I.

Rose Lalonde is five and bawling, shameful to her future self, curled in a ball by the river's edge. The water laps at Jaspers's fur, soaked below zero by the unforgiving northern autumn, trapping droplets that shine in the sunlight.

II.

Rose Lalonde is nine and spiteful and fascinated by her mother's unpredictable whims. She willfully blinds herself, scrutinizing nonsense for in hope of some greater meaning and plan that she could understand if she just read between the lines of drunken rambling, absences, and overpriced gifts. She hangs on to every word, and hates it. The cat has a fully furnished mausoleum in the back yard. She should have left it in the river.

III.

Rose Lalonde is thirteen, angry and grieving, drowning in the oceans in her mind - blood and brine and ink. Mother, dead. Friends' status, uncertain. There are shapes she cannot comprehend. Her own tongue does not sound like words. She is fragile and small and forcefully reminded that she is but a child, and the blade sinks in, and she falls into dreams of riding a detached moon through the squamous inky dark, of symbolic slabs and pillars and light consuming all--

IV.

Rose Lalonde is thirteen plus billions she cannot recall, and floats beside her brother at the surface of a burning green eternity. The hood doesn't protect her mortal sight from the new sun's brilliance. It's unnecessary. A fragile mortal would have long since evaporated here like a drop of water on white-hot metal. She is more powerful than she has ever felt before, and it takes time for reality to sink in.

V.

Rose Lalonde is not-really-fifteen and smitten, her shaking hands slowed with alcohol that flavors her haphazard speech. Light's clarity has faded, and her tongue feels foreign again. She doesn't care. The alien girl sits down across from her at a table for two, and her disappointed face looks like the world ending. The rest of the date is a blur of words and tears. Kissing, falling. She retreats to her room and drinks more. The next morning is hell. The girl finds her and sighs, disappointed again.

VI.

Rose Lalonde is sixteen and bawling again as her beloved disintegrates under the Empress's glare. She doesn't think. She hasn't really thought in years - or maybe she's thought too much. There is no time to question this. She raises her wand, crackling bright, and leaps.

The trident hits dead center through the sun on her chest.

VII.

Rose Lalonde is dying. Her mother is there, somehow. Rose can just make out the shape of her hair. She shuts her eyes to focus. All her senses ring and echo like the aftermath of a gunshot. The voice is too young and small. Not her mother.

There's blood everywhere. Probably Rose's. She can feel it soaking into her dress and imagines it pooling under her numb fingers. Someone says something. She doesn't remember what, or who. It's all a hazy dream. It has been for years.

The dream ends. The dreamer doesn't wake.