Fates Web

“It’s dark out here” 

“-Vellir..” 

“Well I’m not wrong” 

“From your life experience, everything- my dear - is Dark.” 

“I’m just offering you the reminder, and the thought that it smells odd out here. The ground is too soft, I can’t see where I’m going let alone where you are leading me, and the light on my back is starting to cause a burn - I think... Couldn’t we have had a nice time out - in my cave?” Her words lingered from her lips as she sensed Aaro tense. 

Though life had depraved her of sight, Vellir’s other senses had grown to feel things most had forgotten. It was both a blessing and a curse. In this instance, it made Vellir aware that her words had caused a tinge of frustration in her partner. The recognition of it in turn caused her own self guilt to grow wildly within her small frame. 

“We have talked about this Vellir. I wanted to show you the nicest slice of the world ...while you simultaneously get to see the worst of it on me.” His voice drifted some, leaving the swell of emotions to grow in the silence. 

They were both worried. Aaro was terrified once the blindfold fell that Vellir would come to hate him for the monster he thought himself to be. For Vellir, she shook off the terror of the great unknown. Her dark world seemingly lost to a bold new one that Aaro gave her hope to see... though she worried it would be all her mother told her of long ago. The reason she bore the blindfold. 

What started as a small gap in the tide of conversation soon became a deafening silence. A sickening pit squirming within both of their stomachs as it dragged on. Left with the storms inside their own minds madly churning, that was until Aaro broke the mood. 

“We are here.” His tone seemed to beam with pride, as if he had discovered the secret to the universe - or in his case, theirs. 

“I- I don’t know if I can do this...” Vellir said, a strange lack of confidence emanated from her that Aaro had never quite seen before. It was now that he realized how frail and broken she was - a stark contrast to the normally strong and angry woman he knew back in her cave. 

“..Vellir..” His voice was soft, tender- kind. Eager to relieve her of her worry as he looked upon Vellir’s dark features that lay somewhat hidden behind a black veil. “The fear of the past must be behind us both. I want you to see me. To know with whom you have come to love...” his tone broke as well, now escaping him no higher than a whisper.  

“But what we have does not need to be validated by sight to know what I know Aaro. A blind woman should not have to tell you that I love you regardless of what you fear I’ll see!” Her voice was shattered. Cracking under an unknown pressure that had suddenly claimed her. 

“I want to give you a future free of the darkness. To put your mothers curse to rest so you can live! So you can see me... so you can travel the world. Claim back all that that blindfold, Hyperion and every other monster has taken from you. From your life!” 

Silence struck once more. 

“Will you promise me?” Vellir posed, her question unfinished as her head lowered instead of facing him. 

“I would promise you anything, you just need to ask...” Aaro spoke, his tone firm though his answer inquisitive. 

“Promise me, that if- if I can see, that you’ll make me something. Make me anything, just give me something to remember this moment. Now where we both stand between two worlds. A terrible past... and a future worth dying for.. 

-Would you do that?” 

“Of course.” 

His answer seemed to satisfy her as Vellir’s paws shakily reached to pull back the black veil. Vellir held her breath now, her paw resting softly upon the blindfold that had remained tied to her skull practically since birth. The one item left of her mother who had died nearly a thousand years ago. It was a simple thing, small and tattered with age and yet it held the horrors and fears of a generation, one her mother had passed down to her... one that had never been removed. 

The thought of removing it now pulled Vellir back to the promises she had once made. “Never take it off,” her mother had said, “Promise me you will never lay eyes upon our world or upon the stars. For they have been poured over in blood and death. Darkness is the master of our home, and you shall not be tainted with its terrors. Promise me Vellir!” -“ I Promise” Vellir remembered stuttering as the dark cloth enveloped her eyes. Sealing her days in an eternal blackness that had never ceased until... today. 

Shaking loose from the thoughts that enveloped her, Vellir released the breath she had been painstakingly holding before pulling the old heirloom from her eyes. As the cloth fell to the ground below, a strange look began to work upon her frail features. Surprise. shock. All that they had both hoped for and more seemed to swell in her expression, a small half hearted smile soon graced her lips. 

“A..aaro...” Vellir’s voice shook, a violent tremor made every word slip into a jumbled mess. Her forced smile now retreating away as another emotion took hold. 

“I-i can’t.. I can’t.. see you!” Her final words yelled in a broken exclamation. Tears now free falling down her cheeks in defeat. Vellir couldn’t help but crumble to the ground, her paw grasping at the blindfold before holding it tightly as the crying intensified. 

“Vellir...” Aaro spoke, drawing closer to his mate though cautious in his approach. 

“What are you going to say Aaro!” She sobbed, barely able to suck in air between the harsh crying she had given herself over to. “That everything is going to be okay! Nothing has changed.” 

“Please, don’t be that way. It’s not ideal no-“ 

“Nothing has changed Aaro. And that’s how fate has willed it to be.” She said as Aaro plopped down beside her, wrapping his large arm around her back while silent tears rolled down from his own eyes. 

“I’ll never see the man I loves face.... I’ll - I’ll never...” Vellir drew into herself, struggling to find the words within as it hit her much too hard. “I’ll never see our ..babies faces.” Lips trembling, her paws clenching harder onto the cloth trapped within them, her face now turning to bury into Aaro’s thick mane. 

“I didn’t know how.... how you felt about kids.” Aaro whispered, his skull face rubbing softly upon the temple of her head. 

“I never considered them before, until you came along.”

This moment was supposed to be the start of a better future for them both. Instead, nothing had changed for her and in turn, nothing had truly changed in their relationship besides the struggles that would come upon the heels of life. Aaro had arranged a surprise for her that he had waited so long to show her, a gift to usher in their good fortune. Instead, a few feet away stood the entrance to a mighty cave, lit from within by bubbling lava and the soft whistle of soul coral in the wafty breeze. It was to be their new home, a new den to build a small world of their own within its depths - just as Vellir would want it. It was a view she would never get to share. 

It left Aaro with a sinking knot in his stomach as the tears pattered off of his harsh skull face. Where would this lead them now...now that tragedy has struck once again in a harsh web of fate.