For bastardized because she happened to be awake with me and I couldn't sleep. =A=;a

I haven't written in such a long time but I felt the urge to, for once. This isn't meant to be a polished piece, more what an actual written letter from a certain person to another would look like. Any characters involved are OCs.

---

I like to think I've made some progress since you left me. I know I've stumbled every now and then, and I know I've made mistakes, but I did my best to keep my head up high just like you told me. I haven't picked up a pen for a long time but I wanted to write this letter, wanted to let you know I was, for the most part, safe, sound, and sane. And that I was thinking of you. Did you think I would forget?

Smile. You can't fool me. I know you want to.

I still have the stone I found that reminded me of you; the small clear one with the feather etched and painted in. I always kept it in my left pocket right at the hip -- right where the second heart is, remember? -- for safe-keeping, but since I've increasingly come to wear clothes without convenient pockets, I keep it in my purse so I don't lose it. It goes with me wherever I go. Even though I grew up and outgrew you, it seems like a shame to just throw it away. Call me sentimental.

It's been so long I don't know quite what to write, but I wanted to thank you for being there for me. I'm not quite sure what life would have been like without you, would I have turned out the way I am today? I've been pursuing my dreams of dancing. I always did like to dance. I played guitar for a little while, too, but my attention span kept failing me. It's sitting beside my bed out of tune, but I think I'd like to pick it back up again. I finally got back into my art for serious, but I don't write music anymore. I left that behind when I left highschool, but maybe one of these days I can pick that back up again, too. I don't sing anymore. I suppose it's a shame that I don't feel adequate enough to pursue any professional sort of singing career, but at least hopefully I still have my dancing. As long as there is music involved I'm good, right?

Christmas is coming soon, strangely enough. I remember when we decorated that big tree together. I still resent the fact you wouldn't let me climb the ladder, you know. (Well, okay, not really.) I used to get up on the roof all the time, no way I could break my arm or leg or something falling from a ladder. ...... still, the star looked rather pretty once you put it up. I think you were one of the few people more stubborn than I am.

It's funny, though. Ever since you've gone and I moved on, I keep seeming to be collecting feathers unintentionally. People bring them to me. My grandmother died this year, you know. We drove up to Indiana to attend her funeral and I found a small silver feather with a small turquoise gem attached. It was very old, and the silver was stained with age. It belonged to her, and then my father gave it to me when I found it. I brought it home with me and made an earring out of it. I wear it as often as I remember. I never intentionally planned feathers to be sentimental to me as an object and a symbol, but slowly they have come to be so. Strange how things work, I suppose.

I wonder if you are doing okay? I'm doing well enough, or the best I can, anyway. I'll be moving out soon -- even if I'll be doing so rather unexpectedly. The peace and quiet will be nice, if I can get everything sorted out without stressing too much. It will be very plain at first, I bet, but maybe me and my cat will make it into an artsy little apartment later. There will, of course, be papers scattered everywhere. And probably paw-shaped inkprints walking across some of the papers. Kittens make about as much trouble as I used to get into -- not that I ever got into trouble, right?

I guess I just wanted to say that you still mean something to me, even though I grew up. ... I mean, growing up is relative, because I'm pretty sure I'm still much the same as I was when you left, but it's been a few years. I like to think I've learned some things since then, even if I haven't learned everything. We never really do. .. learn everything, that is. I always learn by trial and error anyway. If life had an instruction booklet, I'd probably lose it.

Well. I mean. You pushed me off the branch and made me try to fly even though I was scared as hell to do it myself. ... I hit the ground a couple of times.

Okay, a lot. Maybe. I wasn't keeping count.

But I got back up again like you taught me, and I've been doing it ever since. I've fucked up here and there, made myself want to eat my own foot sometimes with some of the stupid things I've said, but I make myself get back up again. I've learned that mistakes happen, embarrassment is never something you can avoid, and even though we do and say stupid things, if we don't get back up again, we just resign ourselves to a cowardly non-life. I always want to live life as best I can, and I'm not afraid to laugh at myself, or say I'm sorry to someone who deserves it. My pride has been stung a lot, but I've learned there are compromises you have to make in life if you want to keep the people that are important to you.

At least I've never been afraid to go outside and stand in the rain and laugh for the pure enjoyment of it.

Come to think of it, I did that the other night! I was leaving class -- it was pretty late at night because the class is three hours long and starts at dinnertime -- and there was an absolutely fantastic display of summer heat lightning. Heat lightning's always been my favorite, I love summer storms. Well anyway, it was raining really lightly so I just stood out in the parking lot under the moonlight to stare up at the sky. It was beautiful.

