That noise that noise she cannot stand that *noise* always in her ears and even when it's quiet that noise is always in her ears even when it's quite quiet. That *noise*.

SOLDEKAI! SOLDEKAI, ATTEND!

and he's laughing at her in her ears, clawing at her clothing as she claws at her clothing, driving her head into the wall as she beats her brains, beats her brains, beats her brains out because he's in her brains and she needs to get him out in and needs out in and out in and out like a lover fucking fucking fuck him fuck him pain.

SOLDEKAI! WHERE ARE YOU, SOLDEKAI!?

why can't she hear the music, she does not want to hear the music, she does not want to hear the noise but she hears that still and they laugh at her, the cold six-eyed cloak, the man with the black wings and the clean clean hands but he's gone now to be replaced by the boy the boy but where are

YOU, SOLDEKAI?!

her pretty little kittens, where are the kittens who play and tell her things she doesn't need to hear but wants to hear, who tells her text to tell to a human kitten who writes it down but it's wrong wrong wrong everything's all wrong and it's her fault but it's not her fault but it's wrong and it's her fault not her fault her fault not her fault fault.

SOLDEKAI!! THOU SHALT ATTEND OR THOU SHALT-

not.

She giggles, knows she giggles and it's quite funny, really, funny like a thin little man who tears his wings in play and looks up to realize all his feathers are gone, poor silly man, silly man, all silly, really, silly.

She is laughing now, laughing as she beats her head against the wall, flares into motion, rises, rises, speeds until the air is humming (like music she cannot hear, unlike noise she can) and there's nothing but the brightness of her in an aftertrail, trailing like memories and sanity and torn wings and pain. Trailing like pain.

"I attend, my Lady."

She spins around him, spinning, because if she does it enough he will get dizzy and if he gets dizzy he might fall over and she does not want him to fall but you can't fall off the floor, can you, so if he's down on the floor maybe she'll be safe, and so she spins and hears him swallow and she is a woman again, wrapping around him.

"My lady?"

Attend, Soldekai. I am a woman again.

"You are a woman always these days, Bright Lady."

No tone to it, no disapproval but she screams, shrieking, because that man is pressing inside her again, pressing his way out from in out and in in and out and trying to wrest control away from chaos, trying to find a balance again because you can't fall off the floor, and she cannot tell them apart anymore, the man and *him*, and she screams instead because identity is fading and she is fading and her light is hard to look at through all the noise.

"My Lady, my Lady, it is all right, my Lady."

It is not all right, Soldekai, I am not all right, it has not been all right for a very long time not all not right, I am not all right!

She wraps her legs around him and holds him there and for a moment his hands waver, not sure where to go, before deciding that her hips are an innocent enough place.

And there are volumes she could say about innocence, but she cannot guarantee that they would be written down right, so she does not say it, just holds him to her and croons

Soldekai, I would tell you a secret. If you are very quiet, you might even hear it.

"My Lady?"

Sometimes, even I am cold.