what was it like, to feel in love.

I.

They are free. The air is hot and humid, smelling of rust and rot when Aratron drags his broken body out of the church. He knocks down pews, his horns rip through the ceiling when he refuses to bend for the small door. He walks - or rather limps out into the mist of early morning. He finds himself squinting at the hues of colors he long forgot existed. Pink and orange melded together, soft kisses against each other as the sun rises lazily ahead - unaware of the tragedies committed on this unholy day. He breathes in - feels it, feels everything all at once. There is a soft rug of frost dusting the grass around the cathedral and the cold does nothing but tickle the open wounds on his arms. There is a sound behind him - not morning larks and sparrows singing but his companion who stumbles down the steps on uneasy legs. He watches as she moves to stand beside him - one good eye large as she takes in the scenery. Empty woods, and barren cobblestones - for a moment, the earth is still. It won’t last - the city will wake up to find their church desecrated, Aratron’s claw marks dug so deep into the stone that they will never repair it. Pews and holy hymnals scattered and resting over bodies like fallen feathers. 

She breathes in, drawing Aratron’s attention and he turns his gaze back to her. She already looks healthier out in the morning air - face a little fuller, a little brighter. Her red hair has a shine to it, and the one remaining eye has a twinkle that he thought the priests had nearly snuffed out. She ducks when his gaze meets her own and for a reason - that hurts. “I guess this is goodbye.” Aconite says and Aratron stiffens. “Pardon?” He asks - but it doesn’t come out - it’s a half-hearted mumble, a gasp, like someone had punched him in the stomach. She raises her gaze to stare at him and then she bows at the waist, low and grand and the demonstration twists his stomach. “Thank you - for teaching me magic, for helping me in there. For making me your patron, for.. Giving me hope.” Aconite continues, straightening up. She turns to leave, limping away and leaving Aratron stunned in the cobblestone. She turns to look at him when she realizes that he hasn’t moved. “A-are you going to be okay?” She asks, hand clutching her stomach and Aratron answers. 

"I’m not sure. 

ii. 

Och mocks him. Not for the capture of torture of his sibling for the last millenia, he is strangely sympathetic and offers a pat on Aratron’s weathered, weary back. No, Och mocks him over the girl. “Aconite,” Aratron corrects although he isn’t sure why. Why he cares about one of many patrons who he has taught, why he scowls when Och makes his hideous uproar. He lounges in his realm while Och tears through zealots against them, his metal mouth making horrible noises and Aratron can’t help but look away in disgust. Ophiel is there, as always - observing, never participating. “You are not the same.” Ophiel says after a while, closing the book with one of their hands and stares at Aratron with those large, empty eyes. 

“I am not the same.” Aratron admits, and finds his hands wandering to a snowdrop that seems to grow despite the constant frigid weather of this world. It almost breaks with how thick the frost and ice has grown around it. “You can’t imagine what it’s like - to be frightened like that, scarred like that. To have my strength tested daily, to be painfully reminded that it is not my own life in my  hands, but in the hands of others.” As he speaks, he twists the snowdrop between his fingers. There is a weight to his words, like he is understanding something or rather trying to understand something - trying to grasp a concept that is as foreign to him as air to breathe. It is like trying to catch rolling fog off the ocean, trying to solve a riddle. He wonders if this how mortals feel, at the whim of gods and monsters every day - to feel as useless in the struggle of life like a leaf caught in a storm. “We aren’t mortal, we can die.” Aratron says and he looks at Ophiel. “It was a hard lesson to learn.” Ophiel says softly, the light of them flickering softly. “But give it time, and you will heal, and once again return to your splendor.” He frowns and finds that his grip has tightened too much on the snowdrop and the head of the flower is ripped off, and falls gently to the ground. “She doesn’t have the time though.” He says and Ophiel pauses. “Who?” Ophiel asks although they don’t need to. Aratron is moving though, something is clicking into place.

iii. 

This was a stupid idea, he thinks. He must have lost half of his mind in that stupid church. But here he stands, dressed in one of his best disguises - one of his favorites. Waiting, watching. She’s grown her hair out, dressing herself in finer clothing. He notices the high collared clothing - to hide the iron band around her neck that he too, could not remove. She remains isolated from her peers, dancing and weaving around social norms like a musician playing the part. When he spots her in the crowd and makes eye contact, his heart rises to his throat and nearly chokes him. He can see the new tattoo underneath her eye that looks so similar to his own, he think he might sing. And what a disgusting feeling that was.

Still, he corners her - ignoring the way she doesn’t seem threatened by his towering figure - merely inquisitive. “Aratron?” She tests his name and he nods, secretly thrilled that she can recognize him in this form. “Is there something you need?” She asks, bringing her hands together to clasp them.

“That is what I wanted to ask you actually.” And she actually laughs, the first sound he’s heard in ages. She covers her mouth instantly, like she’s horrified by the sound she made and he wants to take the hands away from her mouth and ask her to laugh again. As soon as the thought enters his head, he tucks his hands around his back and curses himself. God, perhaps he really was going mad like Och suggested. “Why? What do you mean?” She asks. He can hear the caution in her voice, it carefully rims the edges of the question. Aratron pauses, as that is the question that he has been asking himself, that his brothers ask. Why? “I owe you.” He answers, and he makes it sound ugly because it’s the first lie he’s told in years that feels wrong. There’s another reason why he’s standing here, but he can’t admit it. Not yet. 

