Aries Silva

A carbon copy of Leo, except for the curls he had inherited from her. The same eyes, the same boyish expression, the same exact face. Frustration started seeping into her bones, morphing into serious distress. "You broke contact with your parents." The woman's eyebrows are still furrowed and in an attempt to keep her voice neutral, a tint of hope manages to sink through. "And you moved back here." For me?, the question lingers in the air, but she knows it's stupid to think like that, given years had passed and he had likely moved on. He didn't have a carbon copy of her running around his apartment all day, one that bugged him with random questions such as why is the sky blue? and when can i see my uncles again?

In some moments, she can deny the changes her body went through. In this moment, she cannot. Because when he pulls her into his arms and tells her he missed her, a flips switches inside of her, and Abbie pushes him away with a surprising amount of force. "Oh you missed me?", she snarls, "You miss me now, when it's convenient?" She knew that was not the truth. That he had been influenced by his family, but Abbie hadn't forgotten about the hurt that had put her through. "It's been almost seven years, in case you haven't noticed. Seven years without a single word from you, and you think you can just come up to me and say you miss me?"

What's incredibly frustrating is the fact that she did miss him too, in the end, and that her body longs for him like it has never before. Breaking apart the hug must have been the hardest decision of her life. "I missed you for seven years and did not hear a single word from you."

Aries flinched as the full force of her anger hit him, a wave of palpable frustration and hurt that felt like a physical blow. Her fury was a sharp, cold wind, and he knew, with a certainty that shamed him to his core, that it was entirely deserved. He looked like a kicked puppy, his shoulders slumping, his gaze dropping to the floor and then to his own clasped hands. He had always done this when he was being scolded, an ingrained reflex of self-preservation from a past he could never fully escape.

He swallowed hard, the words catching in his throat. "I always missed you. Every single day." His voice was a bare whisper, raw with a vulnerability he hadn't allowed himself to show in years. "It wasn't just out of convenience. You were... no, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You were the only light in the suffocating darkness, and it's why I came back. I returned in the desperate hope that I'd get to see you again, to make things right. I've never been able to move on."

He fell silent for a moment, the weight of his admission hanging in the air. The words felt hollow, a flimsy explanation for the chasm he'd created between them. He took a ragged breath and looked up, the shame in his eyes now giving way to a deeper, more profound pain. "You want to know why I left? My parents... they locked me in a cave. Threw me in there and sealed the entrance. I was just a boy, and I was in there for weeks. I almost starved to death before they finally let me go, just because I wasn't worth the effort of a final, swift death to them. They were done with me." The words tumbled out, cold and unvarnished, a truth he had kept buried for years.

"They made me feel like I was nothing, and for a long time, I believed them. But even then, I never forgot you. You were the memory that haunted me, the single good thing I clung to. The thought of you was the only thing that kept me from giving up in that black, silent hole. It’s why I couldn’t just live a normal life without you. You were my home, and I’ve been lost ever since."

Soft wind brushes through her hair, salt air circulates all around her and sand hits her face every few seconds. Of course, everything here reminds her of him. When her friends asked her to spend the evening at the beach she agreed, bringing a salad to eat and some wine to drink. Eventually, they left, leaving her behind to watch the sunset and the soft waves with her glass of wine and a bit of leftover food. She enjoys the solitude and the night without her kid around, which she has handed into Benji's loving hands, knowing that he can use the distraction and that the lovely six year old is a good for that. Still, her heart is heavy tonight. Something is in the air, something that even her wolfish nose cannot really define.

Then, he appears. Like a mirage, a hallucination or perhaps, a nightmare come to life. The bane of all her secrets. Aries Silva, as he lives and breathes. Abigail scrambles up from her blanket, completely baffled, stares at her ex-boyfriend (the father of her child) and blanks. There's not really anything she has to say. She's angry, confused and relieved at the same time. Angry, that he dares to show his face. Confused, because her heart is speeding up like crazy. Relieved, that he is alive and seems to be well. "Aries.", she whispers, her hair flying into her face, "What are you doing here?"

If there was anyone whom he had missed more than anything in his life, it had to be the woman standing in front of him. The years had been an eternity of aching absence, a self-imposed exile born of a choice he had come to regret with every single breath. Her very presence, illuminated by the soft light of the sun behind her, was a physical shock. He saw her, and for a fleeting moment, all the noise and chaos of his life vanished, replaced by a perfect, painful stillness.

But then he saw it—a cold, sharp flicker of anger in her eyes. It was a look that didn’t just scold him; it sliced through him, a stark reminder of his greatest failure. In those days, a lifetime ago it seemed, he hadn't fought for her. He had given up on their love, convinced that a monster like him—a creature of the deep with a lineage to spread across the sea—didn't deserve her sunlit beauty. He had let his family and his fear dictate his destiny, and in that moment, seeing the ice in her stare, he realized he had been a fool.

She was even prettier than she was back then, had matured more, he could see that. The girlish softness was gone, replaced by the striking contours of a woman who had faced life's hardships and come out stronger. Her shoulders were set, her chin was high, and the fire in her eyes, though painful to him now, was a testament to a spirit he had once loved more than his own life.

He tried to speak, but the words were a foreign concept. "Abi—" The sound was a strangled whisper, as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs, leaving him to gasp and flounder. The mermaid was drowning on the land, ironically enough. "Abigail, what..." he finally managed, the question hanging in the air, full of how, and why, and you're here.

She didn't flinch. She just held his gaze, her voice low and steady, a stark contrast to his own frantic state. "I live here, alone," he said, "I broke contact with my parents."

A slow, bitter realization dawned on him. He had to, he knew. After they broke them apart, after the families had engineered their separation for their own selfish, political reasons, he finally understood. He had been nothing but a tool to them, an asset to be used to spread his linage across the sea and cement a fragile truce. He had been a pawn, and in his self-pity and misplaced sense of unworthiness, he had let them take everything from him. The anger in her eyes now met the cold, hard fury building in his own heart. But his fury wasn't for her; it was for himself, and for the family that had cost him everything.

He took a step closer, to her. As if wanting to make sure she was really there, and not another taunting dream to feed his inner desires. He had never loved anyone after her, had been a ghost of the past ever since he left her. and then he did the unthinkable, he pulled her into his arms, taking in her scent.

"I missed you-" He whispered with a broken voice, and oh god he had missed her so much.

WELCOME, NAOMI! Beware of the night while you roam through the city of Westray, and please make sure you've checked off all the boxes on the checklist!