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Cyrene puts her hand in his, palm smaller, more fragile, more delicate than his ever was.
A girl as delicate as flower-petals dancing upon the wind.
In the future, she would of had to stand on her tippy-toes to reach the base of his neck, to attempt to wrap her arms around his neck as if they were younger.
She reached up, up, up to reach the Sun, but found it’s light was no more then a mere illusion.
Except while Phainon returned to wherein they began after once more a long and arduous journey, she never changed, never grew— not even so little as an inch.
“Cyrene.”
She hummed everything so slightly, just to herself, leaning back to let her imaginary partner hold her in a dip, flesh and memory entwined in a never ending dance.
“Haha, I caught you! Now you have to tell me the ending of that story! You promised after all!”
Her pace does not falter, her feet do not make so much as a single missstep. Her crystalline partner does the same, mirroring her movements with such a grace the one it was created in the image of had never managed to capture, always stumbling over his own feet.
“You’ve grown, huh? Look at you, all capable of dancing so flawlessly as this.”
There is no answer. Cyrene smiles knowingly, lets go the hand she was dancing along with. “But those flaws are what make us human, aren’t they?”
Porcelain skin, eyes encapsulating the halo of midday under the Sun’s gaze. He never smiled. He always smiled, no matter how much he had to go through.
“This dance is over. It’s a bit like that one story, that one where the clock strikes midnight,” She giggles to herself, chasing her hands behind her back and turning to face the outstretching ‘sky.’ She smiles once more, a knowing kind of smile. “Did you enjoy the performance? I suppose for an audience of one, watching the same show over and over may grow… dull, to say the least.”
Clapping, a voice not of natural origins fill her ears.
“While the end result may be the same, the way it is reached most certainly is not. I’m that sense, you have once more put on quite the impressive performance.”
It’s time to take the bows, to bid the crowd farewell. But first, the curtain must rise once more, for we have been but backstage this whole time.
Footsteps echo— not metal, not crystallized memory. Human. Real — or rather, as real as it can be . No one speaks. The backstage crew smiles, the audience watches, and the performer takes center stage once more.
“Bravo, bravo indeed. Moving, truly. I almost shed a tear.”
The two stand upon the stage, glancing down at the lone witness to their never ending saga.
“Now then, shall we get back to what we were doing? Encore, I do say. Encore.”
The curtains fall and music starts once more. Somewhere, fluorescent lights go out, just like the Sun itself had, has, would.
Cyrene takes a small bow, backstage where no one can see her before taking out her pen.
“Did you know? For this particular encore, I have something special planned. This time, I will make sure it goes as I’ve written.”
Her pen meets paper, inscribing the first line, the poetry of creation that is to reshape the pair’s eternal story.
“After all, this is a story of a bygone era, of the twelve who never became heroes… it is a tale as simple as that.”