Embers of Sun and Flame: Before We Have It (Fuegoleon x OC)

Chapter 22 The whisper of a hope

Rain. The droplets that were cast down from the heavens with a force of their sins; thrown against the hard ground, as if a punishment. Or then perhaps there was no point in those droplets beating the ground, and it just was. Or, maybe it was the ground that was suffering from justice being inflicted upon it. But no matter which was the sinner, and which was the saint, the ground and the rain, met. They kept clashing together, creating a sound that served as a background noise as Solara looked out of the window.

It's good that the sky weeps for us... she found herself thinking. Even if the thought was only barely conscious. It was like a breeze, a faint whisper that she could register only in passing.

But she didn't know if there was a sense in that thought, the idea of the skies, maybe even the heavens, weeping for them. All of them. Or maybe it was just painting a picture that was still becoming; left, abandoned, on the drafting table, until it would be pulled from the pile on that desk, and slapped onto the stage that was the world.

Maybe there wasn't a reason to weep, not yet, not in the way the picture would depict. Because the battle was still up ahead. Nothing had been lost. So, whatever tears were wept, were not of loss. They were not the bitter tears of defeat, but ones that bore even more depth, the hollow sound of promises that could become undone.

There was a weight on her shoulders, placed with a feather light touch. Warmth. A presence. That of a broad chest hovering right behind her back. A gentle caressing sensation being pressed onto the top of her head.

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with fresh air that made her feel light, so light that she might have begun floating somewhere else, some place else where such shadows of the depths of darkness, as what could almost be seen in the horizon, wouldn't be there. But... whatever that place might've been, whatever fable it would've been... he wouldn't have been in that reality. Into that place, he couldn't have followed her, for how does anyone follow a petal dancing in the wind? How does anyone follow a leaf caught by a river? So, faint and feeble, being tossed and turned around.

She felt that, would he not have been there, placing his hands onto her shoulders and grounding her in place, being her rock, she would have become a leaf, a petal, a flake of snow. Something that only exists for a moment.

But because he was there, his mere presence gave her comfort, unlike any other kind she had known. His warmth, radiating from him, wrapped her into its embrace and made her worry, the creeping sense of cold seep away from her, into the floorboards under her, so that she felt like she was basking under the summer sun.

"It's really coming down," he commented with a whisper as his head was pressed against hers.

He let his arms wrap around her, gradually, with a savouring motion, as if he wanted to remember that moment, and that act of pulling her into his embrace. His breathing was... careful, but not faint. It was strong, but hesitant. As if, with the action of pulling her closer, into his embrace, he would have had to accept the fact that he'd need to let go as well. The one thing he didn't want to do.

"It really is..." she replied, while placing her hands on top of his swaying in his arms, even of only a little, as if caught by some unsung melody that neither of their mortal ears could distinguish.

He nodded his head, instead of saying anything. Because there was a question he didn't want to ask. There was something he should have been talking about with her. But he didn't want to. Not even if it made him, in some far, far corner of his heart, happy.

The fact that she was going to leave to Thea, because the ritual she needed to undergo, could only be conducted there. She had to go, if, and when, she wanted to aid Queen Anima to have a hand in helping out with the war. But so much trouble came with it, if they were caught. Even if she was only a subject, who was to obey her queen, she was still aiding with the bending of rules.