31_days | [March 3rd] [Original Series] Confessions

Title: Confessions
Day/Theme: March 3rd – “Your heaving chest”
Series: Original
Characters: MY CHARACTERS Amira, Kelch
Rating: PG

And another random drabble…Feels a bit corny though. Ah well.

I held you close as we struggled, as we ran…as you fell and I cried into your painfully heaving chest as you fought to breathe.

I can still remember the night I had to be strong for you. I was the princess, not used to doing anything for anyone but myself. Yet… You…

It wasn’t love then. No, it didn’t become love until much later. But that night…I learned to care.

Under the stars, blood seeping into the grass underneath us. Your blood. You were not used to fighting yet. You, the thief boy who had been set for death when I first met you. You knew how to stab from the back, how to kill silently in the darkness, but when it came to fighting a being of magical powers…? No, you were not used to fighting like that.

So when the castle began to crumble. When the other mage, the one on our side—Rai’chan—stood up and challenged the “great evil,” I ran. And I forced you to run with me.

I don’t think you will remember any of this. I don’t think I’ll ever tell you. But that night…I learned a lot. I learned fear, true fear, not the petty nervous butterflies of a young princess appearing at court. I learned what war meant, what battles entailed, what defeat could cost… yet I also learned to love.

Not true love, no. But the meaning of it. The beginning. The pretty little sparks that started it all.

I saw you in a different light that night.

As we laid there, neither of us able to move another inch, me because I was weak, you because you were tired…I cuddled close against you. I cried. I looked down at your torn form. What horrid things magic could do to a person!

Burns marked your face, your arms, your chest. Rips and scratches from a dragon’s claw left you gasping for breath, yearning for blood as your life seeped out.

I cried. When I saw you then, I thought you were dead. I hoped for you to survive, but I doubted.

And then you said my name. You whispered it through your small, whistling breaths. “Amira,” you called, and I perked up at the sound.

I think it was the first time you ever said my name. Kneeling next to your fallen body, my dress ripped and useless, my red hair falling around my face, I stared into your eyes and I think you stared back. Blue sapphires, so innocent, so beautiful…it was all I could think of. I was amazed that someone from the Undertunnels, the Outcast Society, the low-life, could have such eyes. I was a princess and even I had simple green.

You said other names, listed people from our party, our small group of crazy adventures. “Baxorth, Zaine…are they?”

Baxorth, the Wulfcon who was surely on his own side. I did not trust him, yet you seemed to. You always looked up to him. You admired him. I never knew why.

Zaine was the Ranger, the Rialht, the one who could heal flesh wounds and whatever problem you had with your possessions… You relied on him, I think. If he was not around, you grew wary, distrustful, unsure. Sometimes, I wish you had never met the cowardly—though gifted—Ranger.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back, shaking my head, looking away for a moment.

Looking back to the castle ruins, I shuddered. The dark cloud still surrounded the area, red lightning still forked from sky to earth; the magic still existed. The evil mage—I think Rai’chan had called him a DarkMage—was still alive. What this meant for the others, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to think of it.

Yet…

Having this moment with just you and me, I think it was necessary. Planned? Possibly. Fate is always debatable, especially when we believe in Almighty Avairean, who is said to know all of what we do. ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ if you will.

You sighed, groaned, mumbled something incoherent. Your breathing was back to a semi-normal. Finding this odd, I turned back to stare at the white glow from your silver medallion. I had always found it silly—the chain necklace you wore, the ten-sided medallion you carried.

Everywhere we went, important rulers seemed to know what it was, what it meant. When Baxorth protected you, he always made sure to point out that it was the Seeker he was protecting, not you.

I didn’t understand, until then.

As the medallion glowed, you seemed to rest easier. Your eyelids closed as if sleeping. Your horrid wounds shrunk to more manageable scratches. The burn marks slowly faded.

Tears stayed on my face, but I reached out to the glowing medallion, curious, amazed. My hesitant fingers brushed against the silver necklace and instantly shied away. Static electricity. That’s what it felt like. The moment my fingers touched your medallion, I had been shocked, as if being warned not to touch.

Odd. I had seen others touch it. Baxorth handled it all the time, and although Rai’chan didn’t ever try to take it, the other Catrek had come in contact with the strange jewel. Even another vagabond had stolen it from you, and a slave too! Why would I be the first shocked and warned away?

As if hearing my thoughts, you murmured a response. “Avairean is wary of magic other than his own. I would be careful, Princess.”

Even as I stared at you, confusion riddling my face, embarrassment flooding my heart, I melted at your innocent smile. Although you returned to calling me by title instead of name, your smile kept me from hating you. The wind ruffled your white spikes of hair as you reached out and took my hand in yours.

The kiss was our first. Why you did it, I’m not sure. Why I accepted it, I still don’t know.

But it was bliss.

We were alone. We were innocent. Both of us were lost, confused, and brave young adults.

I should be glad the kiss was all you gave to me that night.

Then again, maybe there had been more after all.