June DWC 2026 Day 3 - Reflect
The apartment was dark aside from the faint glow filtering through the curtains from the streets below. Silvermoon never truly slept, but at least for now it was quiet. Veilos stood by the window with a mug of long-forgotten tea cooling in his hands, looking out onto the city with a thousand-yard stare. Behind him, the apartment felt different than it had a few months ago. There was another presence here now, another person who occupied space in a life he had spent years believing would remain largely solitary.
Altherei was asleep in his bed, the thought alone was enough to make him glance over his shoulder toward the bedroom door. She had stayed over before, and each time it remained a little strange. Not in a bad way or unwelcome at all, just unfamiliar. For years, his apartment had been a place he returned to alone. No matter how loud and exhausting the day, the silence had always been waiting for him when he unlocked the door.
He wasn't certain when concern for her had become something deeper. There had been no singular moment he could pinpoint, no dramatic moment of revelation. Instead it had happened gradually, through conversations, shared meals, walks through the city, and countless small moments that seemed insignificant on their own at the time. Somewhere along the way, he had started looking for her in crowds, and at some point, he realized that hearing from her had become one of the better parts of his day.
That realization should have made him happy. In many ways, it did. Yet there was a lingering discomfort he couldn't quite shake, and he knew exactly where it came from. Kyrisa's memory quietly lingered in every corner of his life, no longer the unbearable wound it had once been but still very much so present. Time had softened the sharp edges of the grief, but it could never be erased. He still thought about her, and their children, and he still missed them dearly.
The guilt was irrational, and he knew it. If Kyrisa could somehow see him now, she would likely be relieved that he had allowed someone into his life again. She had always possessed far less patience for his self-destructive tendencies than he did. Even so, there were nights when he caught himself feeling as though he were standing on cracked, uneven ground, caught between the life he had lost and the possibility of building something new.
His gaze settled on his reflection in the window. The man staring back looked older than he remembered becoming. There were more scars now, more lines around his eyes, more grey in his hair. He could not help but reflect on all that had changed since the life he once thought he would have. Sometimes he felt as though he could divide his life into two halves: before the Scourge and after it. Everything that had happened since had been shaped by that single catastrophic event, whether he wanted it to be or not.
The worst part was not the guilt, but the uncertainty. He worried constantly that he wasn't giving Altherei what she deserved. Years of grief had taught him how to endure, how to compartmentalize, and most especially how to carry burdens without asking for help. They had not taught him how to be emotionally available or how to start again. More often than he cared to admit, he found himself staring off into space, trapped in memories she could not possibly understand.
He worried she noticed every distant look, every moment his attention drifted somewhere else, and every occasion he became quiet without explanation. Altherei had never complained about any of it. In fact, she was remarkably patient, which almost made it worse. Patience had a way of highlighting his own shortcomings more effectively than criticism ever could.
Part of him wondered if he was waiting for some magical clarity to arrive. A moment when all the fear disappeared and he suddenly knew exactly what he was doing. The older he got, the more he realized that life did not work that way. The most important decisions seemed to involve moving forward despite uncertainty rather than waiting for it to vanish. He was discovering that relationships were no different.
Veilos set the mug of cold tea aside with a frown and rubbed a hand over his face. He was exhausted, though not in the physical sense. This was a deeper weariness, the kind that came from wrestling with thoughts that had no immediate solutions. He could treat injuries and reinforce mental barriers, yet when it came to his own emotions, he often felt remarkably unequipped in these situations.
A soft sound from the bedroom drew his attention. He tilted his head and listened for a moment and heard the rustle of blankets. The sound grounded him more effectively than any amount of introspection had managed. Altherei was here because she wanted to be, not because he had convinced her, not because she expected perfection, and not because she was unaware of his flaws. She knew enough of his scars to understand.
The realization eased something in him. Not enough to make the worries disappear, but enough to quiet them for the time. He cared about her deeply, whether it was love yet or something still growing into it, he couldn't honestly say. What he did know was that the thought of losing her had terrified him on Quel'Danas, and that her presence made his days brighter in ways he had not expected.
She had become someone he sought out without thinking, someone whose opinions he valued and whose happiness genuinely mattered to him. It had been a very long time since another person's presence felt so natural in his life. Perhaps that was what unsettled him as much as it comforted him, the realization that despite everything he had lost, he still had room in his heart to care this much for someone again.
After a few moments, he finally stepped away from the window and returned to the bedroom. The mattress shifted beneath his weight as he slid carefully beneath the blankets. Altherei stirred slightly and moved closer in her sleep, settling without waking. Veilos stared at the ceiling for a while longer, listening to her breathing in the darkness, and for once he allowed himself to stop searching for answers he didn't yet have. Some things were allowed to unfold in their own time.
@daily-writing-challenge @altherei
