745/The Aftermath

The Aftermath
Date of Scene:	11 November 2023
Location:	Mitakihara General Hospital
Synopsis:	Hannah awakens after the attempt on her life, and reaffirms her love for one Amy Faust.
Cast of Characters:	Hannah Steiner, Amanda Faust

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Hannah Steiner has posed:
Beep. Beep. Beep.

Hannah groans as consciousness returns. There's a moment of pure confusion, quickly cut through by the /hiss/ of one Lyra Steiner. Claws dig, and then the hospital bed lightly bends as a certain Razorhound hops up in pure joy upon her beloved owner showing signs of life.

"Wha...Acht!" Sluuuuurpt! Lick lick lick!

Hannah weakly shoves Lyra off, and tries to get her wits about her. The /beep/ of the medical equipment attached to her is a point. As are how much her neck hurts, even with the feeling of a bandage tightly bound to her.

"By the Sankt..." Coughs out Hannah. Even talking /hurts/. Her neck throbs as she does so. Even her voice doesn't feel /right/.

A finger gently rubs over where Norie's blade slashed into her flesh. The healing wound is wide, jagged, and far, /far/ too deep.

So close. She almost died. Just like her parents. And once again?

She owes it all to people close to her. Hands clench the bedsheets, and nails draw blood in frustration.

Shame fills her. How /dare/ she put them in danger!? How /dare/ she bring her world's troubles to this already blighted rock!? For the moment?

She sniffles. Tears fall quietly as she feels the full weight of what a /failure/ she is against the legacy she's been given.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy had to sleep eventually.

    But in the early afternoon she's back, and prepared to stay awhile.

    "Hannah..." She takes her girlfriend's hand in hers. "If you can hear me... I'm here for you." She leans over to kiss her cheek, and sits there awhile, holding Hannah's hand and petting Lyra. "You're a good girl, Lyra. Don't worry, we'll all get through this."

    But, y'know. You can't just. Sit there.

    But Amy is prepared to stay by Hannah's side. She gets out her headphones and laptop -- "The same model they use on the space station!" she'd proudly declare, if asked -- and settles in. Frowning as her old profile picture greets her at login. She's got some things to change.

    But she can't change that this laptop is from 2009 -- she stares into space for a long moment at the realization that that makes it the same age as most of her classmates, the same age 'Amanda Faust' allegedly is -- which means it can only play very low-tech games. So what to play?

Amanda Faust has posed:
    ...Well, recent events -- not the assassination, before that -- *have* put her in mind of an RPG she hasn't played in... wow, over a year. Now where was she? Right, the team of magical girls had just been teleported to a secret military base because a youma was detected there...

    Fighting their way through a horde of giant bugs and slimy monsters while Amy manages each party member's MP regeneration mechanic, they eventually find a scientist, cowering.

    [ Mallory ] What happened here?!

    Amy winces. She can hardly blame past-her for naming the main character after 'himself', but... oof. It's gonna be jarring every time she sees that.

    [Scientist] I really shouldn't tell anyone, but it's not like we're making it out of here alive. We were studying an anomalous entity. It breaks a half-dozen laws of physics just by existing! We discovered how to extract a substance from it that gave normal human beings some of its abilities.

    O_O "Oh no. Oh no! That's gonna go SO BADLY!" Amy reacts out loud without thinking. "...*God*, I hope no one tries that on a youma in real life..."

    [Scientist] Everything was going fine until the test subjects mutated into those slime monsters that are all over the base...

    -_-; Oh gosh, what a surprise. Actually she expected worse...

    Solve a puzzle, reach the boss room, have a surprisingly straightforward fight against a headless shadow-monster youma despite it debuffing the party to hell. But then what? Amy doesn't remember if there's a Veil in this setting. What *would* she and her friends do if they had to hide an attack of this scale? Unfortunately, the princess from the evil space empire has it handled:

    [Veronica ] Hmph. I have hacked into this Earth facility's systems and activated their self-destruct. It appears to be... a primitive tactical-scale fission explosive. I'll disable it. ...Oops. We'd better get back to the teleportation circle.

