12-22-2019, 11:12 PM
maybe we were, too.”
She doesn’t realize how much things have changed. That all the lands she had once known were gone, that magic is not the rarity it had once been, and that everyone here was now painted just as beautiful as everyone had been in that far off dream-land.
There are things that are the same, too, like this meadow that appears to have been untouched by time. She knows that in the spring this field is scattered with flowers of all colors, that the sky turns bright blue in the summer and that snow blankets it in the winter. She thinks of all the things that have happened here, and how it is the home for her darkest and brightest memories.
It looks exactly the same as she had remembered, and she is surprised that that sparks anxiety in her chest rather than nostalgia. She doesn’t want to remember some of the things that have happened here, and she doesn’t think there are any familiar faces here that she wants to see. In death she had not relived all of her nightmares, and she had forgotten how being alive brought memories to the surface, unbidden.
She had died because she had wanted to forget, and she regrets coming back.
It’s why when a voice cuts through her reverie that she involuntarily starts, spinning to face him with eyes bright with something that is a little too close to fear. Fear that the voice might belong to someone she would rather not see. The relief that floods through her when she does not recognize him almost sucks the strength from her knees, and she inhales a steadying breath as her pulse gradually returns to normal.
It takes her a moment to register what he had said, and she almost can’t control the perplexed frown that crosses her face when she says, “Excuse me?” She’s not sure if she has ever met someone that spoke so bluntly, but her face flushes hot with embarrassment when she realizes she perhaps sounded rude.
She shakes her head, ridding her eyes of the wisps of forelock that framed her face, before clearing her throat softly and trying again, “I mean...I guess so.” She doesn’t say that she actually agrees with him. Being alive had never worked out well for her, and she cannot imagine that this time is going to be any better.
But she had forgotten what it was like to meet someone new – someone that didn’t know of her past, and she didn’t know theirs. Someone that didn’t have to know that every piece of her was damaged, someone that likely had no interest in the fortress she had walled herself up in. It doesn’t spark anything inside of her, but it keeps her drawn to him, for now. “My name is Anonya.”
anonya.