💾 Archived View for tilde.club › ~smallbird › writing › dejavu.gmi captured on 2024-07-09 at 01:13:35. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2024-03-21)
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(original prompt: "magical girl who can't answer 'who are you' comfortably anymore")
Woke up crying again.
Looked for the notebook next to the bed. Wasn't there, but phone was. Opened the notes app and looked at the list there, trying to remember if all the entries looked familiar.
Gave up. Started a new note.
Dream: I'm the princess. A man who loves me, crouching in a field. He's picking flowers to make a crown. I weave them into the circlet. He takes the crown and starts to place it on my head, and it feels impossibly heavy. His face is blurry. I realize I was holding someone's hand who I couldn't see but they've let go.
Still don't know what it meant. Why tears?
This mantle has past lives. Knew that from the start, but not what it meant. Every night: dreams of faraway and impossible places. Stars hanging too low in the sky. Spires of gold and crystal. A floating castle. Cares and loves and fears. There used to be a princess, who died. There used to be a hero, who also died. And now...
Didn't keep a good enough diary, before this. Entries from then feel alien and distant. Should have put in more detail to make it feel more real. No tears or elation or anxiety for homework or lovesickness or sports anymore, but on waking it all comes surging back. Love. Fear. Rage. For a few moments, all-consuming.
Friends aren't around much anymore, except one. Karin; worried. Suggested a doctor but unsure what that could do. And—Karin's face uncomfortably familiar. Unsettling. Besides, too busy; enemy attacks increasing. Mysterious man who shows up at convenient moments keeps hinting knowledge, but still wary. Heart hurts to look at him.
Stars are too close again.
Feel like every time it's more the mantle; like every time pieces are replaced. Can't tell for sure but can't stop, though. Needed. And—don't know what would happen. Keep thinking about the parasites that control motor systems from science class.
Unsure if dreams make it worse or better. Feels like they want something but don't know what. Keep having outbursts of emotion at things and don't know why. Didn't have much to be angry about before. Familiar says no one knows what happened to the past ones; that everything happened too quickly and came crashing down. Can't help but wonder if it's a warning.
Should go back to sleep. Should go back to sleep, but—
In the moonlight, there, on the windowsill. A crown of freshly-picked flowers.