tritanopia | The Mandalorian

twenty-nine

The landscape was gray. Actually, that was a painful understatement. It was barren, and lifeless, and possibly the most eventful thing about it was the breeze rustling Fae's hair.  She wasn't actually looking at anything (not that there was actually anything to look at, anyway), but she wasn't moving, either. The sun was beginning to set and the flash of a memory of a beautiful sky flitted across Fae's mind, eyebrows flickering in recognition, before it was shortly snuffed out. As if it hadn't been hers to remember, and had been snatched back away from her.

Anyone who had never been to the planet, or never heard of it, which was basically the entire universe, would have probably deemed it uninhabitable if you showed them a photo of it. Even Fae, who had lived there her entire life, thought it resembled purgatory, or limbo. And maybe she would have believed that it was, if it weren't for the fact that she wasn't dead. She knew that she was alive.

How did Fae know she was alive? Pain. Constant pain.

It was strange, because it wasn't coming from anywhere in particular — nor could she remember exactly when it had started. It was just...there. Searing and unmissable and fresh...and yet also numb and aching, as if it had always been present. Familiar, somehow, almost in a comforting way.

But, apart from that pain, it was difficult for Fae to determine whether she was really awake or not...really alive, even. Because everything else was hazy.

Her fingertips tingled and she couldn't quite feel things the way she knew that she was supposed to.

She heard words that weren't said and missed things that were.

Around her vision was blurred and she swore she saw things out of the corners of her eye; a shadow in the corner, the glint of a knife in the mirror.

But perhaps the worst of all, was that this all seemed somewhat regular. Somehow...acceptable. Because Fae couldn't seem to remember it being any different, despite how strange she suddenly seemed to find it all. Her memory jumbled and altered. The pain had always been there, her hands had always shook, and she had never been able to remember the day before. That was the way she always recalled it being...despite the fact she couldn't remember anything.

Fae couldn't even remember how she ended up stood outside in the first place. Nor could she ever remember how she got back inside, but, there she was all of a sudden, stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

"Fae, are you listening?"

No, of course she wasn't. Fae didn't even know anybody was in the room with her -- let alone talking. When she finally decided to focus, it was almost as if she was looking in a mirror for a moment. For the eyes looking back at her were practically an exact carbon copy of her own -- such a vibrant blue that they almost seemed too good to be on the plant they were, and Fae always joked that she would be able to see them a mile away. And then there was the hair, which was longer than her own, and marginally straighter, but no less flaming orange (pink, to Fae), and striking against milky skin.

Despite this -- despite all this -- Fae still stared at the woman in the kitchen for a long moment, reeling her mind in order to pinpoint who it was. She knew them, loved them, she was sure of it -- absolutely sure of it. But all Fae's mind could draw up was a shattered mosaic of somewhat familiar features that didn't quite put the effort in to make sense. Like deja vu, except it wasn't merely momentary. It stained her mind -- refusing to go away.

"Hi, Mum."

Her lips had moved and yet she hadn't spoken. Not in Fae's mind, at least. The sound reached her ears and her lips brushed together and yet Fae wasn't the one who had spoken -- it was her body.