WAYWARD

Alone on a cliffside, an absolute fortress of bark and stone loomed just over a thrashing, arrogant sea. Rain played a lonely symphony on the stones and vines as it fell in listless waves. Wood from an ancient, living tree and cobble paved in places to insolate the remainder.

A generational beauty, a cathedral-like elvish and human castle fashioned in the very name of peace. The crackle of the fireplace posed restraint in the utter silence of his chambers, but, in various ways did the rain bring about a somber undertone he knew all too well. His chalice, embroidered with onyx and emerald gems, had been stained within the expensive silver by the mark of thousands of grapes.

Alone, while the chatter of a few hundred in the main hall down the spiral stairway occasionally crept past a partly closed door, Thorn stood in contemplation. He was gazing outside, the stonewall arch an open concept that, even still, rarely allowed for rain or wind to bustle through despite no protection. Its architectural design was made solely for him to enjoy the pleasure of a constant, frailer, breeze.

The rain splashed down from the heavens as a gift many forgot to praise, except for him, who oft found himself staring into nature’s vastness like a book with a thousand lessons he desperately needed to understand and could not. Thorn’s free hand extended to grace the edge of his sill, bracing, only for the patter of rain to splatter and dew the silver plating of his forearm’s brassard, his gauntlet tight-fitting and secured evenly as to bend like his cubitere’s.

Distracted by the greyish darkness, the sultry spill of water from the skies, and the wonder of the winds, he would not hear when soft footsteps parried all combinations of intrusive sounds. Not at first. It was only when a gentle sniffle, followed by a clearing cough, pushed his attention to the door. Twisting in place, he retrieved his limb from his trance, scooping part of his long cape to polish his steel while awaiting the arrival of someone who he knew would come to coax him back down.

Scolding, her pearlescent pink brows bent before she pushed the door open. His arms had crossed, his back taken to the comforts of stone and steel meeting with such an improper and lackadaisical lean. Her surreal pink-and-cream locks brought on the praise of many, as well as her eyes which shined with the intensity of a crimson flower. Like an albino lamb among the eyes of war-hungry wolves. She was quite a beautiful sight to him, with soft skin, and hands too small for her spindly shape.

Thinner than other elven women, and sickly so; she was almost bones and lean feminine grace while the sickness of the moon ate at her lifeblood. While others found her features a rarity and entrancing, Thorn’s gaze brewed something far deeper for her than words could express. He felt sympathetic for her at times, as even her height held no bounds to the neglect she likely received from an ego not at all deserving.

Yet she was kind, gentle. She pushed herself hard and it was clear that he admired her not only for mere traits of the physical but the personal. The light amusement in his eyes wrinkled his fair skin, tanned by worn days of training under a scorching sun. Even if she was almost bones, she remained cheery and protective of him from their youth, to now, after enduring the nature of tragedy.

“It’s unlike you to miss a party.” Thorn’s smile flickered, a faint shield masking the quiet tension in his eyes. He’d spoken just before she could offer any greeting as if a step ahead might hold her at a safer distance. Honorifics, as always, would be needless between them. He wanted to keep it that way.

“My Lord,” she began, but the touch of disappointment in her voice wove a tight knot in his chest. It was like a gentle scold she hadn’t meant to utter.

“You’re the one missing the party,” her words carried a trace of coolness, softened only by the hint of closeness he’d allowed to show.

“I know it may seem… sudden.” she continued, though he understood her purpose in coming, he held his ground by the window a moment longer, watching her with restrained patience. “However…” Her gaze sparked with something uncertain, as if some quiet question lingered. He took in the familiar lines of her face, the soft ease with which she’d tended his wounds in childhood, the gentle laughter and light touch that had kept him steady in more ways than one. But his glance slid past hers now, staying carefully neutral as he pushed off from the window.

“You’ll keep your matches waiting if you stay cooped up here.” she finished, her smile a whisper of reproach, tender but edged with truth.

He stepped closer, his stance steady, letting his gaze fall just short of her own. “So I will,” he murmured, the words tinged with an irony that veiled his thoughts yet left them faintly exposed. The ache within him grew sharper, but he maintained his coolness, casting his crestfallen countenance downward, lingering just at the edge of her reach.

