Chapter Text
Their name was Asra.
Asra Alnazar.
And my name was… unimportant.
I was unimportant.
Whenever I looked at myself in the mirror I was made wholly aware of this.
And whenever I looked at them, well the fact became even more apparent.
Though, whenever I would tell them this, they would rebuke me.
“Of course you’re important!” they'd insist.
Back then, I believed that was one of the few times they were wrong about something.
First off, I worked at a magic shop, yet I couldnt do magic well at all.
I was utterly incompetent while Master… Master was perfection.
They were powerful.
They were benevolent.
They were kind.
I learned this about them during the very first moments I spent with them.
It was just so… apparent.
When I had first awoken, they werent annoyed with how troublesome or confused, instead they took the time to teach me all that I didnt know.
They taught me how to walk.
They demonstrated magic and they taught me how to do that too, though I was always useless at it.
They even taught me what my personality really was.
What I used to be like and how to replicate it.
How I used to think.
How I used to speak.
Without them, I would have been an empty shell.
I wouldnt have known who I was.
They made me whole.
Gave me what I needed.
They comforted me when I hurt.
And when crowds would make my head burst open like stuffing being shoved into a pillow until its fabric ripped, they would lead me away and hold me in their arms.
They would comfort me as they pulled the extra stuffing out and stitched me back up with their spells.
They were perfect.
And how could I have measured up to that perfection?
That would have been impossible.
To be a magician, not even that, a PERSON who could stand equally to them was a dream I quickly gave up.
Instead, I settled for what I knew the likes of me could feasibly accomplish:
I was their accessory.
I knew that I was infinitely lucky to be as such, for the only way that I could ever shine was as a jewel that would adorn them.
And so I was.
Yet I never shone bright enough.
I always fell short of that brilliance required to be able to call myself a necklace or a crown worthy to be worn by someone so great, and so I fell in their shadow.
A ring left behind for good reason.
I had believed that had to be the reason they always left me behind when they traveled, no matter how much I pleaded.
Because I had failed to shine.
And who packs a ring that doesnt shine?
So, I constantly worked to better myself for them.
To shine.
I practiced magic until the spells were carved into my mind, only stopping when I would be rendered an empty and weak mess of pain, sprawled along the floor.
I made many new potions, getting only the best results as when I experimented with ingredients, I found that I was almost always the best test subject.
Sometimes it went wrong.
But I didnt care, if I got good results in the end that didnt matter.
I chipped and I cut away at myself so that I could shine just right and be worthy of being their Jewel.
I thought that
Maybe
Just maybe
If I worked enough
And bled enough
That one day, I would become their centerpiece.
A point of pride for them.
And they would stay by my side.
Well no, I knew that they would never stay.
Not permanently.
It just wasn't in their nature, to stay in one place.
But at the very least, I thought that they wouldnt leave me behind, when they DID leave.
I thought that one day, they'd take me with them, to whatever lands they visited.
I dreampt of lands with smooth sand and shady trees to shade us from the warm sun.
I dreampt of a warm smile spreading across their face as they saw me.
I dreampt of how proud they would be of me.
This dream kept me alive as I tore myself apart, alone in the cold shop.
Being there without them had always felt so lonely.
And on nights when the shop was far too cold, and I couldn't bear to go on with my refinement anymore, I would light up the fireplace and stare deep into its flames
And I would try to think about nothing.
Try to make my mind go completely blank and empty.
And sometimes it worked.
Those were the good nights, staring into the fire, stuffingless.
But oftentimes, it didnt.
And my mind would drift to and fro
Though most often it would drift to them
I would mull over every action they had taken during the time we had spent together when they had visited the shop last, as if trying to recreate the effect their likeness had on the gloomy shops atmosphere by reminiscence alone.
Unfortunately, this line of thought would force me to notice the rather… unusual patterns to their actions.
Why, I would wonder, did they always seem to hesitate to call my name.
And when finally they did call for me, why did it sound as if they were forcing out a word that was in some form a taboo to say.
Like it was a word that they had very much wanted to keep locked underneath their teeth.
Yet, in contrast, whenever I would call their name, as they turned around I had been so sure that I had seen their eyes light up with joy.