    There is even a 'It's a NUKE?!' 'What's a nuke?' 'I'll explain later, JUST RUN' exchange between the protagonist and someone from a fantasy world that strikes Amy as oh right, she has friends who don't know Earth stuff this is all pretty relatable. "Oh man there's a frikkin' timer..." The party escapes, and after the debriefing their magical teacher explains about how youma come from an eldritch abomination that creates them out of mindless instinct, like an insect building a nest. "I'm glad THAT'S not true in real life..." mutters Amy, before realizing she has no idea where Witches really come from. "...I *hope* it's not true in real life..."

    And then what she thought was a social character moment with a morally ambiguous party member leads to her turning the the protagonist into a doll while rambling about how people will be so much happier that way and Amy is just done. She's numb. She feels nothing. She thinks doll-protagonist looks kinda cute actually. This shit may be exactly why she was ready to deal with the victims in Sailor Eclipse's wake, but... what was a ridiculously fantastic videogame just seems so relatable now. She's done. She needs a break from *this*.

    Anyway the protagonist shakes off the spell -- quite a feat, all things considered -- things return to 'normal', and Amy saves the game, takes a deep breath, and takes a long stare out the window.

    She glances at Hannah's reflection. Gods, here Amy is supposed to be guarding her girlfriend from any assassins showing up to finish the job and she's losing herself in escapism trash instead and *it doesn't even manage to be escapism anymore.*

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy is startled out of her thoughts by a sudden hiss, and turns to see Lyra licking an awakened Hannah. Everything else is pushed out of her mind for a moment as a smile lights up her face. "Hannah!" She runs over to hug the other girl as best she can without lifting her from the bed, looking into sightless eyes with relief and joy in her own. "You're alive! You don't need to cry! It's okay! You made it!"

Hannah Steiner has posed:
Slowly, /slowly/ hand find Amy's as reality re-asserts itself! Lyra's tail whap-whap-whaps's against Hannah's girlfriend, and the trio share a moment of clinging to one another!

Breath is found, and then she's losing it in the embrace of her Faustian Engel!

"A...amy!!!!!" She manages weakly, hands squeezing. She presses her face to Amy's cheek, shivering and sobbing.

"Forgive me...By the Sankt! All of you...Is everyone alright!?" She asks, her voice with a new, vaguely raspy quality.

After nearly being murdered, Hannah's first thoughts are for those that saved her life.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "Hannah! It's okay!" Amy reassures, and nuzzles back. And then Hannah asks, and she realizes Hannah was kind of out of it all fight and may not know how it ended. "Loyalty girl got a cut on her arm, not nearly as bad as yours. She'll be fine. Chrono and Rashmi teleported you, me, and Sayaka to the hospital, we told them you were mugged." Beat. Oh right... "It's the next day." She glances at the window. "You've been out for like three-fourths of a day. It's Saturday, I mean. Everyone is alright. We're not so easily hurt, or... or we wouldn't have lasted this long. Everyone's fine. It's you we're worried about. ...I'll text the others you're OK."

Hannah Steiner has posed:
Hannah takes it all in, with a bite to her mouth, and the reluctantly relaxes. Hands find Amy's body, squeezing gently with all of her little strength at the moment. A smile graces her face.

"...Sankt be praised..." She mutters, and tries to gather her wits. Which is less than productive, as she groans when she moves the /wrong/ way, her neck throbbing horrifically.

Lyra whines and bumps Amy's hip affectionately.

A hand finds her neck, and she rubs again.

"Tell them all I owe them mein leben. I..." Again, her teeth grit.

"I do not deserve such faithful freunds und lieblings und..." Her words trail off as she descends into sobbing, the pure realization that people have risked their lives and /cared/ for her own safety so much and /loved/ her so much to save her hits like a tidal wave. Hands clutch at Amy as she shamelessly vents her emotions!

