This is sort of het... kind of. Not really my usual type of paring. Chrome is fun to write though...

Paring - 6996. Prompt- reflections.

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A light drizzle falls over the world like an empty cloud and the collected water slowly drips down the shining metal roofs of large western style houses and the green expanses of lawns become lakes as she watches the sky fall. Her breath comes in warm puffs of mist that turn her outside world an opaque white.

She is reflected clearly in the window, image super-imposed over the grey seas of the limitless sky. Her long dark lashes flutter gently over violet eyes and pale cheeks lightly dusted with winters chilled red lights. She is vaguely reminiscent of a porcelain doll, with the way her dark hair spider-webs over her snow white lace. Her name is Nagi and this is her doll house.

Her parents never payed her the time of day, instead they left her to the ever changing care takers while her mother worked to reclaim the beauty that Nagi supposedly stole and her father worked to pay for his wife. The only gift she ever received from them now lyes on the highest shelf, it's chipped eyes staring down at her, expression unreadable from under split hairs and frayed gown, the marks of a child's love. There are more now, a growing collection of fake company with imitation orbs all in which she is fixed.

Slowly Nagi lets her hand rest against the cool shock of a simmering pain, letting it become her connection to reality as she pulls her self up and lets warm layers wrap around herself, becoming a blanket of contradiction to her rapidly cooling hand.

High boots click on the dusty wooden floors and a pale, long fingered hand flips the light switch and watches everything plunge into darkness.

-----

The black streets are a map of rivers and lakes but there are always dry spots for her to step and be the casual observer to an undisturbed scene of a different life, a reflection of happiness in brightly lit houses that ripple and sparkle on the surface of water's memory. It strikes Nagi at just how different they are from what she is used to, how their smiles are real, how they are not alone.

It is from the corner of her eye that she sees it, a beautiful white cat sitting under the silver moonlight, basking in it. She has always loved animals for they have always love her. Her lips move into the shape of a whistle and like a breath of summer wind in her winter snow globe she sound out a call.

White ears lift and it's head turns, yellow eyes locked tight. In a slow, deliberate, sauntering walk it makes it's way over to her through the melted snow and freezing rain. She kneels, the edges of the dress just barely touching the soaked earth, and her hand calls a welcome.

It's barely a sparkle at first, hardly enough to catch her attention but soon it becomes more, a cone of light that doesn't seem to be stopping because it can not see beyond the cold rusted metal that marks the boundary between worlds.

Nagi reaches out her arms and is running the few feet it takes to reach the other side, cold arms wrap around the rain slicked fur and she whispers an apology as her vision swirls from pain, for it is all over in less than a second.

There is a roughness on her cheek and her good eye opens, red lips curving into a smile.

"I'm glad you're okay."

-----

There is a cold antiseptic smell in the air when Nagi begins to fade in. The room is dark yet the white is still visible on the walls, the floor, the thin sheets. She finds this cleanliness ironic for the sliver grey of the bedside metals tells her that she is dirty. The hallway says the same thing in her mother's high, cold voice and her father's uncaring tone.

And she is fading...

But there is a quiet voice, a chuckle, that calls to her from a distant place.

Closer and closer.

He talks and tells her she is special.

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"Come, have some tea."

He sits at one of his illusions, a wooden table on which tea rests steaming in ornate cups of the finest hand crafted china.

Her bare feet crunch on the grass, green and crisp in a brilliant contrast to the memories of a frozen drizzle.

"Do you like cream?"

She nods and takes another step, nervous and maybe somewhat scared, before she brings her shy violet eyes up to meet his own calm indigo seas and warm sunset waters and feels calm rush through her.

She sits in one of the wooden chairs that the man is gesturing to.

Nagi picks up the tea cup and what it shows is not her, but a reflection of what could be, of him.

Chrome brings the cup to her lips in a kiss.