Lysandra
Every face wears a mask
His eyes caught her first. Not the color—though they were arresting, deep and bright as polished emeralds—but the calm beneath them. It wasn’t the absence of feeling she saw, but the steadying of it, as though he held the whole tide of his heart still by sheer will. A mask of a different kind, and a better one, perhaps. She wondered how long he’d worn it.
When he said hope, her lips curved beneath the porcelain, unseen but certain. Hope was the braver choice. The harder one.
She didn't comment on it though, only lowering her head slightly in acknowledgment.
The flute rose, and her first breath into it was light as a sigh. The melody began immediately—clean, but unhurried notes that settled like falling droplets on still water. The fountain answered her again, this time the sound was that of delicate harp tones, each one shimmering faintly.
Then the music began to grow, like dawn taking hold. Her illusions wove themselves into it, subtle and seamless: the fire’s embers lifting into the air and opening into bright petals, drifting weightlessly; the shadows around them softening into warm gold and pale rose; the scent of salt and something green, like rain far away.
The song stretched on, persistent, building toward a brightness that could almost make a body forget the chill. Around them the air seemed to breathe in time, and even the lulls between felt full of life.
When at last the melody began to fade, it did so sweetly; the gentle end of something that had lived and breathed and was ready to rest. The last petals dimmed into sparks, the water fell back into its natural rhythm, and Lysandra lowered the flute.
She exhaled, the breath slipping past her lips in a way that betrayed what the mask would not—the fatigue that came from giving so much for so long.
“There,” she said softly, her recovery quick. “Thank you, for listening.”
A pause, and then, as if his earlier request had only just reached her through the lingering hush, she added with a trace of quiet humor: “As for my name—you may call me Lysandra.”
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