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy smiles at the hug, but finally looks worried again at how weak it was. Hannah usually gives really squeezy hugs. She winces as Hannah groans in pain. "Maybe they should get you a cast?" She sends a text.

    And then is held, and sort of... leans over, or just climbs onto the bed with Hannah since she's so small, and it's not like Hannah is injured all over... so she can pocket the phone and hug back. "Why not?! You're a wonderful person... you're a selfless magical girl! You, you charged into that Witch's Labyrinth without a second thought! And... and even people who don't do that deserve love and friendship! People who do *far worse* deserve it..."

    And then her words collide with her own self-hatred, and she looks away awkwardly. "Fudge..." Nope, not tackling THAT right now. She snugs Hannah instead, slipping arms around her to hug and squeeze tightly while Hannah can't.

Hannah Steiner has posed:
Hannah smiles.

"Amongst...mein many skills, dear liebling, sadly medical advice is not amongst them." She offers with a shrug. One that comes with a grunt of pain. She simply nods.

Squeeeze. She's suddenly /very/ happy for a small girlfriend snuggling right up against her. She makes sure to offer a few numbers to text! Usagi, Ami, Takumi, Kyouka, Setsuna, Naru, all but emptying out her phone's contacts to Amy!

Sniff.

"Am I!? Und just /whom/ dragged this conflict to this absolutely miserable world!? Allow me to answer! Me! /I/ am the one that allowed just another conflict upon this weeping little rock already full of its' own misery!" She yells, voice rasping and then devolves into a fit of coughing. Her voice is steeped in self loathing, even as her body shudders!

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy forwards the news of Hannah's recovery, and glances at Sayaka's response, but before she can ask, Hannah launches into self-loathing. She sends a quick response. "Hannah. That's not your fault. Just by being born into that royal stuff it was forced upon you. I... I made you deal with me, even if it was small stuff, and... and everyone does! We all have to deal with eachother's problems sometimes. This isn't something you caused, and even if it were, people fuck up sometimes, but this isn't even your fault!"

Hannah Steiner has posed:
It's not her fault.

Her Uncle made it everyone's fault.

Teeth grit.

The heart monitor suddenly picks up, her ticker suddenly raging. Sightless eyes peer towards Amy even as she squeezes the young woman, guilt plaguing her.

"...By being born mein life was destined for such things! We...the House of Steiner und any other House surviving the end of the Belkan Empire..!!! She starts, before she sucks in a breath and speaking seems difficult.

She leans right into Amy's embrace.

"Und yet all of you suffer so much!' A nod. She understands the suffering of Earth. And yet feels as though she's brought more to it!

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Sayaka's waiting. Amy should send her something briefly.

    "Yeah, and? By being born when I was *I* was also destined to suffer. I didn't ask for it! I didn't get a *choice* until Kyubey gave me an out, and I still needed Coco and Usagi to help me realize."

    Something clicks in her head.

    She looks at Hannah. "And you remember how I was. Saying you didn't deserve someone as awful and weird as me. A-and..." she sniffles. Fuck. Her brain raced ahead through this argument and how her emotions are catching up. "And you saw something in me I don't understand, but you saw something worth... worth being a friend with! Worth being more than just friends with! How can you not see this applies to you too! There's someone wonderful, who can... who can make me feel... *sniffle* ...like I've never felt before! And, and you're worth saving too! You deserve happiness too!"

Hannah Steiner has posed:
Grin. It hurts to grin but she does!

"I /heard/ the voice of an engel!!!" She suddenly shouts, Hannah all but snarling as she presses against Amy!

Her hands grip, and she squeezes Amy tightly!

"We shall be close und we shall love one another. We shall be freund und liebling und defend each other until our death beds! I...Acht, mein liebling..." A sniffle, and once again, she clings tight to Amy! A promise! And as her heart beats? She sighs and lets her body relax, with a sigh.