[ Takes directly place after: Winter Has Come ]

The cold vacuum of space is almost warm against her skin as she materializes into existence before her wonder. The silence is deafening, threatening to leave her to her own thoughts. Yet she is numb, and this numbness keeps those thoughts at bay.

Her footsteps echo against the iridescent marble, each click of her heels a melodious tone. Her hand presses to the pedestal and the Bifrost opens itself to her. A path of marble shimmers into existence, the normally rainbow shimmer a spectrum of blues and grays. She walks without thought, following the path without seeing.

It takes her into the expanse of space until she is surrounded by nothing but stars and the railing. The path ends in an outcropping, suspended among the twinkling lights, such a dark blue it almost blends in with the cosmos around her. She stares at it for a moment, somewhat recognizing this place and its significance. This place, where her ancestor died.

For love.

Her control slips.

Grief slams into her chest, stealing her breath. She falls to her knees, her vision blinded by tears, and screams. She screams and screams and screams until her throat is raw and her voice cracking. Sobs wrack her slim frame, tremors freeing her hair from its tethers. She curls into a ball, lightly scraping at the flesh of her collarbone and jingling the coins in the process.

Hollowness seizes her then, ripping through her chest like an arrow. She finds her breath, but each intake of air is pained and cut short. It threatens to eat her alive, to consume her from within and she needs it out, out, out ---

Pain flares in her chest and she cries out again. The hollowness sees its moment and takes it, consuming all she is and plunging her into darkness. Thoughts, thousands of thoughts race through her mind, each a knife in an open wound.

I'm so stupid.

Why why why why why why

Who are they

Who has his heart

Why did I do that

I'm so stupid I'm so stupid I'm so stupid I'm so stupid I'm so

Why

Why did it have to be like this

Why

Why am I like this

Why did it hurt so much

She claws and claws and claws at her chest, wanting to tear the pain from her very soul. She will be crushed under this pain, how can she live after this. It is unlike anything she has felt before. Yet, another pain, a more familiar pain begins to creep on her consciousness. It slowly breaks through the hollowness in her mind, the unending despair. It interrupts the thoughts, derailing them from the spiral she's gone down.

She uncurls her body, sitting up for the first time since her knees hit the unforgiving marble floor. She is stiff and sore; her throat aches and her face feels tight. The emptiness of space greets her, an unlikely comfort. She is insignificant and significant all at once. A trillion stars and a trillion trillion planets stare back at her, unforgiving. Yet she is here, blessed with the chance to even see it. It humbles her, and further brings her back to the present moment.

She finally pulls her gaze from the cosmos to look at her hands. She is oddly detached as she stares at the blood coating her fingers and hands, staining her woven gauntlets with red. Her eyes blink slowly and she tilts her head to the side curiously. Blood? Where had it come from?

A splash of red pulls her attention down, down to her leather corset and white bodice beneath. Both are tinged red, the white cloth heavy with it. Her gaze travels further to the angry open wound on her chest. It contorts the lines of transcendence out of place, in a pattern she can't quite read. She glances between her chest and hands several times, mind moving sluggishly.

Oh.

She's done this to herself.

The pain flares in intensity as she realizes this, forcing a wince and gasp from her. It is enough to bring clarity to her mind, to banish the abyss trying to swallow her whole.

(She knows this is not a good sign.)

Bifrost picks herself up from the floor, her knees sore and bloody themselves. She assesses herself: her throat is sore and rubbed raw, her knees throb, her chest is a bloody mess, and her heart aches. She should go tend to her wounds. Shock and grief have faded to a tired numbness. She has no thoughts beyond taking herself home.

The knight turns and numbly follows the path out of her wonder, closing it behind her.

It is only later when standing in front of the mirror in her bathroom cleaning her cuts, does she see what the claw marks etched into her skin are. She laughs weakly to herself and bandages herself up. Of all the things, it would be that. She buries herself in her blankets and falls into dreamless sleep, plagued by neither fantasies or nightmares.

Etched into her skin in angry jagged red lines is a single word.

Hope.

It is several days before she emerges from her room for more than food and basic hygiene. Even then it is only at the request of Tris to head to the mall with him. So she puts on her best face, a high collared shirt, and ventures out of the house. The cold air keeps her in the present moment, and she hopes she can keep herself in check. She has to.

For hope is the only thing keeping the hollowness at bay.

[ WC: 946 ]