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When Ophelia looks into the river, she sees a beautiful woman, dark and bright, old and new, hard and soft, merry and somber.
The beautiful woman in the water is not Ophelia's reflection.
Ophelia dives in, or maybe the woman reaches up and drags her under. Either way, she goes.
Like most people, Ophelia cannot inhale a river, even part of a river, and not struggle to replace it with air. The woman pulls her close and fills Ophelia's mouth with breath.
Her kiss is like thorns.
There's blood spiraling through the water, Ophelia thinks, before she faints.
Ophelia wakes on a mound of flowers and herbs, some with names and some without. No, no, that isn't so. They all have names. There's only ones she knows and ones she has yet to learn of.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
She lifts her hand, and there are violets on it. Tears prick Ophelia's eyes, and she is glad, glad she is lost and hopes very much she'll never be found, for how could she face them again?
"Do not weep, lovely mortal. You have slumbered in Queen Titania's bower, and are under her protection."
Queen Titania is tall, her mane of hair like the leaves that fall from the trees in autumn, with as many colors in them. Her eyes blaze bluer than forget me nots, and other things, only sometimes it seems that flowers and trees are all Ophelia knows any longer.
She is a good Queen, Ophelia thinks, attentive and imperious by turns, known and unknowable, soft and sharp as roses on briars.
She is familiar, in that way.
These were roses, and rosemary, for remembrance…
Titania's nails dig into Ophelia's skin and leave red marks, and that is different. She holds Ophelia close and whispers words of love, and yet she never yields.
Words and words and words. All told, Ophelia is sick of words. Everyone has words, but no one means what they say or says what they mean. Thistles sting, but they are honest.
"Are they fair?" Ophelia says, to herself, because it seems to be what comes after.
"Fairies fair?" Titania echoes her with a little laugh, as though she were that reflection she once pretended to be.
"That's a fair thought," Ophelia says absently, though she cannot recall what comes after. "How fare you, my queen?"
"Fairer still, to see Ophelia's fair face."
Recalling matters very little, when she's half-forgotten where her body ends and where her Queen begins. Bodies are not words, and Ophelia is glad of that.
When she dreams, she dreams of water.
Or perhaps Titania is her dream, and the water her truth.
Either way, there is no return.