❄️IN WINTER, WE DREAMED
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅ As seen by the Harbingers: You, the Creator
I: sixth, ninth, fourth and third. II: the director, eighth, first, second.
III: eleventh, fifth, seventh.
✦ SCARAMOUCHE
He imagines the Creator without eyes when he’s weak.
No gaze to witness his humiliation, no pupils to reflect the things he’s become. When he’s low—when his voice shakes and his eyes sting and he thinks no—no—not here, when his joints ache like they’re rusting from the inside and his throat closes around the jagged ribs of old heartbreak, he imagines you blind.
Because if you could see him—really see him—when he’s crawling through mud and ruin, when he’s nothing more than gears and bruises and shame—
No. That won’t do.
But when he is something—when his powers ring in the bones of Tevyat and the ground cracks under his steps, when the sky and rules bends to his will, when mortals kneel and whisper his title like it tastes iron and end—then he imagines you with eyes.
Wide. Unblinking and brilliant.
He wants—he needs you to see. Needs your gaze like a blade to press himself against. So he can shout and shove it in your face like a trophy stained with dried blood:
‘’Look! Look what I did without you!’’
He doesn’t know what he expects in return. Awe, maybe. Horror. Guilt would be nice too, even if it’s hollow. But what he really wants is to catch a flicker of regret. He wants to know you care, even if it’s too late. Especially if it’s too late.
He imagines the look on your face when you see how close he has come with splinters and pride alone.
He spat on a statue of you, once. Watched it streak down the stone-cold face like weeping. Then wiped it with his sleeve and slept under it.
✦ PANTALONE
He imagines you as a transaction. The first deal he ever begged for.
The first time he prayed, it was not to you by name. He did not know the shape of gods—only the sharp edge of hunger and cold. He lit a candle after slicing his palm with a rusted shard and letting the crimson drip to the wick and whispered:
"Let me live, and I’ll make the world owe me."
And the candle stayed lit.
Not a gust of wind could touch it. Not the dark. Not the fear and the possibility of infection that trembled his hand. It burned like an agreement. It burned like a signature.
So he made good on his promise.
He learned to smile with closed eyes—because he imagines you do too. He drinks wine even if it upsets his stomach—because he imagines you held a glass in your hand when you signed your name in fire with the other that night.
He built an empire out of debt, not faith. But if you count his prayers the way you count his coins, you’ll find he’s kept a perfect record.
He’s been paying interest on that night since he was twelve.
He smiles more often now, tilting his head just so, like a man who’s seen the divine—and convinced it. He tells himself you’ve been watching him climb this whole time. That the world kneels for him because you shook his hand first.
He calls it faith. Others call it debt.
✦ARLECCHINO
She does not picture you as man or woman—because that would be too easy. She does not assign you the softness of skin or the weight of a voice. She does not put you in neither silk or armor.
Instead, a wolf. She imagines you as a wolf, the kind that watches a crib rocking in the rhythm of your heartbeat all night and does not blink. A wolf with blood still staining its muzzle—not because it devoured anything, but because it would have, if it meant keeping the child untouched. A beast that doesn’t purr or kiss or cradle. One that circles and maims. And when she thinks of you that way, it makes sense.
You are not cruel. Just practical. That’s the only type of god that could exist in a world like this—one who does not meddle, only intervenes when the wolves aren’t grown but men are. One who never offered her safety, but gave her enough strength to drag herself through hell by the teeth.
She thinks you would have liked her or bitten her throat out.
She dreams of it sometimes—wakes up with a short breath, grins at the ceiling until sunrise.
Either way, she would have known you.
That's all she ever wanted.
✦ COLUMBINA
She imagines you like a friend.
A soft presence. The kind that pulls a blanket over your shoulders when you fall asleep mid-sentence. The kind that whispers instead of warns. The kind who is the reason why bells ring at noon and brings sugar instead of salvation.
She imagines that it was you—only you—who closed her eyelids long ago. That your hands were cool, not cold, and smelled faintly of lily stems. That you kissed her temple like a promise and said, “Don’t open them. Not yet. You’ll see too much.”
And she obeyed, because she loved the voice that asked her. Because you didn’t speak like a god—you spoke like someone who cared what would happen to her mind if it shattered too soon.
When she sits on the windowsill, arms looped around her knees, she sings to the empty air. She doesn’t ask for anything—she just sings. Because she’s certain you’re listening. And sometimes she imagines you sitting across from her. Your legs tangled with hers. Fingers tracing the shapes of new worlds on your dress. Hair a little messy. Like a girl. Like a friend.
Yes, she thinks. That would be nice. To have a friend like you.
A friend who would sit. Listen. Hum along.
