Nocturne

🌺 Chapter Forty-Seven ~ Surya 🌺

The wind cut across her face, exposed under the layers of fur. It had stopped snowing at last, but the crying wind froze deep under her skin and made itself a nest in her bones. She kept her head down and pressed forwards through the cold, frozen inside and out.

Why was she doing this? Why did she care so much?

She told herself it was for Aelius. Only for Aelius. He was her son, and he needed her. Surely that was all the reasoning she needed to keep pushing onwards in the low snowy hillocks between the two cities.

There was too much space here, too much time for thought. She passed the farms, frantic yet sleepy, she walked by the groves and springs, frozen over and yet welcoming. Her anxieties kept pace with her like elven horses with iced over hooves and flaming manes. Was she really over him?

Arun had been so kind, when he was younger, when he was just a prince. He had his characteristic pride, of course, but it had been tempered with a cheerful openness and a strength of spirit like a torch held high on a still night. Not to mention he was very attractive, with his blond hair tied back in a low ponytail and his handsome face always adorned with a mischievous smile.

She'd fallen for him, like so many others had, girls, boys, and enbys alike in this. But, for some reason understandable only to him, he had chosen her. Just a peasant girl, living in a towering apartment barely large enough for her and her small family.

Her fathers had worked all day, every day, one as a Farmer and the other as a Scribe in the visual arts, and her brother had spent his days working as a Janitor as soon as he was old enough to, though he aspired to be an Instructor of fencing someday. When Surya herself had grown old enough, she began training as a Scribe, though she had yet to choose a specialty. They had all been so proud of her.

Scribes were few, and most looked down on them as just people too weak for battle or farming, but her family was different, staying a little bit away from the rest of the city. Surya couldn't remember any time they actually visited the Brazier, except for the times it was unavoidable, like for a ceremony for themselves or a friend. Even then, it was more about the person or people involved than any respect for Sol.

After all, their city was falling down around them- literally, at times. What did Sol do to help them then? What did Sol do about the fires, the shortages, the crime even then beginning to spread like a low, poisonous fog.

They weren't poor, as concepts of rich and poor didn't truly apply in a society without money. People simply gave each other what they had extra and asked for what they needed or wanted. Though there wasn't much extra, these days.

But they were happy, as these things went. Though she had been often bullied or ignored outside of the home, she was, on the whole, happy, and so was her family.

Surya's fathers hadn't understood their daughter's love for spreadsheets and solitary calculation, but they had encouraged her anyway. Apollo had always had a shortage of Scribes, and her queer and quiet personality positioned her as a perfect candidate.

That was, until she'd met Arun.

He'd made her feel so special, at first. He had a way of working his way into people's hearts, into people's minds. Even now, she doubted he knew how talented he was at being charismatic, a skill that she'd always struggled with. When he'd asked her to marry him, it was like a whole new world had opened for her. Perhaps she'd finally be able to fit in, to find somewhere, with someone, she belonged.

He'd filled her, made her feel complete. But as time wore on, it felt less and less like he was making up for what she lacked, and more and more like he was hollowing her out, making her into something always feigned and frightened, lost and nervous, too timid to take as well as give.

After her fathers died and her brother had married a fantastic woman, she felt as if there was no one in the world left that needed her. No one except Arun. His old mother recently dead, he was now king, and he had no one by her side. No one but her. Or at least, that was what she'd thought, and that was who she'd striven to be.

Emmie's face floated, unbidden into her mind, and a flash of anger and sorrow swept through her like a flash flood. It wasn't fair, she thought.

Of course, it wasn't Emmie's fault. It wasn't even her mother's. She simply hadn't been what Arun needed... and he hadn't been what she did.

That would change now, she swore, the crying wind carrying her oath to the sky. Now, she would be what he needed. He would be hers, and she would be his. For one last time, they would be a family. And families took care of each other.

No matter what happened.