Promises. They're meaningful, they're binding, but she isn't so sure, with this stranger. He is too alien, too out of place in her cosmos, how is she to know how steadfast he is, or how capricious, if she doesn't know his role nor title? If there is no telling what his part in the story will turn out to be? He has the means to return her other self, that much is certain, so perhaps he can also keep her safe and deliver her to the right place in the Void. And perhaps he can't. Perhaps his selfish friendship will doom a creation he has no rights to. It's this uncertainty that burns the tranquility she had reached so long ago, like the lava flows through ice and just as painful.
Calliope stares at him for a long wordless moment, a scowl of anger, frustration, and fear. A soft, strained clacking emerges from her fangs as she considers, tries desperately to think of another move to make, another way to wring certainty and justice from him. But in his eyes she sees a weariness and timeless age so familiar, she almost doesn't recognize it on someone else's face. And then she understands, his place on the board is as immovable as her own. She has lost an impossible challenge once more.
The rims of her empty eyes glisten wetly before she turns away, gazing up at the dais where she had met the mother of monsters and received her purpose. But there is no one there to guide her now. "The only thing that made eternity bearable was the immutability of my agreement with Echidna," she admits, barely even addressing the stranger. "The promise that I would be free to make a difference to Paradox Space despite my failure, if only I waited long enough." He made her that promise, too, but he is no mythical denizen. Briefly, incongruously, she wonders if her other self finds it easier to believe his promises. Yet another peace she will never know. "When you look at her, will you remember this?" she asks and turns back to him, cold and harsh and despair refined to a point. "Will you remember that you hold the fate of a reality in your hands that was never meant to be yours?" She doesn't care how many worlds have depended on his judgement before; he has never even set foot into this one, has never braved any of its challenges, no innumerable ghosts of his form the foundation of a successful timeline. Paradox Space has its own heroes, and he has stolen one of them off the board. "You must assure her safety."
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Calliope stares at him for a long wordless moment, a scowl of anger, frustration, and fear. A soft, strained clacking emerges from her fangs as she considers, tries desperately to think of another move to make, another way to wring certainty and justice from him. But in his eyes she sees a weariness and timeless age so familiar, she almost doesn't recognize it on someone else's face. And then she understands, his place on the board is as immovable as her own. She has lost an impossible challenge once more.
The rims of her empty eyes glisten wetly before she turns away, gazing up at the dais where she had met the mother of monsters and received her purpose. But there is no one there to guide her now. "The only thing that made eternity bearable was the immutability of my agreement with Echidna," she admits, barely even addressing the stranger. "The promise that I would be free to make a difference to Paradox Space despite my failure, if only I waited long enough." He made her that promise, too, but he is no mythical denizen. Briefly, incongruously, she wonders if her other self finds it easier to believe his promises. Yet another peace she will never know. "When you look at her, will you remember this?" she asks and turns back to him, cold and harsh and despair refined to a point. "Will you remember that you hold the fate of a reality in your hands that was never meant to be yours?" She doesn't care how many worlds have depended on his judgement before; he has never even set foot into this one, has never braved any of its challenges, no innumerable ghosts of his form the foundation of a successful timeline. Paradox Space has its own heroes, and he has stolen one of them off the board. "You must assure her safety."