hearts of metal

xxxi. we're family

Aelin sat in the passenger seat and watched the streets morph and fade around her.

Aedion drove, while Vaughan had been banished to the back of the car. He'd been sullen at first, but was now singing along to some pop song at the top of his lungs.

"Can you shut up for 5 minutes?" Aedion eventually asked.

"Don't you like this song?" Vaughan asked incredulously. He looked to Aelin for support, but she only shrugged and said she didn't recognize the song. "Heathens," he exclaimed dramatically, before slumping back onto the seat.

In the silence, Aelin said, "do you have any stories from when I was younger. Just little things?"

"Oh, tons," Vaughan said. "Actually, I was just thinking...you used to always insist on braiding Aedion's hair the way you did Fenrys' today. He had long hair back then, and you'd follow him around until he let you braid it," Vaughan said.

Aedion laughed. "I remember that."

"I might have pictures, actually." Vaughan pulled out his phone and started scrolling through it. He eventually gasped and said, "victory." He leaned forward to show Aelin the picture.

In it, a young Aelin grinned wide toothed at the camera. Aedion had his hair twisted into two plaits beside her, tied at the ends with pink sparkly scrunchies, but was also grinning.

"So cute," Vaughan cooed at the photo. His hand went to pinch Aedion's cheek, but he was slapped away. "We should recreate this."

Vaughan spent some more time showing Aelin photos on his phone, while Aedion chimed in with backstories to them. Until ten minutes later when Aedion finally said, "We're here.".

Aelin glanced out the window to see that they had arrived in a medium sized town. They were in the parking lot of one of several plazas, directly in front of a large purple building.

Aedion pulled into a parking slot, before stopping the car. He climbed out first, followed by Aelin and Vaughan.

Her eyes latched onto the sign with some disbelief. "Is this for real?"

Aedion and Vaughan only grinned and slung their arms over her shoulders as they led her in.

Upon stepping inside, Aelin found that it was, indeed, for real. They were inside a roller skating rink, one filled with mostly a mix of children and teenagers her age, and some people who looked older. Some were skating, others watching from the sidelines, but almost everyone was talking or laughing and contributing to the clamor in the air.

Aedion stepped away and returned with three pairs of skates. "You always said you wanted to go when you were little, but we never got around to it. So why not now?" he said.

"Have you gone skating before?" Vaughan asked.

"Not roller skating," Aelin said, accepting the skates Aedion handed. "But I can ice skate a bit. Ben taught me."

"Who's Ben?" Vaughan asked.

Aelin realized she had never mentioned him or Sam, too scared to broach those topics. She bent down to slip on the skates and said, "a friend of Arobynn."

"Have you talked to him since you came here?" asked Aedion.

She smiled sadly and glanced up. "He died a couple years before. Came with the job, I guess."

Her brother went silent at that, before crouching down to finish lacing up her shoes. Vaughan remained at her other side, a comforting presence.

Together, the three of them set out into the rink. It came rather naturally to her, but Aedion managed to nearly fall over five times within the first two minutes. Her and Vaughan ended up each grabbing one of his arms to keep him upright, and the three of them skated steadily in a line.