Do you remember who you are?
There was something to be said about the nature of darkness. It nipped at her heels, like the none-too gentle guidance of a hound. It was quiet, a soft blanket. It was everything and nothing all at once, everywhere and anywhere and always and forever. It made up the spaces between, where few ventured and little gained.
It stole the little pieces of herself first. Those things she barely remembered even before. Favorite colors and flowers, her preferred routes, the times she had spent beneath Iris’s rainbows, breathless with laughter. The birdsongs outside her favorite window. Carved from her psyche with the precision of a knife. It took more and more the (seconds? Minutes? Years? How long was she here?) more she spent within its grip. Her mother’s fingers through her hair, the weight of wings on her shoulders. It wrapped its hands around her throat and whispered to her.
Do you remember who you are?
She didn’t remember who put her in here. The grievances they had with her master. Why had she come here? Why had no one found her? Where was this? This timeless darkness, this place so far away from what she had once known. What had she known?
Light. It spilled around the corners of her closed eyelashes. When had she closed them? There wasn’t much to see in that deep darkness, but this was new. She could see it, a striding figure, crossing through the void of time. The darkness loosened its grip on her, retreating as the light crossed beside her. She pressed her palms to the void beneath her, solid with only a thought, and rose to feet that had not walked the earth in eons. She stumbled, unused to movement, every motion jerky like a marionette. She couldn’t stay upright.
But she didn’t hit the ground when she fell.
Warmth trickled gently onto her form. Her eyelashes brushed her cheek when she moved them, mouth crossing into a thin line as a sleep she didn’t remember taking was interrupted by the sound of distant breathing. Things around her moved, but she didn’t recognize they were hers. Her limbs twitched, like a fawn trying to hide further in a thicket. Around her, a patch of star flowers, gently brushing her brow. A single silverite eye, one that hadn’t opened in years, finally caught the light. And the first thing she saw, in this world that could have been her mind finally giving way, was the flower.
The second was the man beyond it. The breathing she had heard. Mystral, the only part of who she was that she actually knew, raised her head, watching him, waiting. Waiting for those hands to find her neck, to whisper to her all over again.
Do you remember who you are?
Because it was a question she could never answer.
There was something to be said about the nature of darkness. It nipped at her heels, like the none-too gentle guidance of a hound. It was quiet, a soft blanket. It was everything and nothing all at once, everywhere and anywhere and always and forever. It made up the spaces between, where few ventured and little gained.
It stole the little pieces of herself first. Those things she barely remembered even before. Favorite colors and flowers, her preferred routes, the times she had spent beneath Iris’s rainbows, breathless with laughter. The birdsongs outside her favorite window. Carved from her psyche with the precision of a knife. It took more and more the (seconds? Minutes? Years? How long was she here?) more she spent within its grip. Her mother’s fingers through her hair, the weight of wings on her shoulders. It wrapped its hands around her throat and whispered to her.
Do you remember who you are?
She didn’t remember who put her in here. The grievances they had with her master. Why had she come here? Why had no one found her? Where was this? This timeless darkness, this place so far away from what she had once known. What had she known?
Light. It spilled around the corners of her closed eyelashes. When had she closed them? There wasn’t much to see in that deep darkness, but this was new. She could see it, a striding figure, crossing through the void of time. The darkness loosened its grip on her, retreating as the light crossed beside her. She pressed her palms to the void beneath her, solid with only a thought, and rose to feet that had not walked the earth in eons. She stumbled, unused to movement, every motion jerky like a marionette. She couldn’t stay upright.
But she didn’t hit the ground when she fell.
Warmth trickled gently onto her form. Her eyelashes brushed her cheek when she moved them, mouth crossing into a thin line as a sleep she didn’t remember taking was interrupted by the sound of distant breathing. Things around her moved, but she didn’t recognize they were hers. Her limbs twitched, like a fawn trying to hide further in a thicket. Around her, a patch of star flowers, gently brushing her brow. A single silverite eye, one that hadn’t opened in years, finally caught the light. And the first thing she saw, in this world that could have been her mind finally giving way, was the flower.
The second was the man beyond it. The breathing she had heard. Mystral, the only part of who she was that she actually knew, raised her head, watching him, waiting. Waiting for those hands to find her neck, to whisper to her all over again.
Do you remember who you are?
Because it was a question she could never answer.