book flips open to a page marked with Eva and an intricate cyclical pattern resting under it. She instinctively traces it with her finger before realizing she's accidentally smeared some of her blood on the page doing so. Guiltily she quickly replaces the book in the trunk and hurries back down to her room.
Her rush has her forgetting her earlier anger at Credo, she rushes through her bedtime routine, chewing her finger the whole time. When her mother comes by her room to say goodnight, Kyries already worked her thumb raw enough to warrant her mother fetching a band aid before kissing her head and turning out the light. Despite her earlier mania, Kyrie goes to sleep without trouble, as if guided there by a hand.
Her dreams that night are more vivid than she's ever had before. It is nearly pitch black in her dream, and yet Kyrie knows she could see anything she needed to in this space, that she's waiting to meet someone in fact.
Kyrie wanders in the dark with an almost omniscient understanding of her dreaming state. She holds the flat brooch she found in her hands and traces the pattern with her fingers. She walks forward on and on, never tiring. The path is warm, no winds knock her off balance, much like a walk with her mother in the park, the trail will guide her true.
The gossamer path she treads on becomes thin and narrow until it suddenly splits in two identical paths. Kyrie peers down the right path and feels an electric rush of adrenaline. Akin to riding her bike down a hill, Kyrie grins at the feeling and hurried to look at the left path to see if it is the same.
The other path is distinctly different from the other, an almost confusing… lack where the other path had pushed emotions on her. When she steps closer to the left path to try and get a better grasp, she picks up hints of something almost familiar. This path feels like walking home from school with Nero! She can't help herself from rushing forward down this path, the right side was exciting but this one has a trace of her favorite person. Maybe if she keeps going down this road she'll run into Nero and they can play while they're asleep!
The ground rushes beneath her as she hurries, turning slowly into stone and marble as she goes. Her footsteps echo in the dark as she races through shadowy castle walls to the end of the path. She can't help but think of the castle on Fortuna as she passes through one high arching ceiling after another seemingly without end. All too soon her mad dash comes to an end.
What she reaches is a cell. Behind the bars lays a figure in black armor, a statue maybe? It has countless chains connecting it to every wall, the ceiling, other parts of itself, though it's mostly hidden by shadow. She takes a step closer to try and get a better look and is surprised to see the statue move at the sound of her steps. Shocked, Kyrie tries to think of what to say to the living statue.
“Are you Eva?” Her voice rings into the empty room, the name rising in her mind as she stares at the figure.
Eva?... no… I am not… Eva… mother… mother?
The figure doesn't… speak, so much as project the sound into the air. The voice is dry, like a sick person, and seems lost at her simple question.
“Mother? I'm Kyrie” she can't help but respond to the statues slow response. This is her dream. This guy should know who she is!
“If you're not Eva, who are you?” She tries to push for a clearer answer, walking up to the bars to push a bit of her face into the cell.
… I… I don't… know… I don't… I don't I don't I can't I CAN’T. WHY. I CAN’T… I CANTICANTICANTICANTICANT
She backs away and presses her hands to her ears at the increasing volume of the statue's voice. she cries out at the sheer upset coming from the statue, no, when she looked into the cell she could tell there was a man underneath the armor. Like he hadn't finished putting on the full suit.
“I'm sorry! I didn't mean to upset you, it's ok if you don't know your name I'm sure you'll remember it soon! Or I can help you!” She tries to reassure him, if this is her dream then she'll surely find a way to help him remember it!
A groan rises from the man in armor in response to her pledge. Before anything else can be said, Kyrie begins to feel the room around her slip from her grasp like sand. She's going to wake up, she can tell somehow, but she can't wake up now! She needs to help him remember his name!
Kyrie runs towards the cell bars and presses herself against them hard, stumbling as they let her pass through as if she's not there at all. She falls to her knees in front of the man in armor and finds his still naked human hand in front of her.
She grasps at it in her own small hands. The brooch she had been carrying all this while pressing hotly into his icy cold palm. Time is running out, she has to come back, she can't do anything more right now. She can help! The brooch is scalding hot in her hand, wind rushes past her whipping her hair and obscuring her vision.
“I’ll come back! We can remember your name together!” She cries, gripping tightly onto his hand, trying to see his face in the dark and convince him of her intention. The dream is already too hazy to see anything clearly but at the last moment she feels his hand twitch to hold her hand back around the brooch.
She holds his hand back tightly, the brooch feels scorching hot in her hands, wind whips her hair and suddenly the dream is no more.