[At first, Jill wonders if she's simply dreamed this whole experience. Wonders if she's back on that balcony at the Hideaway, willing Metia to shine as brightly as before, so desperate for hope that she left her heart wide open to despair.
There's sand beneath her feet, though, not wood, and the sea moves at an intensity that Lake Bennumere lacked the night when the sky returned and Clive and Joshua and Dion did not. She still wears the gown. She still feels the way the princess had every single time that Clive treated her with tender fondness. He was so kind, so soft that she didn't need to remember him to know that the last words he spoke were true: he belongs at her side, and she belongs at his.
But this is a land of dreams, rife with a kind of magic that she understands less now than she did before. In a place like this, she doesn't know where to lay her faith, or how to separate reality from fantasy. She's quiet, and she's still, and she's distant because she's not ready to face the possibility that she'll turn around and look into the face of another hapless actor in this two-person play, upon whom the magic had cast the form of the love of her life.
Even his hand on his shoulder and his voice in her ear – both devastatingly familiar – aren't quite enough to keep the doubt at bay. But she is no coward, and she refuses to hide from the truth ever again, so she swallows down as much as she can and takes a pragmatic approach.]
Who are you, really? Please, speak your truths.
[Spoken without a hint of accusation. If anything, her tone brims with hope. The only part of her that doesn't already know the answer is the part of her that's scared of losing him once again.]
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There's sand beneath her feet, though, not wood, and the sea moves at an intensity that Lake Bennumere lacked the night when the sky returned and Clive and Joshua and Dion did not. She still wears the gown. She still feels the way the princess had every single time that Clive treated her with tender fondness. He was so kind, so soft that she didn't need to remember him to know that the last words he spoke were true: he belongs at her side, and she belongs at his.
But this is a land of dreams, rife with a kind of magic that she understands less now than she did before. In a place like this, she doesn't know where to lay her faith, or how to separate reality from fantasy. She's quiet, and she's still, and she's distant because she's not ready to face the possibility that she'll turn around and look into the face of another hapless actor in this two-person play, upon whom the magic had cast the form of the love of her life.
Even his hand on his shoulder and his voice in her ear – both devastatingly familiar – aren't quite enough to keep the doubt at bay. But she is no coward, and she refuses to hide from the truth ever again, so she swallows down as much as she can and takes a pragmatic approach.]
Who are you, really? Please, speak your truths.
[Spoken without a hint of accusation. If anything, her tone brims with hope. The only part of her that doesn't already know the answer is the part of her that's scared of losing him once again.]