“I can offer you jewels, gems, gold - whatever livery you might desire.” He offers and Aconite lowers her hands, eyeing him with curiosity. 

“A garden.” She says, after a long, long pause and he blinks in confusion. “Pardon?” He asks again, and Aconite glances at her hands, and seems to steel herself before she asks again. “A garden, please.”

It was the most absurd request he had ever gotten.

iv.

He gave her a garden though. His old one to be precise, the one he had been avoiding in tending. Before he had been tricked into the basement of the decrypt old church, he had tended to it with what could be considered love. But now, it was overgrown. Wisteria climbed over the statues and the belvedere, weeds poked out and covered the cobblestone pathways. He doesn’t say anything - he shifts as though he were nervous which in itself was a ridiculous notion. Like he cared about the opinion of Aconite, like he cared about what she might think of this secretly personal gift. 

She doesn’t speak - she just wanders the ground, every now and then stopping to look at the flowers, to roll the leaves between her fingers and he follows - unable to bring himself to utter anything. He isn’t aware of how close he had been following Aconite until she suddenly stops and spins around and the top of her head nearly hits his bicep. “It’s perfect.” She says, smiling. “Thank you.”

Aratron doesn’t say anything, and merely steps back. What does he want to say? What does he want to feel? He doesn’t know, and tries to shove it down further. “Very well. I’m glad that this is a reward fitting for you.” He turns to leave when he feels a hand in the crook of his elbow, something so small and yet it stops him in his tracks just as powerful as any radiant word spoken. “Will I see you again?” Aconite asks.”

No, Aratron thinks. “Yes,” He answers immediately and she smiles.

v.

He visits again, too soon, he thinks. 

And again.

 He thinks he is visiting too often.

But still he arrives, finding the garden he has given to Aconite slowly change. The weeds are cut and pushed back slowly but surely with every visit. The wisteria is no longer choking the life out of every plant but now gently tended to, bending to Aconite’s green thumb. It’s one of the few places where she seems truly relaxed. The long red hair is swept back and she shows off her features more freely, be it scarred or otherwise. She laughs more too, smiles at his biting wit and teases him back which only makes what he thinks must surely be his heart beat faster.

She mentions one day she’d like to put a fountain in a nice set piece to compliment some growing tulips. She muses about the type of stone that will match the growing foliage although she then changes her mind to complain about the awful birds that might come. She leaves it, never asking for it and the next day, it’s sitting there. White marble decorated with painted gold which she traces with a slender finger. She mentions in a conversation to him once about silver birch trees, how she loved how they shone in the winter - like they were carved from actual silver. The next day, there they are - planted and blooming at the edges of her garden. Again, never asked for. 

For someone, or rather given his fiendish condition, something who is used to know what he wants and then taking it, he isn’t sure what he wants, what he expects from her. Perhaps because she asks for nothing. 

He wants for her questions, her demands but she doesn't seem to have any other than to ask when he will come back, if he will come back to visit to which he always answer soon, he always  answers yes.

Other mortals demanded life eternal, power beyond their comprehension and Aconite merely places a hand on his forearm and asks if he will visit her soon and he breaks as easily as he were glass. Yes, of course, he answers.

vi.

He is in the gazebo, watching Aconite tend to the flowers - admiring at her best. With hair pulled back and a smear of dirt on her cheek that his hands are tempted to wipe clean. 

His siblings have begun to notice his growing disappearances, that stretch from hours to days to weeks. He blames it on the garden, that it needs tending after years of neglect. But his siblings barely accept his excuse. Och claps him on the shoulder and ask when they can meet Aratron's favored patron. Ophiel waits, the light of them flickering and even the siblings that Aratron barely converses with - Phul and Bethor have reached out - inquisitive of Aratron’s first and only patron. Phaleg storms in his plane, metal teeth gnashing and the magma dripping from his open maws - each demanding to see, to know and Aratron still doesn’t have an answer. What does he say? 

He just wants to hold onto this, the garden, the dirt on her cheek- the familiarity just a while longer. He's deep in his thoughts when he feels a tug on his elbow and he is drawn back to the waking world. It's Aconite, wiping some sweat from her brow. "Are you okay?" She asks, "it looked as though you were miles away." She teases lightly. Aratron finds himself fighting a smile that appears naturally now in her presence and he lifts a hand to wipe the smear of dirt from her cheek as tenderly as he were to pluck a snowdrop from the earth. 

"Just thinking," He replies. He doesn't want to tell her of Phaleg, hovering over this tender relationship, of his siblings scrambling to meet her, of what that implies. So he changes the subject.

"Is this enough of a reward? I feel as though it might be too much work. Jewels, gold - my original offer still stands." He says, gesturing to the garden with a single sweep of his hand. As though that is why he spends all his time here, the reward, the debt - as though he were still playing that game where he denies that no longer foreign feeling growing in his chest. 

Aconite pauses for a moment, following the gesture of his hand and  looking out at the recovering foliage, thinking. "Actually, there is something I want from you." She says in seriousness.

He isn't sure what to expect - mortals have said that before and demanded so much, wealth, resurrection but Aconite merely looks up at him, also hesitant and she laughs. "A kiss." She says.

It's one of the most absurd requests he's ever gotten.

But perhaps the only one he's ever been eager to give.