estdeus_innobis | The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours Even in the moment that we call them ours.

Friday, May 21, noon
The garden behind the Whitechapel

I awake in my bed…no, our bed, with Valmont next to me and the familiar walls of our apartment around us. It feels right, and yet not right at all, with the memories of the last three days in my mind.

It is like the day we lost our memory, and the days we lived in a dream, except that we can remember all of it.

I remember the vague contentment and unease of my days - no, months - living at Mab's. I was content, yes, but I was not happy.

I remember Valmont being too young for me, too callow and irresponsible, for he had always had…his sister to look out for him. His intelligent beautiful sister, whom he loved and lost, and now has loved and lost again.

This is why we should not wish. Wishes make us the playthings of the gods, for they give us what we desire, and then twist it to become our misery instead. I would think Eris behind this - but, no. It is the thing in the Tower. It always is.

Valmont went out in the early morning, too restless to stay in the house. I tried to go to the library, but I could not focus. Not with the chatter of everyone around me, not with the clamor of people asking for books of fairy tales and stories with three wishes, and the pounding of my own thoughts. And the picture in my mind of Valmont in his misery. Oh, my darling…

I close the library at noon and go home, hoping that Valmont will be there. I do not know whether he will want to be alone or not. Perhaps he does not know either. I must at least try to go to him, to be with him, to ease what pain I can. If I can ease any of it at all.

[Open to Valmont]