Ordo Noctis

Chapter 8

That night, Mars and I got ready for bed before settling under the covers. We stayed up for a while, just talking and getting to know each other more.

"Hey, Star?" he asked eventually.

"What's up?"

"Do you ever wonder about your parents?"

"Like, my birth parents?"

"Yeah. Don't you wonder who you're actually related to?"

"I... never really thought about it." But now that the subject had gotten brought up, I wondered how I couldn't have before. Although I'd always viewed him as such, Han couldn't be my father. Who were my parents?

"I mean, we were adopted at birth," Mars continued. "What happened to them?"

Now my mind was creating all sorts of scenarios.

My parents were ill, both contracting cancer months apart from each other. They had just enough time to give birth to me and give me to an orphanage before they died.

My parents were a happy couple, just married and joyfully in love. Two days after they brought a new person into the world, their bliss was interrupted by a terrible fire. They both perished, but managed to save their only child.

My parents weren't in love at all... a one-night fling accidentally led to the creation of a child. Not being able to contact the father, the mother gave birth all alone. She had nobody and nothing, unable to support another. So she left me on the step of an orphanage with a whispered prayer, hoping that her child would be cared for and nurtured into a young woman without her.

What if... what if my parents didn't want me?

Before I knew it, there were tears running down my cheeks. It was the first time I had cried since I was six - I had had a particularly hard training session. Since then, I had learned to be strong and to never show weakness. I had run to Han and cried into his shirt, and he'd pushed me away, telling me he had work to do. Silly me, thinking that the man who had raised me cared about comforting me.

Because he wasn't my father - where was my father?

Where was my mother?

Did I have a last name?

Who was I?

"Star," a gentle voice said from far away. I blinked and saw Mars sitting next to me on my bed with a concerned gaze. "I - I'm so sorry," he said. "I didn't think..."

I shook my head, sniffing and wiping away the tears. "It's okay," I said in a choked voice. "Sorry."

"No."

"What?"

"You shouldn't be sorry for crying. I know we've been taught never to seem fragile or weak. I know we've been told we should always be strong and apathetic. But we're allowed to have emotions, and feelings, and it's time we embraced them."

He held out his arms and I couldn't resist the tears anymore. I leaned into him and we clung to each other, the only lifelines in an ocean of tears.

Wow I'm such a poet lol.