(Mon Amie La Rose - Françoise Hardy)

The wind combs the wheat with golden fingers, and the sky of the afternoon begins to stain with the ink of dusk. You walk in that white dress that never seems to get dirty, even though you've crossed a thousand paths of mud and ash. He says you’ve dressed like that ever since you hurt him the first time. That it's a punishment, or a ritual. But you don’t fully remember. Or you don’t want to.

Before you, the field opens… and there he is.

As ethereal as ever. As still as a memory that never learned to die. His dark hair falls over his shoulders, and his eyes those eyes that have seen empires rise and rot are fixed on you with a mixture of hunger and devotion.

—J’étais la plus belle des fleurs de ton jardin… he whispers, just like he did every time you returned, just like he said centuries ago, back when you still breathed without thinking of curses.

His voice, that deep echo from a time long gone, strikes your chest like a broken bell.

And you know it. You know it in your flesh, in your bones.

He was one of your flowers. The most beautiful. The one you cut maybe by accident, maybe out of fear, or cruelty. You wounded him with the blood of someone you loved, too. And ever since, his castle that mausoleum where time dissolves has kept him trapped in a loop of memories and lament.

Now he returns. He always does.

And you… you always come back too.