NB: This work is part of an interconnected series/multi-chapter of bigger fics. Context isn't required and these chapters can be read as standalone works but if you're curious, you can check out the end chapter which explains the premise and the A/Ns. If you're not interested, please enjoy the story freely and don't let me stop you!
Chapter Summary:In a distant land only she's ever set foot in, seventeen-year-old Wendy Corduroy embarks on a visceral journey through the past, present, and future to find out what the mirror of change has left for someone lost between static and silence; between the unsaid and the poorly so; between a lived pain and a forgotten healing.
Disclaimer: The work explores the aftermaths of stalking and sexual harassment, familial tragedy, and how to cope with an identity reliant on others. Swearing is also present to a varying degree. Read at your own discretion. Gravity Falls belongs to Alex Hirsch.
This work consists of five parts.
A/N:
EnneaQuote: "'Is empathy actually the gift of the type Nine?' And his [Christopher Heuertz's] answer was: 'It totally is. However, it's super tricky, because in order to have whole empathy towards others, you have to empathize with yourself'. [...] And all of a sudden, I find myself doing everything I can to hold back tears. [...] Everything I'd learned over these several years about the Enneagram and the type Nine specifically made sense—like all the dots were connected. And that realisation was first that, 'no, I absolutely don't have a lot of empathy for myself, and that sucks'. But the reason for that is that, at some point in my life, I began to gradually 'power down' my heart. Like, I never turned it off, I put it in standby mode. [...] It got so quiet that I didn't notice until now, in 2019. And I've been talking about empathy—but it's been about my heart."—Ryan O'Neal
Author Commentary: Well, after some time, we've reached the end of the road. As anyone who has read through these commentaries might be inclined to know, we've broached the final type of the Enneagram—therefore, this is the final story of The Gravity Falls Enneagram. I'll save the thoughts on that for later, but regarding the Nine, there are many things to be said. Nines represent the important peacekeepers and balancing pillars in our lives. They are devoutly spiritual people who use the external to enrich and empower the internal sense of being. As such, Nines are filled to the brim with an insatiable curiosity and a sense of longing for how we are wired as humans, hence their high emotional intelligence and empathy. However, when the outside world doesn't meet their needs for exercising this empathy or doesn't give the answers they crave, they often retreat into channelling their questions and understandings into their own emotions. Nines delve into rich playgrounds of their imagination and because of that, they can take a long time to find their type: the deep, personal stance they need to take to identify these hidden, subtle tendencies of 'going through the motions' is not easy when they've been purposefully distant for so long.
In a similar vein, the exertion of empathy is also a double-edged blade. Through constant hyper fixation on understanding the untouchable, transcendent essence of their fellow humans, Nines may often feel as though they don't have a concrete foundation on their own identity, a clear path in the lonesome journey of self-reflection—similar to the Type Four, but instead of the glorification of the grotesque when faced with choice paralysis, there's a simple 'freezing over', with Nines deeming themselves unable to be studied. Given that, when you have a Nine that's explored what makes those around them tick—in whole-hearted and holistic interest—and they've assimilated others' significance into their being, unhealthy development can be the scapegoat for a struggle with self-perception. Nines can become lost and complacent; they can power down and dull the drive that makes them so special, fearing they're innately broken for loving life through an infinite prism instead of a sharp reflection in a mirror made whole.
This metaphor of an 'infinite prism' is what births an obligation towards mediation from Nines. But despite fearing the idea of losing sight of their own identity through their journey of exploration (or the false realisation they never had one in the first place), a healthy Nine attains their immaculate beauty because of the fact that they survive evading these traps and maintain their pure resolve to keep on going—to keep trying to understand. Because Nines' gifts of patience, open-mindedness, and kindness are what bring the cumulative inner good in others into the external world—something that can only be accomplished when you suffer the extremities and find the common ground of our existence: good and bad, euphoria and sorrow, love and heartbreak.
The last topics to take note of in the Enneagram are the following: instinctual subtypes and the process of cultivating awareness. These will be explored in Chapter Two and Chapter Four, respectively. As of the time of publication, these chapters will be published over the course of four days, each day lending a new chapter. I've kept the waiting up long enough.
Yet I hope after the fourth chapter, what I say in the finale will make sense.
Enjoy the story.
Type Nine: The Freezer (Part 1/5)
The air was still, yet the tree's bark was cold as steel.
