The Mirrored Cavern

She stood there with her reflections, a myriad in fact, as the cavern grew. This cavern no longer maddened her as it once may have, forcing her to question if she would ever know anything else. Now they all were on the same page, each of them, finger pressed to parchment, their own claim to the story. For some time she had been looking for any excuse not to go, now she was torn between running to him and finding any excuse not to. Each new reflection provided some new question, some new concern upon arrival. While the collection groaned with each delay, she smiled every time, knowing that the outcome would be better with each angle she fleshed out. So she diligently examined each one, neither hasty nor slow, thoroughly and uncompromisingly dedicated to uncovering the truth. 

She knew it was not a matter of if, any illusion of that had long since been exposed for her, but when. None among them presented that simple concern, for what is confirming the certainty of time besides an agonizing wait for the end? They each knew the issue inherent with not examining that issue, but hoped to delay it as long as possible, making it the very last problem considered; so that hours or even minutes might feel like days, but days would not feel like years, perhaps centuries. Still, by the pacing she could sense that she was running out of questions, and weeks remained.

Then the newcomer arrived, same as the rest, but her face was a dichotomous mix of innocence and scheme; they gathered to hear her addition. It was simple, short. It was an angle only revealed by the rest having been explored, built upon the shoulders of amazons, as it were. Once spoken though, she knew the question of when had been the final, subtle, tenacious illusion she had not yet seen through- when and if each only partially formed, this would be the answer to how each existed as such certainties in an uncertain field, and so much more. This, by its nature, was the final question. It was a question that ensured timing and choice would be swept up in its wake as it bathed her shores in a tidal wave of understanding. Any other questions that might have remained would be functions of the equation to resolve this one, rapidly resolved and proven, as afterthoughts, now. As she ran the preliminary estimations for how long it might take she smiled, they all did: it should take just about exactly as long as they all had feared it was meant to, a truth now seen fearless in bright light.