Two-willed form onto the dark expanse.

She pictured a great tower. Its base founded in a mist of forgotten things. Its peak spiraling higher with every moment. Its length was the expanse of her memory. A stone bridge arched above the mist. The only path to the solitary structure.

She stepped and felt stone beneath her feet. She opened her eyes to disappointment and Burgundy’s incessant chortles.

A tower had indeed materialized but it was a fleeting dream of a thing. It bent and swayed. At parts, its stones curled as if they were mist. The structure dissolved into the black. The floor returned to a featureless plane.

She sighed and stared hard at the nothing. She’d assumed the travel to memory’s lane would be a simple affair. Her rushed return to the crossroads proved she could manage under duress. Reality and several dozen failed attempts rebutted that assurance.

She was blindly poking in the dark. The vain hope that she’d trip into her destination.

Was that the problem? he didn’t know where her memories were. Or was she looking for a place not yet made?

She closed her eyes. If the latter were true, she asked herself what would land of memory look like..

She closed her eyes.

A churning sea of recollection. Boiling and writhing as memories rose and sunk in turn. Each wave an echoed experience. Water lapped at her ankles, but the feeling was faint, incomplete. It wasn’t enough.

She pulled on the sensation. She bid the water to calm. Memories did not ceaselessly intrude on thought. Yet there were times a reminder could drag on under. Below- the surface she conjured strong mercurial currents. Pale yellow sands led into the deep waters.

She stepped and felt an indefinable something beneath her boot. She didn’t know what sand felt like. Her eyes flew open. Her creation vanished like a daydream.

She remained in the dark. Laughed pealed behind her. The sound was imbued with every shred of annoyance their maker could conjure. A part of her appreciated the sheer effort and talent put into infuriating her.

The rest of her wondered which would break first. Their strained lungs. Or her fraying patience.

“You could help.” She glared at the girl clutching her stomach.

They took one glance at her and fell to the floor. Carried by a wave of giggles. “How am I supposed to do that you numbskull. You’re the one leading this thing. Poorly I’d like to add. I’m just along for the ride.” She met Two’s increasingly frigid stare with a victorious grin.

Two squinted, she smelled a scheme. “You could offer advice. You know some things I don’t. I imagine you have insights I don’t.” An idea came to her.

She painted shock on her features. Then replaced it with a conciliatory smile. She tweeted honeyed her smile. Enough to shame the smoothest con man “Or do you not? Are you worried I’ll think less of you? Don’t worry about it Burgundy. I’ll get us through this.”

Her smile melted. Replaced by incandescent fury. Her cloak exploded into flame. A wave of heat and light tore at Two’s face. The patch of light over doubled in width. “I know what you’re doing.”

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Two sighed and rocked back with the heat. “What am I doing?” She kept her sweetened tone.

“You’re trying to rile me up enough to solve your problems for you, but I’m not stupid enough to fall for that.”

“Why would I do that? I know you’re smart, you’re me.” She shook her head. “The only world I could imagine where that would make sense. Is one where you’ve been needling me and generally being useless for the past half hour. Hoping you anger me enough to swear again.” She looked the girl dead in her eyes. Her roaring flame withered. Two stepped in. Voice saccharine she continued “But that wouldn’t make sense it’d be such a childish, silly, counterproductive thing. Fit for a fool rather than someone as smart as you. Don’t ya think.” Two considered bopping her nose to puncture.

She stayed her hand. She didn’t like being touched. Hated it when she was younger, and the Burgundy girl was a mirror of her then. With added vulgarity.

The girl found something very interesting in the black sky to look at. Her cheeks pinched with something other than anger. Their lashing flames withdrew. “Ya, that’d be very stupid. Utterly brain dead.”

Two nodded, “The only reasonable answer is that there’s been a miscommunication between us.”

Their eyes lit up and they latched onto the out. “Ya, and you made another one a minute ago. I wasn’t embarrassed, I was just giving you the chance to practice and learn for yourself.” She folded he arms, her flames puffed up. “Since you’re so impatient. I’ll spell it out for you. This place is metaphorical, but that doesn’t me can smash an idea into an image and call it a day. Metaphor must mean something. It has to be personal.”

“Thank you,” Two supplied readily. Burgundy savored her victory, with a grin as triumphant as it was smug. Two shook her head and huffed in amused annoyance.

She returned her attention to the task. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes.

Something personal. Ideas drifted through he thoughts, but none sung to her. Too grand, too open.

Some memories she treasured, but a value could not encapsulate the whole. There were far too many she wanted to forget. The idea of a library came to her. She liked it but it didn’t fit. She’d visited once or twice. They’d enraptured her ever since, but she’d never had the time to sit and enjoy one. It was an aspiration, a distant one.

Yet the image of shelves and a lifetime of literature gave rise to thought. One of private places and alien worlds. It rang clear.

She stepped and the scents of old rot and fresh rain filled her senses. Tall wooden walls surrounded her. Rain fell like a gentle haze. Obscuring the word and glazing the oft-misaligned planks with a wet sheen.

Misted blunted shadow and light. The edges of one form bled into the next. The city’s sounds were distant and greeted her like the rustling of leaves and murmur of wind.

Trash littered the ground. Detritus lay in mold and muck

There was a magic in the air, because or in spite of the innumerable little messes. Small colourful caps sprouted in spots of particular grime. Weed of vibrant green and sickly yellow fought through piles of wood-made mulch.

It was magic. Not the wight of desire turned corporeal, but the wondrous terror of not knowing what lurked around the corner. The quiet promise of mystery.

Decay and disorder only added to the mystique. What was a forest without its dark creeping things, and this? It was the only one she’d ever known.

And in the corners of her vision. Little things called to her. The silhouette of a house. A gentle voice drifted from a mile away. A tall winged form walked by. The touch of calm brushed her. She smiled.

“I guess you’re good for something.” Burgundy’s voice lacked heat. She pulled her cloak tight and raised her hood. Her flames were only visible in the thinning of the mist around her. “Did you have to make it so,” she trailed off. “How am I supposed to find anything.” Frustration heated her words. Pushed the mist a fraction further Her gaze darted through the haze. The anger felt self-directed.

“You’ll find what our looking for, Just might take some looking.” Two offered a small smile. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The girl held her gaze, something fragile lingered behind her dim flame. She turned with a scoff. “I know that I just want you to complain about wasting time.”

She walked into the haze. Two thought she understood her trepidation. Many things lurked in the recedes of her mind. The labyrinth dragged them up and gave them form. She’d given them somewhere to roam.

But what could anger gain from recollection?

She followed into the mist