(This is the piece I was going to publish originally, enjoy!)

(Mild trigger warning for mentions of death (kind of graphically??), grief and minor mentions of suicide)

(These are all gonna be kinda sad, I fear)

Prologue

The silence in her heart reached up inside her like chains of agony, holding in her screams, hiding her pain from everyone around her. She couldn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it. In her mind, her friend was just a few steps ahead, weaved in between the crowd dispersing from the town square. Not a blackened corpse, still bearing the ropes that held her within the flames. A fallen angel, blackened by the sins of her killers.

She could barely hear the sounds of the crowd's chattering as they walked home after their false convictions burned true. They yelled, even as they watched her burn, shouts of "Witch!" filling the air, thicker than the smoke. They didn't regret it, thinking their work pure, even as they tore her friend's soul from the living plane, and she knew it. She knew they wouldn't change, that any word of protest would be seen as conspiring with the devils they so hated and yet served so well. And she didn't want to stay, not where they could find her. So, she decided she wouldn't.

Chapter 1: The Graveyard

She felt too much warmth for a place so full of death. Even with a hundred corpses rotting beneath the ground, the sun still shone, the breeze still whispered peacefully through the trees, the grass still grew up under her bare feet. She wondered whether those rays were comparable to the flames that ravaged her friend barely a week ago.

She first saw the girl crouched over one of the grey tablets, rising up like an island of stone within a sea of green. The two girls were identical in state, white chemises drifting around their ankles, loose hair falling in waves over their shoulders. The only difference was the soot smudged across her other's skin. The girl looked up, and smiled warmly at her, as she was struck by a startling sense of familiarity and tenderness. A name fell from her lips, "Estelle." It soared through the air, towards her warped mirror, hitting like a bullet of light and hope. Of remembrance. She faintly registered thinking that Estelle looked just as beautiful in the golden hour of the sun as the day she had succumbed to the flames in front of them all. In front of all of her murderers. In front of her. 

In that moment, she had become the star at the centre of her universe, the light she couldn't live without.

The distance between then lessened as the weaved between the gravestones towards each other, gazes interlocked throughout every step. As they stopped before one another, unspoken words blossoming through the memory-laden air, innocent cries of the past echoing through the heavy silence, they stood in waiting. The quiet stretched between them, comfortable in the familiarity of its pain, the grief blanketing the joy of their reunion. "I wish you hadn't left," she whispered, afraid of speaking louder and breaking the fragile walls holding the storm of agony away from the peaceful moment. Estelle's smile diluted, mixing with her quiet sorrow. "I wish it didn't have to be this way," she replied, her voice soft, sparking memories of simpler, happier times. Times that were no more. Times that could still yet be.

It was silent in the graveyard. It was like the world has paused, just for them. Like it was holding its breath, for them. Like it too was waiting. She drew closer to Estelle, until they stood face to face, close enough to touch. Maybe that was the point. The forest around them held its breath as they stood, words passing between them like a silent song, time drifting in and out of focus in the halo of quiet surrounding them. Estelle held out her hand, an invitation, one that could be refused, although her face showed she knew it wouldn't be. A moment of stillness passed, not of hesitation nor apprehension, but appreciation of the pain, of the sorrow, and how it was to be no more. And then she took it, hand in hand, their true reunion, finally.

The peace surrounding them, its warmth and comfort, slowly faded. It was like a river, flowing directly into the two girls, as life returned to them once more. Their hands didn't part as they walked away together, almost floating as their silent footfalls slowly led them out of their final place of agony. It was to be no more for either of them. And as they left the graveyard, travelling into the forest on its edge, they smiled at each other, at peace once more. Stories would be told about the two, how one followed the other, how they would never be separated again. Two girls, two friends, two spirits, lost to all but one another, wandering free in each other's company.

Forevermore.

(ANYWAYS if y'all want to like chat with me about this (AHEM the girls were not friends, but I go to a Catholic school, cut me some slack please) I would be super happy to! If you can brave the endless torture of time zones, of course. Anyways, thanks for reading!)