Wendy shuddered. On its own, it technically wasn't the weirdest thing that could happen. Unexplainable weather was a timid anomaly, unlike that one time she'd walked across a tunnel for two hours only to end up in school wearing a Santa costume (of all things) and everyone talked in a garbled combination of reversed words and other noises. Or that time she'd found herself back in Dr Pines' bunker when she and the shack crew first discovered it—what felt like so, so long ago now—and she saw what everything would've looked like if someone back there had made a… different choice.
Perks of being a lucid dreamer, she always told herself.
But now… oh, now it was different. Because she wasn't in that old, usual playground, but the special place she'd carved out—the one spot she'd moulded into a fitting answer for the question of how to escape into the ordinary.
The oasis wasn't what she'd wanted anymore.
First, it was the misshapen trees far away, then the little hill inching a bit closer than before. In a sense, she was fine with her control outside of reality hanging like the brief flick of a pendulum's sway, but not here, where little oddities had to answer to some inkling of sense. Not here, where the frigid feeling on her back persisted even as a placid gale danced through the clearing and the birch trees, flushing through palms that welcomed the orange-brown meadow.
Ah, dream rules.
Wendy closed her eyes. She wanted the dots to connect, to imagine how this was happening in some other part of the oasis. But… that didn't make sense. Of course it didn't. That's how weirdness worked. And weirdness she knew by heart; weirdness she loved. But why was weirdness so hellbent on not letting her have a second to breathe?
Why?
"Bittersweet, isn't it?" a sultry, jagged voice uttered.
"What?" Wendy stood up, alarmed, as leaves fell from her grey tracksuit bottoms onto her sneakers. "Who said that?"
"The one you made."
Only now could she tell the voice came from behind her. She turned around, spotting an old woman limping with an elegant cane. She didn't need eyes to know that, though; the woman's knitted black sweater and shoulder-length grey hair definitely carried a scent much like the one exuded by Gravity Falls' previous mayor.
"You asked why," the woman continued, "So full of that melancholy I had to bring it up before delivering my answer. Before saying it's because you're ready."
"Ready for what?" Wendy asked.
"Ready to keep staying, of course." The woman rolled her ebony eyes. "What, thinking I'll show up with some profound answer? Don't expect clarity of purpose from an old woman like me. All I can tell you is what's true and what you should accept."
Wendy huffed. This hadn't happened before. Who'd come knocking on her corner of dreams?
"Oh yeah, of course, lady," she chided, masking unease with sarcasm. "You say I called—"
"Created."
"Whatever, 'created you'. But you look like you've been here longer than me. Who are you?"
"I am The Guide." She ambled next to her, placing her cane next to the tree, its polished wood reflecting well with the infinite sunset. "Y'know, this form would be far from my first choice to watch this play out from afar. I'd expected something better at first, but then… Well, watchers can't be choosers." As another lone leaf fell from the tree, she suspended it in midair using only her finger. "Yet still, a dream is only as real as you make it, so, hmph, what have I truly been watching?"
A chill ran down Wendy's spine. Now, she was no expert on how dreams worked, but on the off chance she had an opening to ask Dr Pines about them, he'd always mention dreamscapes—an edge of the mind part of one's mindscape answering to its own rules. After asking, Dr Pines would then follow up by wondering why Wendy would care about dreams, to which she'd quickly change the topic by telling him how he could install laser turrets in the shack's support beams (for science).
So the very concept of this place—of dreamscapes—being one Wendy had known instinctually since she was a kid, and as a place she could control through her lucidity… it almost made whatever crazy things this woman said sound normal. Up until the part no one ever mentioned; the part where other inhabitants were lucid. That others knew they were in a dream.
"Is that why I can't change anything anymore?" Wendy asked, gulping. "This cold. Because of you?"
"Oh, not me. You know me. In a way you can't explain, that is." A quick laugh before she sat on another tree nearby, this one an oak. "However, the others… it's an exceptional thing you've done, to outrun your nightmares. And I'm here to tell you they're not going to come for you. There might be a 'cold', a pit in your stomach… but they won't show here. Ever."
Wendy crossed her arms. "Congrats, I think you're a worse guide than Thompson on a hike." The name of her old friend itself didn't sting as she said it, but what surrounded it... "Wait."
She combed over the grass with her palm.
"What is it?" The Guide asked.
