owlsofstarlight said: Sts. Pick a topic and ramble away? Pls?

What to ramble about when no one up until now has sent this kind of thing…?

Hm. Something for Storyteller Saturday, huh.

This is less a ramble than it is a short story.

This at least explains why Kei and Tomo know each other's old names in Silent Feathers. Somehow.

Sparkle 43: Old Names

In the transition between death and life, Vy wandered the void a lot. There was a lot of wondering as to why she was brought there to begin with, staying in an expansive white space with no one for company. At first, she passed the time by floating around. Thinking about things. Then she sat down and asked herself things.

Why was she here? Why was she alone?

Maybe it was because she didn't get to accomplish whatever she sought out to do. Because she died rather pathetically in a car crash of all things. Maybe it was because she had a death that could've been avoided.

Mom and Dad were crying in the end. Her brother was upset too, looking more regretful than she had ever seen him be, and her mouth—

Vy put a hand to her mouth in that white void, considering.

She wasn't able to say anything.

Leo and Josh weren't going to come to save her. They were still alive, after all.

Vy was…

It would've been simple to give up. To let the void take her.

But it wasn't really a void. It didn't feel like it. She could still move. She could still speak. So until there was that pull calling for action, Vy sat in the white, singing to herself. The songs weren't really all that legible. Sometimes, it was English. Other times, broken Vietnamese. But a majority of the time in the void, what echoed from her throat was Japanese.

The memories had to be kept alive. Something had to stay to keep the loneliness away.

Once the pull came, the void suddenly transformed into the warmth of something alive.

Vy blinked her eyes to see the ceiling of a hospital room and the blurry face of Hoshino Hikari staring down at her with a warm smile.

Vy was known as Tomoko by then, but Vy still cried.

She was alive again. And she didn't know how nor why.

What was going on? Why was she back? The memories were still here. Even with developing vocal cords, she could hum the old notes and feel the emotions come back.

Leo and Josh were gone. Her old life was gone.

But there was something that let Vy stay. Something that let Vy still be real.

Was it the singing? Was it the ramblings? Vy didn't know.

Tomoko was her new name, but it didn't mean forgetting who she still was inside. Even if things fractured, even if the world was different, even if the people were different, if she made a difference, maybe someone could find her. She decided to put on a dress reminiscent of video game characters and performed every day. The stage fright didn't matter. The anxiety didn't matter. People were smiling and maybe.

Maybe someone could see what she was doing. Maybe they could recognize her memories through the piano as something familiar—

Then, then. The single appearance of Gekkō Keisuke proved that "Vy" wasn't an illusion she made for herself.

That world was real. The time as "Vy" was real. Kei knew that time too, even if the person Kei was then never met "Vy."

Someone knew. Someone remembered.

Someone wanted to make the world better like Vy, even if they had different methods of going about it.

Vy wasn't alone.

So Vy decided to put all her efforts into helping Kei. Even if it hurts, even if the heart aches. Vy knew she wouldn't mind going into the void again if it meant making sure Kei found joy somewhere.

Someone had remembered. It was all she ever wanted. So Vy wanted to make sure Kei never saw the void like she did.

It was the least a friend could do for a miracle that shouldn't have been.

"Vy," Tomoko said quietly one day.

"Huh?"

"My old name. It's Vy."

"…What brought this on?"

Vy didn't have an answer. The fragment known as Hisako scratched her head helplessly, so all that was left was…

"Just because. If anything happens, if you need my help and I'm not all there, use my old name." Tomoko smiled up at her reincarnation buddy while shrugging. "It could be our secret code for now."

I trust you enough for that.

If they ever got far enough in their planning, Vy planned to talk about the trauma that started everything. Perhaps it would be better to call it the first fallen domino, or the trigger that pulled the gun of fate.

But Vy was there, and Tomoko kept smiling.

Someone remembered, so the least Vy could do as Tomoko was make sure Kei made it out with their friends alive.