Chapter Text
The Orphan walks in the rain and the Child Soldier accompanies her. They leave barefoot footprints in the mud.
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The Orphan does not remember how much has passed since the first time she was in the rain, how much since the world changed forever, but still remembers every drop. She remembers the water on the skin, in the hair, the mud under the feet and the world that suddenly contracts. Dilates. The world was a rubber band and someone had just pulled it and let it go, but nothing could have gone back to the way it was. The Orphan didn’t know any of this. The Orphan only walked, then the world changed and the mud was no longer under her feet but against her back and the rain no longer flowed on the skin but in the eyes. Lying against the sky, the Orphan had remained motionless to observe the world, first the old one, disappeared one contraction at a time, then the new one, born one beat after another. She doesn’t know how long it’s been since then, she doesn’t know how long she’s been lying there watching the sky, watching in the rain. Back when it was The Child. When she still did not know that she too changed as the world, forever, and maybe that’s why the Orphan does not remember, because maybe it was in the rain her first breath, her first cry and The Child died so that she could open her eyes for her. Sometimes she wonders if the Child Soldier would have looked for her anyway, if she had never become the Orphan, if she had never changed and the world with her. Sometimes she deludes herself that she sought her and not her world, that she found her in the rain because she was the one she wanted. Sometimes she deludes herself that she can be the world, a small world, for one person only, one who does not want to change again, one who would like to stay forever like this, freeze this moment and remain to observe it in the rain until every sun goes out.
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The Child Soldier doesn’t remember what it’s been like since the first time she realized she was watching the world from behind her eyes. Since she felt air in the lungs and the pleasure that gives a breath. Since she felt the mud under her feet and the feeling of being touched. Had never felt rain on her skin, the Child Soldier. She had never felt its taste on her tongue. She’d never heard the sound of it in his ears. Something inside her never allowed, something between her and her body, transparent, icy, something she couldn’t slam her fists into because her fists were beyond the glass, something she couldn’t scream at, because her mouth was beyond the glass, Something she couldn’t fight, because if her body was beyond the glass, then who was she on this side? The Child Soldier felt nothing. The Child Soldier felt nothing the first time she met the Orphan.
"Are you alone?"
Nothing when she shook her hands around hers, the heat was just against her hand and how much she wanted to be able to reach her hand.
"What’s your name?"
But she couldn’t.
"You don’t know? I don’t know my name either!"
She couldn’t hear her voice. The Child Soldier was just the dream of existing, an impossible dream, enclosed in a body she could not hear.
"It means we can be friends!"
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The Orphan did not resign. It does not matter that the White Haired Child did not speak. It does not matter if she barely looked at her. It doesn’t matter if she couldn’t even listen to her. The Orphan couldn’t let go of the White Haired Child, she couldn’t stop shaking her soft hand between her fingers, she couldn’t stop filling every silence with a word. She couldn’t stop saying goodbye to every look with a smile. The Orphan didn’t know where the White Haired Child came from, why she wouldn’t talk, who she was, what happened to her. The Orphan only knew that she did not want to be alone. A little more than a groan in a flood that never stopped falling. That’s why the Orphan did not stop shaking her hand. That’s why she did not stop walking. That’s why she did not stop talking. Because maybe every word, every step, every smile, could hide the tears that even the endless rain could not hide. And why wouldn’t she want someone to share her secret?
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"Look."
The Child Soldier was lying on her back next to the Orphan. she didn’t know why, even though she couldn’t feel the rain in her eyes or the mud on her back, she didn’t understand why the Orphan wanted this. Why she wouldn’t stop talking, stop pointing.
"Look, focus, I’m sure you can see it too."
The Child Soldier wanted to ask her what, what she should see, but was it really her she was talking to? Could she really see, answer? No, the Orphan could not know that she existed, that she watched the world from afar, captive in herself. She was talking to her body, of course, so it was pointless for her to force herself, needless for her to try to see.
"You can see it, right?"
Did the rain... pulse? The rain shone. How she wanted to be able to take it out of her eyes to keep seeing, to try to understand what she was looking at, to be able to understand that light.
"Don't lose sight of it, but don’t look at it, you don’t have to look at the rain, look between the rain."
And the Child Soldier saw. She saw the light shining on the world, like another sun but hidden inside things, not above. A sun that cast shadows, that gave direction, that illuminated and allowed to see. Between the Rain.
"I see it."
The Child Soldier did not realize that she had spoken.
"What is it?"
The Orphan smiled, but never looked away from the sky
"It's the world, the new world."
The Child Soldier didn’t realize she was looking at her, not with ShadowColoursLight still in her eyes.
"It’s beautiful."