"Can't you tell? It… it's gone. Nothing's cold anymore." She tugged at her hair tentatively. "But for how long?"
"Already weakened. There's nothing left to do. Staying here is the peaceful nothing you've craved, Wendy."
Wendy's back tightened. "How'd you know my name?"
"I know what you've let me know." The Guide sighed. "Oh, and here I am—offering you an escape from lies, only for you to dawdle on it for so long."
Wendy frowned. "What you're saying… I mean, that's leaving everything out there behind. I don't really want that! Not… forever."
She paused, trying to understand if she was being sincere with herself; if she needed what waited back outside. She'd been keen on avoiding it forever—forget the life on autopilot jumbled with the anxiety of what awaited her after graduation. She was fine with staying here.
But why was this woman—someone who seemingly knew her—feeling the need to convince her?
"What pain is there in leaving something you never grew to love?" The Guide asked.
Wendy clenched a fist.
"Oh, c'mon," she said, voice rising. "That's not true."
"Do you believe that?"
"Yeah! And if you know me, you'd know I don't wanna leave, but not because of that! So stop bullshitting, okay?!"
The Guide didn't answer.
Wendy pressed a hand on her temples. She realised she hadn't worded her feelings right; not in a way she wanted to be in front of others, even dream entities. So she did what she was best at—breathe and draw back the curtain.
She placed a hand on her hip, lips forming into a sudden smirk. "Nothing's ever told me to stay here. I didn't—don't need help bein' convinced because I wanted it. I still do." She frowned. "But if you're here, then… I know this place well enough to know something's wrong. And sooner or later, it's gonna show up here. So the only thing I can do is go out. Find out if it's bad and if I should give a crap about this cold… or anything out there."
"Then be ready," The Guide said. "You'll not like where that road's headed. It's… changed these years."
Wendy bit her lip. She knew that even if this 'guide' wasn't to be trusted—if she was meant to act as some confused sign from beyond—then she had at least spoken one truth: the cold didn't originate from her. But again, that didn't bring Wendy comfort, as she felt The Guide uncertain company, and uncertain company she knew from a mile away. She'd almost developed an allergic reaction to any social creepiness, especially when it came to… obsessive people watching her without her knowing.
She pressed tepidly on that old, worn blue hat upon her head, secretly grateful it was still there.
"See ya," Wendy said, effortlessly getting up.
"Hmph."
With a shaky breath, Wendy brushed past The Guide and walked opposite the plastic-like sun to never set. And then, she began to run. Run across the uneven, dirty path which had signs leading to nowhere and only her footprints to bear, run below the zig-zag shade cast by the everchanging canopy of a receding forest, run past the overgrown thickets near the riverside and the ten different iris flowers that grew out her lovers' remorse, closing her eyes at the spot of the missing eleventh.
Nearby, at the river's mouth, after a time she couldn't bear to measure, her hand found itself gliding over the flimsy barrier which was the waterfall she'd found this place through—a waterfall so much like the one back home. Wendy huffed, tired from the running, or perhaps from secretly knowing it was the last time she'd ever be here again.
And she laughed. Because even if it wasn't, that didn't matter to the old voice meant to soothe a goodbye's pain; it would've told her to run no matter what.
She phased back outside, a ghastly presence washing over her entire body. Atop the glacial precipice, darkness encroached. It was only because of the small flickering light in the centre that she could spot the two big shelves stretching out in front and below her, the rest—however many—remaining obscured. Jagged ice forms surrounded her, going around a lone metal ladder downwards.
Wendy was back in The Freezer.
Back in her dreamscape.
No surprise she'd wind up in the ice cube tray. Of all the spots in the dreamscape to remain as intact as they could, this was the one she was most likely to stumble upon, and the one she most didn't want to stumble upon.
Something Wendy didn't count on was the ladder she'd descended disappearing once she leapt onto the giant ice cubes. Oh, and there being snow. Not just any snow, but snow which cushioned her steps and only fell in snowflakes—or more accurately, miniature ice cubes, which even she thought was quite on-the-nose.
Well, no turning back now.
The first thing she did was clump her hands in her face for some warmth, her breath fogging through the openings between her fingers. She knew this was what she was getting into, but despite being a child of Winter, her time with sub-zero temperatures was never any easier—in fact, she thought she'd had it worse. Scanning her exact surroundings was pointless given how this segment, out of all in The Freezer, was most like an unpaused movie, defined by one still image. Yet she still looked around, if only to embrace the bleak reminder that there was one direction to follow—one place where everything ended up.
