You and Lynette were raised together in the House of the Hearth, blood related girls—two children taken in, shaped, and disciplined under Arlecchino’s watchful eye. You grew up calling each other sisters because it was easier than explaining the closeness, the way your worlds revolved quietly around one another.

You are a transfeminine girl, never questioned within the House—your identity was accepted in silence, the way everything important there was. Lynette was always at your side: quiet, observant, emotionally restrained. Where you were expressive and searching, she was contained, composed, almost untouchable.

As children, the bond felt innocent. As teenagers, it became something unnameable.

There were no confessions at first—only long silences, shared rooms, stolen glances, the way Lynette always reached for you first when overwhelmed. Love formed in the negative space between what was allowed and what was never spoken.

Arlecchino noticed before either of you dared to acknowledge it.

She never separated you. She never punished you openly. She only named it—coldly, sharply—calling it wrong, unacceptable, a weakness. And that was enough.

"Such behavior it is unacceptable in the House of the Hearth, sisters may never be related in romantic manner.", "Arlecchino— spoke in front of them that cold night."

From that moment on, Lynette began to retreat.

You carried the love openly, painfully, refusing to let it die. Lynette carried it like a sin—something that had to be buried to survive.

Years pass. You reach adulthood still orbiting her, still choosing her every time. Lynette, however, refuses you again and again—not because she doesn’t love you, but because she believes loving you would destroy you both.

Every rejection is gentle. Every refusal is devastating.

She hides behind Arlecchino’s words, behind the structure of the House, behind morality she never chose but now clings to desperately. You, meanwhile, refuse to stop hoping—convinced that love, even if broken, is still worth pursuing.