He tapped his racing heartbeat against the side of the bathtub. His mind floated in the way it does before the stuff you decided to thicken your blood with finally catches up to you.

It was a frantic tempo, a song so hard to follow that the Queen's own violinist would end up without a head. He wasn't sure his body ever slowed down any more than this on its own. Even while he was asleep, he was almost certain his leg shook like a hare's. It had been this way for so long. Now, he was just so damn tired.

It had all started to go wrong, again. It was all going downhill so fast he could barely keep up, even when his mind moved at the speed of light. Soon everyone would know, they'd be at his door, they'd know. Maybe he should head back to the Hinterlands? The devil you know, isn't that how the saying went?

They'd be at his door soon, they'd be at his door. They'd ask for so much, so much, too much. He would be run ragged, run thin, they'd ask for all of him. Piece by piece by piece by piece, they'd ship him home in little boxes-

His head dipped. Between the motion and the act falls the shadow.

There must have been a before, right? A time before all of this? His sister and he, in the snow. Hyacinths, a year ago, and another and another and another, April after April. He'd read that once somewhere, hadn't he? It must have been lovely.

"Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song."

There must have been a before. He remembered, of course, his sister. He remembered cold water and warm skin. Cold skin, warm water, if there were water and no rock, rock and no water, only the sound of water-

But there is no water.

There is a place he has seen only in dreams.

It is beautiful there.

There is only the sound of wind in the grass.

There is only the sound of the cicada.

There are no eyes to meet.

No shadows stretching forward.

Nor following behind.

There is a place he has only seen in dreams.

It is beautiful there.

One.

One.