#;iron-void

21. the one where you can talk to your soulmate in dreams.

Aedan is twelve when it first happens, not that he has ever really felt the age he actually was. He doesn’t even realize it’s a dream. He’s looking out a window of a place he’s never been before, and he can hear someone crying softly. It takes him a few seconds to pull his eyes away from the window. On the corner of his vision is something, someone, he just can’t see and he’s not ready to give up trying to spot them. 

Finally, he turns to see a small dark-haired child with his face in his knees. For a second, he wonders if he’s looking at himself, but no, this is someone else. 

“Why are you crying?” 

The boy looks up at him surprised, shocked someone else is here. His eyes are a color that Aedan cannot recognize and for some reason, the thought of that doesn’t unnerve him.

It takes a long time for him to answer, but he does finally. 

“M-my sister- s-she,” His lip quivers a bit, “A-and,” 

Hot tears started to well up in his eyes, and so Aedan slides down to sit next to him after stepping closer to him. 

“Close families always seem to fight the hardest. Whatever happened hurt you, but know that these things heal and our bonds grow stronger because of it.” Aedan doesn’t even know if the words really get through to him, but he seems to settle down a bit after that.  

He can’t remember quite how it happens, but the boy’s head ends up in Aedan lap Aedan humming one of the songs he remembered his mother sang him once. 

In the morning, Aedan mistakes the dream for a memory. 

-

It’s years, a decade or more before he has another dream like that. The world is dying around him, around everyone. So, he did what he thought was best. He took a ship to get out. Aedan had seen no reason to stay and fight for a world that had no place for him. 

He only remembers the air in the ship being charged with fear, before them so dark it’s like the void can’t hold the Darkness. It’s only fitting the dream starts in that same inky darkness.

“Mara!” He hears a voice that is familiar and different cry out. It’s too loud, and for some reason, he knows whoever they’re looking for isn’t here. Or are they? It feels like there is someone else. That other presence same as before. 

God, everything is too loud, too awful, too much pain and fear. His skin feels like it’s burning, his bones breaking, but nothing hurts as much as his head does. The more the voice yells the more it feels like nails being driven into his eyes. Aedan covers his eyes as if to try and buffer the pain and it’s almost like he can see light coming from then behind his eyelids which only serves to make everything worst. 

In the back of his mind, the childish wish that he was at home, sitting on the rooftop of his building with the sound of the neighbor a few doors down from him playing the old grand piano in her apartment. Then, suddenly, he is. A bright orange sunset in the distance that turns the whole sky different colored shades of orange and pink. Aedan can’t help but stare at it in awe. 

A wave exhaustion hits him, and Aedan has to fight to stay standing. He doesn’t even notice the younger man in front of him at first. 

“Where am I?” It’s that same voice that demands his attention. Aedan doesn’t give him the satisfaction. He’s tired. He wants to rest. 

“I said-”

Aedan lets out a curse under his breath finally looking up at the other. It’s that same child…Well, older now, almost a man. Only, changed, different, He hardly remembered his eyes being such a bright shade of orange, or maybe they always are and Aedan didn’t notice before. 

“You…” He starts again but falls short as if he recognizes Aedan as well. 

“Give it a rest, your sister isn’t here obviously.” He waves off to the sun setting in the horizon. He feints the intelligence as if he knows for sure she isn’t, but who could say. Aedan could feel another, maybe he could too. 

“Tell me your name.” Another demand. This child really didn’t know how to ask for anything, did he? 

“It’s polite manners to give your own name before asking for another’s.“

He stares at Aedan with a rage Aedan can relate too. They stay like that staring at each other in a silent battle of wills. Eventually, the younger finally caves in. 

“Uldren.”  

He nearly wants to ask Uldren to ‘ask for his name nicely now’ but he gets the feeling that would only end in a fight. 

“And mine is Aedan.”

The sky is already starting to dim, and in the light, Uldren’s skin looks more and more gray. Maybe it’s odd, but Aedan doesn’t find it strange. It suits him with his strong jawline and royal features. It strikes him that Uldren is actually quite beautiful. Everything about him seems sharp and unrefined in a youthful way, like an arrow waiting to be shot from a bow. 

Aedan glances back at the sunset before looking back only to find that he is alone. 

-

They spend a few dreams talking circle around each other. With Uldren, everything is a fight everything is a battle of will that he has to win. Aedan too wrathful, too prideful, to just let him do so. It’s months before they actually talk. 

-

“She doesn’t listen! Why doesn’t she listen?!” Uldren huffs, all of his body language is filled with frustration. He doesn’t even say who she is, not that Aedan needs too. 

Aedan has already put together who Uldren is. Who Mara is. They might be living on a large ship, but he is not foolish. 

“I can’t claim to know.” Aedan plays the fool of course. He’s learned that you never show the cards you have in your hand. 

-