Chapter Text
Alfred Ashford lives in a castle of glass. His current life is translucent and unreal and he can see through to the mornings and mistakes and regrets of his past.
He can clearly see himself in his childhood, his girlhood, when he spurned dolls and asked for test tubes and beakers instead. He can remember his brother's face and how it could have been his face. They were like funhouse mirrors endlessly reflecting each other.
But a part of him, a small part, knows that this isn't right or correct. The childhood he remembers is Alexia's, not his. He's slowly drowning in his sister or maybe she's slowly and completely engulfing him like an amoeba pouring itself around a smaller single-celled being. He was always the smaller one of them, if not physically then emotionally.
She was the body and he was a mole on her thigh or the back of her neck. She was the voice and he was the echo that came after. She was the light, always the light burning with impossible brightness, and he was the smoke that came from whatever she burned up.
He knows that he's not much now. His sister is gone.....not dead but gone and he can't hear her guidance or laugh or see the way she smiles when an experiment has gone well and something human is changing into something more (or less) thanks to her. Alfred Ashford lives alone in every important way. It doesn't matter that he has servants or exists on an island filled with staff and soldiers and prisoners. He is the real prisoner and trapped alone in his isolation.
So he lets his sister become his ghost and at first, she haunts his memories and then possesses him. He's thankful for it. He still exists somewhere in his mind. He lives life but mostly as her now. It's terrible. It's wonderful.
He tries not to think about it as he dresses slowly and deliberately for dinner. Not in the red jacket and white trousers, no, not today. He feels Alexia in his mind, choosing tonight's outfit, and he reaches for the long white gloves instead. They'll go perfectly with the purple silk of his dress.