The Initials | Nanowrimo 2023

56| Submission To The Flame

After sneaking her way from the Water Faction dorms to the Fire Faction, Sky prepares herself to knock on the large door with the solid gold rune meaning fire, or rather flame, engraved into its wooden surface.

She stumbles back a few steps once Cloud unexpectedly cracks the door open for her, wondering how he knew she'd arrived when she could have sworn her tiptoeing was even quieter than that of mice.

There's enough light coming in from the corridor for her to see his face, even with the extra layers of comforters and blankets draped over his head.

The entire day she expected him to be well rested, imagining all the sleep he must have been catching up on after being quarantined from the rest of the first years.

That was until they started their back and forth exchange through messages starting in the day and going well into the night until the point that he eventually asked her to come over.

Usually being around Cloud is like reading an open book.

If he's mad he'll make sure you know about it, especially if you did something that offended him personally, and when he is at his happiest you'll always catch him stealing glances to make sure he isn't alone in that feeling.

He’s reliably simple, always has been, and hopefully always will be.

It's a quality in him which has always made her feel safe in his company.

But he's just a boy. He's not perfect.

He lies and cheats and hides the rest below the surface like everyone else because emotions are never just binary.

They're never just negative or positive, good and bad, sometimes they're a confusing mixture of both, a healthy blend of juxtaposing forces.

In the last few weeks, however, there has been this new side to him, a place in his mind where they no longer connect.

He tries his best to hide from it and hide it from everyone else, but as they saw over the weekend, that part of him is growing day by day and leading him towards an uncertain fate.

He has this unfamiliar look about him that she sees mostly in his face. He looks older, worn down, hardened to the world.

The only thing worse than seeing something on his face is seeing him as he is now, with nothing at all, vacant and so endlessly lost.

Sky creeps into the room, filled only with the confidence of knowing that he at least wants her here.

The only real reason she even considered coming is because his dorm room is virtually empty which means there would be next to no witnesses to call them out for this late night visit but most importantly she isn't sure when they'll get another chance like this again, face to face, with the chance to share an intimate moment.

“Is this a mistake?” Sky whispers after he has already closed the door behind her. “What if we get caught?”

“You still came anyway.” he replies back, speaking at a respectably low volume as he guides her through the room whilst her eyes adjust to the lack of light.

“Did you think I wouldn't?” she asks, taking a seat on the edge of his bed after he climbs over a small mountain of blankets and rests his back against the backboard.

“I hoped you would.”

She tilts her head away, grateful for the darkness concealing the smile that tickles the corners of her lips.

“What?” he asks, carelessly unaware of his charm, tapping the bed to signal for her hand.

“It's nothing.” she replies, combing her hair over her left shoulder with her free hand, lowering her gaze once he starts playing with it himself, gently winding it around his fingers before letting it loosely slip through his grasp only to repeat the process again.