Work Text:
[ 
⇽ Sparrow ] [ 
⇽ Nora ]
Nora came to a halt, feeling her worn boots straining against the sharp edges of the rocks comprising the ground underneath her. Jagged and unforgiving, just like everything else about The Other Place. The crimson sky felt just as harsh as the wind blew past her. The wind didn’t feel like anything, but she felt the force of it all the same. Temperature was a mere delusion here, and not like she cared at this moment. All she cared about was what she had finally gotten a glimpse of, standing stock still in front of her.The silhouette, small and sharp. Just like the personality of who she knew she was looking at. The short hair, albeit significantly more unkempt from the last time Nora had seen her, over a year ago. The red light from the sky and the air around them both cast harsh shadows across the little remains of what she knew as her “sibling”. Although not truly related, they were all she ever had- and vice versa. She thought. As they turned to face her, their mouth finally opening to speak, Nora saw- with a flicker of shock and hurt, that Sparrow’s expression shifted from an expression of combat-ready defensiveness, to a glare of hatred and annoyance. Not a single sign of the familial love they once showed across their young features, turned harsh and torn from their own situation. A situation that Nora herself had indirectly been the cause of. A figure that looked like someone she’d lost all too long ago, lost all because of her own overprotectiveness. She had, again and again, prohibited Sparrow to go too far, to wander, to wonder, to risk her own life. All because of the fear of losing her.
“Who the hell is- Oh. OH. It’s YOU, of all people. YOU?? OF all the people I could’ve encountered in this hellhole, the so called ‘higher powers’ stick US back together.”
The harshness in Sparrow’s voice was like a whip to Nora’s face. She took a step back, inhaling before starting to speak herself.
“Listen, I know this is a terrible time for us to be meeting again- and I KNOW that you hate me. You hate me for what I did and didn’t do, but still I want you to know I’m sorry-”
“Shut it.”
Sparrow snapped, turning away from Nora. Nora didn’t know if they refused to face them because they genuinely couldn’t stand to look at her, or if they were hiding their own possible glint of emotions. But she didn’t stop. She started to talk again.
“I want you to know that I came here, I made all of this risk, just to try and get you out of here. I... I wanted to redeem myself. If only a little, I wanted to show you that I truly am sorry.”
Sparrow didn’t respond this time. They only turned their gaze back to Nora. Purgatory truly did mess them up, Nora thought to herself. She thought she’d gotten treated harshly, but when faced with the practically melting skin over Sparrow’s face cross, she stifled her own complaints. They had gotten it way worse. If anything, that only worsened her grief.
“Listen here. I don’t LIKE you, anymore. I don’t like what you did, I don’t like what you’re trying to DO, and you know I don’t want to be around you anymore. But as much as I hate you, I hate this place more. So I’ll stick by you. One last time.”
Sparrow approached Nora, pointing an accusing finger at them.
“But you need to know that I’ll be leaving the second we get out of here. You need to be ready to move on. Because I sure am.”
Nora sighed, wincing slightly at her own wounds, before she finally looked back up.
“Fine.”