05;

[sparkleandfade]

 Most days, there was only Aeia. 

“Hey… hey, Ayase… Aya…”

The rain fell in grey sheets. It had for hours. Days. They sat, back to back, Aeia mending the riding breeches of some traveller she fancied, Ayase reading.

“What?”
“That book – you’re always reading it”
“’Always’”
“You know what I mean. Whenever you read, you’re reading that”
“Perhaps. So?”
“Don’t say ‘so’! What is it?”
“It’s called ‘A Blue Bestiary’. It’s about a warrior named Dallius—”
“‘The Blue Bestiary’? But it’s bound in red leather…”
“Do you want to know about it or not? It’s called that because he has blue eyes and everyone comments on how blue they are all the time. It’s because he’s blind, you see. Even so, he manages to travel from place to place fighting monsters. To be honest, its quite repetitive. Every town they say the same thing, ‘We need help, this horrible ugly monster is eating all of our sheep! Anyone will do!’, but as soon as Dallius shows up, suddenly they get all picky. ‘Whats this, this blind idiot thinks he can fight the monster? He’ll die for sure!’. Then of course he kills the monster, the prettiest girl in the town falls in love with him somehow, so on and so on”
“You make it sound boring”
“It is, sometimes”
“Why read it then? Alaintheir is gone right now, isn’t he? You should find a different one to read”

That name. It was not often he heard it spoken out loud. It was always ‘Father’, or ‘Master, or ‘the Crown Prince’, or ‘Him’. But Aeia was bold enough when in his presence alone to speak about him frankly. If he were present, Ayase knew she would not even dare to refer to him at all.

“I don’t know…”

Placing his thumb in the fold of the pages to mark his place he carefully smoothed his fingers across the worn leather of the cover, the letters of the title barely legible now. The colour had even worn away completely in places.

“I used to read it to Cail, when we were still children. He said he liked it because Dallius was blind like him. Now, I think… I think he just knew that I wanted to feel useful, so he let me read to him so I could feel like I was doing something to help him. Whenever I asked him what he wanted to listen to each evening, he would always say ‘Dallius’. Every time. Even when he was too tired to sit up straight. He… he knew that I could read it well, that I felt confident reading it out loud. It was all just to please me, in the end. Even that… even that was just… I was useless to him even then”

Even as he hunched forward, even as he felt Aeia’s arms wrap around his shoulders and the tickle of her long hair against his cheek as she embraced him, even as he tried to will it away, he couldn’t stop the tremble in his voice. His vision was blurred, but he could see the teardrops gathering on the dark red leather. One, then another. And another. As if the world needed another deluge.

“I miss him too, Aya. I get so worried when months go by and none of them come home, I think the worst. What if—”
“Don’t”

He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t bear it.

They were silent for a while, said nothing. The rain continued to fall. Eventually Aeia sat back down heavily, sighing and leaning against him, wrapping her arms around her knees. 

“You argued with him before he left this time, right? Was it about that person?”

He knew who she referred to without asking. The fact she was able to probe for clarification meant she already knew the answer to the first question, but he chose to indulge her all the same. He wanted to talk about it. 

“I thought he knew you were a whore. Why is this differe—Ow! What was that for?!”
“What the hell did you call me?!”
“Sorry! Ow! Stop twisting my ear!”

Huffing, Ayase relented, folding his arms against himself and glaring out at the rain. A whore. Maybe he was. Maybe that was what Cail thought after all, if that was what Aeia thought. Maybe Nhaeii thought that too. 

“I’m sorry. You aren’t a whore. I didn’t mean it like that. You know how I meant it”
“…yes, I suppose I do. Sorry for hurting you. Come here—”

Gently he pulled her round towards him, guiding her head onto his lap, Aeia obliging meekly, happy to do anything to return back to his good graces. Truthfully, he could never stay angry at her for longer no matter what she said or did. She was his only friend in the whole, lonely, raining world. He began stroking his slender fingers through her long dark hair, combing it out. So beautiful. It was a shame half her face had been burned and mangled as a child, or perhaps she would be pretty enough to be a whore too.

“Seriously, though, Aya. Tell me”
“That person is important in certain ways. He is also dangerous in certain ways. He isn’t like anyone else. Cail knows that, in fact he probably knows more about him than I do. He told me to stay away from him, I said that I wouldn’t”
“Wasn’t he rude to Cail when they first met?”
“Yes, he could tell that he was Caerus’ son and that disgusted him”
“But so are you”
“I know. I don’t understand, either. Maybe he can’t sense it on me. I’m not much like my mother. I don’t have magic either, maybe he decided to exclude it as a possibility based on that even if he did sense it. I don’t know. When he figures it out, it’ll probably end up going badly, but…”

He sighed, wistfully, thinking about his strong hands and his pale eyes and his cold voice. The look of horror and confusion and disgust on his sharp face after he had kissed him. It still hurt, even now, but somehow it made him giddy, too.

“He must be handsome, to make you like this”
“It’s not like that”
“Yes it is”
“No”
“You’re blushing”
“Just because I am attracted to him doesn’t mean he reciprocates my feelings. We talk, that’s all. I don’t think he even enjoys talking to me that much. It’s a mystery to me why he keeps coming back at all”
“Cail is just worried for you. Let him worry about you. It probably feels good”

His hands froze mid motion, and he stared down at her, confused. 

“What—”
“We spend all of our time worrying about him, right? He is always out being Dallius, being the hero, while you have to stay here and feel useless. He probably feels bad about that. Now he has something that he can fuss over you about it. It’ll make him feel like a normal older brother, for once, trying to keep his twin out of danger. You spent all those nights reading to him, you were tired too, right? But you stayed up to read to him anyway because you thought he needed it, because you thought it would make him happy. Let him try to repay you for your kindness. Let him feel like he’s protecting you, like he’s doing something to help you, just like he let you think you were helping him”

Outside, the downpour had started to wane. 

“Hey, Aeia…”
“Yeah?”
“Lets go find another book for me to read”

.

Comments

[scripturient]

why must you do these things to me

[sparkleandfade]

IM SORRY