Nearest the entrance to the large chamber was his personal cooking station, and here, he began warming up by the still-burning fireplace. The light danced in ginger tones against the sheen of his steel, tamed by the curve and bend of leatherwork and metal. The flame dimmed, winded, and then flushed again as heat danced in waves across the stone flooring. Nevertheless, bright.

“I know you come because my father sends you.”

For a moment, he felt the timid lull of heat molding into the nooks and crannies of his armor, encasing him, while the pads underneath and chainmail secured tightly. Leather and patched steelwork: his garments were what he wore to sparring or battle as he’d once intended to become a seasoned general before his rise had come to pass. Why he appeared at any banquet halfway dressed in the ceremonial garb of his station yet still encased in the ornate, battle-worn armor of an elven warrior was beyond her. Yet, somehow, it fit him—his unyielding seriousness, his unspoken need to be ready for anything, even here, even now.

The hard light of the fireplace against his green irises spoke of pain, danger, and circumstance. A man bound by filial choices that denied his personal desires; a man still with none to spare him from duty. The woman he believed closest to him still seemed at odds with the trapdoors surrounding his fortress-stiff walls, no matter if the looks they shared filled both with aching longing. His glances of love; her glances of a bygone time. Azalea was brittle, demure, and sentimental. An elf of elves who valued nature, embodying the grace and composure of a queen in Thorn’s eyes.

“Sacrifice is as noble as any captain or guard’s oath to their blade. Lowblood or King, my Lord, they say all serve their people.” She offered a smile of conviction, her words like an ember coaxing a fire, softly encouraging. “That’s why I choose medicine now—to serve in my own way. Perhaps, there’s a way for you to honor duty without losing yourself in it.”

Azalea’s words nearly reached him, each holding a note of hope, yet, for this particular wine-driven retreat, Thorn only seemed to smolder where he stood. Her hopeful irony settled in him like bitter truth—more than just reality, it felt like a painful string plucked by the hands of unseen gods he could not plead to. She knew how he was feeling without his saying so, worst of all.

“Azalea,” tone low, her name fell from his lips sternly, outweighing the drum of rain and the crackle of the fireplace while still maintaining a low hum towards its ends. Swearing he could hear her breath catch in her throat, his hand ran through his dark brown hair; relaxed and short at its ends while remaining a little long overtop, and messy, it was manageable to trace through.

He realized how easy it is to manage on the road and maintain regularly if kept sharp. Thorn aimed for simple pleasures like this, he liked it when his world made sense, and nothing inconvenienced the little things so that hitches did not prevail. It made the complexities of the chaotic unknown easier to deal with, too.

On the approach, he set down his goblet as he turned and his footsteps breached back to nearly where he once was. The dress Azalea wore was refined, yet simple. Sleek, hugging the slick dent of her waist before flowing out past her rear towards the ends of her legs. There were no straps, just elastic silk, woven around her and lacey peeks of flesh underneath. The pale dress was layered with the same flowers of her name and ribbons made of ivy.

Adorned on those delicate wrists of hers were bracelets of a long summer’s goodbye that cramped his heart. His calloused hands, familiar with days of hunting and skill-building among the forests beyond so clear against the texture of his rough skin, twitched in the confines of leather and steel. She looked into his darkened green gaze, the flicker of the fireplace surrounding his backside and hiding the glow of desire so fresh in his expression.

They were alone. No peering eyes. No need to hold back. All he could think of was how she looked in the glow of his bedroom, how her dress fit her so well.

“I could give you everything you were promised before,” a bargain, a chance on his bated breath. The ball was for the suitress’ of all royalty within allied kingdoms tonight; even if she were not of a different kingdom as his father and aunt wished, why not her? “In your ailing nights, like when we were children, I can support you, and you will never fall away,” alcohol on his breath, he whispered these things to her in expectancy that she would hear his truth. “Just this once, Azalea,” begging, his want to not only save her but love her practically bled from his teeth with every word. “See me,”

Azalea didn’t stop him, her only conflict a muddled, tempting dissonance beneath her innocent expression. A cherry tint bloomed over her cheeks, seeking comfort in his gaze. But instead of the ruby eyes she once knew, she found her own reflection, mirroring what she truly longed for within the depths of Thorn’s desperation. She looked fragile, small. Even more vulnerable under the weight of his reverent gaze, after all her teary nights.

