The Goddess and the Bird

Oh, Wren

I haven't stopped thinking about the girl since I saw her sitting down by the lake a week ago. She had always intrigued me, not only with her beauty but also by the enchanting darkness that surrounded her.

She'd walk through the halls with her head down, silky dark hair covering cheeks streaked with black running makeup. Her robes always pulled tight around her body, as if trying to shrink her already tiny self. I guess I felt pulled towards her since we were polar opposites.

Me with my hair piled on top of my head which made me have an even larger presence, I was already tall but this made me unignorable. I hated it, I wished I could disappear into a crowd like she did.

She always seemed so unimaginably sad too, it made me want to wrap her in my arms and protect her from whatever had harmed her. We had met eyes across the Great Hall a couple times, or passing in the corridor, and I'd always smiled at her. But her already mourning face would deepen its frown and turn away.

And then I saw her by the lake, she was crying, sitting on a boulder, knees tucked in and hunched over herself. It felt eerily familiar and it made the back of my head prickle. I would have approached her but someone was calling me and I wouldn't want to scare her anyways.

Ever since then she plagues me—well plaguing isn't quite the right word since I do quite enjoy having her face in my mind. I have never felt more sure of anything in my life, and this is the fact that we know each other, but that is simply impossible. Yet she feels so familiar and I ache for her.

Unfortunately, she has taken this week to disappear off the face of the earth, I want so desperately to approach her, talk to her. I need to know if she's pulled to me just as I'm pulled to her. Maybe we were friends before the accident. But wouldn't anyone have told me we were friends? I was reminded of all my past relationships, not once was she mentioned.

I'm walking the near empty corridors to get back to my dorm, although I'm taking the longest route possible so that maybe I'll glimpse that ebony hair covering a porcelain face.

I round the corner and there's a throng of students, chatting loudly and cheerily. I grit my teeth to push my way through, crowds were never my favorite. Someone knocks into me from the side but catches my arm before I fall. Their hand is smotheringly warm but within a flash it's cold and soothing. I look up and meet dark eyes and the harshly gorgeous face of—you.

Come on Taisiya, let's get out of the crowds, I know somewhere way better.

Anywhere with you is a better place.

It's right around the corner here, see nice and quiet.

Wren, this is the Charm's classroom, we cant be in here without a teacher!

I thought you wanted peace and quiet, did I not deliver properly, your majesty?

Oh, Wren. The doctors told me the memories could come pack in painful flashes, but this one is the longest memory revival I've had so far and therefore the most agonizing. There's hammering in my brain and I almost double over with sudden nausea. I knew my gut feeling had to be right, I do know you, I have to find you, I-

My vision fades into focus, splotchy, but better than nothing. I see the lights of the hospital wing straight above me and the roughness of the hospital cot beneath my back. Merlin not again, the amount of times I've woken up here is absurd and mildly infuriating. It seems as if almost anything can set me off on a fainting spree nowadays.

Wren! I bolt upright and then immediately feel queasy again and I remember what made me faint in the first place, the memory with you.

I need to leave this room, I need to search the entire castle, I need to be near you.

More memories have trickled in and with them come the tears. How could I forget everything we had? How could I leave you like that? I have to find you, I have to apologize, I need you in my arms.

We were in love. No, we are in love. I love you Wren and now that I remember everything will be okay, we can go through with our plans. We can face everything that comes our way, it will be okay because we will be together.

Im racing through the halls as fast as my body will let me but it's fast enough because I'm no where near to finding you.

Then there's a tugging in my stomach, my gut.

I stop cold in my tracks and now the only thing racing is the goosebumps all over my body. Something's happened. Something's happened to you. This surety, this knowledge, weighs me down like a boulder.

I know which way I have to go to get to you now, but I'm not sure my legs will take me there. But then I'm nearing the courtyard and I can hear the gasps, the murmurs.

"Is that Wren Nyctio?"

Is that Wren, is that Wren, is that Wren?

"Did someone jump from the tower?"

Jump from the tower, jump from the tower, jump from the tower.

"Is she dead?"

Dead, dead, dead.