"They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places."
"Desert Places" ~ Robert Frost
The cell was in a narrow hallway off the main quarters. They'd said little to Ava, mostly orders, and except for the wild eyed boy in a guard's uniform who'd openly gaped at her, it was as if she did not exist. Or matter, except enough to be shut away. A dank, musty odor hung in the air as they led her down to the cell: a cot, some hay scattered on the stony floor, a rough blanket like the ones at the infirmary. Iron bars all around her. They clanked the door closed behind her and left. The wind whipped flurries over the night sky outside the small window across from her cell. She gathered the blanket around her and sat heavily on the cot. She lost herself for a moment, staring numbly at her boots. A low, scraping, scurrying noise nearby brought her back, and she swiftly lifted her feet off the ground, hugging her knees to her chest.
She regretted, with all her being, even contemplating the possibility of performing blood magic. She had no idea that the mere thought of conducting such rituals would unleash certain, swift punishment. A maleficar, she had been warned, was someone deluded by power and magic, a conduit between this world and demons. The cautionary tales always warned that the motives behind succumbing to the allure of such magic were often devoid of malice: the search for a definitive, yet elusive solution, a desperate situation, or the most deceivingly innocent one: curiosity. Many a mage had crossed those forbidden lines while uttering promises involving the words "only this once" or "just for a bit." And she? She had been willing to take her chances blindly; she, whose magic had always been of the practical, healing nature, up against all the swirling darkness of the Fade. She had been considering it, she admitted, if only to protect others.
The irony.
She leaned against the damp rocks on the wall and stared at the window for a long time, the square blurring, dissolving through the prism of her tears.
She hurt something terrible, Cole sensed. He sat down on the ground across from her, resting his back up against the metal bars. Her face remained fixed in an expression of sorrow even as she slept.
It is my fault. Something is wrong. They keep remembering, he realized. Their memories snag on the edges.
He watched over her restless sleep.
Where do I end? Where does she begin?
Ordinarily he would not know— he became lost in them, in their minds. It was the only way he could truly be with them and understand. Their emotions overwhelmed him, but also informed him. He entered their consciousnesses willingly, buffeted by the most violent storms, emerging wiser in his grasp of their inner workings.
She grimaced, straining against the uncomfortable position she'd fallen asleep in before her eyes opened and she blinked a few times, her gaze seeking the window ahead.
"How long will I last before I have to ask? Dare not risk, if they say 'no' then I will know, as long as I don't ask, they aren't as cruel as they may be…" he whispered. He tried to allay her fears. "He is scared, the youngest one, but if you ask him for some, he will bring it to you."
He noticed her eyes become glassy with welling tears. Her breath unfurled in tendrils of white smoke in the cell. She uttered something. It could've been his name or simply the word "cold."
"It won't matter if he says it in anger or in regret; they will know the truth," he told her.
Ava shivered. He rose and sat beside her on the cot. She turned towards him, resting her forehead on his shoulder and he reached for her hand, lacing his fingers between hers.
Here is comfort. But who gives, who receives?
He listened, sensing the turmoil, the sadness, and guilt. It felt leaden in his chest, a sinking ache. For once, he was speechless, none the wiser. It struck him that what he had felt, had been no echo.
The emotions had been his, and his alone, to grapple and contend with.
When I hurt because of me, I cannot see, came the uneasy revelation.