#rgxcain

“Is there something wrong with happy endings, your highness?” There is no animosity or ill feelings in her question; despite everything that happened, she would never find it in herself to hate him. Cain, she thinks, is just someone who needed a little more love and though she really does not have much of it herself; she figures, there’s nothing wrong with giving him some of the little she has. 

She closes the book and gives him her undivided attention; she remembers how he likes it when she only has eyes for him. There is a mischievous glint in his eyes that is almost too familiar but for a nine year old like Hikari, it passes of as happiness-- and she likes seeing the older boy happy for he never seemed happy when he was with her sister. 

“If you like them so much, do you believe in true love’s kisses and handsome princes coming to sweep you away?” His tone is challenging but she picks it up as curiosity so she answers him with nothing but the truth. After all, at age nine, love seems to be the thing that made the world go round. 

She nods and answers him then with a clear “Yes, your highness.” and though she is prepared to answer more of his queries, they only sit in silence. He seems to be lost in thought, she thinks to herself and decides that perhaps it is time to resume her reading.  

The library is sparse of any other presence aside from theirs and if anyone were to come finding them, they would have to go past a series of bookshelves to locate the two royals seated side by side in front of the fire place. 

“Hikari, I’m a prince, right?” Again, he is the first to break the silence and this time, when she turns around, his face is closer to hers than she remembers. “And you like it when I’m happy, right?” 

She nods and the book is forgotten on her lap. “Of course, your highness.” Her words are tinged with all the sincere innocence a young girl like herself could possess. “Then would you give me a kiss like what those princesses in your stories do for the princes?” 

He spots the hesitation and when she realizes it, she braces herself for his wrath but all that comes out of his lips is an encouraging, “Just once.” 

The room, their room, is bathed in silence as she waits for his arrival. It is late and deep into the night but finds herself still successful in her attempt at evading sleep. To stay up and wait for him is not something he explicitly required her but she thinks that it is the least she could do for him who comes home tired and worn out from his day to day activities. Though the war is now only remembered as thing of the past and his skills are no longer required in the battlefield, he is still a prince with duties and responsibilities. 

Footsteps echo in the empty hallway outside; she almost second guesses her actions and is half a second away from pulling the blanket over herself when the mahogany doors are pushed open. He pauses and she gulps; her body’s reactions are immediate to his gaze and she knows that the warmth that spreads over her skin is not due to the many candles that decorated almost every open space.  

“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?” 

Amusement laces his voice and it does help with the matters relating to her confidence, rather, it is the fatigued undertone that does. From he stood, he could easily fool someone to believing that he isn’t physically exhausted and that he is not fighting a  fever but she is not just anyone so she knows all of this even before he speaks to her about it. 

In response to his question, she speaks not a single word and only offers him the movement of her rising from the bed. Her hair cascades in waves of ebony over her form but it does not succeed in hiding her flushed skin. She has stood before him like this many times before but they both know that this moment is unlike all the other for what will happen next is a result of her own initiative. Her lower lip is caught between her tiers as she erases the distance between them with her steps and she admires the way he is able to keep his gaze level with hers, his question still hanging in the air. 

“I read somewhere,” she begins, her confidence growing as she focuses on why she did this in first place. “That medicine is not the best way to cure a fever but rather it is the warmth of another person that does.” Even before she finishes her sentence, she knows that he understands what he means as if it isn’t already obvious with the way her fingers toy with the buttons of his garment. She leaves herself amazed at how she is able to act so coy around him and she tells herself that all of this is needed if she wanted him to be healed from his fever. 

A different kind of heat then spreads over her body when he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her close but her little is far from over, she hopes he knows this. “Really now?” He asks as his lips place kisses-that-are-not-kisses on the expanse of her neck and it takes her full concentration to reply to him. She nods in response; letting him do as he pleased, after all, this night is about him and no one else. 

The carriage moves swiftly as it traverses the Suryan deserts and travels up north, or what she feels like is the direction pointing north. The distance she puts between herself and her home increases with each horse’s gallop but her care for it lessens twice as much. What care for the the world is there to give when the one who gives her world meaning is seated right beside her? 