Oh, yeah. Come to think of it, I'm back in school. Going to get my Associate's, and then my Bachelor's. Maybe I'll go on and get my Master's. (Come to think of it, how do you write those out? With an apostrophe-s, or just an s?) --I don't know in what, though. I'll be getting my Associates ('s?) in art, and then maybe also in dance, but as for my Bachelor's.... I don't know. Maybe I will go up north, finally, and pursue my dreams of being a veterinarian. I'll own a horse ranch, too. Also: there will be lots of cats. I want to get married one of these days--have a little girl. I don't know what I'll name her yet. Haha, I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway. I hope you're doing well. I hope you aren't lonely. I guess that's all I can think of, for now.

Don't forget to smile, okay?

mood: getting there // music: anberlin - glass to arson

One of the best parts of today included discovering I found the song the line "I wanna love you but my hands are tied" comes from. I didn't even know it came from a song, but there I was listening to it, and I heard it, and I was like, "...! It's in a song! D: !!" For this annwyd is awesome because she gave me freedom to rape her music directory. X*

child_labor ALSO gave me freedom to rape her iPod when we were down in Orlando (she had no choice really I almost mauled her when I saw it and it was either her LIFE or the music I swear true story), and totally sent me all the songs I wrote down (if I'd had my way I probably would have decimated BOTH of the hotel notepads in our room writing songs down, but it was like three in the morning), so I'm listening to all of that too. *A*)/ Ohgod I have MUSIC AGAIN.

Speaking of, I never really got a chance to talk about my wonderfully awesome trip to Orlando. Let me do so now somebody remind me to do that later.

I also finished a layout for Lexi that she requested (she wanted something simple but elegant and by elegant i mean i'm lying she didn't specify anything other than simple and pretty), the first free account editting I've done in a while. ( It came out pretty nicely. ) I mean, once I could get off my ass and finish it. *A*)/

---

In fact, it has even inspired me to write a silly poem story JUST FOR HER. I used to write these all the time, little rhyming stories that were just for fun and laughing and cheering people up with. I never claimed to be consistent with my rhyming or meter, either, because that just isn't the point. <333

>)
i have snark with a smile
and i've got a shark's guile
i'll hum a catchy tune
while i'm selling you the moon
then tapdance on your grave--
for no more than a penny a day!
that's a steal, cross my heart
and i'd be so loathe to depart
with it for any less, i promise you

"hey, sir," she said -- "i like your style
come and talk to me a while
we'll wine and dine
where all is fine
and forget the world today--
(as long as you behave)
no--don't, i heard the stories they tell
and i won't buy what you have to sell
they say, little girls, lock your doors,
the devil's come to play
you're better off with mopping floors
than being led astray!"

darling, darling, pretty girl,
you've yet to see the world!
don't listen to those lies:
i'm a gentleman, i assure you,
and i'm never in disguise
so let me see those pretty eyes--
darling, dance with me a while
(and if, in the end,
you're never seen again, well

there's a risk to every game, they say,
and you can't say they
didn't warn you--i enjoy this far too much
or maybe, just maybe, not enough.

but i have a remedy for that, too.)



that's what you get okay it's your fault for mentioning your fucked up taste in men

child_labor: It's making me think of a beach towel my mom has of a grinning shark with sunglasses that says "Trust me."

slkf;hslafhdshg that works too ;;;; lol~

---

The rest of my day has been summed up in bits of Strange, and props to kofi and thehorde for somehow managing not to get lost in my insanity and playing along with my happy!hyper rambling that I'm sure had at least one of them going "WTF" at least once. Especially Erin. Oh poor Erin;;; what kind of fucking crack was I on;;; THANK YOU FOR THE DROOLCUP oh you're so nice to me i love you X*


child_labor: ... by the way, what's the password to my journal? ::Sweatdrop::
ceylon: *****!
child_labor Really? That makes sense.

^ But at least I'm not the only one.

(Re-posted because I just discovered my posts are once again writing out the HTML instead of implementing it. *A*/ Oh LJ I want to choke you. <333)

A small Aileen + Xen snippet, since I've been considering picking Aileen up again in a new RP group -- this is something that has been sitting in my head for months now that I never got around to putting into words, and thinking of Aileen combined with my urge to write something lately brought it back to the forefront. Things change, but since Situations never kept me from writing what I wanted to write, I don't feel bad at all writing this. I'm not sure if I remembered the name of Xen's house correctly, but I think it's right.

edit: House name corrected. Knew I was going to get it wrong.

