#constianne

Thank you so so much for the ask!!! I kinda changed things a bit to fit Aki… But I myself caught the sads, so instead of making Aki’s day worse, i figured this would be nice to write out :3

Aki startled awake, her mind racing. She looked around her room, finding G’raha blessedly asleep beside her, exactly how he had been when she fell asleep. They were in her bedroom at her family’s house, still. Far, far away from that damned tree that haunted her nightmares.

That was all it was. A nightmare.

A nightmare in which Aki was the one to cause the calamity. The one to usher her village inside the only building and lock them in while a meteor struck it. In her nightmare, she laughed.

She wasn’t laughing, though. Perhaps the proximity to where it all happened was causing the nightmares to flare up.

Aki quietly slipped out of bed and out the door, wandering down the stairs into the living room where Constianne sat repairing a broken vase.

“Evening, Kiki!” She greeted cheerfully.

Aki blinked at her a couple times. “I would have thought you’d be in bed.”

Constianne chuckled. “Nah, these are my roaming hours.” Her eyes narrowed as she examined Aki. “…You okay?”

Aki shook her head ‘no.’

“Nightmare again?” Constianne asked.

“How’d you know?”

Her aunt shrugged. “Lucky guess. Grab a blanket- it’s a beautiful night. Want to stargaze with me?”

Aki smiled softly, wasting no time in grabbing a blanket from off the couch large enough for the both of them. They went to the backyard where they found Aki’s favorite stargazing spot.

Constianne wrapped the both of them up in the blanket. Neither said anything for a while. Aki leaned up against her aunt, counting every shooting star. Constianne pulled her even closer, wrapping her arm around the small miqo’te.

“How you feeling?” Constianne eventually asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“Better, from the nightmare at least,” Aki admitted softly. “I just…” She trailed off. “I feel like some sort of a monster. Like that curse my village thought I was. And I don’t want to be like that- Like how I am. I must have done something truly horrible to deserve these dreams…”

Aki looked to Constianne with misty eyes. “Tell me how I get better. I want to prove them all wrong, but I’ve made so many mistakes…”

“Oh, darling…” Constianne squeezed her tightly. “You’ll make mistakes. Lots, in face. Gods know I have. But you cannot let those weigh you down. You gotta get back up and keep trying to be the best you that you can be.”

“Forever?” Aki asked. “That sounds tiring.”

Constianne nodded. “It is. It’s so hard. You won’t ever stop making mistakes. That’s how you learn, Kiki. You fail, you get up and try again. The position you are in makes your mistakes seem a lot bigger… But you’re a normal person, just like everybody else. The only way to get better is to keep trying, and keep trying, and keep trying. There’s always gonna be someone to catch you when you fall, but you must be willing to stand back up and keep going.”

Constianne smiled at Aki. “You aren’t alone in your struggles. All of us have made countless mistakes. You saw me break Florian’s favorite vase earlier, yes?”

She nodded. “You felt so bad. I saw you trying to fix it for him after everyone went to bed, even…”

Constianne grinned. “Exactly! That was my fault. I know how much Florian liked that one. And so, even though I messed up, I tried to fix it. And I know I’m not done- Even if it’s together, it still has cracks and you can see where the glue spilled. But by trying to make things right, I’m a lot better than I was before then. Even if it would have been easier to just throw the pieces away… I wanted to be better than that.”

Aki nodded. “I think I get it.”

Constianne kissed Aki’s hair. “I think you do, too. And I think you’re doing amazing already, sweetheart. You get better and better each day.”

Constianne looked over Aki’s shoulder to see G’raha standing in the doorway. “And, I think you’re being summoned to bed.”

“Are your roaming hours up?” Aki asked as she unraveled herself from the blanket.

“Nah- I have a vase to finish. You get some sleep, okay?”