They are quiet as they sit side by side in the enclosed space but she does not find anything unusual or uncomfortable about it. Instead, she finds comfort in the silence that fills the space because it reminds her of how things between them used to be. She remembers a lot about him, that much is true, but what she remembers most is not the many nights he claimed her as his or the scars he left her with but rather, she remembers the silence the most. 

When she thinks of him, she thinks of the aftermath when she lies in his bed and he holds her close. He probably does not know of the many nights she has spent watching him sleep and how she prays for the morning not to come for it marks another end for them. She tells him not about how her heart finds peace in the rhythmic lull of his breathing and how for each night she spends away from him, it is the sound of his heartbeat and the feel of his arms around her that she longs for the most. 

“I do not like it when you don’t listen to me, princess.” 

His voice though tinged with annoyance only succeeds in breaking her train of thought and rousing her out of her musings but not in instilling fear in her. She turns her gaze away from the blurring landscape outside the carriage window to face him and she realizes then that a different kind of fear settles in when she looks at him now. “Forgive me, my prince.” She speaks, filled with sincerity to soothe his temper.  

 “You heard me. Take. It. Off.” 

For a moment, she does not comprehend what he means but he follows it up by squeezing her hand that is encased in his. Her gaze lowers to it and there she spots the lone piece of jewelry that adorned her glove covered fingers. She understands then what he wants and all the unspoken things he means with his words; the ring symbolizes a life she left behind when she chose to start anew with him therefore the ring, and the promise it once held, is now meaningless. 

She slips her hand out of his, then, and slides the ring off her finger. He is watching, she knows, but her gaze lingers on it for a second or two as she lets the finality of her choice saturate within her. When she lifts her eyes to meet his again, her eyes holds a new fear that she hopes he sees. 

Hikari sits in the one of the palace’s parlor rooms as she waits for the ceremony to begin. Outside her door, the unmistakable sounds of excited whispers and footsteps fill the silence that blankets the air inside the room. The guests had already all come and gone to pay their congratulations to her, the blushing bride and the center of everyone’s attention today. 

Her fingers trace over the intricate lace patterns of her white ballgown and she feels her heart skip a beat at the thought of her wedding. It should not be too long now, she thinks to herself and on cue, a knock sounds at her door and rouses her out of her inner monologues. Fully expecting to see one of her ladies-in-waiting at the door, she is floored by the face that greets her instead. Words fail her as she stares at him and surprised is an obvious understatement to how she feels after seeing him again. 

“Princess.” He greets and it seems as though his voice reverberates in her heart more so than it did in the quiet room. Her eyes are unable to look anywhere else but as his form as he walks into the room (and ultimately into her life again) dressed in his military uniform and with his hair coiffed just the way she remembers. Their eyes meet and the whole world comes to a stand still; he approaches even closer and takes her hand in his in such gentleness that she almost forgot he possesses. His eyes are clouded with so many things but there is an obvious undertone of something left unspoken– as if he had something to tell her – but what comes out of his lips is, “You look beautiful. You have grown up even more beautifully.” 

Though it is a compliment, all she ends up feeling in her heart is a painful rush of longing and she knows that he sees and feels it too. After all, she never forgets how easy it is for him to read her. “What are you doing here?” she asks but what she really wanted to ask is, why did you come back only know? And of course, in his true fashion, he does not give her a direct answer and chooses instead to plant a kiss on her lips. There is nothing gentle about it; it is the exact opposite of the kisses she received in his absence and of the kiss she was supposed to receive today as the symbol of her new married life. Yet in his almost violent ways and the painful way presses his lips against hers, she finds the answer to a question she did not even know she was asking herself and where she hears all of his unspoken pleads. 

When they finally pull apart for air, the bells are ringing loudly but at the same time they seem so far away. His fingers cradle her cheek as their breaths mingle and become one in the space between their lips. Her heart is pounding almost deafeningly in her ears but it isn’t because of her excitement but rather because she is reminded of something. 

“Please, don’t leave.” He says and even before he could open his mouth to speak again, she is nodding and lacing their fingers together.