|| 𝐓𝐨 𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐀 𝐒𝐮𝐧 ||

CHAPTER ONE : An Encounter Sown in Summer

Lauraus did not die that day.

There was a clinking sound coming from underneath the flower beds.

It was faint, and there were hardly any pauses between the first rings and the next, a rapid thrum of small, tinkled beatings whispering in the air. And a whisper it was, for if Laura hadn't dropped his ball, he feared he would have never heard the small clinks in the first place.

That day, the summer ten years prior, Lauraus didn't die. It was a dry season. The wells in the Citadel gardens had all but dried up, the rivers in the Castle reserve were all bare, and there were hardly any chirps of the morning birds making their merry way throughout the mornings. Laura had wondered, how the servants of the Citadel were able to continue their labor under such conditions. Though, he later on remembered that they didn't exactly hold much of a choice. The pitchers of water that they brought to his room always seemed to be full, and yet, for one reason or another, he never questioned it. He would always chug down the liquid until he nearly choked in the afternoons after schooling, not stopping a moment to wonder where they produced the fresh, cool water from.

He reasoned with himself however, that the refreshments were just too good to care, his chin moistened by the flow of liquid, his hurried pants reaching the ears of the bustling castle maids.

They often gave him only a sip of the envied liquid whenever he was excused from his learning's for the evening, rushed and staggered footsteps carrying him to the lower-floor kitchens, eyes peering over tall sandstone counter tops in search of the pitcher himself. Whenever the maids handed it to him, they always waited enviously, carefully, expectantly at Laura as he took his gulps of water, stopping him before he's had anywhere near enough to quench his desires. Which is why he always, no matter how many times he was or was not caught, tried to haul the pitcher off the lower shelf himself and drink until his belly was full.

That day his teacher had given him a leather ball bound with twine as a prize for reciting all of his nation's loyalty pledges without stammering. It was a simple thing, most likely the same kind of ball beggars would use to juggle with, and hustle money in the Capital, but Laura didn't care. He beamed with pride all the same when his teacher placed the rough toy in his hands, thanking the man timidly. 

It was with that same ball that sat gripped in his hand that the boy attempted to lift the pitcher with, leaving him with one small palm against the vase while the other remained steadfast with a hold on the prize.

Lauraus had never been a dense child. A weak one, yes, but never dense. He had not covered any of the sciences yet in his schooling, but he had enough common sense to know that physics did not work in ways that would benefit him in this situation. A frail, skinny boy lifting a pitcher half his weight off a shelf, without a sure grip. And ruefully enough, he didn't need physics to tell him either that when something ceramic hit the ground, it shattered into a million pieces.

He remembered his heart stopping for a brief moment, his breath catching in his throat as his head whipped upwards to catch the multiples of eyes that had just watched him shatter and spill an entire vase filled with scarce water. He didn't even stay around to hear the first shout of "What have we told you about taking the pitcher for yourself!" before he darted out of the room, through the back servants door and into the western gardens, his legs carrying him as fast as he could possibly go, hand clutching the leather ball.

The greenery around him spluttered into a passing blur as he took off, bony legs teetering against the stillness of the ground, the heat of the day hitting him instantly, the humidity of the afternoon whipping against the pale of his face, desperate breaths stagnant in the cruelty of summer.

He didn't get very far, his oxygen leaving him in whistling, heaving breaths after just a few paces to the right, his chest forcing itself to expand and take in all the more air it could. His stuttering, dragging steps did not help his feeble respiratory system either, as the farther he tried to take himself, the more his breaths became uncontrolled and swift, a hand coming up to slam against the breast of his chest.