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

Chapter 45 "It'll be alright"

Solara stood in front of the stone arch, made of white marble that would brittle away with time, despite seeming resilient, tough and timeless. But it was no granite. The arch, the gate and the portal had been constructed with the stone that was most suite for it, which, however, didn't mean that it'd be resilient in other ways. Marble did its duty, it was what it was, and it'd crumble as such.

Which made her wonder, as the grey skies above begun sending down flakes of snow, that were as soft and light as ever, if that was what him and her were.

If they were marble, instead of granite.

They had withstood so much, like stone, but some stones were, in the end, more brittle like the rest. Some stones would break and shatter, be turned to dust much more easily than others that would only chip. So, were they marble, or were they granite?

For the longest of time, had someone asked, she would have answered without a shadow of a doubt answered that they were granite. But now, she had to ask herself, if they had been marble which she had mistaken as granite.

The answers, however, were not there, out on the yard, in the cold. They weren't in the documents in her bag that had been signed, and she had promised to deliver by herself. Which had served her an excuse to go back home.

Not that she necessarily needed an excuse. Not one to tell him at least.

But perhaps it was an excuse for her herself. Perhaps she needed a reason to go instead of staying around, because she wasn't supposed to want to go. This was home now, from which she shouldn't have wanted to leave.

She shouldn't have. And it made guilt gnaw the edges of her very soul along with a building sense of nausea that had made it difficult to eat during the past few days. All food had tasted like saw dust, no matter how delicious she knew it to be. The only thing that kept her eating as much as normally, was the knowledge that she was no longer eating only for herself. That alone allowed her to force the meals down her throat, but words she wasn't able to push past her lips; not the words that she, perhaps, should speak to Fue. Because how would she start? How would she begin to tell him, that though she tried to reason his decision to have been made with the best of intentions, she had felt the dull stab of the lie he had spoken to her.

Had he spoken carelessly, without a thought, then she would have understood better. Because he was only human.

He, too, was only human. But instead, he had chosen, carefully picked out the statement of 'everything is alright', instead of letting her know that he'd tell her when he could. It hadn't been about what he had to tell her, rather it was about the decision to keep something, that appeared to be dire, from her.

I need to talk about this... She thought as her hand came into contact with the cold surface of the arch, and opened the portal with a deep breath.

The steps she took past it were heavy, and her vision was clouded by all the screaming thoughts in her head. It was as if she was walking in heavy fog without a sense of direction. She needed advice, something to lean on. A word. A phrase. A sense of encouragement.

She needed someone older to tell her that she was overreacting. That it was the hormones. And that sometimes spouses lie.

But the thought... of hearing her parents tell her that sometimes it's a part of marriage, was sickening. It only added to the twisting and turning of her insides, and shook the sea of sorrow behind her eyes. Morning sickness felt small compared to this. But even the feeling of nausea was bittersweet, for it made her think of all the times Fue had held back her hair during the last months. Because he wanted to be there with her, through every step of the pregnancy.