Dancing on Strings

Eyes Wide Open

Mai sat on a white velvet bench she conjured up in the middle of the mannequins' hall, her sisters around her, frozen and beautiful and wholly unhelpful as tears poured down her face and she held herself tight to stop her hyperventilation shaking her apart.

What did she do?

What did she do?!

Her sisters were locked underground and what could they do even if she brought them upstairs? If she even could.

Kazimir was dying. Why hadn't he told her? How long did he actually have? He couldn't help her again.

And Griffin.

Griffin was dead.

Griffin was dead?

He couldn't be!

Part of him had to still be alive, somewhere. If the second personality that existed in his body had survived, he had to be somewhere.

He couldn't be dead!

The click of high heels on the floor behind her signalled Angelique's approach and Mai looked up as Angelique settled an arm around her shoulders.

"Oh sweetheart," Angelique muttered, coming around the bench and sitting down beside her. "I heard what happened."

"Why did he do it?" Mai whispered, looking down, gripping her hands together.

"Reve? He panicked, darling. You shook the very ground beneath the gods, it wasn't what he expected. But he also didn't expect Griffin to choose you over himself."

"He's a god, how can he not foresee these things?"

Angelique let out a breath, looking at the cases around them.

"He's not... exactly a god anymore," she said.

Mai glanced at her.

"He was, of course. The God of Dreams, as you know. But, as you also know, he's dying. But that doesn't mean he's simply going to one day cease to live, like humans. He will, of course, but as he dies, his powers go with him... and he's becoming mortal."

Mai looked at her, startled. "He's becoming like us? A human?"

"Essentially, yes. One day he'll be less than a shadow of what he was and then he'll vanish. One day you'll be more powerful than him. He cannot stop the march of time, but he has certainly slowed it down. However, having grown up knowing so very much of what is to come, he now struggles to predict people's actions when he doesn't simply 'know'."

"Wait? I'll be more powerful? He'll simply go away one day? When?"

"Oh, we have a long time to wait yet," Angelique said, getting to her feet and drifting to one of the cases of one of her sisters. "It could still be thousands of years yet in the way we perceive time."

Mai looked away. "I don't have that long," she muttered.

"No, you don't," Angelique said.

They were quiet for a while as they both looked towards their sisters.

Mai's eyes eventually drifted towards Kazimir's case.

"Is he really dead?" she asked.

Angelique looked at her, then looked towards Kazimir.

"Griffin," Mai clarified.

"Ah, well... I don't know," Angelique said, "Speaking logically, he's was dead long before you or I were even born."