He shot a glance over at Juna. She nervously smiled at him whilst rubbing the back of her head.
“Is something the matter?” he asked. “I don’t have something funny on my face now do I?”
“No, no. It’s just, uh, I’m…” While she thought about what to say next, he began to spot the closed gate up ahead a little ways from where they were currently. “I guess I should just come out and say it. I want to apologize for what I did to you back there. Or I should say more specifically, about how I put a dagger to your throat. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. All has been forgiven.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah,” he said with a snap of a finger, “just like that.”
Her behavior was unwarranted, but he could also empathize with her being at her lowest point emotionally speaking. People were oft to act in reprehensible ways under such circumstances. For that reason, he didn’t harbor anything ill will towards her. He was just happy to see her doing better and not going through with killing herself or getting herself killed.
“You’re certainly the forgiving type. Probably more so than most.”
“A world like this could probably use a little more forgiveness. Had our ancestors been more willing to exercise it back in the day, our world might not be in the state that it’s currently in.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Now I must ask,” he said as they neared the gate. “Do you feel better after telling me about some of those personal moments in your past? I know it’s not easy. There are scattered and murky memories from my past that I’m not particularly fond of nor particularly excited about telling others about.”
“You’ll have to tell me a little bit about them sometime if you’re ever willing. But yeah, when I think about it, I do feel a lot better. I’ve always kept those details of my past to myself. I’ve never thought or dared to tell anyone. Honestly, it feels a little liberating to be able to tell someone. It feels like some of the weight bearing down on my shoulders for all of these years has been lifted away.”
It made him happy to hear that. A happy Juna indeed made for a happy Kiran.
They finally neared the gate. A pair of guards spotted them from atop it as he waved at them.
“Open it up for us!” Kiran yelled out.
It began to rise allowing them entry. By the time they walked under the portcullis, many members of the coalition gathered on the other side eagerly awaiting them.
“Thank goodness,” Frederek said. “It’s about time you made it back. You had us all worried.”
Abigail sauntered over to them stomping her feet on the ground. Abigail got right under Juna’s face pointing her index finger directly below her. “You’ve got a little bit of explaining to do. What were you thinking going out there all by yourself?”
“Uh,” Juna said as everyone stared at her.
Before she could make any attempt to respond, he chose to do it for her. “She was a little too eager to kill whatever remaining banespawn were out there all by herself. But now she’s back and safe once more.”
Abigail’s puffed out her chest. “Next time you think to do something like that, you better take me with you.” Rather than come up with an expected answer from her, Abigail’s disappointment in Juna wasn’t because she had gone out there by herself, but because she hadn’t taken her with her. Why am I even surprised? Of course that’d be her reason to be upset.
Frederek appeared less than thrilled by Abigail’s words. “That’s the reason why you’re upset?”
“Of course it is. You all seem so intent on keeping me whisked away from all the action. One of these days, none of you shall hold me back.”
Rinas began to shake his head. “Then you should’ve never become a faction leader.”
“No one told me at the time that it’d mean not going out and fighting as much.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Frederek said. “You’ve participated in plenty recently. Hasn’t all of this been enough?”
“Oh Frederek. Your pea-sized brain just can’t understand me at all, now can you? I will never have enough! My blood boils with the rage of an inferno wishing to—”
Frederek began to squeeze her lips shut as her face reddened further in anger.
Rinas cleared his throat as everyone else remained silent. “We’re all glad you made it back in one piece Juna. Just try in the future to not do something so reckless. We can’t afford for anyone, including yourself, to do something so dangerous on your own. We’re a coalition for a reason. We’re meant to work together, not by ourselves.”
“It won’t happen again,” she said. Judging by the way she said it, he thought it quite possible she meant it. But he’d have to keep an eye out and make sure she didn’t end up in that sort of place again where she wanted to just end it all.
She appeared to be in a much better place mentally. Everyone approached her and struck up conversations with her as he remained off to the side and leaned his back against a black stone building.
After Lar said a few words of her own to Juna, she came over to him and leaned her back against the building beside him to his left.
