cascade | kotlc

8. I Remember That Night, I Just Might

 this is probably the biggest plot twist (? plot device?) in this entire fic. but trust me, there's a reason! very important

tw: transphobia

-

It was bright. Undescribably bright. So, so, so incredibly bright, and there were no words that could possibly capture the unsettling, the impossible, the absolute radiance that shone from the golden light, daffodil, buttery, amber sunshine dancing over her eyes.

It blinded her. Scorched her retinas and seared her irises, burnt across her lashes and turned them to smoldering cinders that burst up in strands of wispy smoke that drifted away. Even the dark mist was invisible in the light as it cast its scattering beams in this wormhole of illumination.

Tick-tock. Well, it couldn't particularly be described as a tick-tock. It was more a series of persistently echoing gongs, a million chimes of a clock tower, except all the rings were compacted into a single fraction of a second. There were two sounds to it, and the second one resonated the first, almost harmonizing but so distantly dissonant. It jangled like windchimes and roared like the rush of water, and it clanged like steely light. Tick-tock, tick-tock; tick-tock. A third toll, perhaps, as it echoed.

The light showed no sight of fading as its hue turned warm and orange, like a flame, gentle like a shimmering candle, tick-tock, and vicious like a wildfire that consumed everything. Toasty air streamed over her, pleasantly, as if the tropical wind of a seaside beach, cozy and temperate, tick-tock, and she could almost feel the water lapping against her heels.

But it certainly didn't last, when frigid air overpowered the heat and the brilliance slithered away in a thousand tendrils of dying light that dissolved into the shadows. Faye was left in a dark night, the moon gone, a gleaming white-marble mansion before them.

There were still the chimes, tick-tock. It almost reminded her... almost reminded her... of that night. No, it couldn't be...

Tick-tock. The chimes rang again, deep, in pace with the shattering of stone as debris rolled off a cliff some leagues away. Dust billowed as the shards struck the field below and grass bloomed in a fog of hazy brown.

Two children, a girl and a boy, both with twinkling blonde hair. Tick-tock. One, the girl, with red blotches streaks running through her neatly cropped hair, and the boy sported a plain cut with specifically styled hair and a headpiece.

Oh, no...

- J. R.

June blinked as her eyes adjusted to the new light.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. Warm and inviting, as the summer skies, and June shivered in the night wind as she bundled her cape around her and leaned into Fitz's embrace, letting his warmth tickle her skin.

The two children danced, their arms flowing delicately, the colored stripes in their hair fluttering as the wind stroked their shoulders and whipped their loose sleeves against their elbows. Silk twirled in the night, around their necks and hands, and the girl laughed joyously.

"I wish it could always be this way," she murmured, sporting a pouty face as she flopped onto the boy's shoulder, her hair hanging loose over her face. "But I have to go to Fox~fire. Bo~ring."

The boy crossed his hands. "You're lucky. I wanna go to Foxfire."

"Ugh, no you don't," the girl gagged, pretending to vomit as she draped her hands over the boy and tilted up his chin, his pale skin especially white in the luminescent moonlight. "School is bo~ring."