It's always a matter, isn't it, of waiting for the world to come unraveled? When things hold together, it's always only temporary
A
s the edge of the forest looms before her, as she can see her home—her first home—through the trees, she feels her throat tighten. Her vision swims a little bit and she struggles to breathe.
She imagines being a little girl and running up those hills next to her father.
She imagines her mother dancing in the waters of the lake. Droplet catching in the sun like stained glass.
She imagines her grandmother tucking her in with a story.
She blinks and it is gone. Elena shakes her head, today was a day for memories. They keep coming to her, it is the guilt, she knows it is the guilt.
Her secrets are a constant, boiling thing beneath the surface of her.
She fears them. Knows that one day they will be the ruin of her, but she cannot bring herself to face them—not yet. She cannot shove them into the light of day because then it may boil beneath the sun and she is not sure that they will ever recover. That she will ever recover, if she is being honest. Because how will he ever look at her the same when he knows what she has kept hidden beneath her tongue, behind her teeth?
She remembers.
She remembers the way her mouth had lilted into a smile
She remembers how she had said “I’ll tell you.”
“But only after you dance with me.”
“We’re only strangers.”
She is standing in Dusk Court, before Marisol’s estate. She is expecting Aeneas, Marisol’s son. The Champion of Community waves off one of the servants, they would have no need for that today. When the boy comes to her, Elena cannot help the smile that springs to her face. “Aeneas, it is a pleasure to finally meet you,” she says looking at him. He reminds her, in an instant, of her nephew, Kildare, and she is suddenly full of warmth and cherry blossoms. “I am your Champion of Community, Elena,” she introduces herself, wondering how much he already knows. “Are you ready to collect some flowers to be taken to the Hospital?” She asks him before moving off. She watches him with blue eyes, curious to how he will respond. Will he think this charity work a waste of time? Will he be excited? What type of boy is Aeneas, and are there any hints of what type of man he will grow into? She leans her golden head closer to him as they approach the garden. “My daughter has not stopped talking about you, Aeneas, you know her, don’t you? Elli?”
hese walls are all he has ever known. The entire span of his life has been lived between the brick and mortar; playing hide and seek in the gardens; praying before Vespera; running through the too-tight alleyways between shops in the market, or the city square. Of course, he has adventured past them—into the forests and the fields, to the cliffs by the sea. Youth, inexperience, nativity—these are all things he wears in the smile that sometimes falters, and in the gold-to-red glow of the tattoos not written into his skin, but inherited.
(Then, of course, he dreams: he dreams of the same black sand beach and the same white stallion. He remembers, this morning, the conversation. “I have lived a hundred lives,” the white stallion tells Aeneas. “And I live yours now.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” says Aeneas.
Then, he wakes up).
He wakes up to Hilde and breakfast in the dining hall. He wakes up to a day with a sweet cinnamon pastry, and his mother reminding him he is to go with Elena, the Champion of Community, to pick tulips for the hospital. He wakes up to a life of youth, a life where the largest injustice he has suffered thus far is his father’s abandonment.
Aeneas’s nerves manifest in the too-quick way he descends the stairs and meets Elena before the estate. Aeneas wants to remark on how alike Elena looks to Elliana—but decides against it, out of shyness. Aeneas, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. He smiles, a princely kind of smile, the kind of smile he believes is suited for an encounter that is borderline political. But then Elena mentions Elliana, and the smile breaks wider, boyishly, to meet his eyes. “She hasn’t?” Aeneas asks, perhaps too excitedly. He realizes too late he forgot to reply to the flowers and amends, “I am very excited. I have never visited the hospital, and this seems like a good way to do it.” Another polite smile, one that appears abashed.
“I do know Elli!” Aeneas says, as they walk toward the fields of tulips. “We are pretty good friends.” He cannot help but think of how she painted him; how she showed him the secret field of butterflies. It feels, suddenly, as if he has not done enough for her. “Does she like gifts, Lady Elena?” Aeneas asks before he can think better of it and then, attempting to not discuss only Elli, adds as an afterthought: “Were the tulips your idea?”
The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.
It's always a matter, isn't it, of waiting for the world to come unraveled? When things hold together, it's always only temporary
G
lacier blue eyes look at Aeneas with the softness of a mother, even if he is not her child. But she has to imagine, the love she feels for Elliana, it is rivaled by that of which Marisol loves her own son, she can tell, in the lilt of his smile, or the brightness of his eyes. Both children that have faced an injustice by their own parent, even if only one of them knows about it.
Blue eyes flitter up, in case she might catch the edge of Marisol’s earth toned body, but she is left disappointed when she does not see her. She has craved the company of other parents, of others who are experiencing this kind of love, this kind of protection that they have never known before. She wants to know, do you feel it too? Do you feel like you are on the verge of death because every little thing suddenly seems so much more dangerous now that there is a part of you out there in the world.
Elena smiles at him as they walk. “No, she hasn’t. I think she enjoys your company,” she says. She may be in trouble for this later. Elli was not the type of child who wore her emotions so vibrant on her sleeve as Elena did. But Elli also did not build such high walls around her heart either.
She laughs gently with a lazy blink of her blue eyes. “I think she does, if they are the right sort of gift,” she says and nudges his shoulder just as she would her nephews Yanhua or Nashua. “Something personable, with thought,” she offers him in terms of ideas. “Here we are,” she says as they come into the garden. “Now, try to think of colors that go well together, or remind you of something,” she says as she picks blue and yellow. “Like a summer sky,” she says and then picks white and another with a silvery hue. “Or the first snow of winter.” She continues picking until he asks another question. “They were, though not mine alone,” she says, thinking before elaborating. “I have a cousin, and we loved tulips when we were little, so i thought of her before planting them,” she says, picking a few more flowers. “You have a sister, tell me about her. I have always heard twins have a bond like no other.”
![[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/8026a53b-dc57-41ab-b574-9f8a8fe57ce4/ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db0780.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzgwMjZhNTNiLWRjNTctNDFhYi1iNTc0LTlmOGE4ZmU1N2NlNFwvZGR2b3R3ZS01OTMwMmJhNi02YTgxLTQ3YmYtOTg0Ni0zMGM1YTVkYjA3ODAucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.ujCJH7FAbsQhfZlQniMmEd_vw-VmvaTDn0iFb4PvyXE)
