[ She reaches, haphazard and dizzy, for anything sharp, for anything painful. The shapes of it are almost familiar to her now, like the edges of a sharpened icon that one might wear around their neck to remind them of their piety. She knows the burning side. The things that he had thought, memories raised like dust, when she had invited him in to her vision of the burning world.
And like a dream she nearly forgot... She knows the ice as well. The crack of frozen water. A girl's cry.
The two sides of it begin to burgeon, half of the room going up in a suddenly blaze that reeks of burning flesh. The other begins to crystallize, more frigid than death itself, everything turning hard and lustrous. Both sides ache desperately, each biting in their own way, blistered flesh and blackened frostbite. Blood boils into steam, the coppery scent of it dispersing in the room. Reaching clawing hands frost over, solid, and shatter into thousands of tiny screaming pieces.
Each half eradicates itself, tearing itself limb from limb, blood and bone and sinew and permafrost.
Where they meet in the middle is explosive. A crackle of energy and despair that shakes all three of them to the core for what feels like forever, but is truly only a few more seconds longer--
And then it is done.
The hallucination breaks, a fever subsided, and Ilde sinks, her face in her hands. She makes a woozy sound, the real world spinning around her sickeningly. She shaking, quivering in every muscle and whispering, ]
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And like a dream she nearly forgot... She knows the ice as well. The crack of frozen water. A girl's cry.
The two sides of it begin to burgeon, half of the room going up in a suddenly blaze that reeks of burning flesh. The other begins to crystallize, more frigid than death itself, everything turning hard and lustrous. Both sides ache desperately, each biting in their own way, blistered flesh and blackened frostbite. Blood boils into steam, the coppery scent of it dispersing in the room. Reaching clawing hands frost over, solid, and shatter into thousands of tiny screaming pieces.
Each half eradicates itself, tearing itself limb from limb, blood and bone and sinew and permafrost.
Where they meet in the middle is explosive. A crackle of energy and despair that shakes all three of them to the core for what feels like forever, but is truly only a few more seconds longer--
And then it is done.
The hallucination breaks, a fever subsided, and Ilde sinks, her face in her hands. She makes a woozy sound, the real world spinning around her sickeningly. She shaking, quivering in every muscle and whispering, ]
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.