[i]"No."

The word doesn't come out as a fierce rebuke. Nor the iron declaration of a hero. Neither a sharp, surprised cry of denial. No, it is merely a sigh: resigned, weary, and disappointed.

"No. You are not in love."

Now that she's committed herself, there is nothing left to do but stand here after all. No more information to drink in. No more point in questioning the environment. Certainly no greater commit of effort could possibly be warranted, not in this ridiculous farce. There is nothing new to remember after all. This entire absurd sequence is nothing more than a repeated fragment of advice already offered. With perhaps a dose of delusions of grandeur mixed in.

As though there were anything of Heron in her. Or in the games she is constantly stuck playing, however little fun it still is. As if by following the signs she would magically receive an answer that satisfied her and armed her all at once. What should she honestly have expected besides more lies?

"No. You are not allowed to [b]be[/b] in love."

Even still she has not let go. She does not turn to watch the feathers and beak and mirrors. She does not prevent it from doing anything and she does not mark its arrival. She is finished collecting information. She does not slam this copy of Timtam into the wall, or kick her through the window, or adjust her grip to lessen the pain that she is causing, or fight to free herself from the vice grip of those legs, or escalate in any way, or back down from the instructions she has already committed to. 

She is holding on.

"No. You will not be given a chance."

Perhaps if she is lucky, this will turn out to have been a trap the whole time. This dream, that is. This... nightmare of disinformation and poor detective work. Perhaps if she is lucky, this will have triggered it. Perhaps if she is lucky, it will be the kind of trap that dissolves the world she is standing in to formless, bottomless void and she will fall forever without ceasing. 

With nothing to crash into and jolt her body awake. With nothing to watch and nothing to count and nothing to orient herself around and nothing to hear and nothing to smell and nothing to do except fall. Until she eventually forgets what falling is. And then thereafter to forget what forgetting is. And in the end to ****** what being is at all.

"No. You will never have a happily-ever-after."

Those sad, melted faces. Those names that have long since been burned to ash and ruin. Those who would if they could find it shake the sleeping body of one Eclair Espoir and beg her to return. Those who cannot find solace in one another, for they never even knew they shared the loss. Those reasons not to find peace in oblivion. 

Eclair clicks her tongue against her teeth. 

"No. You are not a monster. And I am not a hero."

Remembering is such a pain in the ass. She might at least have done herself the courtesy of dreaming up a notebook she could pass along to the great fool twitching in a pool where somebody plainly needed her eyes to open.

"Stop pretending these costumes suit us. The game is over, Timtam."[/i]