It's that same night Little Luce comes alive in her dream.
As she opens her eyes again from the darkness of sleep, Luce's blinded by a bright light so strong, all she can see is white. Weirdly, it doesn't make it hard for her to keep her eyes open, but she still needs a couple of moments to make out what's in front of her.
It's a garden, made of green grass and bright sprinkle of colors from the plants and flowers, and guarded by tall and broad trees with thick foliage. The sun keeps it warm, so warm, shining so strong from above, every ray of light catching onto a blade of grass, a petal or a leaf refracts right into her eyes, white and colorful spots dancing in her vision as if the garden was painstakingly carved out of gemstones. It would make it hard on the eyes if not for the blue sky above too, contrasting and softening all at once its vivid and sharp colors.
The garden sings, lazy wind blowing between the grass and through the leaves, and it makes the flowers dance, their scent floating and spreading through the air like their petals, sugary but also a touch bitter too.
It looks like the mansion's backyard. Luce would even believe it is if not for the fact it keeps going as far as the eye can see with the mansion nowhere in sight.
A girl stands in the middle of the garden, looking around her age, playing among the grass and flowers. She's not alone, is surrounded by people looking her age and older alike, all of them sporting smiles. A lady sits aside against the nearest tree to the girl, watching her, and the smile on her lips looks particularly fond and warm.
Luce can't make out anything more specific than that. The glinting sunlight shining down on the garden makes it hard to see, the air so warm, it's hazy too. She can't really make out their faces, can't hear them either, but she doesn't need to.
The girl's smile—the grin on her lips reaches all the way to her ears. She keeps excitedly turning to the people around her, exchanging words with one, handing a flower to another, or laughing with yet someone else. She turns to the lady sitting against the tree the most often and most excitedly, waving at her or just so they can smile at each other. The people she's playing with surround her protectively, fondly, lending her an attentive ear.
The girl's happy. She's free.
It radiates from her in waves, tangible enough to almost knock Luce off-balance, and Luce doesn't have to ask her to know every single thing here is exactly as she wants it to be.
Luce stands right at the outskirt of the garden. Not just as a spectator, but as an outsider, and so the sunlight and warmth from the garden know better than to reach her too. Should Luce reach her arm out, she'd need only an inch further to at least be able to graze the sunlight and warmth with her fingertips.
So Luce waits for the girl to notice her, as she needs to be the one to come to her. The girl does, catching her eye, and immediately runs to her as if she was waiting for her.
She stops in front of her, stepping out of the garden, but remaining no less blinding. All of her glows with the happiness she radiates from within, her smile made of sunlight and stars in her eyes.
Luce can't help but smile in turn at that sight, can't help but mean it too.
She sees the girl clearly now. She looks just like her in every way, as if she's looking at her reflection in a mirror.
She isn't.
They look the same, but the girl is still distinctly different from her.
She seems to think so too, a frown slowly creasing her brows as she takes her face in. "No, not like that," she says, shaking her head. She stops smiling, her face blank and neutral. She brings her fingers to the corner of her lips, and then, slowly, showing her how it's done, she smiles again from ear to ear, her fingers moving with her lips and cutely bunching her cheeks. "Like this!"
Luce's own smile on her lips doesn't budge an inch.
She's already smiling the best she knows how.
The girl doesn't disappear once she wakes up. Not in the way where Luce remembers her once she wakes up, or that she keeps remembering her every time as she meets her in her dreams, but that the girl stays with her even when she's awake.
As she goes on with her day-to-day life, Luce only needs to close her eyes or to focus inwards for a moment to take a glimpse at what the girl is up to, at what her own day-to-day life looks like at the moment.
She's the most real in her dreams, and only in her dreams they can properly talk to each other, but she's still real when staying by Luce's side when she's awake, never too far away to be out of her reach.
The girl may only exist in her mind, but she's still full of life and has a life of her own in her own right, similar to hers in parts but different in some.
It might be a little too late for her to have an imaginary friend, a little too concerning that said imaginary friend is herself-but-not too, but Luce welcomes it anyway and lets it be.
Comes the following night, Luce sits at her desk in her study, her journal open in front of her. It's a pretty one, purple with flowers decorating it.
Mother bought it for her sometimes last year. Gifted it to her, only the sadness of her smile reaching her eyes like it's usually the case, and said, "For whenever you're ready."
Luce's smile fell from her face right away. She pursed her lips, tempted for a moment to throw the journal on the floor, and to this day she pretends she can't see the faint imprint of her nails among pretty purple and flowers. Then she smiled again and thanked Mother for the gift.
She doesn't like reminders she'll never be able to enjoy the small joys of life like everyone else. Doesn't like having to confront she hasn't made peace with that yet as much as she likes to think she did.
If Luce was like every other girl her age, Mother would have gifted her a diary she'd have started using right away without a second thought. She'd have introduced herself first, or maybe wrote down what her day had been like that day, however inconsequential and boring it might have been, or maybe she'd have started with a drawing to make her diary even prettier.
But Mother gifted her a journal, like the ones she herself keeps, like the ones that are passed down in the family, which were written with the express purpose of being read by the ones after them once they were gone. It didn't stop some of the Donne—most of them, even, to start them casually, Luce's been reading them for years now, but she still felt—
She felt it was her duty to think it through properly and make her words matter.
She assumes anyway girls her age are more likely to be gifted diaries than journals, but she wouldn't actually know. The kind of girls her age she knows are just as likely as her to be keeping journals rather than diaries. A small comfort, she supposes.
Luce twirls the pen between her fingers once and presses its tip to the first page of her journal, blank and pristine.
She's ready.
Last night, I met a girl in my dream. She was playing in a beautiful garden given life from the sun itself, steeped in its light, and it breathed warmth in the air from the trees to every single blade of grass.
The girl was like the sun too. Glowing from within her, sunlight pouring out from her smile and eyes in waves. She was blinding.
She looked so happy, it hurt to look at her.
She looked a lot like me.
Luce names the girl Little Luce. Has to decide on a name for her for one, to differentiate them because she's herself-but-not.
She's not sure why that name.
Maybe… for how it's Mother's affectionate nickname for her, and she can't think of any other name she likes better.
Maybe because it's been a while since Mother has last called her that, and she doesn't think she's old enough quite yet to have already outgrown the nickname.
In the near future, Luce will know for certain it's in part for the many more times Mother might have called her that again if she wasn't taken away from her too soon.
A/N: Turns out my headcanon of the Giglio Nero Donne keeping journals that are passed down in the family is just a headcanon of mine, and not canon like I've always thought until recently lmao. Well, we're still going with that because I said so. 💖
About Little Luce, just in case it isn't clear (because like said in the chapter she'll stick around), it's not Luce disassociating or having an imaginary friend or anything of the sort. She's not real, and Luce knows she isn't, but like the title and summary say, it's just Luce allowing herself to imagine another life for herself where she's happier and more free. And allowing herself to retreat in that daydream and find comfort and strength in it as needed as she goes on to live her less happy and free life that also happens to be her real one. (Was this any clearer zrjfsdfkjd?)
(On the other hand, Little Luce is most definitely a new coping mechanism of Luce.)
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Any and all reviews are appreciated.
Thank you for reading!
- Hope