Aileen is mine. Xen belongs to the_dream_king.

I'll probably go back and make corrections here and there, but right now I'm off to the pharmacy. *A*)/ kofi, come back so I can pester you!

---

Summer had come and gone, as it tended to do. It was her best season, admittedly, and now that autumn was being slowly overtaken by a snow-filled winter, she was missing it more and more. She disliked the cold, but like everything in life, winter was just another part of the cycle she embodied. Still, there were a few things that made winter worthwhile.

( Continue.. )

( Haven't written in a while. For kofi and child_labor just because. It's done for real this time, I promise! *A*)/ )


"Let's be honest with each other, now. I'll be honest--I'm still kind of upset, but I think we can work this out."

She stopped to put her cigarette butt out on the table, grinding ash into metal.

"Do you think you deserved it? Please be honest, baby," she added, shoving her hands into the pockets of her black denim jeans while she settled on the edge of the table. She glanced back over her shoulder to regard the target of her words idly, smiling as she said it. He was slumped uncomfortably in a chair, silent. He wasn't tied down, but nonetheless he seemed resigned to the fact he wasn't going anywhere. He didn't answer.

After a moment she slid from the table to walk around the side, coming up behind him to settle a hand companionably on his shoulder. "Now, I don't want you to think of me as an interrogator, here. We're friends, right, baby? I'm here to listen," she said, crouching down beside the chair to look up into eyes that wouldn't meet hers. "I just want you to give me your thoughts on the situation," she continued, a representative of sympathy.

She waited, and when she still received no answer, she straightened again, regaining her feet to walk back around to the front of the table. Palms placed flat down on the metal, she leaned forward intimately, eyes narrowing with a smile. "That's okay if you won't answer me. I think we both know you deserved it. After all, baby," she said, lifting a hand to grab his chin, forcing the eyes that refused to meet hers do so. "You burned me real good. That made me so sad. I thought we were closer than that. But that's okay, because I forgive you. I just wanted to tell you that."

Her fingers released his chin, and she watched him before she grabbed her jacket off the table, pulling it on as she dug around for a cigarette. She lit it when she found one, taking a long drag. "No hard feelings at all, baby," she finished, looking up to blow a kiss of smoke in his direction. The blood that had poured down his shirt from his cleanly slit throat was long since cool, his vacant eyes always looking away from her.

A smile and a cigarette later, she slammed the door behind her, disappearing down the hall.

She wasn't upset at all anymore.


You were way out of line,
Went and turned it all around on me again.
How can I not smell your lie,
Through the smoke and arrogance?

But now I know,
So you will not get away with it again.
I'm distant in those hollow eyes
For I have reached my end. So...

Thank you for making me
Feel like I am guilty,
Making it easy to murder your sweet memory.

Before I go, tell me--
Were you ever who you claimed yourself to be?
Either way, I must say goodbye.
You're dead to me.

I'm severing the heart then I'm leaving your corpse behind.

( Song: Puscifer, "The Undertaker" )

Xennoce Portave was not known as one of the nicest women around, but Aileen knew otherwise. She knew the big secret to Miss Leather Bitches, and it wasn't really a secret at all.

.. plus there was the duck pond.

"You know something?" Aileen asked, stretched out on her stomach on the big bed they shared, chin propped in both hands with her elbows propped on the bed. She was watching Xennoce paint, the gaunt, pale woman a small wisp of a thing next to the easel. It was.. fascinating.

Everything fascinated the firebird. Life, death, and every little nuance inbetween.

"No, but you're going to tell me, aren't you?"

"Naturally," came the bright, laughing reply. "I was just thinking, is all." She kicked her feet up in the air behind her, wiggling her toes, and proceeded to bounce her heels on her rear, thoughtfully.

".. you're not planning on buying It another kitten, are you?"

"I'll have you know It was very sad to see the kitten go," Aileen replied, very matter-of-factly. "I was just thinking we have been through quite a bit together, you know?" The Phoenix shifted her chin to one hand, reaching up the other to twirl a feather between her fingers and watch it, idly. "They say you are tied to everyone in your life by a piece of string--or, that's one of the human stories I've heard. Well, actually, it kind of is like that for me. Usually if a Phoenix forms a strong bond with somebody in one life, they are almost guaranteed to find that person again in the next life, even if they don't fully remember. We're.. drawn. And I know for certain that if I ever die, I will find you again. But that actually wasn't what I was thinking about," she abruptly added cheerfully, the feather disappearing.

