𝗡𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗘 , sophiana

𝟬𝟮

EDALINE PULLED SOPHIE INTO A HUG, CONCERN IMPLODING IN HER EYES. "Your echoes are back?" she repeated.

"That's what Elwin said." Sophie nodded. She shuffled her feet nervously. "I don't know what he saw, but after that, he just told me to keep him updated if I get any more of the same nightmares or shivers I used to."

"You'd better tell us, too," Grady chimed in. His face had turned pale, and he was fiddling with the newest edition of the newspaper all the elves seemed to read. Sophie didn't think it was particularly smart for that to be the main way of carrying news around the Cities, but she supposed the elves were old fashioned in more than one sense.

"I will," Sophie promised.

"No more secrets, remember?" Edaline said, squeezing the younger elf's shoulders.

"I remember," Sophie answered, a small smile spreading across her cheeks.

"Why don't you go up to your room and finish your homework now? Grady's making some lajida squares for dinner," Edaline told her gently.

"I am?" Grady asked in confusion from the table.

Edaline sent him a look. "I'm going to help Juline at Slurps and Burps tonight. The gnomes brought over some fresh lajida roots today, so I figured we could do something with that."

"Okay," Grady nodded, but he seemed a little afraid.

"Wait, but didn't Grady mix up that stuff you make mallowmelt with into the soup the last time he tried to make dinner?" Sophie chimed in, quirking an eyebrow. "The stew tasted like burnt corn."

"Good point," Grady said. "Maybe we can have salad."

"While you figure that out," Edaline said, "I have to go get ready. Kesler's out stocking up for the store, so Juline needs me to help with the shift. See you both tonight."

* * *

Pensively, Sophie sat in her room, legs crossed on her bed. Her echoes couldn't be back. . . Could they really?

"You're gone," she whispered to herself. "You can't hurt me. Not anymore."

The reigning terrors of her echoes should have faded away, little but remnants remaining from those nightmares. She abhorred even those, but knowing the full product could come back at any time— truthfully, it quite scared the girl. And why shouldn't it? The horrible deeds committed against the elf, twisting fears into deep pits of true despair— it would scare anybody. It would simply be strange if it didn't. And yet, Sophie wished beyond anything that she could just ask a Washer to scrub away the pain that dragged her down. It was the cowardly move, she thought, purposefully forgetting everything that happened.

But how could she even think for one second that it would solve everything? Her echoes would come back and taunt her nonetheless, whether or not she could forget; they would come back to haunt her.

She fiddled with her fingers, staring down at her knuckle. The bone pressed into her skin, little dips and rises upon every finger. The way the round little stumps wove over and under the base of her jointed parts. 

Her index finger skimmed over the curves of the bone in her hand. All she could think about now, observing her now healed knuckle, was how Umber hadn't hesitated to shatter nearly every bone in her body to get her to break. And oh, how she longed for the pain to be over.

But Umber kept going, darkness threading through Sophie's mind and each pop! and snap! gradually moving up to implosions of the bones that held her up.

She hadn't backed down, tears streaking down her face as the words Umber wanted to force out of her formed on the back of her tongue, ready to speak them. Unimaginable horrors danced in her mind at what would happen should she bring those words to life, despite the actuality of the horrors tormenting her then. She couldn't— wouldn't— let Umber's torture work. The Neverseen couldn't be successful, no matter what. The entire time, she forced herself to remember happy memories, memories the Neverseen could never take from her. Memories that made her uniquely Sophie Foster.

The time she and Amy had played ding dong ditch together, laughing behind the trash cans as they listened to their elderly neighbor Dorothea call for whoever had rung the doorbell. The time her human family had gone to Disneyland and waited forever in line, but their father had managed to make a fun game out of it. The time Edaline and Grady had moved on from their dead daughter, and realized they wanted to adopt Sophie into the family, knowing that while they couldn't bring Jolie back, Sophie was their second chance.

So she kept going, kept standing while Umber kept trying to break her. Sophie Foster, the Moonlark— she was supposed to be their weapon. The Black Swan's main asset.

Assets aren't supposed to be to easy to almost reveal their organization's darkest secrets. They can't let their tongues slip through the pain, no matter what.

Impacts are momentary, but opened secrets last forever.

Even if Sophie was just a teenager. Just a child that shouldn't be roped into all this, shouldn't have to experience any of this— but it happened anyway.

But all she was was a statue filled with cracks. Vulnerable. Breakable. Easy to get into. Nothing like what they wanted her to be.

Sophie wiped her eyes with the back of her hands, her whole being tremoring and quaking. Her toes twitched furiously, as if an organ piano was playing in the background and increasingly each twitch happened faster than the last, moving with each rising note.

She couldn't hear her cries over the screams replaying in her mind.

She didn't notice when she collapsed back into the bed, legs unfurling and spreading out like a baby bird's wings when just beginning to fly— and when that baby bird couldn't, and crashed.

And she didn't notice when Grady Ruewen sat on the bed, hugging her and frantically asking her what was wrong.

Sophie Foster wasn't strong. And her echoes' comeback were surely making her weaker.