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

Chapter 26 For the Queen

I wonder how it feels to die. Is it like fading, like a spark, or some third option of which I do not know.

Dying and living again, they're not unheard of. For a death starts from where the heart stops, when the tireless beating of it ceases to be. The strongest part of a human, when it finally gives up, that is where death begins. Or so they say.

But if that's the truth, then that must mean that you have killed me so many times over and over, with the way you make my heart beat, and stop, and start again. For every beat the heart skips, it counts as a stop, does it not? And the times you've made it do that, my poor little heart skip a beat... I wonder if I could count them if I had all the time in the world.

'My poor little heart' huh? I wonder if that's true. It might be small, given how they say it's the size of one's fist. And mine are small, at least compared to yours. How many times did I tell you that? That your hands are big, and strong. Secure. They way they'd cradle something so much smaller than you or I.

I guess I never told you.

I guess.

I can't remember.

But my heart is small. That remains. But I suppose that I can't say that it is poor, not with the way you added to it. How could I claim that it's poor, when you reside in there? My most valued; my most treasured. I try to hide you away from the world, in the form of the love I feel for you, and it is only to you I show it. I try to show it.

I tried to show it.

So, I cannot claim that my heart is poor. Not with the treasures of you, and the memories we made.

My heart is anything put poor.

And... I don't mind all the beats it has skipped, all the countless passing deaths it has endured. I don't mind, because the way it had started again, the beating has always started again. The way it starts and stops and starts again. I get to be born time and time after another.

I wonder how it felt like to be born? I can't remember. I don't think anyone can remember. The only ones to remember are the parents who hear their child cry for the first time. The first time your lungs gasp for air, and a sound breaks through the air, filled with fright of the cold outdoors. But even the parents don't know how it feels for the child. All they know, is that they must be oh so scared.

And that's when that strong, warm embrace is necessary. That's when those hands of yours that are much bigger than mine; those strong arms of yours... I think they would have made a better place to calm fears and qualms. That voice of yours... that gentle, sturdy voice of yours, the memory of which I'd solely want to take with me, would comfort them, whisper to them about how you're there.

You'd tell them how father is there.

Of course you would.

I can almost hear it.

The things... we almost had.

The things we almost earned.

Were we supposed to earn it? I have to wonder.

Were we supposed to earn it before we have it?

I guess it would have been fair. So many things need to be earned.

I wonder... I'm wondering so many things it seems, but another thing I do wonder... Is how I earned you? How did I earn the love you give me? What did I do? Because I didn't do... anything. I just were there, and you... You loved me regardless. You loved me...

You love me...

And I was late.

I'm so sorry... I am so, so sorry...

I'm so sorry that I was late... and that I didn't tell you all those things.

But I wonder... How it feels to die, because this... This collision ...

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, one of the truths of the world. And sometimes the collision of those two things gives birth to something new.

A spark.

Something bigger than you or I.

The collision of two opposites, as long as the container can hold it. As long the vessel holds.

But I think this should do. I think should be enough.

For the Queen.