Pine trees, the tamest of mementoes, swirled around her. At least they didn't somehow break under the pressure, even if nearly three years had managed to leave their cracks upon the surface.
A restless wind spurred on the chatter of teeth, heightening Wendy's survival instincts. Quickly, she approached some snow-covered sticks near the dead grass on the ground, already thinking which part of her grey T-shirt to tear off to make a quick torch; there was no guarantee warmth would be waiting for her at the end of the trail. Yet she felt a weird friction as she crouched to pick the sticks up, like something was in the left pocket of her tracksuit bottoms. Rummaging through it, she pulled out what looked like a… rock. Not any rock, however; the glassy texture led her to obsidian. But strangely, as she clasped it, it began to emit a pink glow, her hand warming up.
A note was attached on the back.
Don't go freezing to death in your own dream!
There was only one person stuck-up enough to give her this. The bigger question was why, but she had no time to think deeply about The Guide's charitable side. Clutching the rock near her chest, she trudged through the areas that had the least snow along the uneven path. After around five minutes of walking, the glint of the giant saw above the porch hit her the same time the acrid scent did—no doubt smoke coming out of the leaf-filled chimney.
A seven-year-old's perception of their own house was a frail and fickle thing, but The Freezer had preserved most of the details from back then. Gaps were blended in: the truck she knew was parked next to the knee-high fence bore the appearance of the newer RV her dad had bought six years ago; the wood was stockpiled at shifting quantities; the tree next to the house was kept free of Robbie's delusional etchings declaring the purity of their short relationship.
She bit her lip. He didn't deserve those words after what the Blind Eye had done to him.
But he also wasn't here, so why'd guilt still creep over?
Wendy sneezed and, taking that as a sign to stop avoiding the inevitable, ambled over to the porch, noticing the dusty window in the living room giving way to a blaze of light. Climbing up the two wooden steps brought about a familiar creak which, while having changed throughout the years, had become a tune welcoming her home. And just like turning the front door's knob opened up to the house's tiny entrance hall, so too was its low screech the quiet finale of the melody.
A large puddle of water inside the house was something Wendy hadn't accounted for, however, and she wound up jumping instead of walking in. Looking up, she saw it'd formed from the snow which fell through… a hole in the room's roof.
Once did she remember their roof being damaged and being left as it was—a grim sign which bore a significance crossing far beyond the barriers of the dreamscape; one she'd rather have left outside, but one to which she now mounted up a brash indifference.
Wendy moved over to the living room. At first, her eyes could barely keep themselves open from the staggeringly bright lights. Though The Freezer might have had something to do with how her senses worked, she soon managed to adjust and watched as the room's inviting, colourful Christmas decorations made their mark: an enormous tree, green stockings over the walls, a snowglobe on the drawer, and even Hoppy, a festive tree stump her dad had cut out and brought inside when she was a kid.
She wanted to smile at the sight so much. But she couldn't.
It wasn't just because this holiday still felt like such a faraway memory, courtesy of eight years of apocalypse training replacing it. On one hand, there were the dents in the ceiling and the broken support beams—victims to her dad's fury that never wound up changing. At the same time, other shifts were beginning to commence, like the walls, couch, and parts of the ceiling being made to match the red flannel aesthetic her dad had obsessed over, though they were kept unfinished for a time because of a reason she pretended not to know.
Yet one thing had no right to be there.
Cross-hatches.
Wendy was as far from being an artist as Toby Determined was from being a bearable person, but she knew this graphite pattern bore that name. What she didn't expect was to see it used for erasing parts of the room indiscriminately; it had to be a symptom, she thought—holes in memory unable to be filled in. Her notion was challenged when she looked above the couch, where the hatching gave way to an ever-changing pattern supposed to represent letters—no, entire words—in the wallpaper.
'You still love her, don't you?'
Laughter followed. Of all things, laughter was coming from the kitchen. It sounded jolly and happy and all the things her house wasn't making her feel.
A part of her was prepared for the worst once she peered over the kitchen door frame.
"Hello?"
Nobody.
Wendy honed in on the dangling lightbulb which lit up the room before her eyes shifted to what was below it.
