Before Aradia ever met Sollux or Tavros, before she met Vriska and all of Vriska’s ghosts, her friends were a boy with blood-drenched hair and a girl who existed only as a voice on the wind. They’re both long gone – found what they wanted or just drifted off – but while they were there, they’d hover outside her window, throwing small stones at the glass until the sun set and they could call her out to play. She used to chase them through half-buried halls, and twirl with the wind in her skirts until the stars through the cracked-open roof made her dizzy, and none of it frightened her; death was always close, but in those nights, every ending seemed a long way away.