“So,” Lar said. “Is just killing banespawn the real reason she went out there all by herself?”
“Not exactly. She was trying to get herself killed.”
A sigh escaped Lar’s mouth. “I suspected as much. No one does something that reckless unless they’re eager to die. I imagine if I figured that was the case earlier, others likely reached the same conclusion.”
“Just try to keep it between the two of us if you can. I doubt she wants everyone to know even if they’re confident in knowing the reason she truly went out there.” Kiran kept an eye on Juna who laughed at something Silvy was saying to her. “She’ll need our support, now more than ever. I convinced her to not go through with it and she seems to be doing better now, but that can always change.”
Change often happens slowly. But there were times when things would change suddenly. All he knew to do, was to be supportive and hope other’s would be as well. While she didn’t have her parents, or her little brother anymore, or even her cherished dog Fred, she still had them.
We may not be her family, but we can be the next best thing.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
* * *
During a cloudy day, snow fell upon them. He stretched out both of his hands feeling the cold snow melt as big fluffy flakes landed on his palms.
The entire area surrounding their estate was covered in at least a foot of snow. He loved the way it looked. It never snowed all that much so whenever it did, all he wanted to do was to observe and be out in it.
Some of the maids who tended to their needs complained that Raelle and his sister spent too much time outside together, especially during a day like today, but what did they even know? They wanted to be outside all of the time even if it was incredibly cold and meant that they could potentially get sick.
He and his sister had worked on creating an army of snowmen early this morning but when both of their arms had tired, they had no choice but to take a break and take it easy. Creating an army of snowmen was no easy task. But they had completed at least a small portion of their ever-increasing growing army.
His sister Amberilla stuck out her tongue trying her hardest for it to catch a snowflake. She became frustrated as the falling snow kept missing somehow. It instead chose to land on her scarf and covered shoulders.
“Keep it up!” he said. “Don’t give up just yet!”
She thrust up her arms in the air as one finally landed on her tongue. “I got one finally. Now it’s your turn.”
He followed in her footsteps trying to get one to land on his tongue. The moment he stuck his tongue out, one landed.
“No fair,” she said.
He cracked a wide smile. “It’s just further proof that I’m just naturally better than you.”
“Oh, is that so?” She pressed her hands on her hips. “Fine then. Let’s see how better you are at reaching those trees over there before me when having to run through all this snow.”
Without any delay, she began running—or attempting to run which was a more fair way of putting it. Rather than make things harder for himself, he utilized the large deep imprints she made before making his own.
This was a bit of a challenge. Every time he tried to make progress, his feet would require a lot of force and effort to take a step forward forcing him to tire a lot more quickly than he anticipated. He began to breathe in heavily as she did as well. His breath scattered all around him quite noticeably.
He thought about giving up since the trees were still quite a fair distance away, but he wasn’t about to give up even if it meant losing to her. He was going to make it over there no matter what to win this impromptu challenge of theirs.
When he made it to the trees a bit after her, she had the meanest grin imaginable. “Well, what do you know? You’re not the best at everything after all, are you?”
“You cheated.”
“I would never!” Her eyes darted around a little but his sister knew the truth of it. “Oh alright, I suppose I gave myself a bit of an unfair advantage, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I would’ve gotten here before you and you know it.” He frowned at her. “You know I’m right. I mean look at how much earlier I got here than you did.”
The facts were undeniable. She had moved through the thick snow far quicker than he ever could manage. He felt envious of those longer legs of hers. It gave her a truly unfair advantage. I’ll have my revenge one day. I swear it!
For now at least, he accepted his defeat. Raelle chose to fall backward into the snow to allow his body to rest a little. He stretched out his arms and gazed up towards the snow falling on top of himself.
His sister found a spot beside him leaving an entire imprint of her body beside his. “I never want this to end. If I could flick my wrist and cast a spell to keep it snowing all year round, I would.”
“You would?”
“Yeah. There’s something magical about it. I mean, I guess there’s nothing actually magical about it, but it just feels like there is.”