She saw a table—a plentiful yet chaotic arrangement, set with plates of different sizes filled with all kinds of meaty foods and the occasional vegetable for decent measure. But no one was eating, and the laughter still kept on. The more Wendy listened to it, the more it felt like it wasn't even meant to sound as though it'd come from here. It was as though someone was imitating her family and the idea of a fun lunch they might have had once, like a performance the thespian troupe that kid Gideon and his prison buddies would've pulled off.
And she counted. Six plates.
A prickle of fear curled around her back with slim, long tendrils, urging her to reach for her hat and hold on to it. More than that, she felt sick, because it was like being forced to hear the same beginning notes of a song over and over without the song itself. All of these obvious clues—these 'hints'—about a ghost of the past had to be The Guide playing with her; taunting her to do something out of her control. There had to be something else setting this all up because she couldn't bear to try and let herself think about it again after so long. It had to. It had—
Wendy hit something in the doorframe. Taking a few dazed steps back was enough for her to recuperate and face the obstacle. A standing mirror—the mirror her father had broken into a million tiny pieces in his grief.
She closed her eyes, bated breaths digging for an answer beyond pleas. The one she'd been holding out for someone to give her. Someone to tell her she didn't have to care anymore. That she'd grown past this, and that a memory so distant was a memory one could've faked into a lie when all they could hear were the bells toiling over a scary future—for if she had to be here, then why now?
Why on the day when any resistance put up towards making their home represent anything but lumberjacking was chopped away?
Why on the day her dad thought searching out in the woods the whole night was more important than fixing the hole in the roof he'd usually put everything aside for?
Why on the day her own mother had inexplicably vanished from her life ten years ago?
But nothing. And only when she saw her reflection in her mother's mirror did she see tiny cracks upon the surface of the person she tried to be. Her clothes, an unrecognisable blob, began to morph. Her T-shirt weaved into a faded blue flannel vest, grey trousers were masked with olive ones which had small patchwork trees sewn to the front, and touching upon her wrist she felt a beaded firewood bracelet manifesting from nothing. She reached for where her hat was, snatching it whole from the amorphous mess and saving it.
Only the lumberjack remained. All she appeared to be. All she had to be. But did seventeen years amount to the single blade of faded grass instead of the giant mountain it'd grown on? Had she learnt nothing from her father and would be forced to portray that same image he'd had carried over his bruised heart? Or did she have to be consumed by the idea of a person for a chance it could shut off her pain as it would who she truly was?
"I'm… I'm not gonna listen," Wendy said in a soft, low voice. "It doesn't stop here."
She drew in a shaky breath.
"I've no idea where my life's going, but… but I know"—a lump in her throat—"I know I'm not just this."
She bit her lip, thoughts snipping away the memories as her heart did from the good she'd left buried here.
"And I'm not scared of you," she lied.
Wendy heard a distinctly familiar sound—logs being dropped. She turned around, the sudden dimness of the room catching her off guard. Squinting her eyes, she saw an unlit fireplace had taken the place of the opened window which overlooked the dining table.
She recognised the fireplace, and though it had no spot in her home, it still evoked more complicated feelings: of which cool, bright summer Saturday she and her father had spent the day out laughing and building it together for no other reason than because they could—her smile steady amid the dozen splinters piercing her hands, a life simpler void of emptiness for joy to even fill.
She glanced over the table, spotting someone—a girl—seated in front of the fireplace, alone. Somehow, as Wendy stared at her, the girl felt… separate from the rest of the house, and not just because she'd just appeared from thin air. Like a spot of freshness between the old, she emanated a placid aura, much unlike the one Wendy had felt from the stone The Guide had given her. Approaching her, Wendy even felt the stone's power weaken.
This wasn't The Guide's ploy. And oh, this wasn't just any girl.
"Hey." Wendy sat next to her.
"Hi…" The girl brought up her knees, green overalls folding in on themselves a bit as she did so. Her face was concealed in partial shadow.
Wendy huffed. "Man, this is weird. I know you probably feel the same, too. If you can even 'feel' weird, I guess."
"No. I was actually wondering when you'd show up."
"You were?"
"Yeah." She blew a strand of loose hair on her cheek and then twirled it on her finger. "It's been lonely. And… boring."
Wendy furrowed her brows. "Did you find this after I went away?"
On its own, the fireplace began to crackle with signs of a new fire, and the small orange glow allowed Wendy to see the girl's eyes had become glassy.
