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It's very bright here, which is not so nice. The sun jabs at you as if trying to remind you of something you've forgotten. The snow reflects the sun; each snowflake adds its voice to the chorus of things only half-remembered.
Instinctively you reach over to your coat pocket, and feel the crinkle of folded paper there. Good. You didn't forget that. It is a letter you have rewritten countless times, and you are certain you could write it from scratch at this point, if need be, but this time you are sure:
Today is the day you are going to come out to your mother.
You are shoveling snow and thinking strategic thoughts when Kanaya finds you. You do not understand, and then suddenly you do. You turn slowly, looking at the dream bubble around you in the light of new memories; hand lingering at your side where the note still waits. The song of the snow's light shifts from major to minor, and only now can you make out its words:
Today is the day you thought you were going to come out to your mother.
But you didn't. And the memory still stings like bitter cold.
You realize Kanaya is shivering, and your mind races. You don't want to subject her to this place. To these memories. This lovely radiant girl is drawn to your light, in this place where it is morning once again, and yet you dare not linger here, lest she discover just how quickly day can become night in the winter.
"Let's get a change of scenery, shall we?" you offer, silently pleading in counterpoint to the too-cheerful tone of your voice. Let me take you away from here, you mentally implore her. Let me take you somewhere that passes for a happy memory, in this haunted house that passes for my mind.
But it is too late; she has become too enamored of this harsh winter's light. She declines your offer, and so instead you help her don warmer clothes, just as you don a warmer disposition; it is fake but comfortable from years of wear.
Not that words like fake or real mean anything in a dream bubble. Here nothing is real but that which you bring with you. And yet also: Here everything is that which you bring with you. Because everything here is memory, which you have tracked in with you like so much snow carelessly tracked into a front hallway.
It doesn't matter. What matters is this: You are playing in the fake snow with a real girl you adore, letting out the occasional fake smile and giggle, surprisingly real snow cold against the endless layers of fake and real that you call a self.
You lose track, the fake giggles giving way to real laughs, which themselves give way to hysterical laughter, teetering back and forth on the edge of imagination and reality, of sadness and gladness.
Too late you realize you have scared Kanaya, and you struggle to regain your composure for her sake. "Sorry," you say. I've failed you, you think.
"Why?" she asks.
You have no idea how to even begin answering her.
"This is always the worst place to wake up in," you eventually say, regretting the lie almost immediately, but it's not that much of a lie anyway, is it?
Because of course this is the second worst place to wake up in, and that's still quite bad. There are plenty of bad memories to go around.
There are always plenty of bad memories to go around.
The dream bubble knows, though. It suddenly shifts, rearranging itself into the Land of Light and Rain, as if to remind you. LOLAR isn't technically the worst place to wake up in either, but here you can feel the presence of Skaia, shining down on you like the sun.
That's the strange thing about being a Light player; your relationship with light - and with Light - is not actually all that simple. You are not drawn to it like a proverbial moth. In sunny weather it can be hard to See your own light, but in darkness you can shine. And so it is tempting to retreat back to that darkness; to rely on your own light because it is what you know and can trust.
But the darkness can be too much, too overwhelming. You are not drawn to it because it is safe. You are drawn to it because you are not safe.
And it is for that same reason you are drawn to those memories of Skaia. You revisit it over and over: the contrasting white and black tiles splashed with red, like a sunset dividing day and night. Two lights snuffed out by an encroaching darkness which very nearly consumed you as well. When you were actually there it was as if in a dream; how fitting, you suppose, that your dreams keep bringing you back.
You have lost count of how many times Terezi has found you on that half-forgotten battlefield. As befits her apparent quest to win the title of Paradox Space's Most Obnoxious Moirail, she has started to call it your "W33KLY D4T3 SPOT."
But Kanaya has not seen it yet.
You reach into your pocket, feel the letter to your mother which is still there, remember all the times you've set it gently down on the checkerboard ground next to her, like flowers on a grave.
"I..." you begin to say, but lose your nerve. Tears gather at the corners of your eyes once again, like storm clouds on the horizon.
Kanaya does not know snow. But does she know rain?
There are deserts which know the occasional torrential downpour. Does she?
She takes your hand in hers, and though you know that troll blood runs cold and LOLAR runs hot, her touch feels warm against the memory of that winter so long ago.
"Would you care to join me on a walk?" you ask. "There's something I need to do. It is not a particularly happy memory," you hasten to add, "but it is mine."
"I would be honored," she says.
You stand up, and she follows you; the two of you walking hand in hand towards the dark horizon. This lovely radiant girl is drawn to your light, in this place where it is night once again, and you want to shine brightly for her, and illuminate the way forward.