Cas' Memories

The night is burning out. The moons sink lower, the spectacle before them bursting to life and dying. And maybe the warm presence is starting to fade, or maybe the world is just getting colder.

But all things must end. It can’t last forever.

Vela shivers and leans against her, close enough she can feel her form through the cloak. She closes her eyes, trying to cling to this moment, but a chill wind picks up and drags the coast. Soon she’s leaning into her too, both of them trembling against each other.

Vela giggles, breathless. “Maybe we should head back?”

Cas sneaks a smile, but it fades. She knows she’ll have to say goodbye eventually, but she’ll never be ready to. “I don’t want to let go,” she admits, letting her gaze fall to the dark, still sea. “The next Darkest Day, four years from now… We’ll either be dead, or…”

“Or everything will be different,” Vela finishes softly, her breath clear in the air.

Everything will be different. When all this is over, when she finds the reason to keep going that Vela promised she would long ago. But she had only replied coldly that there was no after, no tomorrow. Only this. Only now.

Suddenly she finds that she yearns for both to be true. For there to be a now that matters, for this night to never end. For an after she wants to live for. Someone she wants to live for.

Her eyes lift from dark waters to light. She didn’t realize until then how close they were, tangled up in each other’s cloaks, their forelegs pressed together, muzzles almost touching.

Suddenly… It doesn’t feel so cold anymore.

Vela holds her gaze for a tiny second that feels like eternity before she quickly turns away, an inexplicable expression crossing her face. Only then does she remember to be embarrassed, to stop staring. Her first thought is to pull away, but… She doesn’t want to.

Because it’s cold, she tells herself, though inside her she’s glowing, warm.

But there’s something she has to know. If Vela really meant what she said, if she really wants her, her so flawed and broken and messy, around… Forever.

Forever. Another new word, so sweet with its promises of a bright future. Something she can’t dare to dream of, not if it’s going to be taken away again.

Vela’s voice shakes as she answers, but she tells her everything she needs to hear. That there’s more adventures out there to see together. That they understand each other. That, somehow, despite everything, she’s wanted.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go…” Not thinking anymore, not caring, she lets herself sink into her. If only to hide the emotions breaking through her face. Apprehension. Fear. Hope. And something else, something new and warm and strange.  “So I… I want to stay with you.”

She could only admit it on a night like this. Only now, in a world so quiet, with her.

And then realizes how that sounds, quickly tacking on a stuttered, “A-and Kadoren, and Slate.” She pulls away, but Vela is laughing. For some reason, she feels relieved. “Don’t tell them I said that…”

She smiles playfully. “It’s our secret.”

Late nights, long talks, secrets whispered between them. Something in her, something buried, is slowly waking up. And it’s so deep within that she wouldn’t have even noticed it, but suddenly a strange expression crosses Vela’s face and she feels like she’s staring into a mirror.

Before she can hardly process it, the kirin is on her feet, her usual smile back in its place though there’s a strange underlying urgency to her cheerful words. “Let’s – let’s get back before we freeze to death!”

She’s out of arguments, and strangely enough, her brother is starting to slip her mind. “Y-yeah, let’s go.”

It really is freezing. How didn’t she notice? Even at a brisk pace, the air nips every exposed part of her and the ground burns her paws. She has to brush ice crystals off her nose.

Vela’s dancing on her hooves, clearly no more comfortable than she, but she slows. “H-here,” she mutters, and then she’s enveloped by fur and starlight. They walk on pressed as close against each other as they can. With her face practically buried in the warm fur on her neck, it’s easier to keep her eyes closed.

The inn is a little warmer though its firepit is ashen, and they’re quick to rush to their room and towards the safety of their beds. Kadoren and Slate are sound asleep, Slate definitely so. The candles have been blown out, so the only light comes faintly through the window.

She realizes that they’ve stopped, but she’s still pressed against Vela though seconds have passed in silence. With some reluctance, she shifts away.

Running through the burning cold streets, she couldn’t feel it. But now in the quiet stillness broken only by their slowing breaths, it’s like electricity crackles between them.

She must feel it too, for she makes no move to go to bed, her uncertain gaze brushing over the others before falling to her. They stare at each other for a moment too long, the energy between them threatening to snap.

And then Vela steps forward. In their brief contact a spark surges up, dims to a comfortable hum.

“Goodnight,” she whispers with a softness that can only come after a stolen tryst in the darkest of midnights.

She answers in kind, though she can’t keep her voice from cracking. She’s losing something and she’s afraid to let go. But Vela returns to her bed, so with one last glance out the window, she settles down in her own.

In those last few moments, she tries to hold on. Hold on to Cephi who’s already slipping away. Hold on to this night. Hold on to this feeling.

Before she knows it, morning light is streaming pleasantly in and firelit warmth seeps beneath the door. Dawn has come in the end, and Cephi has returned to the stars. Vela and Kadoren pray quietly side by side to different gods, different magic, and Slate is perched on the open windowsill.

She hops up beside him, poking her head out into the bright day. The sun-warmed wind brushes her face, the forest dancing with its frost-brushed canopy, the cold ocean sparkling bright.

She should be sad, grieving what she’s lost, and maybe part of her is. But something has shifted ever so slightly once more.

A new dawn. A few more cracks sealing up in her broken soul. A few more pieces put back into place.

And for the first time, hope. A small, wild, fearful hope. She is no longer chasing shadows. The sun is shining. The stars are finally in reach.

And maybe this time, it can stay.