Xen had stopped painting and turned to face the bundle of life currently sprawling on her bed, arching a brow. "Aileen, you are worse than a child in a candy store."

"Candy! Remind me to buy some more chocolates when I go out tomorrow."

.. there was long-suffering sigh.

"Just kidding! -- But no really remind me to buy more chocolate I need some. Where was I? Oh! No, I remember! Remember when you told me you don't sleep, ever, because It is paranoid and won't let you?"

"More or less."

"Well I have decided that I am going to convince It that It can go to sleep because I will protect It and that way you can get sleep, too." The firebird was positively glowing.

The Orobo stared at her for a long moment, and then laughed, helpessly.

"Aileen, you're hopeless. But God, I love you."

"It's why I'm here!"

She was standing with her weight on one hip, two clear bottles in the crook of one arm and the other hand on the strap of the guitar slung over her shoulder, looking at the door. Or, well--perhaps looking wasn't the best of words. She was watching it, as if maybe expecting it to open.. or at least that was what he thought until he noticed the faraway look in her eyes. She was so lost in thought she didn't even hear him come up.

"Bringing presents for somebody?" came the query after he'd watched her for several minutes and she still hadn't moved.

"Hm--what?" She didn't start so much as.. resurface, blinking bright eyes and glancing over her shoulder at him, half-twisting to face him. She gave a somewhat embarrassed look, glancing off to the side briefly before she looked back up and gave him a warm, surprised smile, but her gaze flitted away again just as quickly as it touched him--she never kept eye contact when she talked. He wasn't sure if the smile was for him or for something she was thinking about.

"Yea, something like that," she said.

She stirred and quickly shifted the guitar on her shoulder, readjusting its weight, before moving to lean over and set the bottles down beside the door. She fussed with them for a few moments, setting them just so, before she finally quit touching them and leaned back up again. "Hmm. There."

"For the one who lived here before? Your friend?" he asked, frowning in thought. Yes, when he'd first met her, she'd been at this very same door, looking for someone that certainly wasn't him. There'd been a folder left behind for her, that he'd found. She'd had the very same kind of bottles with her. Now he remembered.

"Yea." Her smile widened, and he finally noticed what had made her earlier smile so strange, that hadn't been quite as obvious before: she was sad. She was also looking at the door again, as if she couldn't quite help herself. She missed whoever it was greatly, it seemed.

"Is he coming back?"

"Oh, no," she suddenly laughed -- it came out quiet and somewhat startled, and she turned away from the door, adjusting the guitar strap on her shoulder again before starting to move past him, down the hall. "No, no. He's dead."

That surprised him. "What makes you say that?"

She paused, looking over her shoulder and pursing her lips, thoughtfully. "Instinct. There's this feeling, and I just know."

".. I see. Why the bottles, then?"

She glanced towards the door, and to the bottles sitting silently beside it, then glanced back up to him. "Because. .. it's my way of telling him that I'm still here, and even if everybody else forgets him I'll still be waiting every Christmas with a bottle of peppermint schnapps just for him." And then she glanced aside with a faint, amused sigh. "Or maybe it just makes me feel better."

He turned to face her more fully. Something about the way she said it.. The thought made him curious. "Do you really think he's dead?"

"No. Probably not. I don't know," she said, before she shrugged and started walking away again. "Maybe." Better if he was, he could almost hear her say.

Only a second passed before she spoke again hastily, prompted by something, some need to confess or make an excuse. "It was nothing but Beauty and the Beast, Lucan, nothing more. A fairytale, and the make-believe ended. Anyway. I'll come back tomorrow."

She briefly lifted a hand and waved at him, but didn't turn back around, and he watched her until she was gone. .. He stood a second longer before moving for the door, a hand settling on the doorknob as he glanced down at the bottles sitting on the ground. He had the strangest feeling then, and for a second the bottles reminded him distinctly of flowers on a grave--lonely but faithful. He didn't think she left the bottles for him, in the end, whoever he was.

He left them and went inside.

She sat at the table with a music box in front of her, wound and singing: she didn't know the song it played, never really had known, for as long as she'd had it. She'd had it for as far back as she could remember, even since before she'd lost the small sterling kitten at the babysitter's house when she was four. It'd been no bigger than her pinky. She'd loved that kitten.

