Wanda has often considered how unfair it all is, that she's got the power to change the fabric of reality, and yet she is never able to change things for herself—because that is magic far too powerful for one person to wield, and the number of infinite possibilities can easily drive anyone mad. Wanda always teeters between both sides of the balance, the pain and the grief and the endless incomprehensible knowledge that it is all just at her fingertips and it is never hers to have.

When Istredd looks into her eyes, keeps her anchored, he may be able to find through their connection that there is a darkness within—a darkness that is not her own. Borrowed, nurtured, poisoned into her blood, into her psyche, the edges of madness from a book that oozes corruption. It is brief, almost as if it were trying to hide from being seen.

—and then, it's just tears, Wanda crumpling into his arms, letting herself exist; exist under the weight that she cannot fix it, hard lessons she's had to learn the hardest of ways. Her family, her loved ones, a life she was owed, all lost.

But she breathes, despite the pain and the tears, she breathes, because here she is alive, time and time again, despite the odds, and she has to bear with this because it is no one else's pain to bear but her own. What is grief, if not love persevering? So full of love, despite how empty she feels.

Wanda doesn't, then, react, let's the Chaos flow through her, around her, past her—past them—let's it turn the world in puzzle pieces that give up and fall back into the usual. No longer is the world cracked in a mirrorscape; no longer does she fight it, (because she is not truly alone, is she?).

"I'm sorry."

Apologizing is all she can do.