…Yet the moment their gaze truly landed on me, took me in, something that looked almost like fear would fill and corrupt the purple hue of their eyes before their gaze turned to an apathetic sort of interest once more.
And, many nights, when I knew that they would be coming back soon, I would sit idly on the window cill of the second floor window and lean my forehead on its glass.
I would keep the curtains mostly drawn, as to make sure they did not notice my presence above them if ever they did choose to look up.
When they arrived back, I would observe them as they prepared to enter the shop.
And every time, without fail, when they found themselves in front of the shop's doors once more, they would wait a moment before truly entering.
And they would simply look down.
They would simply stand there, their head hung low, sometimes for hours on end, before they entered.
And I could have sworn they were… crying.
Just softly crying in front of the shop.
As if they dreaded it.
Or maybe, they dreaded what, or who, waited inside.
Why?
Just WHY?
Why did they gaze at me so affectionately, yet look at me like something was wrong with me?
Like I held a form of wrongness that I could not wash off, a form of wrongness that even a beautiful shine would not distract from.
What happened?
Why did your hands shake when you held me?
You told me that before
We had known eachother
That we were close
And when you told me this I couldn't help but wonder if maybe I had done something then, something that I just unable to remember.
Something so bad that even then, I could not atone for it, and so bad that even then, no matter how hard you tried, you could not bear to fully forgive me.
But you had smiled such a genuine smile when you talked about how we used to be.
So why didnt you smile like that when you thought of us now?
Had I done something?
Something that warranted them treating me this way?
I wanted to know.
So, I had tried to ask them more about the past.
About what had happened to me.
About why I didn't remember.
And they had tried to tell me.
What a fantastic mistake that was, on both ends.
“Before you lost your memories…” They had started
That was all it took.
My strings ripped open
It was overflowing
Overpowering
Painful.
Very Painful.
I think the word for it would be… excruciating.
The sensation dripped down from my head onto the rest of my body.
At first I had thought I was lucky that my eyes had fallen dark and my body limp.
But I wasnt.
In all honesty, I would have preferred nothingness to what I got.
Nothing was what I had believed I would be getting when I passed out, I thought I was being given the gift of relief from everything.
That's what was supposed to happen when you passed out.
There was nothingness until you awoke, right?
There was not.
Instead, I was shoved into that timeless hell once more.
Trapped seeing my blurry, unreachable life flash before my eyes once more.
And so, once more, I sobbed.
And upon one gasp I awoke
I felt a sense of deja vu when I saw Asras head perched above mine, until I noticed that this time they were sobbing.
In that moment, I wondered what I looked like when I was sobbing that first time, when the roles were reversed.
But that thought didnt last long, as Asra opened their flooded eyes which met mine
Once more I saw them fill with that same overwhelming affection, followed by that same overwhelming fear and then that same overwhelming apathy.
Why did they look at me like that?
Why?
Why couldnt the affection in their eyes linger?
And so, just as before, they nursed me back to health.
And a year passed, with no real changes to anything taking place.
And I asked about who I used to be once more.
This time, Asra only got three words in before once more my strings ripped.
I recall that the second time, it didn't hurt quite as much.
Or maybe the pain was just the same as before, yet it simply seemed duller as it was not a shiny or new sort of pain.
Either way
This time
I could hear just a bit
See just a bit
I held onto my consciousness as I overflowed
And through my blurred eyes and the ripping sensation which covered me like a blanket, I saw Asra’s lips shift upwards to curl into a small smile as a sigh of relief exited their mouth.
Even as I collapsed to the ground, as I was forced back into my personal hell, somehow that action hurt me far more.
This small action had confirmed a suspicion that I had long held, yet never fully embraced: Asra was hiding something from me.
After I awoke, I tried to ignore the nagging thought.
I tried to lie to myself, say I simply imagined it.
I tried so SO hard to forget that small action that I had seen and heard in those few moments.
But your mind cannot let go of a truth it has already accepted.
And so
I knew.
And I wondered.
If I even wanted to know this secret of theirs?
But on the otherhand, ignoring a truth does not make it a lie.
And from that moment on, my path was drawn and I could never go back.