The day before the new emperor is crowned, they travel east, back towards the Kingdom of Theia. When Theia is in view, they settle in the forest atop a small hill nearby that overlooks the kingdom from afar.
The sun is setting by the time they are done with the preparations, and the kingdom blends beautifully with the orange sky over the horizon, just like a painting.
When night seeps in, Alaina becomes nervous. Perhaps she should have already felt so the moment she left Theia and made her choice to go against everything she’s every lived for, but she hasn’t. Yet now, standing on top of the hill and overlooking her home, she is struck by nostalgia and is suddenly unsure of herself.
“We have already come this far,” Lancaster had said to her earlier. “Do not think too much about it. Whatever happens… happens.”
Then, bitterly, she remembers her father’s words.
“You fight for what you believe in.”
Her father, who had done something she never in her life thought that he would. Her father, who had loved her with all his heart, no longer sees her as his very own.
She shuts her eyes, allows the cool wind to beat against her skin. As the sky darkens, she forces the thoughts away and flushes them down an unknown dark tunnel inside her, hoping they never return. She turns, her back against her very own kingdom, and leaves. Alaina doesn’t look back.
*****
Her sleep is uneasy. Alaina tosses and turns, finding herself waking almost every minute in cold sweat. Her palms are sweaty, her vision blurry as she stares into the dark. She can’t see anything, but she hears her heartbeats loudly and clearly, drumming against her ears.
Through rapid breaths, the images of her dreams creep slyly back into her memories.
Fire. A clash of weapons and armour. Soldiers. A battlefield.
A red flag falling to the ground, burning into ashes and nothingness. On the flag, a symbol of a flying horse. A Pegasus?
She isn’t sure.
There was a cry in the distance in her dreams, and she wakes as if the scream is her waking call.
Dreams? No, more like nightmares. Because what kind of dreams make you feel so uneasy and unable to fall asleep again, with an ominous feeling that something great is coming your way?
Refusing to take any more of this torture, Alaina clambers out of her thin bedroll and out of the tent quietly, into the dark forest. Her bare feet kiss the grass beneath her, her skin cool in the night wind as it whistles in her ears and rustles the dark trees. She shivers. The temperature is low in the night.
Thinking about the next day – which, technically, isn’t really the next day as it’s dawning upon them in a few hours – hurts, but Alaina’s mind insists on returning to that thought. Tomorrow.
A day that will change history.
It is funny how a day is different for everyone. Like how maybe one still has a string of tomorrows, but beyond anyone’s knowledge, perhaps for another person tomorrow’s their last day. Tomorrow, at dawn, the future emperor – not like Alaina is about to let that happen – believes he’s to be crowned the one and only ruler of Asteria. Tomorrow, Alaina is to win back what she’s believed in. Yet for others, it’s only an ordinary day, if they do not see any meaning into the installation ceremony.
Back on top of the small hill over Theia, Alaina lifts her head to look up at the still dark sky. No stars, only floating clouds.
She hasn’t a clue what time into the night it is, but she’s far from the dream world now. It is difficult to go back to sleep when nightmares are waiting at your doorstep.
Alaina finds a tall lone tree and settles herself beneath its dark shade, although from what, she isn’t really sure. It’s not sunny, but she feels somewhat secure beneath the rustling overhead leaves watching over her. Still, even with her imaginary protection, it doesn’t stop her from shivering. She brings her knees close to her chest and cuddles herself, embracing the cold weather in the night.
Closing her eyes, she tries to relax, but the vision she sees is yet again the red flag with the Pegasus burning to the ground. She has never seen anything of this sort in her life, and she begins questioning herself why is such a thing insisting on staying with her.
A shift in the woods ultimately catches her attention. A movement. Alaina sits still, slightly thankful that it has brought her thoughts back, away from the meaningless nightmare scene.
A situation like this, where she’s all alone late in the night, with a funny sound around her within the dark woods, she is supposed to be afraid and alert. She knows she is supposed to feel so, yet she doesn’t. In fact, she feels a surge of relief for it for bringing her mind back to where it’s supposed to be.
But that isn’t the scariest part – because she knows, somehow, what is coming.
Or actually, who.
“What are you doing, Kai?” Alaina turns around and squints her eyes in the dark where she’s expecting him. But no, instinctively, she looks above her.
There is a clumsy shift in the tree, and few leaves fall over her head and are stuck in her hair. When the rustling in the tree increases that one shall know it’s obviously not made by the wind alone no longer, Alaina shuts her eyes and shields herself protectively as if something will fall on her.
Something – someone, does appear. But he doesn’t fall on her.
