i feel so totally insane about how john refers to pre-apocalypse a- and m- as basically a double act (idk, i did get the vibe that he was a little jealous of their relationship both before the memory wipe & after--this is terrible, but i can totally picture him wiping their minds and being like 'ah yes, now my bffs won't be so strangely obsessed w/ each other & will instead be obsessed with me...and then they go right back to being obsessed w/ each other. task failed successfully?) srry for the ramble, i love them
Anon your mind!!!! The body remembers even when the mind forgets and Mercy and Augustine were mutually obsessed across two lifetimes and ten thousand years, even when they became warped versions of themselves…Augustine must have theorized this, remember when he says “thanks for confirming that theory” to John in H9? He must have wondered what their lives were like before 😭
And John’s greatest weakness is how he craves power and attention (the horrors of love) so he didn’t question finally getting what he wanted in dios apate major and minor…which means Augustine and/or Mercy must have realized John’s craving for their love/attention at some point…GOD!!!!
Oh my god I just realized they died together pre-resurrection and then as soon as John kills Mercymorn, Augustine immediately tries to sacrifice himself to kill John 😭😭😭😭💀💀💀💀
ok but PYRRHA remembers pre-resurrection G1deon so now I want an AU where Mercymorn and/or Augustine start dreaming of life before the pre-surrection. Snatches of memories of when they were two completely different people but still a matched set, a double act, determined to live and die together, and that’s where Augustine’s theory comes from. Can you imagine waking from dreams of the two of you in a completely different, unimaginable world? Dreaming of this over and over again for 10,000 years? At first the dreams appeal to Augustine because Alfred is alive in them, and then he realizes it’s before widespread necromancy, in the dreams it’s only John who has necromancy. He realizes it’s on the First House before it became First House. He sees Cristabel (have we all decided she’s the nun? I sometimes wonder if Anastasia is the nun...) is alive. He realizes the pink of Mercymorn’s hair is slightly off, slightly artificial, sometimes in the dreams he notices her dark roots growing in. But then one day he dreams of roses with teeth and he realizes these are not dreams. They’re memories.
Maybe that’s what unites Augustine & Mercymorn across enmity--maybe one night, after everyone else has gone to bed and Mercymorn is nursing a drink, Augustine lights a cigarette and tells her he’s been having dreams. And he knows she’ll listen because he tells her he’s been dreaming of Cristabel and Alfred. And these dreams--they’re dreams of life pre-resurrection. Almost as if they’re memories. And then, not letting himself feel the cold horror he’s lived with for thousands of years, he asks: is there part of the brain where memory can be wiped completely? Is it possible to erase the self without erasing scientific facts or knowledge that the self knew?
What can Mercymorn say? That memory isn’t stored just in one place? That the brain doesn’t work like that? She hates Augustine and she wants to rage at him for daring to say Cristabel’s name but if what Augustine is implying is true, if he’s right, then she’s lost Cristabel 3 times: once to the 8th fold path, once to the mass extinction, and once because John reached into her brain and took every single precious memory Mercymorn has ever had. How can you mourn a loss you didn’t even know you carried? Are you allowed to mourn this loss? Maybe not. Maybe your only option is to avenge it.