"It's cold, so cold, I don't understand—
Not now, please, not now, not yet...
—in the sun, and she said...she said...
Mama, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please don't leave! Mama, Mama!
—of the battle in the west, we cannot—"
Maka didn't seem to hear the words that she babbled rapidly, eyes shut tight and her arms wrapped around her middle as though she was trying to hold herself together. Her voice changed subtly but quickly between each gasped protest, each lament. The dead of this place were so numerous that the entire Veil was weakened. Enough that her mere presence had ripped a thin tear into the fabric of it, and every voice she'd been shutting out for the last decade was suddenly clamoring to be heard.
Then there was a hand on her shoulder, reminding her of her body—she had a body, she had a life—and she sucked in a harsh, ragged gasp as the suffocating presence of death receded slightly.
With Seussal suppressing the sudden surge of lingering spiritual energy, her pendant seemed better able to shield her. That same warm, soft blanket of security settled around her magic—a presence she had not even realized was there until it suddenly wasn't—but when the faint pulses of light began to fade back to its usual, subtle shine, the tiniest crack could be seen in the stone.
Maka was too thoroughly distracted to notice. She'd fallen to her knees in the snow, keening quietly as the voices finally began to fade. And only then realizing that she had been the one speaking.
"I..." She drew in a painful breath, relishing the cold sting in her throat. "I didn't...that's never..."
She looked up at her undead companion, eyes vaguely glassy, as though with fever, but the sudden surge of magic at least seemed to have evened itself out, once more held at bay by whatever small power her pendant offered. She licked her lips; when she managed to speak again her voice was hoarse, but the tone and inflection were hers.
"Thank...you..." she whispered, too rattled by what had just happened to be embarrassed yet. In the wake of it, all she felt was relief. And gratitude. "That...that's never...happened before..."