“How did you know it was me?” He looks her in the eye, upside down when he’s still hanging on the tree. He appeared so suddenly that Alaina perhaps would have screamed if she wasn’t already expecting him or already somehow knew he was coming.
Their faces are only an inch apart.
Alaina stares blankly at him, at his upside-down face who appears to be staring right back at her. Dishevelled, messy brown hair, as usual. Several leaves stick out from his hair.
A funny feeling conquers her conscience. She continues to stare at him, as if she will be able to find the answers just by looking at his puzzled, confused face.
Familiarity.
Yes. But it’s not of Kai’s face, rather, of the scene that’s unfolding before her.
Déjà vu? That’ll be the most logical explanation. It happens sometimes. Yet she swears this is all too familiar. Too oddly familiar as if it isn’t a simple déjà vu. But what would it be, then?
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When she finds Kai’s cheeks turning red, she realises she’s been staring too long with such little distance between them.
“What are you doing?” She repeats her question, taking a few steps back, flushing slightly herself.
“How did you know it was me?” He repeats his very own question, too.
Alaina rolls her eyes, crossing her arms. “Fireflies don’t make clumsy sounds.”
As if he’s reacting to her deliberately, Kai falls from the tree in a few clumsy movements, unlike his usual swift self at all. “That’s why I’m no firefly.”
“I don’t care.”
Kai moves to sit beside her. “What are you doing, princess?” He adds a tone to his voice, and says the word ‘princess’ just as how she would say the world ‘firefly’.
“That’s my question, and you haven’t answered it.”
He shrugs. “Sleep is for the weak.” He turns to look at her. “Now, what are you doing this late at night?”
There’s always the casual way Kai talks to her like she isn’t the princess. Perhaps he’s never known her for what she was, but she’s rather grateful they talk like normal friends despite statuses. She’s always convinced Lancaster and Lloyd not to, but it’s difficult for them, considering they work in the royal palace.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Alaina admits. “Nightmares.” She shudders at the thought of it, and shakes her head to get rid of the memory. Even so, she still shudders from the low temperature of their surroundings. She rubs her hands on both her arms. “And please, ‘sleep is for the weak’? That’s not an answer. When will you stop fooling around and be honest with me?”
“We are made of layers of lies.”
Alaina sighs. “You’re full of indecipherable layers.”
Kai glances sideways to take a look at her. She has her eyes fixed over the horizon. “You’re the same.”
“Am I?”
The way she asks is as if she is merely throwing the question immediately, desperate yet casual and mindless, but she does contemplate the matter. She gives a thought about it, and her actions give her away: the way she twirls her finger around her hair, staring at it blankly – her mind isn’t there at all but instead it is busy searching for an answer to her own question.
But she doesn’t get a reply. Yet only after snapping out of her thoughts does she finally realise his silence. When she turns to him, she finds that he’s staring at her.
Alaina’s sudden instinct is to jerk backwards, but she only does so with her head, an inch or less. Only then does she realise how close he’s sitting next to her – his fingers on the ground are so close to hers that one would think they’re already in contact, except she herself doesn’t feel his touch on her.
And she would know of his touch. His, of all people – not because they’ve actually touched each other before and so often that they know it just by the slight brush of each other’s presence, but because of his uniqueness. As simple as that.
“What?” she demands, staring back at him incredulously, feeling heat in her cheeks.
Kai doesn’t advert his eyes. He furrows his brows when he looks at her, as if scrutinizing her. “Have we met before?”
Alaina frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean before the tavern, before the forest. Long before. Have we ever crossed paths before?” His hand twitches; there’s a point where he lifts his hand and brings it near her cheek, and her heart beats so fast it’s impossible. The heat in her cheeks she feels in this intensity between them is potentially even warmer than Kai’s touch. She’s no longer shivering from the cold atmosphere.
His fingers – only the tips – brush through the little lock of hair falling over the side of her face, but only barely, very briefly. Soon enough, he retracts his hand like he’s afraid of touch, and Alaina is staring at the Kai she just met in the forest, and in the dungeons where he constantly avoids contact.
Her heart sinks, because she believes they are already beyond that conflict. But it’s not mere sadness, but guilt she feels – the way she sees him act that way yet doesn’t know what to do, for she fears any little misunderstanding may end their very friendship.
And so she does nothing.
“No?” Her answer comes out with a questionable uncertainty, because she herself knows it’s impossible. The meeting in the forest was the very first time they’d crossed paths. Yet her own body answers with a slight doubt, even though her mind is fixed on a sure answer. “No,” she says again, firmer this time. “No.”
Finally, Kai looks away to gaze over the horizon, where she’d been staring at moments ago. There’s an unreadable expression on his face – seemingly emotionless, nonchalant. But there’s something else… disappointment? Alaina can’t be too sure. She is most likely mistaken, but that is what she concludes from the little sag in his eyebrows.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve asked me so.”
