wrfmlogsarchive | You won't have to be my heaven

Who: Josiah, Song, and Lilith
What: Josiah asks Song to look after Lilith. Issues are discussed. Song attempts to be Lilith's conscience. Progress is made (sort of)??
Where: AIM (briefly) and the Loft
When: Whenever. Yesterday or something. We're assuming by now that I've made it back to RG after the Maleficent dream.
Status: Complete

soleilonthemind (2:49:25 PM): I'm going to be leaving for awhile - would you watch over Lilith while I'm gone?

songbyrd3 (2:49:43 PM): Yes. how is she?

soleilonthemind (2:50:19 PM): better - the poison didn't spread too far before Aerith got to her

songbyrd3 (2:50:55 PM): Alright. Take care of yourself.

________________________

Song knocked on the door to the loft. "Lilith? May I come in?" It wasn't very loud. If the demon was sleeping, Song would just invite herself in, but she thought it best to be a little extra polite after their last encounter.

There were a few seconds of silence, and then the door opened a tiny bit, and Lilith glanced out at Song. She frowned at her, but didn't quite meet her eyes. Instead of demanding what the woman wanted, she only opened the door further and gestured for her to come in.

Resisting the urge to chew on her lip, she crossed the threshold, but stopped just inside the door. "Josiah asked me to check on you. Said he's leaving for a while," she explained in an almost meek voice.

Lilith didn't turn around to look at her, instead she only walked back over to the couch and sat down in it. After a couple of moments, she nodded at Song's comment.

After a moment of hesitation, Song followed her across the room and sat down on the other end of the couch, looking straight ahead at nothing in particular. "... You're feeling alright?"

"I'm fine," Lilith replied, too quickly and lacking the sharpness that was usually in her tone of voice. "I'm fine..." Her eyes were distant though, yet despite that, the barest traces of fury, hurt, frustration, and deep sorrow echoed in them.

Song didn't answer. Of course she was fine. Fine in the sense that she wasn't really fine at all, but she'd survive. For now.
"I've decided to leave Calum to Ray and the others," she muttered instead. "If another dream is needed, I'll be there, but I won't confront him again myself unless no one else can. At least... not unless I find something that could work against him."

Lilith glanced up at Song wearily. "What do you want me to tell you?" she murmured before lowering her eyes, her hair falling to block her face. "What do you want me to say?"

Song met her eyes, a slightly sympathetic, slightly frustrated, entirely uncertain look on her face. "I don't know. You don't have to say anything. I just... all I want to do is help you and Josiah, but I don't know what I can do. I hate not being able to do something."

"I don't know what you can do," Lilith said quietly, looking away. "I don't know what anybody can do. I shouldn't still-" Her voice dropped to a hiss and grew angry. "He shouldn't be here. He should have burned, his soul should be in hell."

She winced at the tone, and clamped her teeth down hard on her bottom lip despite attempts to resist. For a while she didn't say anything, but eventually her curiosity got the better of her, as usual.
"Why did he attack you?" Of course she'd been afraid that he would ever since he showed interest in finding Lilith, but if she could get any details, it might shine a little for light on the mystery that was Calum.

Lilith turned a blank gaze to Song, and for a long moment, it almost seemed as if she wouldn't answer at all. Then, she rose to her feet and began to pace. "I don't believe it matters why - the point is he did. He's full of vengeance and hatred - hardly even human anymore at all." But something about the way she didn't meet Song's eyes, the quiet, almost thoughtful way she spoke - she wasn't telling the truth.

Song watched her scrutinizingly, continuing to gnaw on her lip when she wasn't speaking.
"Why does he want vengeance on you? It was the other pirate lords who betrayed him, wasn't it?"

Lilith ignored the question, her eyes stormy. "All he can see is getting more power - nothing and no one matters to him more than that." She shivered suddenly, and stopped in the middle of her pacing. "It's the only thing that's important to him anymore - he has nothing to lose."

She grimaced. "That's... pathetic, frankly." Some of Lilith's anger seemed to be infecting her. "It's the one thing that drives me mad about being on these worlds. They're... they're fairytales, and it seems like their people can't break free of that. I mean, you did. You're certainly more than some shallow, manipulative little seductress, but people like Calum..." She sighed. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the disney worlds don't make a difference. There were poeple like that on Earth, too. It's just... the one thing I cannot deal with is people who won't listen to reason or logic."

She didn't disagree with anything Song was saying, but there was something, a look on her face, that suggested that there was more to the story than that. But, aloud, she murmured, "Some people never change. Others do. But..." She shook her head, and then collapsed on the couch, burying her face in her hands.

"Lilith..." The sudden display wrenched Song's heart and she couldn't stop herself from reaching out to touch Lilith's shoulder. It was an effort not to outright hug her, but Song had a feeling that might not go over so well.

She wasn't crying - she never cried. But she was trembling - in anger, sorrow, exhaustion... and she didn't flinch away when Song touched her shoulder. Quietly, she said, "I refuse to... I won't let him. I have to kill him, Song. I have to."

"I know..." And there was so much meaning there, Song knew. If Lilith had loved him, even if she hated him now, there would still be the memory of it, and that was enough. To know that the person you loved or had once loved would have to be killed... To know that you would have to help kill him, was a feeling she remembered very well.
"But we have to save Josiah. We can't give Calum the victory of taking him down too."

"I should never have let myself care," Lilith suddenly replied in a heated whisper. "About either of them, about you, about any humans. It was easier the other way. It was easier before any of this." She moved away from Song's touch, her cold mask starting to fall back into place. Maybe it would be easier after this, once everything was over. But never again.

