In the winter she lost herself.
Or, rather, she lost what little was there to start with.
Like the snow itself had buried her, only it hadn’t. The chrysalis was crafted by her own hand. She was bound by memories that didn’t belong to her, true, but she chose to be consumed by them. She chose to let them in.
Because in the beginning they were weaker, slower, but she gave them footholds when she wandered the meadows looking for hazels, and rivers, and wildflowers. She’d wanted to know what was happening to her, like it was some great prophecy wrote out into the stars, and she’d thought, stupidly, that if she could unravel more memories that the answers would come with them.
She was a fool.
Because the memories came in fragments. They didn’t make sense. They didn’t answer anything. They only took, and took, and took - until they’d infiltrated more, and more, and more of her, spreading in her veins like poison or disease. Some of them, the memories, are beautiful. Most of them are toxic.
(She isn’t real. She’s only a feeling, or rather, a mixture of them - discordant, rattled together until the edges of each one are indistinguishable from the rest; a symphony of all the pieces she was once, lain out across the river. An orchestra turned spector, almost tangible, almost flesh and bone save for the wisps and curls of her hair that smoke out into the fog.)
And when, at last, the snow melted she was someone different, and there is nothing concrete about her save the memories.
Today, she’s drifting along the rivers edge but wading through the grass until the glint of metal catches her eyes. She feels her heart slam against her ribs, but will never know why.
(“Are you alone?”)
(“Are you alone?”)
(“Are you alone?”)
And when the sun dips behind a lazy cloud Cordis will come into focus, and Glassheart will recognize her immediately. She knows the planes of her face already, as though she’s drawn them out by hand herself - and why shouldn’t she? She’s seen her in a thousand different places, under a thousand different lights. She’s seen her every time her eyes are shut.
“You look like someone I know,” she says when she approaches, and Glassheart is at war with herself. A notable silence stretches out between them, and then:
“You look like someone I don’t.”
“Are you alone?”
Glassheart
i'll always love you the most