When they were young, her gentle nature kept him steady—healed him, patched him up, became his confidant. They were inseparable friends, alongside his elder brother. Thorn, who hurt himself more than any other noble child in Aeris, still bore the look of that wounded boy with scraped knees, smiling at her through the grime. His gauntleted fingers gripped her waist, drawing her close, a steely hold that sent goosebumps over her skin where his armor hadn’t touched. Cold metal, streaks of warmth from the fire, and something faintly ethereal. Thorn’s embrace healed unseen wounds, soothing her from a lake of sorrows that filled with every memory.

As he leaned in, savoring the moment, ready to graze her lips for the first time, Azalea held her breath, lifting toward him. But just before their lips met, she paused, held back, unable to resist the inevitable yet not yet surrendering to it.

“You..” she began slowly, her breath warm and sweet against his lips as she whispered. “You look like him when you reach for me,” words so gentle and good-natured pierced his gut like splintered bones fracturing throughout. “Are you drunk, Thorn?” His body hesitated now, not closing the distance to kiss her, despite the cry in his heart for it to ensue. Neither would his embrace allow her to leave him with such a sorrowful comparison.

They were nearly identical, he and his elder brother; save for Thorn’s green irises that he shared with his father. Her hands had secured themselves where they could find material to grasp, hoping to hold herself just as hopelessly to him as he to her.

“Is that it, Azalea?” he murmured low, affectionately, as if the hollow throb of his pulse did not pump poison throughout his heart. “When you look at me, is that all that you can see?” a hand had found its way into the complies of pink and lush hair. Endlessly did those waves of flowery pastel spill about her, and even as he cupped her face to look at him, he couldn’t spare the frame from being encased by it all. “The face of a dead man?” it stings her when he speaks like this, and for a moment, her ruby eyes water.

“If not for the vibrant greens of your irises..” in turn, her own hand reached up to cup the chiseled angle of his youthful jawline. Strict, like his typical tone, and tightly wound. “..and the cold tone of your lonely voice,” deep and raspy, yet wounded, like an animal. “If not for the way of your nature, you would fool anyone.” her thumb stroked his cheek then as if living vicariously through a moment that had long passed her by.

Slow, and just as somber in her affections as he. Thorn could only look upon her, how the fire danced on her beautiful skin and highlighted the tears that spilled just down the rounds of her heart-shaped cheeks. “You are a warrior, Thorn.” with every word he can feel his heart smolder and sink deep into his gut. “And your name suits you.”

It reminded him of the first time he had ever told her how hard it had been on him. How he spent years of their lives so close, only for the shadow of his elder brother to leech in as it always had. Thorn did not hate Sorrel, in fact. Like any younger brother, there was nothing but admiration for the one who set the path. Sorrel held the title, the duty, the weight of the crown—and he carried himself with it in a way Thorn could not replicate.

There was grace with Sorrel where Thorn could only swing his blade. Sorrel, like Azalea, could wield the arcane while Thorn couldn’t even muster a common spell to heal a wilting flower. He was a warrior-blooded elf of steel, not magicka-afflicted, like many of his kin. Oafish with words, and skilled with his body.

Those like him only had the benefit of being immune to the moon sickness plaguing their islands. It was this comparison that drove Thorn to approach her on that day, and the burn of her rejection then was only different by the stark realization that came to chain his hopes away. There was light in the past, or perhaps arrogance, that kept him tethered to Azalea.

“Thorn?” Azalea’s voice whispered close to his ear, the memory rich in his mind, and close to manipulating him to push the boundary for just a single taste. There’s a hunger in his eyes that relayed the shadowy depths of his raw desire, burning, like a forest of green set ablaze but the wrinkle of her eyes. His hands canvased her waistline, up the small of her back, and across the mystery of her. The only hesitation that sparks is that of duty, and the haunting way his name leaves her lips.

It is at this moment, out of the thousands of nights spent staring out at the sea, that he knew that it was he who should have been crossing the wilds. Not Sorrel. If he was lost, wouldn’t all of this be unnecessary?

“I see,” heartbroken, he feels cut at the very edges of his soul. These words she speaks now are words he knew she’d utter, feelings that he knew she harbored for him, but how could Thorn go another night without speaking his desire to an elf who was unlike any other? How foolish it was to love another who loved someone else, that which he could never compete with in life, and, in death.

