we only know this light; caius

[Caius]

when is a monster not a monster? oh, when you love it He’s lost his wings and he wonders if he’s lost her, too. His greatest fears come at night as his defenses idle and the susurrus of ghost-voices rise up. He has more control of them now, they are less overwhelming. He does not engage them. Sometimes there are still the shapes, the forms. Sometimes he still sees his father, but they never speak, just lock eyes and there is always a sadness to Vanquish that Caius cannot entirely comprehend. But the greatest fear is that one day he will hear her voice added to the chorus, that he will hear Else amongst the ghost and know he has failed her. At first the voice has no body, so when he hears it - I need to know - dread fills his belly like a tide. She is dead, he thinks, and the thought makes his bones ache. But there is a slight movement, a stutter in the nighttime, and he turns to it, the whites of his eyes exposed, the fear and surety that she is gone rising in his chest, clawing there like a caged beast. But there is a form in the shadows, a form he knows well, and he exhales loudly, a gust in the night. He comes closer, steps slow and nearing reverence. She is here. She is not a ghost in the night. “What do you need to know?” he asks, because he would tell her anything, give her anything, so grateful is he that she is alive, that she breathes, that his worse fears have not come to pass. c a i u s vanquish x chantale