---

She cared little for the woes of this dream fellow, but she certainly cared about the lack of sunlight and ever-encroaching winter apocalypse. It was difficult to be popular when you were dead, after all, and although she'd made fair to no progress in socializing the past year, who said she couldn't start now? This wouldn't do, she thought, pursing her lips.

Whatever his personal issues were, she missed spring - and if there was any way to hasten this outcome, then she'd contribute like everyone else.

The Dream Visitor was likely sorely disappointed as Violet swept past him with the perfumed majesty of a monarch ascending her throne. Door One; that looked suitable. No screaming, no violence, no terrible life-or-death decisions.

Violet stepped through the portal, tipped her very beautiful head back, and sang.

---

Thank you so much to the team for letting me squeeze in a last minute post. I didn't have time during the week when I was working on the island art, and I'm so grateful!

All she had wanted was to feel her breath cease.

That maybe then, she'd find peace.

One moment, a storming imp that stood at a crossroads of three lands, obedient to the darkness that had crawled up each limb. Feeling so very, very stuck to the ground, and crumbling into the deep as though tar was weighing her chest down. A lifeless husk of a jester, waiting to be someone's favorite toy again.
But someone never came.
And Legend was dusted with abandonment now.

The next instance, the feeling of pressure at her back to move, following the yank of a leash that wasn't there and into a cold plunge.

Ice.

Snow tried to devour her. Trudging forward, feeling her skin begin to stiffen and wondering next: when would tufts of fur turn into black ice crystals? Legend had tried so hard to be fire that she had forgotten she was water. So, when a dripping nose started to freeze cold, and the vast emptiness of a winterland grew more endless and ever black, there was the start of a lost toy who was ready to give up. Unwilling to continue, unable to stop the trembling, and beginning to fall. Unable to cry, for the tears had frozen.

Fluttering lashes dotted with snow held eyes beneath them, searching between their shadows for a sun that was not there. A hollow, emptied look.
I believe in no god.
But she was their child.

And she prayed the songs of the red palace, helpless.