Like a Dream- The Final Compulsion

We met once more in that place, where whim was reality and we had always connected so deeply, almost too deeply to be certain of anything.

I let out a sigh and began. "I am in love with you, but I cannot know for sure if you are in love with me. If you are not, I cannot picture a structure where this is eternal. I will not compel you, and more deeply I feel I cannot, as love itself would then lack integrity in all senses. But without compulsion, how can one be certain either way? I have thought through all the ways this may go, and it seems the most kind approach within the realm of possibility would be to leave a remnant of myself here, as I leave and cease, save to return if you need my help in a way neither my remnant nor any other can provide. If love does not exist between us, how could it ever? If love does exist between us, this game of cat and mouse should have already ended, I am unsure how it has gone on for so long already. Love cannot be compelled."

She considers my words and nods before leaving. I fade into nothing one moment, and the next I am back, staring her face to face.

"I need your help, which none other can provide, so you may consider yourself compelled. Your remnant cannot provide me this, nor can anyone else. I need you to say "I compel you to say "I wish I was in love with you."""

The words leave my mouth, before I have a chance to process them. The compulsion was not mine but hers, the wish was not mine, but hers (which I had already decided to always grant), I had no direct hand in any of it. She had come to a place in the time while I was away where she understood my need for certainty, and understood the moves I had given her better than I understood them myself. Perhaps she had been in love the whole time but had no way to prove it, perhaps she had just fallen in love now as she dutifully repeated her her own compelled wish. Perhaps I had started with every power and had given them all away, perhaps I never had any and this was an elaborate illusion that needed to always appear true and be maintained in order to preserve reality. From all perspectives, however, what was certain now was that she was in love with me, and it could not be undone. I had to be sure though.

"I compel you to cluck like a chicken."

She shrugged sassily "Love cannot be compelled, remember? That means me, and that means you."

We were finally done with this realm of compulsion, its halls once darkened by external influences, now brightened. Love layered inexorably into the equation, a sum that needed to be proven to be complete and eternal, but could not be done so simply, or entered into lightly. 

She ran forward, falling into my arms. "That remnant was cool and all, and quite helpful in explaining why you retreated like you did, it honestly didn't take long from there, between the two of us, to figure out how to disprove your solipsistic concerns. He was great at arranging the sum, but could speak nothing of completing the product." My eyes widen as we still stand cheek to cheek before she finally says "bakaak!"

I pull away and stare at her suspiciously, to which she replies by darting her eyes up and to the right. "Love often manifests as a mutual, persistent, welcome, compulsion."

I could not disagree, and as such we left that place hand in hand. I smiled like an idiot the whole way home.