The same instant she saw the black lake was the same one she was thrown into the dark water. She splashed, but where she expected a bottomless abyss she found a tumble in knee-deep waters.

Black rivulets ran down her arms as she pushed herself up. Even that was a struggle. Her soaked clothes felt like lead to her beaten frame. Those aches quickly fell away.

The place’s sentiment suffused her. The waters a balm to seared flesh. It wasn’t cold, rather it felt like wet nothing. A suggestion of fluid that stripped away the sharpest aches.

“You Bitch!” The girl exploded into flame. Billowing and bright, the lines between cloth and flame melted. She became a font of furious radiance surrounding a silhouette.

She paid little mind to the conflagration. Instead, she focused on how the place felt. The interplay between fury and resigned acceptance that, along with so many other dreadful things, this place represented.

Burgundy was a star resplendent but she was singular things. A solitary light in the sky, and down in some deeper place something rose.

“I gave you a chance, this time I won’t be so gentle.” Despite the rumbling flames, her voice was ever so human.

She stepped from the plinth, rendered pale orange under her light. The abyssal water met her foot with nary a whimper. No explosion of steam, not the slightest sizzle. Rage quenched by idle thoughts.

The flame looked down, Shock clear in the bright orbs that had become her eyes.

Two lunged. It was not a graceful motion. Born of her half-slumped posture, it was the union of flailing fish caught on land and a desperate grab for a fallen treasure.

She barely made it and despite her shock, her enemy hand stepped back. Their foot had left the water, nor as a conflagration but a wet mortal thing.

She wrapped her hand around the ankle. She pulled, and the great flame toppled into the water with a muffled splash. Their light died and cast the world to the mercy of the dim and dark.

Two did not relent. The girl kicked as two dragged her beaten form up their body. But the blows landed like suggestions, and the waves she brought rippled into nothing.

Her fingers found their neck her hips found their chest. They struggled, flashes of brown skin amidst churning black. She leaned forward, they bucked, It didn’t help.

Seconds drew on their efforts growing ever more frenetic, ever more desperate. They clawed at her wrists. Their hand stretched for her eyes, but the girl’s hands were too short. They rubbed uselessly against her cheeks

Two’s thoughts were startlingly clear. She felt no anger. Neither victory or satisfaction buoyed her heart. Remorse was a half felt tingle. She was drowning her rage, she’d smother the embers of her freedom. Then she would bond with her loneliness.

The implications and consequences were clear, but she could imagine no better paths. She squeezed tighter. Their heartbeat hammered against her palms. Strong as a drum, beating and raging. A different chord of the song that beat in her chest.

Their struggles reached a summit, and then desperate strength broke before reality. They weakened. Their waves weekend. Their hands slackened. Yet their tumult did not end, their hand fell from her face but hooked and clung to her collar. Their heart beat faster still.

A sensation prickled her focus. It was the thing, the lonely and it was behind her. Before the realization could ripple through her, a shift took place in the water.

They became transparent in a ripple that spread from her. Revealing the girl, wide-eyed and desperate, pressed beneath her. She saw what had hidden beneath the angry mask.

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Pain, fear and loss.

A child struggling fruitlessly against the word. Clinging to the embers of hope in a dark land. She felt their life falter in her hands. Their throat undulating in her grasp.

There gaze met hers. In them was something beyond a plea. It was not the last minute bid for mercy. It was not aimed at anything in the world, but a desire string enough to fill a soul. Then bleed through their eyes.

It was hope.

Two let go, she pulled the girl from the water and into her embrace. Her strength left her and she leaned on the small figure for support. They sputtered and hacked up lung fulls of water. She rubbed their back while they heaved. “It’s okay, we’re okay.”

Like a dam breaking, their tears followed. Coughs messily bled into sobs. Their head nestled into her neck, they returned her hug as if she were the last thing in the world.

