Emerald sipped from an old well-loved coffee mug, trying to work her way through questions so far above her pay grade they probably had vacation estates for when they weren't rattling around her skull. Questions like that made it hard for Emerald to relax. Harder still to sleep. So for now, she used the empty hours of the night to her advantage.

Emerald wanted to believe people could change.

Having successfully elevated herself from a street rat with a knack for petty theft and getting away with murder, into an upstanding, job-holding, contributor to society; Emerald was living proof that, given the right opportunity, and support, one could turn their life around.

But…

And isn't there always a 'but'?

Beyond just natural change of opinion over the years. Beyond liking a different blend of coffee than she once had. Had Emerald actually changed?

Was she a better person than she had been? Not in some karmic sense; That was getting into philosophy, balancing scales, and all sorts of even bigger, private-island level thoughts. But how much of it all had been Emerald, and how much had just been her environment pushing her towards or away from certain actions?

How much was Cinder to blame for how she treated those around her?

Emerald watched the snow as it fell carelessly into the morning streets.

She wished the cold white blanket layering onto the world was pristine, untouched by color and waiting for the brush of people to find it yet. Instead, not terribly unlike herself, Vale seemed to have trouble sleeping this morning. Plows, salt trucks, shovellers, snowblowers, all working to break the fleeting illusion of newness and purity just a little bit sooner for a persistent reality that people needed to get to work, heedless of the wonderland they trudged through to get there.

Contrary to the snowy blanket of the city, Emerald's fuzzy cocoon of cozy was well situated on her shoulders and not going anywhere until she was damn ready. Which probably wouldn't happen until her supply of coffee ran out, or the building burned down around her.

A toasty blanket, a hot mug, and that endlessly entertaining mindspace between sleep and creative fugue. What else was a girl to do but sit and enjoy the little orange and yellow fireflies below, diligently working to melt away the beautiful veil of a slow death from the sleeping world? Leaning against the thin, cool barrier that was the only thing separating the haven of Emerald's hearth from the contradictory tumultuous calm without. Letting the comforting smell of home mingle with the invigorating vapors of brewed awakening.

… I need to read less A. S. Pumpkin. His last collection was amazing, but I'm starting to wax poetic about windows.

Emerald would have liked to claim that the sky lightened while she sat there in her windowsill, romantically staring into the city and thinking deep thoughts. But in reality it was something like two in the morning and the largest source of light was the holographic ad playing on the building across the street and two blocks down. And her bladder interrupted the poetry long before she really got to fall into the seemingly endless moment.

Reluctantly leaving her impromptu nest, Emerald tried to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake her sleeping guest while she relieved herself.

It was a small gesture of what some might consider good manners, taught in their household with good intentions. Though Emerald had learned it during her childhood, she was fairly sure it was from a house of much less repute than most. Long gone were the days of not waking her parent's 'friends', but the habit just never saw fit to leave Emerald's behavior in all the years and adventures since.

And so when Emerald, now very much relieved, returned to her living room only to find the form of Cinder sitting in her window, she dismissed it as just her own subconscious desires hijacking her Semblance again. There was no way she would willingly be out of bed any time before sunrise.

Being haunted by visions of people wasn't a new experience for Emerald. It had started at Haven, with Salem. Emerald sometimes thought that it was the first real 'evolution' of her semblance, the ability to bring a mostly autonomous image into play. The downside being that she was usually forced to interact with whoever it was that she wanted to avoid. Sometimes it was one of her fathers. A few times it was her mother. Mercury, once. Jei and Brennen had been seen in the corner of her eye a handful of times once she'd met them. But most often Cinder was the image she conjured.

Having a semblance that tricked and deceived certainly had its upsides. Her hallucinations had limits to what they could do, just like every semblance did. Most believed that she had no ability to simulate taste or touch, but that was just another lie she told the world. What Emerald couldn't force another mind to perceive was resistance. Pressure , on the other hand, was one of the first tricks she ever learned. It was infinitely useful in committing crimes and winning fights. Along with passively enhanced memory to let her remember any event she was present for, she was even a living, court-permissible security camera when the need arose. And a great teller of bedtime stories besides.

To achieve that level of accuracy though, regardless of the subject or target, the one person it always had to fool first was Emerald herself. If she didn't believe the hallucination was real to some extent, there was no way another mind would accept it as anything more than a passing suggestion. And that led to situations like the one she found herself in now: tired enough to be self-targeting an image of the woman currently asleep in Emerald's bed to keep her company in the dark hours of the morning.

The specter's golden eye seemed to blaze through the shadows as 'Cinder' turned away from the outside glow. It flicked up and down Emerald's body, a decent appropriation of interest in a room too dark to actually see an expression. "I'll admit," the fake Cinder said as she moved her eye back up to Emerald's face. "The 2 AM nudity is bolder than expected."

Emerald snorted humorlessly before whisper-yelling, "Eat my ass. And get out of my spot if you don't want to make it literal."

The fake Cinder seemed surprised at the harsh response but quickly relocated to the other side of the sill, leaving Emerald to re-wrap herself in the fuzzy embrace of her window blanket and return to staring out into the streets below.

