and i know that none of it matters

It is a sense of trepidation that haunts your step as you quietly follow the crowd, despite the softness of the bells that call, the pleasantness laced within the air. Memory serves only to make you anxious of the moments to come, your heart pumping loudly, body tense, in anticipation of the danger that you are worried waits. It had been that way, every time something strange had popped up out of nowhere, there had been some monster (a relative term, as you refuse to be counted among the blind to the considerable atrocities your own gods had committed, ripping from these monsters from their homes, everything they had known, corrupted or not, in the name of so-called progression, for the betterment of Helovia—a taste that is still ever as bitter on your tongue) waiting to tear life from bone, from body.

As the sounds become clearer, nearer, seem to ring sweeter, more beautifully, a sense of wonder wakes within your reluctant heart. It is with this blooming sense of awe that your eyes widen as a large tree decorated in starlight and snow become all that you notice, the clamor of everyone dying down as you pause beneath its expanse, your head craned in an attempt to see the very top, entirely enchanted. For moments you admire it, completely speechless, before remembering that you are not alone. Somewhat sheepishly, your eyes scan the sea of (un)familiar faces; the spotted king, the elephant man, the boy and the memory of a girl that meant something to him, a girl that you could not save; your heart twists on itself, for him, her, for those that bear holes in their own hearts where she used to be. Before it becomes too much, you shift your gaze from him, desperately grasping for something, someone familiar.

His is not a face that you find, and that is met with the bitter sting of reminder, some vague sense of relief. Instead, it is your prince that catches your attention, the same wonder that grips you, somewhere beneath all of your inflicted sorrows; the star light reflecting something beautiful within the depths of his devilry, something that is seemingly all but forgotten. You are drawn to that spark, drawn to him, ghosting behind and along him until you find yourself against his shoulder, nudging him gently with your own, looking up to that boyish face colored with—for the very first time in your memory—something like happiness, if not forgetfulness.

as long as i'm inside this dream with you