Summer Garden

Trei

Tyr left. His words still ringing in Trei's ears.

Trei didn't care.

He fell to his knees. He didn't even have a body to weep over. Summer was dead. She was gone.

He'd never hear her laugh that sounded like wind chimes in the wind.

He'd never see her smile again.

Never see her screw up her nose and call him odd again.

He'd never see her in the wedding dress, as the two walked down the aisle.

It was over.

There was no coming back from it this time. There was no resurrecting with the power of the fates. No reincarnation from the lifestream.

Trei cried, as he remembered her.

He'd stared in surprise as the double vision faded. The voice had been of a woman, not one he'd met. She was a redhead, a complete rarity in the city. She was sitting on a wall nearby, cross-legged, sipping tea from a gold-edged cup.

His jaw dropped as a flash of movement caught his eye. On her back, were two nearly-transparent purple wings. They were about half her height, but spread out would be much wider than she was tall.

He'd been so surprised that she'd existed. That the Fae existed.

"Sure? ... You aren't grossed out by eating dead things?"

"Its just meat, right? Humans eat meat."

"Ew." Summer had shivered, "Do humans eat normal things too?"

"What do you mean by normal?"

"Um..." Summer thought for a moment, "Leaves. Grass. Nectar, flowers."

Trei smiled sadly at the memory. She'd said that so matter-of-factly. As if it were entirely normal to shove a flower in your mouth and swallow it. She'd been horrified that he ate meat. As if the thought was reviling down to the concept... Yet all the same, Summer had taken him hunting. She'd helped him, even if it disturbed her. Even though she didn't know who he was, she'd opened her home and heart to him without a hesitation.

The Fae had been right.

Everyone who cared about him died.

Astrian standing by the fire. The woman had turned around, and he immediately felt the need to straighten up. The woman bowed her head slightly, "Sir. I am known as Astrian. I am the caretaker of this location. The Lady Summer has been called to deal with a situation. I shall be assisting you today."

Trei sighed heavily, remembering the butler. Upright and correct. Yet, whenever she thought he wasn't paying attention she would hum to herself quietly, an ancient tune. The kind of music that crept into your head and curled up around your mind and stayed there for days.

Astrian had died bringing him back. Forced to endure childhood again.

Becoming a tiny Faeling not understanding what was going around her. Not understanding why she wanted to possess Trei, and not understanding why he wouldn't let her.

He could remember Luna.

She'd bristled with anger, and he'd felt himself struggling to contain his laughter. She certainly looked cute when she got riled up. Then a thought occurred to him and he immediately flatlined. If Summer found out he was flirting with another Fae she might kill him, or worse. Or the Council might use it as an excuse to hurt Summer.

"I am the Lady Luna." She growled between clenched teeth that Trei suddenly realised were all fangs, "I am the Crown Princess, the Shadow Knight of the Evening Realms, and Guardian of the Shrine."

He hadn't understood a single one of her titles. He still didn't fully comprehend it.

She was always quick to anger, and found Trei so easy to make her explode, and all the while all he could think when she yelled at him was how cute she'd looked. That thought hadn't changed much when she'd found Claven. The two had made an adorable couple, feeding each other leaves whilst he'd battled Alphege.

Now there was a relationship that had changed.

All he'd wanted to do when he met her was murder her, tear her limb from limb.

Yet, Alphege had given her last trying to protect Summer.

She'd given her life for her, and he hadn't been there to save her. She'd managed to find a way to save him back then... But he hadn't managed to save her.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" He'd told her. Pretending to be completely calm after catching the elf unaware.

"What do you feel, mortal?"

"Mortality. I feel mortal. Even though I'm not. I feel like things will come to an end. That all of this is about to make sense, and that will be over... But nothing ever truly ends. All actions beget the next. The sun doesn't stop shining just because you wish it would. Even if we win in the end, tomorrow will still come creeping in."

Alphege had stepped towards him, "You feel clarity. You begin to see how events fit together."

He wished he had her stability now, more than ever. Her way of being able to look at the world with brutal purpose, unshaken.

"And what am I? Am I a mortal, elf?" He'd demanded her to tell him, still hurting from when he thought Summer had died. Thought Alphege had helped kill Summer.

"If that is your desire, it shall be yours. If the end of your life is what you seek, you will find it."

He still had no idea what she meant.

He'd wanted Summer, and he'd found her... And she'd been erased.

"Trei'el?"

He looked up with exhaustion to the edge of the square, where half a dozen humans were standing. Terrified refugees, not knowing why the world had been torn down around their ears. Why their entire city had been consigned to oblivion. Their lives stripped away because an old man wanted to die.

No one called him by his full name. He hadn't told it to anyone since before the war.

One of the refugees stepped forward, an old woman. Badly burned and scarred, leaning on the solid frame of a blacksmith. His blacksmith.

"Master?" Trei asked slowly, standing up weakly, "You survived, then."

The man just grunted. He'd never been one for words.

The blacksmith nodded to the woman with him, who'd spoken, and Trei looked at her carefully. He couldn't remember her. Not from anywhere, yet she knew his name. His real name.

The woman paused, looking up at him with those tired eyes, and the broken body of someone who has known a terrible life. "Don't you remember me? Trei'el?"

He frowned, "I'm sorry. I don't."

The blacksmith's hand caught him over the back of his head, "She's Valis, boy."

Trei looked at her in shock. The scars had distorted the shape of her face. The woman he'd known hadn't had a mark on her, preserved by the overbearing alchemist who used her in his experiments.

"Mother."

She smiled at him tiredly, touching his cheek weakly, "So, you survived, then."

Trei sighed heavily, "No, I didn't. I'm not alive anymore, mother. I'm not dead either. I'm... Something else."

The blacksmith raised an eyebrow, "You're talkin' and walkin'. That's livin' to me."

His mother held his hand gently, "Were these your friends?"

He winced, "Yes."

"The bright one. Who was she?"

His tongue caught in his throat, and the blacksmith sighed, "Aye. It do be like that."

Trei felt the tears coming, trying to fight the inevitability. "They're all dead. All of them."

His mother patted his hand, "It hurts. I know."