Fragments

[wytch 870]

 

(Art by Nipuni)

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Spoiler

A short story I decided to write after some character development occurred. It’s been a while since I’ve written, so please excuse formatting, etc.

 

 

Cold. She was cold. Not a chill of the wind, but instead a chill from within herself, within her soul, whatever intangible fragment may lay inside ached.

 

She stood alone in a field, a dark and endless landscape. She felt water beneath her feet, but could see nothing save for her reflection in the water below. It was her, reflecting back at herself, only she was different. What stood before her was not the face she wore in life, it was a fragment of someone else, someone she'd tried to forget.

 

Eyes as pale as moonlight, black hair with half turned white. Maeve. That was her name, she remembered this, she knew this reflection, but why was she seeing it? That person was dead, forgotten, why was she here?

 

Memories flooded her mind as her hand touched the reflection below, from that terrible night she lost her family, to her life of living amidst wilds alone, all the way to that fateful day she learnt she could bring them back in the frozen north. Her parents could return, in some small way, and the cost paid was worth it in her eyes, a price of devotion and sacrifice of individuality.

 

The floor rippled, the reflection changing as someone appeared beside her. A woman much like herself on the left, a human, with her hand upon her shoulder and a gentle smile, and yet no warmth was felt. The touch was cold, a coldness that gnawed at her soul and dulled the colors of her heart.

 

Her reflection went from the pale half-elf to a woman of brown hair and brown eyes. Harper. Another name she knew, another face she’d worn, but something else she’d forgotten, something else she'd let die, someone she wanted to forget.

 

Another being appeared beside her now, an elven man of tall stature, similarly laying his hand upon her shoulder, the coldness worsening and sinking into her very soul while the world turned dull, no longer did she feel like she was truly alive.

 

Images shifted and turned, the reflections blurring into each other. Three beings became one, and yet three they remained, memories blended and warped becoming indistinguishable from one another. No longer could she tell whose memories were whose, what she had done and what they had done. Any semblance of what she once knew as herself was blurred beyond recognition, nothing but an amalgamation lacking individuality remained.

 

Something was wrong within this dream, if it was a dream at all, movements in the corner of her eyes and voices whispering in the vast dark that surrounded her, closing in around her, above and below her.

 

Traitor. A voice spoke from behind. You betrayed them. More to her right, faceless beings begin to crawl out from the shadows and the water she stood on, surrounding her with a chorus of repeating accusations, an incessant noise she couldn't push away, the souls of the damned she'd heard so many times, and the shadows of her own soul that had long since blackened.

 

The woman had given her life to saving the forsaken and forgotten dead, to freeing the lost from the agony of the wastes, to becoming a shepherd of souls. A lie, all of it, the purpose and path she chose founded upon falsehoods and misconceptions. There was no salvation, every effort brought about further misery to those around her, and her words fell deaf on the ears of others when she sought to avoid calamity. Not all souls deserved freedom, many were not as innocent as she once thought, there was little injustice done in their banishment to the desert, everything she thought she knew was proven false. And so she was given a choice, betray everything she believed for a second chance, or hold true to shortsighted ideology until the day she died?

 

Her thoughts were interrupted as the formless souls continued to surround her and the noise grew louder and louder, grabbing at her and forcing her down into the water below, where she began to sink, but not drown.

 

And then, agony. Pain shot through her entire being, a deep and intangible wound rendered. Her soul burned, and far above her were the images of her parents slowly fading from sight, being ripped away from her by something unseen. Tears streamed down her face, as all feeling faded, and she was left with nothing.

 

Cold. All that remained now was cold and empty while she sank, silence overtook everything, even the stars faded from the sky until nothing but darkness remained. Who am I? A thought echoed around her in her descent, everything that once made her who she was had been ripped away. Her life had been molded and shaped by falsehoods, manipulated into something far from her former self, so deep was this, so deep she couldn’t tell what was true and what was false.

 

What have I done? Another thought as she cried, the dull cold pain and emptiness in her fragmented soul all she could feel while tears streamed down her face, and she sank ever deeper into the black abyss.

 

I want it to stop. I want all of it to stop.

 

And then she awoke, in her bed, with nothing more than her tear-stained face and a pain in her soul that gnawed at her sanity.

 

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She stood alone, overlooking the lands of Celia’nor as the bitter winter wind brushed against her, resting on her knees while she wept.

 

The nightmares had stopped, but the question, the pain, and the emptiness remained, the numbness of her being, despite the years passing since the day she removed the grafts upon her soul.

 

I don’t think I know who I’m supposed to be anymore. Lies are all that remain for me, perhaps this is what I deserve, for all I've done. I’m sorry.

 

Forgive me.

 

The woman spoke to no one, to nothing, acting as if the wind would carry those words to the people that mattered most, for those words she couldn’t utter any other way without them catching in her throat, all while the tears ran down her cheeks.

 

Her work wasn’t done yet, there was more to be done, she knew this.

 

Only time could tell her what she needed to know.

 

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[ellielove15 547]

Spoiler

Oh man, this mirror's Leoni's Journey so much as a former Mystic. Great writing and atmosphere with the music. 

 

[wytch 870]

13 minutes ago, ellielove15 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Oh man, this mirror's Leoni's Journey so much as a former Mystic. Great writing and atmosphere with the music. 

 

Spoiler

we love trauma in this house <3

 

[ellielove15 547]

9 hours ago, wytch said:

  Hide contents

we love trauma in this house <3

 

Spoiler

So damn true lmao. Gives CHARACTER! Lots of former Xionists/Mystics these days. Their days are numbered /j