Believe Me Then
'Haah… swordstaff.'
The weapon materialised into his hands with the familiar weight of something that had been through too much and was running on borrowed time. It was clunky, battered, held together more by stubbornness than structural integrity at this point — and the moment Claire's next blow came crashing down against it, a fresh tremor ran through the metal and several new cracks spread outward from the point of contact like a spiderweb branching in slow motion. Aaron slid back to a stop, felt the weapon shuddering in his grip, and looked at Claire's face.
Cold. Dedicated. Utterly unmoved.
He sighed quietly and accepted the truth of it. His swordstaff wasn't surviving this fight. The poor thing had been with him through everything — unique to him, never even equipped with a magic core, just raw and loyal and increasingly fragile — and this was apparently where its story ended. He'd miss it.
