Mortance: A Miscarriage of Hope

Aurora Ⅺ

"Aurora, my love," Vanessa says. "Stay with me."

"Forever and always," I smile and tell her. The sun shines brightly down on us as we stand hand in hand in the surf. This island is our home now. We made it.

"It's perfect here, on this beach," Vanessa smiles. "We should stay like this forever."

And so we do.

Day turns to night and back again a million times, but we never move. It is enough to be together. The tides wash around our legs endlessly, in a perfect ebb and flow, and we stay. Vanessa stays with me. Everything is as it should be.

I smile and lean into her. "Thank you."

"For what?" Vanessa echoes my smile.

I want to tell her it's for everything, I want to tell her existing together is enough, and so many other things. "...yeah," is all I end up saying.

Vanessa laughs. "You're very welcome."

Then she kisses me. Deeply.

I kiss her back. There is nothing in this world but the two of us. I love her, but I can't break the kiss to tell her that. It doesn't matter. She knows. Vanessa is all I need, and she stays right here with me forever.

It feels an eternity before we finally break apart. We're in Vanessa's room at Hoger's. I see in a mirror on the wall that I'm wearing my favorite orange and purple dress. I have my guitar too, and I'm playing our song.

"The prince is gone, the kingdom's lost, the world is falling down

A chaos has descended on our life

But as long as you're here, and safe by my side

I'd rather be your love than his wife"

Vanessa sings the words for me in her beautiful voice. She is perfect. No voice in the world could ever match her own in this. I love her. Vanessa smiles as she sings, and I've never seen anything more beautiful.

The song keeps playing, but it takes on a whole new meaning. Now Vanessa and I stand together before a crowd as the Messenger proclaims us wives in life and death. Angus stands in the crowd, smiling for us. My father is nowhere to be found.

"I'm glad it's you," I tell Vanessa.

"I'm glad it's you," she echoes. "I told you I'd stay, didn't I?"

"You did..." I muttered as I woke up in my prison. "You said you'd stay." my eyes opened and I glared at the blank stone wall across from me. I groaned angrily and pulled the blanket back over my head. "Let me go back!"

In the dream we were happy. In the dream we were together. Why can't I just stay there? It's better for everyone. But I couldn't go back to sleep. Vanessa was gone, and that was the reality of it. "Dead," I mumbled. "Why?"

Tears welled up in my eyes, and finally I gave up on the dream. Groaning, I threw the blanket off me and sat up in bed. My throat was dry, my head hurt, tears stained my cheeks, and Vanessa was dead. The last part of that hurt the most. I had nothing more to live for without her.

The song we'd made together was stuck in my head. The prince is gone, the kingdom's lost, the world is falling down... I caught myself humming the melody. It sounded ugly. Vanessa was the only one who could sing the song right. I couldn't do it. Nobody could do it. Nobody in the world would ever be as perfect as Vanessa. Vanessa was dead.

"What's the point..." I wondered aloud. There was nobody to hear me now. I was alone in this empty tower. There was hardly anything more than a bed in here. They took my guitar, and they took Vanessa. She was dead. I had nothing more to live for.