She still remembered it. She still remembered a lot of things.

The slightly metallic notes chimed softly while she stared off into space, thinking. Constantly thinking, and it made it hard to sleep, sometimes. She sensed him more than heard him -- he made no sound -- and before he'd even come to stand behind her chair, she stirred, looking away from some invisible point on the wall. "What am I going to do now, Lucien?"

He slid his arms down around her shoulders, resting his cheek on top of her head. "What do you want to do, tesoro?"

"I don't know," she admitted, leaning into the whisper-touch of soft white hair as it slithered down and across her shoulders, not needing to look up to see the his eyes, incarnadine, deep like aged red wine. He had beautiful eyes. But more importantly, he had eyes like hers.

"Then perhaps that is where you should start," he offered, pressing lips to the top of her head, gently. "You still taste bitter, darling. Where is the vibrant young girl I know hiding?"

The music box stopped playing, and she shook her head and looked away. "She's here. She's just weathering the storm."

He came around her chair to crouch in front of her, taking her hands in his. "The sun isn't the only thing that gives life, little one. Rain gives life too," murmured, and when she seemed unconvinced, he stood again, and pulled her up gently. "Come, then. Come listen to the rain with me."

And he showed her how every touch coaxed a clear, pure note to the echo of rain against the window, and how every sigh, like the breeze in the trees, was a release, and cleansed her of her burdens.

Every single drop of rain brings a new beginning.
---------

where is my cait

"I hate myself a little bit more each day because of you," she told him.

She never saw him again after that; didn't hear the story about the man who drove off the bridge in the middle of the city after his lover left him. Nor was she there to see the front page of the newspaper the next day, to half-heartedly skim the headlines and then leave it rotting underneath a coffee cup to stain, ironically circling the word TRAGEDY in big, bold letters.

He was there, however, when the news came on at lunch, a small box in the middle of the world outlining her dark-eyed face like a picture frame in a fluorescent hell. He was rushing his third cup of coffee for the day, and finishing what had been left of breakfast when the newscaster looked him in the eye from miles away and told him she'd been found in her hotel room with a bloody heart on the mirror and a broken body on the bathroom floor, a discarded razor in the sink. They never did determine whether the dress she'd been wearing had started out as white or red.

And in that moment, he realized he'd hated her a little bit too.

I had a dream today..

She rode a white mare. With skin fae-pale, white as the bone beneath, and hair like dried blood. You could sometimes see her in the city, silent as a ghost, on errands no one was particularly certain of. No one knew her name, so they called her La Hija de la Sangre, among other things -- The Blood Daughter. She sometimes brought the children small gifts, trinkets and sweets, and the women strangely seemed not to mind her, despite the rumors. It was the men who were wary of her--because of her eyes, they said, eyes that made some of them call her Amante della Morte.

Death's Lover.

Even the children knew when to avoid her, when she got that look in her eyes.

Such eyes..

I was close enough to see her eyes, but once. She came down to the city and to my shop to buy some herbs--for tea, she told me. Her eyes were green. Not the green of things that grow, more the green of hidden things, green like the jade stone, and I imagine just as hard. They didn't seem hard, then--but the intensity in them was overwhelming. Such eyes, and I could only wonder what drove her, what could cause such names to be bestowed upon her. I still wonder, every time I look up to the Citadel.

What could lie beneath such eyes?

I think to know would be to taste a little bit of the dark in our hearts we all shy away from.

She rested her chin in her hands, elbows resting on the wooden railing of the bridge while she looked out across the lake. She was pale in the sunlight, and the breeze set her hair and the folds of her skirt to swaying. Her head tilted after a moment as she began watching a pair of ducks swim from underneath the bridge into her view.

"I suppose it's a good thing he never promised me he would never make me sad, and that I never made him, at that," she said at length, the sunlight briefly slanting off the green of her eyes, bringing them to light for one intense moment before they slitted against the brightness. A faint shake of her head had her bangs falling back into place, brushing the bridge of her nose and shadowing her eyes again.

"But tesoro, that is something you can't ask of anyone."

"I know." Her gaze shifted to the side, toward the figure of white next to her. "But that never kept me from hoping anyway."

He came up and sat beside her on the hill, on the blanket that had been spread out on the grass. Her face was tilted up, and for a moment he looked at her, before looking up, and then looking back down. Cicadas buzzed in the summer twilight. "What are you looking at?"

"The stars."

Silence, for a moment. She spoke again. "Are you surprised?" She was smiling.

