“ The power of women. You move through my eternity like moonlight through stained glass — so delicate, yet capable of undoing the cathedral. ”
his words bring a corner smile to her face, a charmed one, as they spin together across the marble floor, carried by the orchestra. they waltz beneath the chandeliers of the winter masquerade hosted in the chateau de valençay. the lights above burn like stars captured indoors, their glow reflect over silk, velvet, and lace as all these beautiful dresses turn and bloom around them. she moves within his hold as if she has always known the steps, well, she has - her hand resting in his, the other balanced lightly on his shoulder. she wears a gown of silver silk, the fabric light and fluid, the waist drawn high beneath her chest, long gloves covering her arms, her dark hair catching the candlelight each time they turn. and shuzo is her company for the night, dressed in his usual timeless refinement, carrying the same elegance he wears even in the twenty first century. right, this is the year 1803. for years, sora believed her visions were only dreams, that she was losing her mind, hallucinations, madnesses. but as time passes, and as whatever lives inside her grows stronger, she begins to understand : these are not dreams, these moments are fragments of pasts and futures she can move through. her mind build bridges, thin places where time loosens, where moments separate and become doorways she can enter, and sometimes return to. tonight, one of those openings widened, and for the first time she did not cross it alone, but with him, stepping together into a past they have apparently lived side by side, nested in her memories. “should i undo the cathedral then?” she murmurs softly, her voice almost lost beneath the strings. “brick by brick… should i destroy and rebuild these eternities that seem to fall into the palm of my hands?” her fingers tighten slightly against his shoulder as they turn. “i don’t remember this life, shuzo... i don’t remember this version of us, the one we’re walking through together, right now…” she continues, her eyes searching his as if something inside her expects recognition. “but it means we were here, together, two hundred years ago and that i brought us back here through the liminal space of my mind.” she understands enough now to name what is happening, even if she still cannot control when the passages open or why they choose certain moments... and yet nothing about this feels wrong, it feels like something she has always done, to walk around in times and spaces, changing names and shapes. they turn again as the music carries on, closer this time, the distance between them shortening. “do you remember me?” she holds his gaze as if the answer already exists somewhere between them. “who was i to you, that night?”
