It was dark. It was gray. It was empty. Yet, not empty somehow. Sherry was found she was reminded of her time in the haunted house, when insanity had infected everything so terribly. This was much emptier, but just as gray.

“Hello.” The voice cut the silence, filling it was its softness and getting lost in its vastness.
Sherry turned fully around twice before spotting the speaker. She was a pale girl, and Sherry all but jumped when she saw the girl’s eyes. They were her eyes. The same eyes that she saw in the mirror every day. The face looked like hers, too, only…Sherry’s eyes scanned the girl up and down. She was slight, but not, and she wore simple clothing Sherry recognized from her high school history books. No, there was something more. Something Sherry almost missed, until she saw the tail behind the girl move with a curious grace. Armagnac. The girl looked like Armagnac had as a golem. No. That wasn’t quite right. She looked like Sherry and Armagnac. A strange, pale mix of the two. Sherry was staring at herself. Herself as a lindwyrm.

“So. It really is you,” the other her said, a hint of bemusement in her voice.
“Pardon?” Sherry replied. She glanced around. The world had gone silver. Still empty, but not quite gray. The pale version of herself matched the landscape almost perfectly. Sherry was well aware that her Hunter White was too bright for this place; her color stood out.

“It’s you. You’re the one I was made from.” Her other self was smiling. It was a small, sad smile, but one that seemed full of contentment and love.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” This was in no way a lie.

“That’s understandable.” The lindwyrm Sherry nodded, then sat back onto nothing, almost as though she had found herself an invisible bench. Her tail curled on the ground beneath her, the tip twitching with thought. “Take a seat. I’ll…see if I can explain.”

Sherry gaped for half a moment, then sat back onto nothing, quite like it was the most natural thing in the world. Why wouldn’t it be? “Am I dreaming?” She asked, lifting one leg to cross it over the other. She had to be. Not because she was sitting on air, but because this place was so odd, and so was the other girl.

The other her took a moment to think before she replied. “Probably. I don’t know how else I would be able to speak with you. Though, anything is possible, I suppose.”

“And who are you?” Sherry asked.

“I am Sherry. And I am a fragment born in the Violet Kingdom.” Sadness crept into her voice, but she was still smiling. “I was made from you.” One clawed finger rose to tap her temple.

“A fragment? In the—“

“A fragment of memory, I think. From the Violet Kingdom.” She smiled encouragingly.

“And that means?” Sherry was rather confused.

“Exactly what I said. I was a fragment of memory. Memory from you. I was born in the Violet Kingdom, given a life, then another, then asked to fight for my King.” The lindwyrm sighed. “Things didn’t quite work out as planned.”

“I’m sorry.” Sherry leaned back, her brain trying it’s best to make sense of the words her other self was saying. “I’m really sorry, but I don’t understand a word of that.”

She was given a smile. A smile full of knowing and pity. The kind of smile one gives a child trying to understand something just above their level. “I think,” Lindwyrm Sherry began, “we have enough time for a story. If it’s okay with you, I will tell you everything I remember.”

Sherry glanced around. The sun must have been coming up, since the horizon was turning a deep shade of Violet. She didn’t think she had any other plans that day. “Sure?”

“I suppose I should start with when I woke up after my death, seeing as I think that is when I was born,” her face had scrunched up with thought as she spoke. Then she blinked, and Sherry saw sureness in her eyes as she continued. “I woke up floating…”

By the time the tale was done, the sky had turned Violet. Everything had. Sherry had listened, and after at time she’d started asking questions. For the most part, the other her was able to answer them, though she didn’t remember much about her first life. Sherry got the feeling the lindwyrm almost questioned it ever happening.

“And that was it? You just, stayed in that room forever?”

“Not forever, perhaps, since I’m here. But…I don’t quite remember leaving.” Her face was covered in curious thought again.

“Hm. That’s quite the story.” Sherry sat back, only now aware that she had been leaning forward at the end of the tale. It had been one of the strangest tales she’d ever heard, and it had been one of the most vivid tellings of any story she had ever heard, too. The images had formed in her mind so very clearly, and once or twice it had almost seemed like they’d been projected onto the violet sky. “Quite the story.”

“Indeed. And now, I fear,” Lindwyrm Sherry smiled sadly, looking down at a key she held in her hands. “I fear it over, more or less.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherry said to the other her.

Sherry’s eyes met her own. “It’s okay. I’m okay with it this time.” The other her rose, purple skirts swishing around her feet. “Besides. You will remember. I’m sure of that.” She was smiling. It was a bittersweet smile, bittersweet and warm.

“Is that why you found me?” Sherry rose to her own feet, her Hunter Whites almost glowing in the vivid Violet colored world of empty.

“I think so.” The other her shrugged. “It just seemed natural.” She smiled again, warm and sad. Then she stepped forward and hugged Sherry. She was just as warm as her smile. “Maybe…maybe we’ll meet again. And then you can tell me your story. I think I’d like to know it.”

“Maybe.” Sherry didn’t know what else to say. It was all so…odd. “Perhaps we can—“

Sherry woke and found herself in the comforting darkness of her room. The dream replayed itself in flashes, only more vivid this time, as though she had been the one to tell the story, as though they were her memories. Sherry rolled over, and went through the whole thing again in her mind. She saw it all. The Violet, the Valley, the Gatekeeper, the battle, the tower. She saw faces she thought she recognized, and faces she didn’t. She heard silence and saw darkness. She felt emotions of joy, sadness, confusion and contentment. She almost thought she could feel the claws of her hands tear into shadow, and then lightly fumble over a humming throne. She felt the not-pain of existence ceasing, taking those hands away into nothing. Only they weren’t her hands, her claws. They weren’t her memories. That was silly. They weren’t even real. Yet somehow…

“Such an odd dream.” Sherry wiped away a tear, and then went back to sleep.