How deep your well of misery, how heavy the chains you bear. Our sweet Stargazer, how long have you spent looking for hope in all the wrong places? We see you and We weep for your hopelessness. Come to Us. Let Us soothe the ragged edges of your soul. Let Us show you the sanctuary within the shadows.
The wan reflection in her looking glass didn’t resemble thewoman she remembered anymore. But in truth, how long had it been since she’dgiven her own image more than a passing glance?
Her once lustrous platinum curls hung limp, combed but leftunadorned, uncared for. Had she always been so angular of face, her cheekboneselegant but sharp, the point of her chin like a finely etched porcelain doll.What about her skin? Born pale, the little Raen had still held a youthful ruddinesswithin her cheeks all her life, but no more. Now she hid behind locked doorsand drawn curtains, afraid of the bright light of day. Her skin was almosttranslucent, delicate as paper, and as thin as melting ice.
Have I always beenthis way? No, she knew better. She was letting herself waste away beneaththe concerned gaze of her lover. Melisande had not always been this tatteredshell, and each day that the golden light of his eyes dimmed a bit more herguilt grew. He’d thought her stronger than this. He was wrong. She was nothinglike the woman he’d thought her to be. The pedestal he’d placed her on was soperilously high and the Stargazer was faltering, tottering so close to theedge.
Melisande dreaded the day she fell plummeting in Zathorin’sregard, the day he realized what he’d saddled himself to
How deep your well of misery, how heavy the chains you bear…
She licked her pale lips, thin, almost boney fingers risingto pull aside the scrap of cloth she used to cover it, the wicked thing thathad sucked the bottom out of her world. Itshowed the Stargazer nightmares she’d not known possible, things even her childmind had never dreamed to life while shivering in fear of the inky blacknessbeneath her bed. Her reflection trembled, wavering blurry and uneven as herghostly, left eye blinked open. Its limbal ring, a perfect imitation of thereal thing, warped and shifted around the edge of her iris like fog rollingover a silver lake.
Distortion hovered around her form, dark and undulating, aliving mantle; the only indication that shestill slumbered within. Melisande missed the tiny, curious voice. She ached forthe companionship of her shadow-child, for the knowledge that little voicecarried. She understood the nightmares.She made sense of what seemed to livein every previously empty space. Shirogane was supposed to be a sanctuary, buteven here things lurked, small and strange. They played in the very corners ofher yard; darting beneath bushes, dancing in the shadows between sunlight andcloud.
The reality was frightening and grim, but the dreams madeher shudder to recall. Melisande’s mindreeled from the madness that had begun to grip at her with frigid fingers. At first,she’d awoken screaming, sweat-soaked, and trembling, but the more that concernetched lines into his handsome face the less she bothered to sleep at all. Hourswere spent staring at books or painting images that seemed disjointed,fictitious, and lacking any biological sense; each one of them promptly burnedlest he think her mad enough to lock away under medical supervision.
Our sweet Stargazer, how long have you spent looking for hope in allthe wrong places…?
Research had yielded no results except the momentary kindnessof a stranger with tired eyes, mesmerizing tattoos, and a burning heat he couldbarely contain. The alchemical books he’d suggested sat untouched in herworkroom downstairs. The acquaintances she’d turned to had called these strangevisions exhaustion - Araris, Seraphine, only ethereal Hawu had given her hope,but even there Melisande had failed, too weak to seek the woman out a secondtime.
Small and hollow, Melisande stared blankly into the eyes ofthis stranger that lived in her looking glass. Voices tickled at the edges ofher mind, each one bleeding and blending into the next…so many, a nation ofthousands, and yet at times - only one.
She heard them when she woke screaming…
…when she sat aching and exhausted but refusing to sleep…
They sang to her when she forced herself to eat…
…when she dressed in clothes that were rapidly becoming toolarge…
She’d assumed Them to be her own broken soul seeking tocomfort her, but now, on this day, the voices were insistent and so verypersuasive. Melisande lacked the strength to deny their comfort another day.
‘Do you? Do you see all of me?’
We weep for your hopelessness…
Come to Us. Let Us soothe the ragged edges of your soul.
‘But can you make mestrong again? Strong enough to be worthy of him…? Can you take away thedarkness, the nightmares…the shadows…?’
Let Us show you the sanctuary within the shadows.
Her right hand shivered, frail fingers reaching spindly andslowly to graze the reflection of her cold, unnerving eye. ‘…forgive me, Zathorin, my light, my love… I’m just so tired…sounendingly exhausted…’ She sucked in a ragged breath, her whispered voiceso small, like a child murmuring secrets their parent must never learn of.
“Show me…take me…mold me… Just make it stop.”
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