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

Chapter 51: A dream

The portal closed.

Just like that.

As if... after all that time, it had been so easy. So simple. Just like closing a door. Any door.

Just a door.

There was a breeze that swayed the still green blades of grass in the warmth of the setting summer sun. But there was none of the warmth.

It might just as well have been autumn, soon winter.

Both Fuegoleon and Nozel simply stared at the arch without a word. Just stared at it as a tear, a single tear ran down both of their cheeks. And Fue... he couldn't stop thinking about that space... that spot on the wall of their bedroom with an empty frame.

There was a plaque under it, which read "Equinox-Vermillion", and was for the purpose of a family portrait. One that was supposed to be painted as soon as the children were born.

But now that frame was much like the arch of the portal. They both framed an empty space. They both held a void within the borders. And they both... they both... played a part in how he felt.

"Do you think it's done?" Nozel asked, through the silence as minutes, or perhaps just seconds, had ticked away without a trace.

"I... suppose," he mumbled. "Would they want it to be seen from the outside? If something has happened to the portal?"

There was another breeze, and that, too, swayed the blades of grass around. But the two men weren't sure if it was a dance, or a soundless symphony crafted to reflect that which they felt, but refused to speak out loud. A cry. A plea. A work of pain.

"Suppose not..."

The conversation ended. If it had been a proper conversation until then. And the two of them turned away with heavy, slow, weighted down steps. It was as if they were treading in deep water amidst of a tide while trying not to fall and stumble. But all the while, they both had to wonder if it would have mattered, if they had in fact stumbled.

But thinking seemed heavy. Taxing. And if Fuegoleon had managed to spare it a thought, he would have been thankful of being closer to his living quarters.

And yet, the way back into the bedroom was long, and short, at the same time.

The halls were empty, devoid, and yet something lingered. The echoes, the whispers of things that might have been, could have been, bounced off the walls without a sound. And in that silence, there was suffocation.

It felt as if a fog. A thick fog that burned with a freezing breath.

And that fog wrapped around him both inside and out.

There were no thoughts running through his mind. There was only fog. Only the escaping of warmth, which left his fingers tingling with a numb sensation, had he focused on the feeling. Had he tasted the freezing, hollow burn of the air around him as thoughts, memories of plans that were made, lingered around him.

It was, as if, with each step he took forward down the corridor, he came closer to yet another statue of things that they had hoped for; statues of smoke and mirrors. In every corner, a vision of a daydream that he would have loved to see come into reality, past which he now simply walked without a glance.

Holding his children for the first time.

Seeing them cast their first spell.

The tenth wedding anniversary. He had already had a plan for what he would have like to do.

Salamander curling around his family on a cold winter day.

Opening presents together on a Christmas day when the children were a bit older.