They talked for hours and hours. Words took them on a journey to the other side of reason, then gravity pulled them back to the ground. The most trivial questions led to discussions about life, death and human nature in general. How can there be space for mundanity in mirages of shared paranoia?

Is this a way to let me know you want out of this, to remind me I made it all up, she wondered. Or do you truly fear my mental depiction of you is so vulnerable to the cold breeze of reality, so far removed from the tangible you that any contact with the truth is bound to disappoint?

And yet, his proposition made perfect sense. This miraculous bubble they inhabited was meant to be preserved at all costs. Together, they stood out of time, unassailable by the forces of mortality, degradation and decay; they were granted a glimpse of eternity, a chance to live an ideal, instead of merely envisioning it.

Theirs was the place where fairy tales end up after the children fall asleep, content in their innocence; the land of happily ever afters, where princesses never grow old, kings never lose touch with wisdom and justice, passion never fades, the Good triumphs and evil wizards are banished once and for all.

Still, why was she so eager to dive into this world of ice, crushing its delicate structures with her weight; to drink greedily from its enchanted springs, depriving its haunted mountains of their mystery; to touch its immaculate core with bare hands; to scream with joy and anguish in its spider-webbed forests, scaring its magical creatures away; to enliven its solemn corridors with music, colours, tears, blood, sweat, laughter, dreams, fears, hopes, desires, expectations and all the painfully wonderful things, which make human existence the devastating wonder it is- even if that meant surrendering her one and only fragment of perfection?