Fingers moved slow across old wood, feeling shapes worn soft by time - roses cut deep into bed legs, loops twisted tight like braided rope along the tall cupboard. A desk sat close to glass, empty except for a stiff bottle of ink and a bent pen tip turned brittle and rusted. Marks on its top hinted at letters once pressed hard through sheets, shadows of sentences now faded, their sense soaked up by age and stillness.
Her fingers traced the chill of the wall, brushing over old stonework - gritty seams of dried paste between slabs, the slick bite of rock beneath. Deep inside the opening where windows sat, her whole forearm vanished, shadows crowding around colored glass like it belonged to another space entirely. Made for lasting attacks. Meant to hold back whatever came close.
Might be better just holding onto stuff instead.
Above the mantel, fixed between flickering wall brackets, hung an old mirror thick with detail. It caught flame glow when lit, sending shimmer across cracked plaster. Dark timber shaped the edges, twisted into blossoms like those on the chair backs and door panels. Standing close, she could see all of herself - from boots to braid - without stepping back. Height matched hers almost exactly, broad without being heavy.
Cloudy from years passing, the mirror's surface wasn't just dirty - it had changed deep within. The backing behind the glass, once smooth and bright, had warped slowly through time, forming blotches like old stains in pond scum. When she stood in front of it, what showed was soft at the edges - her form there, yet drifting, as if seen through steam. Shapes remained, yes, though nothing sharp enough to name an eye, a mouth, a nose.
A hush pulled her forward, a quiet push she didn't question - her face drifting near the fogged pane till warmth from her mouth blurred the cold. Then, sight locked. Stillness gripped muscle and marrow alike.
A shape stood missing where she expected to see herself. Not foggy, not smudged - simply vanished. Behind her, the walls lived on in the frame: bed tucked near the corner, fire low in the hearth, light through the pane falling across wood grain of the desk. Yet her outline didn't appear, her eyes refused to meet hers, nothing took form where presence demanded proof. Everything else settled into view just fine - just not her.
Wait - something felt off. Her fingers shifted, yet the glass showed a pale figure stirring deep within its surface, not mirroring her now but lagging behind, like a memory slipping through. This version didn't match. Not exactly. It stood her height, shaped similarly, still - it wore strange clothes, older somehow, unfamiliar in cut and fabric. Even the way it held itself seemed quieter, more contained. Hair fell differently there, too, not how hers hung today. A shift, slight but undeniable.
Beyond the pale shape in the glass, the space shifted, though it kept its walls, its window, its stone chimney. Same outline, yet filled now with things someone used daily, touched often - a lived-in feel. A blaze glowed in the grate, casting a soft amber pulse across surfaces. There, just past the faint form, stood a man. His gaze locked onto the reflection, sharp and steady like when he stared at Historia near the front door
Down she landed, jolted by what leapt out at her from the glass - her spine hit air, then floor. Fingers clawing the ground kept her upright somehow. Each breath tore through like a snagged thread. That pulse hammered everywhere: jawbone, eyelids, even where her hair met skin.
A fogged pane stared back at her now. Gone was whatever flicker passed through before, real or imagined.
Out of nowhere, the mirror seemed to carry whispers. This idea floated up inside her, quiet and strangely clear, a usual reaction when panic pressed close - not quite normal, but familiar. Fear did this trick on purpose. It swapped chaos for cold thinking since thoughts fit into boxes, lines, patterns, something you could hold, while raw dread had teeth and fed without warning.
Fragments of time clung to the surface, each reflection stacked beneath the next. Hints of voices lingered where light touched the frame, old gestures reappearing when shadows shifted just right. Moments from long ago pressed forward, not fading but waiting - preserved in layers built from silence and stillness, shaped by what hands once polished, breath fogged, eyes studied deep within.
Strange it felt, yes. Unnerving, too, not just odd. From where her studies led her, nothing before had come close - this took its place at the front.
She was losing her mind.
Up she stood, careful, spine turned toward the mirror, then stepped toward the high windows. Through the colored panels, everything outdoors became a puzzle of tinted shards - swathes of deep blue, forest green, golden brown - giving just hints of the moonlit terrain in blurred suggestion. Yet when she brought her face near a modest patch of untouched glass down low - one plain square spared from paint - what lay beneath snapped into view.
Beneath her, the trees spread wide, a thick tangle vanishing into distance on all sides, like night water moving slow. Shifting moonlight touched the uneven roof of leaves without revealing edge, trail, open space, or glow - not one sign of people, towns, help.
High above, maybe four floors, maybe five. From the window, the castle's stone cliffs plunged down - smooth, empty, nothing to grab, nowhere to step. Under those walls, sharp rocks tumbled into woods below, tangled with prickly bushes. Moving through that mess would be hard in full light, harder still for someone who had never climbed before.
Impossible to run away. Down below, the drop from the window stretched far too steep. Ahead, the space between tower and town felt endless. Then there was the woods - thick, strange paths, bitter air, night without stars. Worse still, she now knew it wasn't just wild animals out there. Something else lived inside, something older than reason. It bent what should be real. Had watched. Waited only for her. Her coming here? Not chance. A moment long prepared.
Jin Yeager again. Should she somehow slip from the chamber, evade the fortress, make it past the slope - still he'd outrun her. Outmatch her. The land lived inside him like breath; its paths etched deep through endless years, his presence tangled in soil and stone just as tree roots grip dark ground. Capture wasn't a question of if. More a matter of when. His waiting didn't stretch endlessly - it simply didn't exist. Time bent toward him anyway.
Fog rose where her breath met the window, stilling her thoughts. The pane held a quiet chill beneath her skin.
Think, Historia. Think.
---
Time melted without edges. Overhead, the moon crept sideways, peeking through stained panes in uneven flashes - once turquoise, then gold, later a bruised crimson that turned light into something sore. Around her, the walls murmured like tired bones, whispering under centuries of pressure - not silence but breath held too long. Wood cracked low. Stones nudged one another deeper into place. Far off, metal shook where wind found weakness.
Maybe staying put isn't right. Maybe it's different altogether. There was a pulse in those noises - an order behind them, not just creaking from shifting walls, but purpose woven into each sound. Like the fortress drew breath. Not alive like people say old places are, haunted by past voices, but actually living - flesh-like structure made of rock, timber, metal. Shaped by whoever lived inside, shaped by their thoughts and shifts, much as arms move when someone decides to lift them.
Inside the stone walls moved a presence. That presence answered to Jin Yeager. Not housed within, but forming part of it - the structure breathed through him. Walls rose where his thoughts settled. Floors held weight because he allowed them to. A shape under heavy blankets stirs slightly. Historia sits curled at the center of the vast bed, legs drawn close. Her gaze cuts across black air. This room does not contain her. She exists inside something alive.
She was inside him.