She really didn't feel like dealing with a hallucination composed of her own repressed anxieties right now. So what if Emerald wasn't wearing anything in her own home? She was already sleeping on the couch for the past week, and that sacrifice was more than enough. She'd worry about being socially acceptable later; right now there was snow to watch fall, and a real Cinder to avoid waking up with a one-sided emotional screaming match. This fake Cinder wasn't worth the emotional energy it took to work through whatever turmoil she was supposed to represent.

Too bad for Emerald, 'Cinder' didn't feel the same desire for peaceful silence.

"I don't think I've ever seen you this…" 'Cinder' said, before gesticulating for a moment, " icy . Not even to Mercury."

Figuring that the situation wasn't going to resolve itself, Emerald heaved a sigh and turned to level her ire at the fake. "Even if you ignore the time spent sleeping on the road where it wasn't really an option, we shared a Beacon dorm room for almost a year. And somehow, despite at one point watching me get ready for bed, you missed the fact that I sleep nude until less than five minutes ago. I'm not exactly shy about it." Emerald wanted to leave the topic there and return to ignoring her rather currently-not-so-inner demon, but some long-suppressed box of feelings decided that a fake Cinder was the perfect target to release its contents onto like a flood of sewage and spite. "You're so clueless sometimes. I've seen you read people's life stories in how they order food at a restaurant. You've told strangers exactly what they want to hear to get them to fall head over heels in a sentence. I knew you were using me from the beginning. That was how we met: you cornered me, offered me a deal... I couldn't say no. I just… how did I ever think you could care about anything that didn't serve you?"

The fake tried to respond somehow, but Emerald was too focused on realizing that the mental box of emotions wasn't really relieving some pressure, so much as it was reduced to a pile of soggy splinters and shrapnel. It hadn't taken long for all the emotions trapped inside to explode out and crash back down to rock bottom, leaving Emerald exhausted.

Exhausted, and with a single sentence left dangling on the edge of her tongue. A sentence normally buried in the box deeper than any other. One that Emerald had promised herself she would never utter, for fear of just how much the answer would hurt.

But right now, as stupid as the whole situation was, the sentence was almost out in the open. Almost free to hurt Emerald. And… Emerald was already hurting. It wasn't even particularly bad as far as her experience with pain went. But still it made her question just why she held this sentence back so vehemently. She'd already experienced the lowest lows without its intervention. What more could one sentence actually do?

And so, Emerald let it fall. Let the villainous words finally enter the physical world. "... How could I ever think you could ever actually care about me? " It came out as a choked not-quite-whisper that did little justice to the emotion behind the question.

To finally say it out loud felt like someone had just landed a kick firmly on Emerald's throat, and left her… Emerald wished she could say 'empty'. She wished she didn't feel the shame and disgust that she did. She felt , though. Felt like she was stupid for having said that to a figment of her overactive subconscious. Felt like throwing her couch through the window. Like jumping into her bed—Cinder's presence be damned—and reclaiming that small slice of comfort back for herself.

Emerald felt like trying to drown herself in something. Metaphorical or physical were both equally attractive in the moment. She just wanted to feel something that wasn't this .

And for some reason that thought paralyzed her with fear.

Why does that scare me? Was the only sentence Emerald could think for what seemed like hours. Endlessly looping and spiraling into itself like a King Taijitu, twisted by the dark mind of Salem herself for no other purpose than to make Emerald suffer.

There were no emotions left to out pour from Emerald. No great catharsis to be had in words. They were said to what Emerald perceived as a specter of the woman she wanted, but who's attention had only ever lead to destruction. The words would never make it to Cinder's ears, they were just Emerald talking to herself.

Here in her tower, above the world and locked away, Emerald wasn't some princess to be rescued by her daring dark knight. Her dragon wasn't some fire breathing lizard. No outside force bound her to this place against her will.

It was all just Emerald.

She didn't know how long she sat like that. Didn't keep track of the passing night or the falling snow.

But eventually, still before the sky began to lighten, Emerald was slowly drawn back from whatever nameless void of emotion she had been spiraling into by a soothing warmth.

It was a ghostly specter of warmth, but it was there all the same. Like someone had lit a candle in a fireplace and called it good enough.

Where most heat was shapeless, this felt like a hand lightly brushing over her hair.

The warmth had a sound, too. Like the old recording of Cinder singing that Emerald had kept over the years, that she played to calm her down when she was stressed and sleepless. She didn't know what song it was, but the words weren't the important part.

Emerald stared out the window as she tried to piece herself back together. Slowly working her way to the point that moving back to the couch was a feasible course of action. All the while, the gentle breath of a song she didn't understand gently anchored her thoughts.

The gentle lullaby eventually came to an end, as all songs do. It left the room silent except for the ever-present background hum of running appliances. It wasn't an awkward or comfortable silence, just a lack of sound between moments. Emerald wouldn't remember this night for its silence though. She would remember thanks to what broke it.

A single, simple question breached the silence. It was asked under a breath, likely never meant to be heard.

"Will you help me try?"

Emerald closed her eyes, wishing to find sleep while the night was dark. And slowly drifted off, wrapped in her blanket, and lying in her window nook.

A/N:

Excuse me, Ma'am, that is my Emotional Support Cinder.

this hurt to write, because originally it was intended to be like a 500 word scene to set up the chapter I actually had in mind. but it's a monster all it's own.

I love me some feedback though, so share it if you've got it.