There was something marvelous about the phenomenon itself. He didn’t quite understand why or how it all worked, but weather in general was a curious subject much like arcane research his father regularly pursued. It was just too bad, that it only ever snowed during a relatively small portion of the year where they lived. If only they were to move somewhere to the far north. Then he could experience snowfall year-round with her and the two of them together could go on and create an unstoppable army of snowmen that would one day take over the world.
After they spent a few minutes laying in the snow, they headed back to the estate at a more slow pace this time around. They made it to the front door only to notice a prominent maid appearing noticeably angry at them. “You two have been out here far too long. Get inside already before you both get sick.”
“Sorry,” he said towards Harriot.
“You two are practically frozen. How can you tolerate being out here this long?”
“We’re just having too much fun I guess,” Amberilla said.
“Well it matters not. Go get warm by the fireplace. I’ll bring some warm tea to help warm you two up as well.”
It hadn’t fully dawned on him how cold he was. He had gotten used to being outside but now that he was inside, he could tell how frozen his hands and face felt.
Raelle shivered by the fire as his sister sat cross-legged beside it. They both got out of their multiple layers of clothes and remained mostly bundled up in a multitude of warm fluffy blankets. Much like himself, Amberilla shivered as well.
Harriot gave both of them some lovely warm tea. He blew on it and began to sip it carefully. He had a habit of scorching his tongue so he tried to be a little more careful about it.
Alas, his tongue burned with his first sip despite being more careful.
“Now then, neither of you should go outside again for at least a few hours. Or preferably an entire day. I promise that the snow will still be there come tomorrow.”
They both reluctantly nodded their heads.
Harriot appeared pleased and began to leave the two of them alone by the fireplace.
“We could always sneak out tonight,” Amberilla said. “But we probably shouldn’t.”
He took more sips of the tea feeling the warm presence it provided inside him. It helped fight the brutal cold and shivers as the blankets and fireplace did as well. With all three of these things, this cold will soon be defeated. Unless he got ill soon after. He hoped he wouldn’t actually get sick. Then he’d have no excuse but to stay inside and watch as all the snow melts bit by bit.
“Do you think Father will be visiting us soon?” he asked.
“I don’t know. He visited us around this time last year, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Father had practically been locked in place since going to work in the capital city. It was a position he always had wanted. To work alongside a king of all things. He was so proud of his Father for achieving such a position, but at the same time, it meant he was spending less and less time with them.
Father wasn’t visiting them as often as he would’ve preferred, but he still tried to visit them often enough. Although, it felt like he wasn’t coming as often as time went on. More letters were being sent out apologizing to them.
“I’m sure he’ll be visiting soon us,” she said. “And I bet he’ll have a whole lot of presents to bring us to this time around as well.”
“I wonder what he’ll get us this time.”
Last year he had gotten Raelle a small magical golem that would stomp around all on its own. It was a pretty neat toy even with some of the limitations that it had. It could move its legs and arms around, but it didn’t do much more than walk in straight lines or circles depending on what you ordered it to do. It wouldn’t make him a cup of tea like Harriot just as an example. But such a lovely golem needed to be recharged by a sorcerer who knew what they were doing. That was one of the fatal flaws of such a toy.
He had gotten a lot of use out of that golem until one day, it wouldn’t operate on its own any longer. One of these days he needed to learn how to recharge it for himself or maybe even make an entire golem by himself. That would be really neat. He didn’t know a single thing about how such a thing was possible, however. So that was a bit of a challenge needless to say.
If others can make them, then surely I could. I just have to learn like all of the other great sorcerers that exist out there.
As this memory began to fade, he found himself smiling. He opened his eyes finding himself lying on top of his bed.
Unlike so many of the previous memories that he gained insight into, this one had been quite normal and unilluminating. He still cherished it however finding its simplicity quite relieving. Not all of his past was misery, death, or utter chaos. There were moments such as this between him and his sister when the two of them would just be enjoying their lives completely ignorant of the world or the precarious things going on out there that must’ve kept his father so busy.