Well, this wouldn't do. "In other words, you should never have broken out of your given role in the fairytale?" The question held an icy edge to it. "Don't be a fool. What would your life be worth, then? What would you be? Yes, it hurts to care. It hurts like hell, but there's no meaning to life if you don't."

Lilith's eyes blazed. "You humans see things so simply. Believe that everything that happens to a person makes them stronger, makes them... cherish the "good" times even more." Her spine was rigid now with fury. "Demons are only fallen, corrupted angels - where does someone gain redemption in that? My life was easier without caring about you or those two - and all I have to show for it now is what? Calum's damnation, Josiah's suffering, and your condescension."

Song clenched her teeth, not in anger at Lilith, but frustration at the whole thing. If anything, she was angry with herself. She could usually read people better than this, usually say the right thing...
Of course, everyone else she'd dealt with in such a way was either human or Nobody. She wanted to believe that Lilith was the same at heart, but sometimes she wondered.
When she spoke again, her voice was low and cautious. "What do you mean, no redemption for a fallen angel? What else is left at that point, but redemption or further corruption?"

Lilith looked away, her shoulders slumping slightly. "Not every fairy tale has a happy ending, Song." Her voice was quiet now, as if the anger from her previous statement had left her drained. "What makes you so sure that I could even get half of that? What makes you think that there's any good in me? You hardly know me at all."

Song watched her with narrowed, searching eyes. "For one thing... there's good in everyone. Nothing is purely evil. Not Calum, not Xehanort, not you, not even a Heartless. Just like nothing is purely good. For another, you've already come so far. Haven't you noticed? If you can care about anyone besides yourself, there's good in you." She made a small sound then, not quite a chuckle, as something occurred to her. "What can change the nature of a demon, Lilith?"

Lilith looked back at Song, something unreadable in her eyes. She seemed to be considering the question, but, at the last moment, she shook her head. "There may not be things purely good, but I've known things that are purely evil." She frowned darkly. "And the fact that you even think that about me shows that I was correct." Her voice softened into a harsh whisper that was hardly audible. "Just ask him."

"Who, Calum?" She scowled. "Oh, I'm sure he called you a hundred viscous things, said you were nothing but a vile little devil whom he never should have trusted or loved in the first place. People typically say horrible things when they're about to stab you." She tossed her hand in a dismissive gesture, as if throwing something away.
"You are the one who said that you cared. Whatever else I might have mistakenly assumed about you, that part is true. Otherwise you wouldn't be hurting so much."

Lilith's face was carefully blank at Song's words about her former master - she neither agreed with accusation or denied it. Instead, she said. "There are... worse things that can be said." She closed her eyes, sitting back in the couch, and resting her chin in the palm of her hand. "My reasons are entirely selfish, Song. Make no doubt about that. In the end, if I have to choose between any of you and myself, I take precedence. Make of that what you will."

"Of course you do. I never expected you to sacrifice yourself for us or anything. It doesn't mean you're completely heartless." She tilted her head, glancing at the succubus from under a veil of untrimmed bangs. "Tell me, if you would... what it is you truly want, if you could have anything in the universe, or change yourself in any way?"

Lilith opened her eyes narrowly, and peered at the other woman with a frown. "What does any person chained to something against their will want? Freedom."

She gave a slight nod, but didn't look satisfied yet. "What would you do with that freedom? What would you become?"

"It's my nature to feed off lust," she replied. "What else could I be except what I am now? I would no longer be bound to my current master - I could hardly share his soul and his energy without that bind."

"You're missing the point," she said. "Is being a succubus what you want? Is it really your passion in life, and you'd have things no other way? Or, if given the choice, would you rather be something else entirely? Human, or angel, or anything? What about that redemption you spoke of?"

"Why would I want to be anything different?" she asked in an almost bored tone. "I've always been this way, never considered being something different. I was born this way, will die this way, so I might as well live this way."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but her voice was gentle. "Then why did you sound so miserable a moment ago? And why bring up redemption in the first place?"

Lilith looked at her coolly, a frown starting to appear on her features. "Just because this is who I am, that this is my life, doesn't mean that I don't regret certain times I have led people along this same path. People's souls that I've damned because of my being in their lives."

Her eyebrows raised slightly. "Do you blame yourself for Calum, and perhaps for Josiah, then?"

The demon's face went very blank at that statement. She got to her feet, and stared down at Song. "I've said too much. You should leave."

"Is it you, or is it the grimoire?" The fact that she might have been risking a demon's wrath didn't even cross her mind as she went on, staying right where she was. "That's what gives them the dark magic. That causes more trouble than you do, and you had no say in being bound to it."

Lilith's eyes narrowed. "You assume too much, human. I said, leave."

She looked steadily into Lilith's eyes for a long moment. Then she stood.
"Alright. I'll go. But I expect you to think about your own answers to the question, and be honest with yourself if you won't with me. What can change the nature of a person, be they demon, angel, or human?"
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she whisked across the room and out the door, shooting one last glance back at Lilith as she turned to close it.

Lilith refused to meet Song's eyes, turning away as the other woman walked towards the door. Quietly, to herself, she murmured, "The same thing that will cause anyone to risk being eternally condemnded." She collapsed back onto the couch, and wrapped shaking arms around her middle. No, she wouldn't cry. She never cried. Sorrow was for humans, for those who had enough of a soul to feel it.