If anything, Cecily Herondale thought that she would've adapted to change at this point. It kept life fresh and turning, kept the people new and unpredictable and that only made her love them more because it was the thing that made her realize that they were flawed. And that was a beautiful thing. In her wide-eyed, childish according to her brother, and for the most part, innocent point of view.

And then there were the times when she'd genuinely thought that new beginnings would break her, at some point or another - like when she'd first entered the world with wide eyes, shivering from the cold. Because she couldn't find anything to take out of those situations, which was truly saying something considering the fact that she'd managed to make her sister's death better, in her childhood. She'd managed to make her brother's disappearance and later, his curse, into something brighter because she knew what would happen if she didn't and she didn't want to drop that low, honestly; thought it was cowardly, thought it was stupid, was determined that she'd never drop to a point that dark in her life. But what did she know? She was young, and naive, most likely, and even if there was something bright about the snow surrounding her then she might've not wanted to put in the effort to find it.

Why was it worth it?

Why did it hurt more to try than to give up?

She wasn't who she used to be - maybe when she was first born, and she saw everything through her bright blue eyes and really, nothing bad had happened to her yet to make her believe that maybe everything wouldn't be okay, for once. She had parents who loved her dearly and just wanted to keep them all safe from the people they thoroughly believed were monsters. She had older siblings that would coo at her and stare down at her with the same beautiful blue eyes. She had a home, even if it was small; because it was worth it, the warm nights with them that she didn't realize were so valuable until everything fell away.

At first, she was sure that everything had fallen away to darkness. But she still tried, after all; because she was still a young child on the face of the world and she couldn't bear to believe that maybe life really didn't care what happened to her, or how hurt her family was. She grew up in a lonely mindspace, more so than everything, her nourishments afternoons staring out the windows at the beautiful rolling countryside outside. All of it was beautiful, and maybe in an alternate reality, perfect; but that wasn't the reality she lived in and she didn't really want to accept that. So she didn't. For a little while.

And then there were times when she gave herself in; closed her eyes and decided to make the jump into something that she could only describe as a void waiting to engulf her, pure blackness that she, for some unapparent reason, wasn't scared of. She was willing to do it, even. Because those were the moments when the more childish side of her came out and she promised herself that if she put trust and faith in life, then things would turn out her way. Maybe it was that sort of mindspace or maybe she would just be convincing herself of false things, but when she relaxed enough to do so then she found that she could be happy. There would be things that made her happy; people, the ones who'd managed to change her for the better in ways she didn't even know were possible before.

But she was always glad, at the end of it all. She was always glad if she'd cried over things that hadn't occurred to her before she'd been forced to see it, or she was always glad if she met someone new that she had already placed in her mind as a friend for the sake of trusting them with all her tiny little heart. It took time, to be able to reflect on it to a point where she just understood that she was happy that everything had happened but it always happened, anyway. And when it did, her eyes would widen with wonder and she'd smile to herself and thank life that she was so lucky.

Lucky.

The stars must've blessed me tonight.