#ofhelefir

"The problem with that is the things people don't know about me I can't even claim to know myself." He trailed off and allowed the words to bleed in the air, there was of course truth to them but there was no easy answer. On one hand he could have counted his secrets, on the same hand he could have counted the amount of them that were hidden even from himself. 

That was the burden of not having the key, in such a basic way, to unlock who a person used to be and being uncertain as to if that that had sculpted who they became. Was it stars or all random chance? 

That was a secret Cal would have paid dearly to have the answer to, he'd long since given up on learning the rest of them. 

"Why would it matter? One secret or the next, hiding away things doesn't hold much weight compared to what we'll actually gather up the nerve to admit about ourselves." But it was a poor time to debate the philosophy of self and he knew her interest was more in wanting to pick details apart than in his reasons to it all; that was how it was done and how things were gained. The world was unconcerned otherwise. She was the sort that shined like molten gold and he saw the beauty in it, he also saw that talons and the teeth bared, no less stunning.  

"These days? I'd rather just forget the secrets."

The truly mystical thing about trees, or one of those things, was that they didn't grow within the water. They barely grew on the beaches, just tiny little weak things with leaves larger than their trunks. So, no, to find a proper tree one had to venture out past the sands and into the soil where they stood towering and in widths that Cal couldn't fit his arms entirely around. Granted, in those days his arms were much smaller, a bit like the rest of him, but it was to be expected at eight, perhaps nine, he couldn't recall the exact year. 

It might as well have been a giant, a dragon, something wonderfully impossible and lifting skyward in defiance of the earth and heaven around it. Trees were made for climbing, or so he'd been told, and the idea had refused to give him any peace for weeks. Proper trees were behemoths with branches wide and leaves like a blanket, inviting daring souls to scale their rough bark and touch the open air, the clouds, to look out and see forever sprawled out around them. It had been too alluring an idea to pass up, even if bark had more of an itch under his bare feet than sand and his fingers couldn't dig into cracks the way it was done when clambering over rocky shelves and outcrops decorated with algae and mossy little creatures. 

Climbing that way, out of the weightless ease of the waters, it left a person feeling far too heavy and too quickly tired. Three tries passed before Cal made it higher than he could reach in standing. Then four before he almost could wrap his aching fingers around the very lowest branch; a thin and useless thing he discovered would hold nothing more than the empty air around it. Trees were quite a battle, but oh how he wanted that victory. Wanted it while his fingers cracked and his knees scraped, while the sky just seemed to be further and further away.  

The feeling was indescribable when, finally, his hands caught just the right spot and he hauled up, scrambling with all the clumsy gait of a wounded animal or a fledgling bird nearly tipping out of the nest, until he collapsed among the swishing leaves of his perch and stared out over the waters nearby. 

They went on endlessly, making Cal feel small in comparison, right out to the point where the waves melted into the skyline and blended together. It was everything he hoped, and hardly the first to do something so simple he certainly felt as thought he were. The branches felt welcoming but strange, the greenery held a scent that tickled his nose over the salt of the ocean, he could hardly contain the excitement of that moment. 

a snarl bubbled up through their throat at the sound of aurelia, instinctive response to lash out and harm rising up as they turn. hatred does well up, easy as breathing, searing its way through their veins, through their lungs, muscles encompassed even as they narrow their eyes and force the emotion from showing in their body language.

❛ it sure is, ❜  they respond, tone biting. they used to project nonchalance, standing at the side of revels as though boredom was their only thought, riling up the other to heights they could barely reach. now, they don’t bother hiding their loathing, their dismissiveness, matched and reflected in equal measure.

The liquid that sloshed over the brim of the goblet Safie held in her hand was the color of golden sunlight unlike any wine or mead she had ever seen in her travels. The fae called it summer wine, an apt name for something of this nature. Those memories, the ones of her travels, and the ones of her mother and father were far thoughts in her mind, slipping from grasp as soon as she tried to recall them. She must have had too much of the wine. She giggled, then, taking another sip as she unconsciously looked for her king in the crowd of twirling fae. She was distantly aware of music being played, its melody bringing many around her to a head of joyous celebration. Another bright and blistering laugh parted from her. 

                                                     “How would you know?”

“Hm?” She was loath to turn from her mission, but glanced back at Aurelia. Though she had seen her many times before, Safie was taken in by the fae’s beauty as if seeing it for the first time. It was that way each time she met with the Summer King as well. It will never grow old, seeing them as they are, just as some day, Safie thought, I will be just as beautiful. And they will be mine.

“Come now, Aurelia,” Safie’s fingers brushed against the tips of the summer fae’s, trying to reconcile for a slight she was not aware of, but sorry for, “I meant not harm in the question, only that if my love had chosen one of his retinue instead, perhaps it would be easier than wooing a mortal.”

A scoff left her. “Stay?” She parroted, voice slightly mocking. Yuliya clucked her tongue and let her fingers tug and roll the fringe of her two-piece gown nervously. “Why? Is there something you want from me?” More often than not it was a safer bet to hold her tongue around Fae like her. But it wasn’t often that Aurelia crossed into her path outside of the gossip that the other fae was mentioned in. Yuliya’s own name had been in the mouths of gossipers for plenty of decades now, anyways. Perhaps the two could consider themselves on the same playing field.

i belong to myself.

she was desperate to say it. but it could not be so. the fae would see it as a rejection — of their kindness, of their hospitality, of them. to do so would to be asking for death. cordelia could not afford even the slightest slip of the tongue, even though her heart was screaming at her to speak up and to speak out. 

her emotions could not get the better of her. instead, her head would rule. 

“ i am no more than a guest of a summer court. ” her chin was raised, there’s a tiny glint of defiance in her eyes. “ i shall be that until they have me no more. ”

or until they are dead at my feet.

     cassian had barely heard aurelia over the cheering and yelling around them. before him, one of the summer children had pushed their limit of fairy wine and drunk themselves into the further submission of the summer fae. all around her, florence, she was called, did they command her to strip and dance and twirl for their satisfaction. it had been a decent time since cassian and his quartet had fun with something new. he could nearly feel the blood running within his veins thrumming with the excitement. “quit eavesdropping on my heart and pass the wine would you?”