can't believe the state you're in; it's so far away

[behindtheskin]

Shadows fall upon thin cheeks as she sits by the fire, wondering if he's awake, thinking of her. Or dreaming, perhaps. Wonders whether or not she walks his dreams, among the flowers he's promised to buy her one day, sipping at liquor, the expensive kind that none of them can afford just yet, the kind one would find at a bar, heels lightly resting

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[behindtheskin]

She's woven through every corridor, every passage, lingering by the side like a ghost unbidden, and from the narrowest of spaces, words pass through. Catch in the palm of her hand. Effy knows, if not by the sound of the voice, then the color of this woman's hair- knows who she is, knows what she was a lifetime ago. (Or at least, what she's professed to be.) It seems timely, poetic, that she should be found right now, while insanity tremulously tries to keep its hold with the rising flames, fanning her skin with heat. With a sweep of her hand, Effy passes her hand over the fire, quickly enough that none of it sears, none of it touches. But it doesn't even come close to the strength she felt that day, when she was capable of anything, of sharing the cold that held her arms encased in ice, or when she could build a stone wall around her heart.

Allowing no one in.

"Might last longer if we all turned to ash," Effy replies in turn, her eyes strangely dark as her hand rests by the back of her neck. "But that isn't the point, is it? Of being human."

[endlessdel]

"No, not human of being alive. Humans, Fairies, Witches, Aliens, Gods... it's all the same, you all get the same thing. A lifetime," Delirium said. The words were familiar, a chant she told herself every day she remained human. She would get her lifetime and then she would go back to her duties, to her realm in chaos. "It feels so short though as quick as blinking. People do not think that it is fair but it is. It's not the length of your life, it's whether you've lived."

[behindtheskin]

"My mum used to... read fairy tales to me before bed," Effy remembered then, her brow furrowing in slight unease at the thought, at the times when she still missed her mother above all else. The times she'd quietly cried herself to sleep, only to find that the person who heard her, always heard her, no matter how silent, was Tony. That he would slip into her covers while they were children, just to be there as she stared around for the monsters she heard, the scraping of branches against the house with a howling wind, and wouldn't leave her until she quieted in sound sleep. "You know, I never believed they were real. I thought she was just being stupid, trying to have me believe in a better world."

Her palm pressed against the side of her neck, the skin hot to her touch. "It's better this way. Short. Life gets painful. No one can hold that forever without going mental."

[endlessdel]

"Humans think fairytales are about better worlds?" Delirium asked surprised, looking at Effy before giggling madly. That was the funniest thing she'd heard all day, all year in fact. Delirium was Insanity and even she knew that they weren't. Then again Del knew most of the people in the tales so she was a little biased. "They're real. You don't want to meet some of them. They're not very nice. Then again I'm not very nice either."

Delirium looked at her the laughter dying on her lips. Oh sister, she wasn't one of hers, there was her sister in her words. Hook firmly in her heart pulling. Del could almost see her. "No, they can't. Not knowing is all that makes it okay but when you know it gets too much. I know. You can change though, sometimes that makes it stop for a while. Sometimes it makes it worse."

[behindtheskin]

"No, not really," she replied, her gaze lofty as it lingered on no place in particular, and instead simply whirled about to trace the lick of fire and the rise of smoke. "Children think fairy tales are about better worlds, and princesses, and magic, and it's supposed to be what you try for, right? To get your happily ever after. I made this..." Her voice trailed off, and her fingers reached through the air, as though to grab onto a cigarette and take a drag. She didn't have that blanket anymore, though. "I made this story up, once. About a girl who could only drink lemonade, and about her brother, who nobody loved enough. When you get older, you learn that the real stories aren't pretty. But, you have kids, you want them to believe for a while. Or something like that."

After a pause, she raised her voice to ask the one thing that seemed to stand out in all those other words.

"Change... how?"

[endlessdel]

"Am I supposed to do that? I don't tell them that," Del said thinking of how Abby's favourite stories were of Loki trapped beneath dripping venom and the downfall of Dream whilst Daniel preferred stories about Superman. "They can dream but they should understand too. They know that life doesn't end happily ever afer, they know sometimes it just ends. That life can be delightful and joyous and sad and dark too."

Delirium listened to the story, smiling as she stared into the fire. "It burns like fire and it hurts, it hurts so muchly but you can do it. You just have to... become something else, someone else. Let go of everything you were."

[behindtheskin]

"I tried that once," Effy said, her voice sounding brittle, sharp-edged but weak. And did she try it once, the world reminded her then, emotions seeping away and down into the dirt, into the carpet, or simply to pool in a sticky puddle which stretched over the linoleum, thick and binding. She'd forgotten before. She'd turned herself into something else, before, something that was meant to rise from the ashes like a phoenix finally set free, only it hadn't turned out so well, not half so well. Because the cracks remained. The flaws sustained. It was just that she didn't know how to look for them anymore, how to expect them, or hear the oncoming train before it all came to a halt in a collision.

"I forgot everything. Became someone else. And it was..." She paused. "One of the worst feelings in the world. I didn't know how to be afraid. I didn't feel human."