"I don't remember. I… I'm not sure." A sigh. "I miss my mom."
Wendy bit her lip. She wished she had the energy to keep being as blunt as a kid. "Yeah. Know you do, kiddo. And you will. But…" She hesitated. "I can't lie to you and tell you it's gonna get better. It'll hurt a lot less, and sometimes you'll feel like it never happened. But it won't go away. I… I'm sorry. I wish it could."
The girl hummed as the fire began to grow. "Funny."
"What?"
"You…" She shifted her legs, and for the first time, their eyes met. "You sound a lot like her."
Wendy's mouth fell slightly open. She considered her response.
"You callin' me old?"
The girl laughed. "Maybe."
Wendy nudged her lightly. "Heh." She rubbed her arm. "Figured I would'a realized I sounded… that way."
"It's okay. I'm not mad at you. But I like it when you talk like her. Can… can you tell me some more stuff the way she would?"
"I—" Wendy paused for a second. "Alright."
The girl returned a timid nod, stretching out her hands towards the fireplace. After a few seconds, her brows went up and she asked, "Hey, you still remember how to play stumpball?"
"Um, yeah?"
She giggled. "Wait here! I'm gonna go and get one of the small stumps outside and then we can keep talking while playing! Okay?"
"Sure."
The girl beamed with an innocent smile, running past the room and going near the doorframe, where Wendy had a hard time seeing through now.
For a moment, her younger self stopped.
"Thank you," she said, before vanishing into the rest of the cabin.
Wendy felt a pang of sadness knowing the game of stumpball was one they'd never play, as the fireplace began dying down in the silence. There, the last nail hit the coffin: when she gazed back in the mirror and saw her clothes changing back to the ones she'd known. The past had nothing left to give her, nor she—it.
"This is where brash action takes you," a dreaded voice said. "A narrow path forcing your mask to flounder if it means using others to fill the emptiness."
"You." Wendy narrowed her eyes as she faced The Guide. "I swear, if you lay a finger on—"
"No, the cub's quite all right," The Guide interrupted, pouting. "I have better things to do, you know."
"Like setting this up to try and fuck with me? Nice prank, really."
The Guide exhaled deeply. "It might surprise you to know I don't hate you, Corduroy. I have a purpose to make you see right, and I could have no part in this even if I wanted to." She gestured around the room. "The same way the girl left on her own, the girl made the home look the way it did. She left all those signs. She toyed with you."
Wendy gulped.
"After all, why do you think I showed up only now?"
Wendy blinked a few times. "I-If you're telling the truth, then… why?"
"To draw you out. To keep you here and get its answer on a silver platter. This Reflection learned something from you, and now your influence bleeds into the lie she tells herself."
"This… Reflection?"
The Guide paused for a moment, glancing sideways before answering, "The Reflections. They're the ones sharing this dreamscape now; manipulating it." She pursed her dry lips. "The girl was one of them—the tamest. Chasing them will only make you realize why they've taken hold of these lands while you were gone, and why you'll find ruin in their wake."
Wendy huffed. "So that's why you want me to do nothing. So I can go back to my corner and ignore them because it fits whatever angle you have. What makes you think they've all changed the dreamscape for the worse? How do I know you don't want them gone?"
The Guide frowned. "I haven't the will to despise insects, but I know that without them, the frogs would starve, and then the herons, and eventually we too. My reservations have never been with them, but with you, Wendy: Leaving after so long, are you truly seeking to fix a problem… or are you trying to find an answer to something else, like someone you just met?"
Wendy felt a pit in her stomach. She closed her eyes, pondering the question. That wasn't what she was doing—she wanted the cold to be gone; for her to keep the oasis as it was and forget this place existed. Yes, anything else was a distraction and a leak to be plugged. That was her goal, and she was going to let this stuck-up old lady know!
"I—"
The Guide had vanished.
Wendy's hands shook. She briefly paced around before heading to the front door, taking quick breaths with each step towards it. Her reaffirmations didn't quell the weight over her heart about the absence of her younger self, nor did they ease the burning question that was beginning to get stuck in her mind.
If one chased after the cold far enough, what guarantee was there they wouldn't lose the way back to warmth?
A/N:
Incredible, special thanks to the wonderful folks who proofread this entire work: Kang (The Orion Scribe) and the great MilkyBoyBlue, whose insight and encouragement sped this up to be finished in 2024.