It was irrelevant to either path because he never stood a chance. Paths chosen, now, they shared an ominous, dreary silence; all the while refusing to break the very gaze that plagued him every night. No longer two lovers as he’d dreamt of, but two souls, in the wake of a loss that changed them both forever. His hands released her, slowly retracting themselves from where they held her until they both felt cold once again.

Azalea turned away from him, stepping off to the door to return to the ball. However, just when he thought she would leave and say nothing, Azalea paused. Her hands took to the lumber of the doorframe, trembling, daringly not defying the determined strike of her weary voice.

“We all have to sacrifice something for our people, Thorn. Our loved ones. Our promises.” her last words severed the rot of his wounds and left him bleeding, fresh, while he wrenched his fists within the confines of his gauntlets. She dared not turn around as she remained there for a moment, giving Thorn the time to decide if he could respond to her. If he even could. However, the young elven prince only gazed soundlessly at her back. Unable to cry, his jaw locks, and instead the churn of his gut squirmed deep within him.

The hardest part was that Thorn internally agreed with every moral that she had, and lamented on him in this moment. Yet that deep affection, that bond of trauma and childhood growth, deterred him from withholding for the sake of a beloved ghost.

Azalea had made her choice, and Thorn’s silence was his own. As desperately as he wanted to reach for her again, he was an heir, and it was sewn within his spirit to harbor arrogance and self-authority in ways that none other could. She spoke of sacrifice to a man who had given up everything the moment he was born. Azalea pushed off the frame and slipped off into the hall, her gait soundless as she meandered back to the gathering below with naught but silence as his reply.

Thorn felt like he was leaking the essence of his very soul over the hard marble of his flooring. Hollowed by rejection, by responsibility, by circumstance; this is something he experienced time and time again. Thorn meandered back to the tableside where he lay his chalice and immediately brought it to his lips. Sour and sweet, with hints of wisteria and grapes. His wine would always lure him to a cognitive state, but now? How could the churn of rotting fruit free him of these thoughts?

He’d not realize that not far down the hall, under the great branch archways that splice the maze of Thorn’s familial home, Azalea would stumble and catch herself on the intricately carved wall. Textured with the imagery of vines, and caressed by the very same, her breathing is thwarted by shallow clutches at the air.

Cheeks still wet with the tortured thoughts of Sorrel in the pit of Thorn’s eye, she quickly rubbed away their salty taste and straightened her gown where she felt Thorn had braised it. The most apathetic aspect of his cold expressions was how lively it changed when he met her own, how she had known that the side of him for her was hers alone. Sorrel, unlike Thorn, was far more practiced with the pleasures of the female gaze.

While her heart belonged to Sorrel, Sorrel belonged to the kingdom, and Thorn as well. She did not know Thorn’s depth, in both love and persona, like he felt he knew her. Set on her concubine status, it was the piece of Sorrel she was entitled to, and though he had been lost to the sea, her loyalty mirrored their dedication to their people. She was just as tethered to the past as Thorn. Thus, her weight breath slowed, calming, as memories of her lost love comforted her in the halls. When memories of Sorrel touch her, they do not burn her as Thorn’s look did.

The soft clatter of her absconding feet was lost to the halls, and reeling back, the prince remained sewn to the place he stood in when Azalea was in his arms. The first night he confessed to her was heavy in his heart and this night? Perhaps she was right. He felt drunk.

“Sorrel... would this hurt as much, if you were here with me?” his voice fell hoarse suddenly, the crushing weight of a fallen hero who was not only his brother, but his friend, and the one he looked up to the most. Not only did he know that Sorrel did not love Azlea like Thorn did, but to know that she would prefer remaining tied to the dead than move on with him, was a blow to his ego he couldn’t take.

This moment suited the fall of the rain so well, a miserable reminder of reality. Crossing the Dead Sea; how could one be so talented and revered, but still end up perishing to the wrath of nature? “Fuck.” shaking his head, he brought his chalice to cheer himself once more, only to find that his cup lay empty after a short sip.

Staring at the bottom, his eyes lose focus and for a moment, he finds himself stunned by it all; possessing not even the comfort of another drop of wine to unfasten his burdens from his heart. Glancing, his focus fell to his bed, and then to the door. Thorn lets out another exhausted jut of breath before making his way out of his room. He figured, at the very least—chatting and indulging in booze would wash away this night from his mind.