She Burns

"What did you tell them?" Pyra asks. Holding Nia's hands clasped tightly in her own, she sounds appropriately excited, if not a little more so. "What did you say?"

"I told them..." Nia takes a deeper breath than she's had time to in a while. "I said, 'What's the point in living if I have to hide?'"

Her subsequent, consequent, laugh is short, curious. Breathy in an intrinsic way, still with an undercurrent of all heartiness - her new appearance hasn't taken that away, and it never will. Nothing ever will again. "You know, it's funny."

"What?" Nia's funny could be quite different from Pyra's funny, and thus she's quite excited to find out. She has to be - Nia hadn't even waited for her reaction.

"I used to say the same thing all the time. Just...not so happily."

We used to have the same fights all the time. Just...not so easily.

"What's the point in living if I have to hide? What good are we?!"

The dreamspace flashes volatile white-thin gold. Pyra can hardly see.

"Mythra...please, just go to sleep. I promise, it'll be okay."

"How do you know that? You've never even been awake before!"

Pyra rolls her shoulders, thankful for the cover of her capes. "You're right. I haven't. But what's the point in any of this if I never find out?"

Here and now, in the preciousest present, Pyra's hands become a vice grip upon Nia's.

"Pyra? You okay there?" Mythra? You okay in there?

But it's not about Mythra. For a moment, it isn't even about Nia either. Only, it is.

Pyra thinks about their predicament, inward and outward, reflected all around, and then she burns. Brighter than she's had the chance to in a while, she burns, and burns, and burns, and burns.