No reply.
Trying to force a laugh to lighten the eerie atmosphere created by Kai’s sudden coldness and silence, she holds her breath, then says, “back then… was that all you can say, when you’re on the brink of death?”
“But I was serious,” he replies, turning to eye her again. “So am I now.”
Still holding her breath, Alaina holds his gaze. She can’t seem to find the right words, and soon enough, she finds herself staring in his mesmerizing amber eyes.
Kai breaks their contact. “It’s nothing.” He waves a lazy hand and stares back into the horizon. “And I… can’t sleep either.”
It takes her a moment to realise where is the randomness of his statement coming from. “Finally.”
“Finally what?”
“You’re being honest with me. At least, for once.”
“But you’re not.”
“How am I not? And we’re talking about you here.”
“You didn’t tell me about your nightmares.”
Shuddering from the mere memory of it, Alaina says softly, “I’d rather not.”
“Please?” Kai insists.
She sighs. “Not much that I remember. Only… there’s this red flag with a Pegasus on it. And it’s on fire, burning to the ground.”
“That’s hardly scary.” He begins laughing.
Flushing, she quickly adds, “It keeps haunting me! It’s not leaving my memory.”
“So you’re trying to keep your mind off the nightmares.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not being honest again.”
Alaina glares in his direction. There’s a funny feeling bubbling inside of her – a mixture of emotions. Anger and frustration for being so transparent and easily read by Kai, whom she only met not too long ago; but also a sense of security and comfort when he does understands her.
“I’m worried about tomorrow. I mean, I don’t know what’s worth fighting for anymore.”
“You do,” he says softly, and he leans in close to her. Alaina flinches slightly at first for reasons she isn’t aware of, but Kai doesn’t come close enough to touch her. “I’m sure you have your own reasons, and those are the reasons you are here today. But that’s what makes you who you are – right or wrong, there’s no such answer. So just fight for what you believe in.”
“I’m not sure if I like this person I am now.”
“I know I do. I like who you are now.”
Although Alaina has find herself flushing or feeling flustered several times around Kai because of some things he’s said or did that are just rather random and doesn’t seem to fit into his personality at times – even though she is someone who isn’t easily flustered except when her own pride is concerned, she feels herself warm and comforted by those very words. “Thank you, firefly.”
Kai looks away quickly, perplexed. “What I said makes sense?” He begins running his hand through his hair, a gesture she notices as something to keep others – and himself – distracted when he feels embarrassed or shy or simply confused.
“You’re weird.”
“You’re overbearing.”
“I found this place first, you know,” she says, agitated.
“You don’t own this place,” he shoots back.
“I was here first.”
“I’m here to keep you warm.”
Alaina laughs. “Keep me warm?”
Grinning confidently, Kai crosses his arms. “See, with my presence alone, you won’t even feel cold.”
Once he’s said so, she recalls shivering in the cool night wind and the low, humid temperature at the beginning, when she’s all alone. She had thought she was feeling less cold because she was talking to someone or constantly feeling a rush of emotions rising and falling within her, making her heart beats irregular.
She turns to him and raises a brow. “You’re emitting your heat? But I don’t feel completely warm, like if there’s a fire before us right now. So, your fire isn’t really working, I see. Right, I forgot you’re only a tiny firefly!” She laughs.
Kai glares at her. “Yeah, a firefly who has his own fire,” he says proudly, and Alaina finds herself smiling, feeling satisfied that she’s now talking to the Kai she’s gotten to know. The one who has gradually but steadily opened up to her. The Kai now.
The next thing he does is unexpected of him. He takes of his gloves, and, without lifting his eyes to look at her, he stretches his hands in front of her. “Here,” he offers, still hesitant, as if afraid she might deny his kindness. “Maybe you can… touch me to warm up. You know, without burning up this time. Since you’re cold.”
Another rush of emotions. Alaina smiles warmly. “You do have a heart.” Without hesitation nor does she need a better reason than being ‘cold’ even if she isn’t shivering as much as she had before, she entrusts her hands in his and entwines her fingers with his, without fear or regret. “A firefly with his very own fire,” she agrees.
Too shy to say another word or to even take a quick glance at her, Kai fixes his gaze ahead, watching the sky glow brighter each passing minute. The minutes seem to last longer than usual, but at this point, they do not bother no longer.
Whatever that’s in store for them in the next few hours, they aren’t really putting their minds on it. For once, they set their thoughts about the future aside, because for now they wish only to embrace this moment, for however long it lasts.
And together, they sit in silence as they watch the sun rise lazily ahead.