"Well--no, not really," he tried, and then grinned sheepishly and gave up. "Okay, maybe. What do they look like?" he asked, glancing back up to the sky as well, leaning back to prop himself up on his palms.

"Like dreams. Tiny, scattered, glittering dreams. And if I reach my hand up, I can feel them sifting through my fingers like grains of sand. .. but very carefully. Dreams break easily if you're not careful," she added, smiling wistfully.

He peered up at the stars thoughtfully, could imagine some of them winking at him as she often did when she was laughing at him in her head, with that secretive, amused smile of hers. "Really?" He shifted, letting one of his feet playfully nudge her knee where she was sitting cross-legged. "What colors are they?"

"Every color imagineable." Her smile widened. "Even colors that don't have names yet."

He grinned. "Okay, you win. How do you see them?"

At that she laughed, the glitter of stars reflected in blind eyes just before she turned her head toward him, smiling that warm, amused smile.

"Not everyone needs eyes to see."

on Vineland past the candle shrine
that burns on every night for.. someone..
she lets herself go like an angel in the snow
she lays down on her back
down on her back -- she goes

take me over, when I'm gone
take me over, make me strong
take me over, when I'm gone
will they burn for me..?


She smiled quietly up at him. It was a patchwork smile; a smile of many pieces together in one: gentleness and kindness, gratitude, happiness.. and sadness and regret, too. A smile that said, I found a friend in you and I am sorry. A slender hand smoothed his hair back, hair white beneath her fingertips, past the crown of horns. "You have been so kind to me," she said, leaning up to press a kiss to his forehead in a soft brush of lips. "I won't forget. You, or any of the others." Will any of you forget me?

What happens, after we say goodbye?

I have this on DA, of course. Felt like putting it here, too, I suppose. I need to get out of people's heads or they're going to start charging me rent. :\ Hi Cait.

Random characters, not me, although this takes little elements from things going on presently, bits and pieces. For instance, Cash telling me not to cuss so much. Also a piece in PS I'm working on with crows. Etc, etc. Kind of like a dream that takes all the things you were thinking about before you went to sleep and makes a story out of them.


( she jumped )

I got a heart full of pain, head full of stress,
Handful of anger, held in my chest.
Uphill struggle, blood sweat and tears,
Nothing to gain - everything to fear.

And everything left's a waste of time...
- Linkin Park, "Nobody's Listening"

Part one.

- x -
"I defy definition," she said to the girl staring back at her in lips' mimicked motion, the same blink of an eye - and even as she made such a bold statement, her thoughts spoke up in dissonance, trying to tell her that no, she didn't, and no, she wouldn't disagree - by pure, simple nature - with anything people tried to pin her as.

But she knew enough now not to believe the lies she told herself.

"I defy definition, and I have spent the majority of my life being the exact opposite of what people tell me I am," she mused - and the voice in her head would have none of it, but this time she agreed with it: she did not like people telling her what she ought to be, what she ought to do, but even worse, she'd always told herself she'd never change for anyone. She did not like people dictating her life. However, on the other side, the argument rose that she would change for the people she cared for (and so few they were) - being what they needed her to be. Being, simply, what they needed, and that they could not find in anyone else.

She was here to fill in the empty spaces. The quicksilver heart, perhaps a martyr, who looked out for everyone else before she even spared a thought for her own well-being. It had always been that way - although, simultaneously, she cared more about her own survival.

She loved it, and she hated it. But she had accepted it, and she understood it, now.

"No more lying to each other," she said to the girl sitting in front of her, the pose copied to perfection.

I have never lied to you, the girl seemed to say in return.

"But you have - by my simply stating that we've been lying to each other, you move to claim honesty all this time," she pressed, leaning forward - and the girl leaned towards her in turn. "When you know, this time, I'm right. We are opposites - will always be - but only one of us can be right at any given time. Even if we end up trading spaces in a matter of seconds, and you become right.. I must become wrong. We cannot both be right - at least at the same time."

The girl stared pleasantly back at her, with a faint smile. Now you see what it means to co-exist with yourself. You will always change, and at the same time, you will despise the change. You have a foundation, while at the same time you do not - you are the manifestation of two sides in a whole. Do you understand?

"I do."

Your existence is a constant struggle. You have gone through pain - you will go through more. Do you accept?

"I accept.." a murmur, faint to even her own ears, and she inclined her head. But she knew, at the same time, she did not want this. It brought a smile to her lips.

The mirror shattered.