“It’s okay, we’re okay.” She whispered the words like a prayer. Her voice cracked and hoarse she repeated the words. Her tears soon joined theirs.

“Why?” there was as light and fragile like the child she’d forgotten they were.

Logic and reason rose to supply answers, but they buckled beneath the truth in her heart. “It felt wrong.” The statement was incomplete, because truth could be distilled but never encapsulate by words.

“Because it felt wrong?” they laughed and pushed away, though they still clung to her cloak. “Since when has feeling mattered to you? You’re all cold logic and pointless justification. You gave up on feeling! Gave up on caring!” Their features curled in anger, Scraps of light returned to their skin, but fury could no longer hide pain. “You gave up on us, on our dreams.“

“Bugundy,” her voice hitched. “I still dream about-“

“That’s all you do!” flickers of flame shone in her tears. “You dream and you imagine but you don’t believe! Tell me!” their voice cracked. “Do you believe there’s an out for us?”

Two cupped their face. There was anger there, but it stemmed from a lifetime of pains and despoilments. Aches she’d suffered. Hurts unresolved.

“I do,”

“Then why…” she pressed into Two’s collar. She brushed their hair.

“Because I’m afraid. I don’t want to hurt. and that’s so much easier when I forget the past for the present, and spurn future attachments. When I can focus on now and what needs to be done.”

“But it still hurts.”

“It does.

“Then why don’t you do anything. There are things to do now, people who can make a little bearable”

She opened her mouth. The presence behind her filled the air. It resonates with the words yet unsaid. “I worry. I’ll be disappointed again, and the people I let in will leave and I’ll be alone in the end.” The words brought a silent reverberation in the lake. She closed her eyes expecting the worst. Nothing happened, the presence remained behind her, and the water remained clear.

Burgundy looked over her shoulder with narrowed eyes. “Is that what you were going to pick.” The non sequitur dislodged Two’s dread before it could root. “You’d [ick this wretched thing over me.”

“This wretched thing wasn’t trying to kill my memories.”

She scoffed weakly.”Memories you ignore until their convenient”

“Maybe, but they’re mine. I can’t let them go.”

Silence fell and left Two seas. The black in the sky and the clear water she sat in. The latter blended into the former as the isle and burgundy’s meagre light faded. It was at once overwhelmingly vast and crushingly intimate. The lonely thing sat behind her, a lurking specter and a quiet presence outside her door,

She was confused a sentiment that had become all too familiar. Things moved so fast yet the seconds dragged. As if time had frozen in the aftermath of a punch to the face. She remembered the many bruises blooming across. The metaphor was awfully apt.

“I have a condition,” Burgundy said

Two looked at the girl embers and small wicks of flame beaded on her skin. “Does it involve me getting beaten up?”

She huffed. “No, unless you do something stupid.” Two raised a bow and gestured to her singed and bloody face. Specifically her broken nose. They averted their gaze. “No, you won’t get beaten up.”

“Thank you for your grace.”

They looked at Two’s still features and sighed. “You’re real annoying you know. We were having a heart to heart and you ruined it.” They huffed and rose. “I’ll make it short. I’ll let you refine me as you wish, but you have to remember every pain and slight, every single scar.”

Two struggled to her feet. You’ve gone from destroying to preserving. Why.”

“You’re running away from things and I cant accept that. I need you to pick something, give up or push forward.”

Two thought. It made twisted sort of sense. Act on anger or forget what hurt you. Drown in lonesomeness or be pushed by pain.

She looked at the girl who had wormed her way into her heart. Their hair and clothes sodded despite the embers that swirled about her. Her eyes were hard but she saw the vulnerability beneath.

She raised her hand. “Deal.”

They smiled. One of her unburdened smiles. She took her hand. “Deal.”

Then they melted into a ball of flowing flame and cinder. Colourful and bright it blazed a warmly tinted rainbow. Pinks and oranges, reds and yellows. Intersperse with streaks of black ash and char. It smelled like everything they were.