[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/nVkgMCRF/Banner.png[/img] [h3] Fractured Reflections Final Part [/h3][/center][hr][right][sub][color=royalblue]Location[/color]: Elara's Home---> Seluna Temple [color=goldenrod]Collab Between[/color]: ([@Dark Light] & [@Qia]) [/sub][/right][hr] [indent] “[color=royalblue]If I could step beyond all expectation, all duty, and chase only what calls to me…?[/color]” Elara would not lie. Nor would she answer with something merely palatable. So instead, she turned slightly, studying the longest, straightest path leading toward the temple—the one Aliseth had stepped just beside, never quite on. Her boot descended, crushing its crisp edge into slush. “[color=royalblue]There was never truly a choice for me. Only the illusion of it.[/color]” A laugh escaped her, self-aware and resigned. “[color=royalblue]You see it too. However many forks you draw, my feet know their road.[/color]” The temple loomed, its spires piercing the sky like accusing fingers. She met Aliseth’s gaze, her face a mask of ice save for the faint thaw in her eyes. “[color=royalblue]But if I had the choice?[/color]” A pause. Something flickered in her eyes, something nearly spoken. The door had been ajar. Just enough for her to see the light spilling out, golden and warm, flickering against the stone walls of her childhood home. Just enough for her to hear the low murmur of voices within—the steady cadence of her father’s, the softer tones of the healers, and beneath it all, the rasp of shallow, weakening breaths. She had lingered. She had waited. [i]Just a moment longer.[/i] Because to step forward was to surrender to the inevitable—to let the clock’s hands snap shut. So she’d frozen, a silver-haired fox caught in a snare, until silence fell. Not a sigh, not a gasp. An absence, voracious and final, devouring the room’s warmth. Elara blinked, the present settling over her like freshly fallen snow. Her breath left her in a slow, measured exhale. Then, deliberately, she stepped past the lines Aliseth had drawn. “[color=royalblue]Some paths claim us before we choose them,[/color]” she said. “[color=royalblue]They simply… are.[/color]” She turned, studying him as if his face held a cipher. “[color=royalblue]Do you believe your roads still fork, Aliseth?[/color]” "[color=goldenrod]Fork? Mi'lady.[/color]" He questioned rhetorically as he connected his sword back to his belt. The question was a pause, a grab for time, while he considered her choice and those laid out before himself. A distraction while he hid his disappointment. "[color=goldenrod]I don't believe in black and white.[/color]" He said firmly as he looked up to the black sky above and held out a cold hand to catch the falling white snow. "[color=goldenrod]I don't believe in left and right.[/color]" With more of a casual movement to his step he went and stood in the circle he made for Elara and studied the paths. "[color=goldenrod]But despite fate and destiny convening against me.[/color]" He looked up and caught her eyes, adding a weight to his words. "[color=goldenrod]I do believe, I know, it's always my choice where I go next.[/color]" He made no further signs of movement towards the temple. He meant her to hear his words. A truth he’d wrestled down, and made peace with. She admired it. Envied it, even. But belief was a different sort of magic. One Elara hadn’t quite mastered. She stepped to the edge of the circle, her gaze lowering to the fractured lines beneath her feet. Then her eyes lifted again to meet his. “[color=royalblue]That certainty of yours…[/color]” Elara said softly. “[color=royalblue]It’s rare. I don’t think I’ve ever known it.[/color]” A beat. “[color=royalblue]But I find I don’t want to dismiss it, either.[/color]” The admission hung between them for a moment before she continued. “[color=royalblue]Perhaps… I need to believe the road ahead isn’t a mirror of the past.[/color]” The words were no vow, but a seedling breaking soil—tender, green, trembling toward light. She glanced toward the temple—still towering, still immense—but this time, she didn’t flinch. “[color=royalblue]Come with me?[/color]” Elara’s words were barely louder than the snow falling around them. “[color=royalblue]If a new path exists… perhaps it demands two sets of footprints.[/color]” The words slipped out before she could temper them. A part of her—small but growing—meant them. But almost as quickly, the handmaiden blinked, as if awakening to her own forwardness. Heat bloomed in her cheeks once again. Her fingers grazed the coat draped over her shoulders—[i]his[/i] coat, its wool still whispering with the cedar-and-iron scent of him. The fabric’s memory of warmth seared her skin, a silent rebuke: [i]You don’t own his tomorrows.[/i] Elara glanced down, the flush deepening. “[color=royalblue]Unless…[/color]” she added, more gently now, “[color=royalblue]you’re expected elsewhere. Or this—[/color]” she pinched the coat’s edge, a half-hearted tug, “[color=royalblue]was meant to be returned before now.[/color]” She tilted her head, a rueful smile curving her lips. “[color=royalblue]Regardless… thank you. For the warmth. And the reminder that the road doesn’t always end where we think it does.[/color]” Aliseth was pleasantly surprised as Elara stepped toward him. Her sweet, soft scent permeated his senses. Her proximity broke all the etiquette drilled into him during his training, but he didn't care—not now, not ever again. He did not retreat nor shy away from her, he couldn't even if he wanted to. It was like invisible strings were pulling him her way. As if gravity had changed direction and she had become the centre of his world. It was as if he needed the exhale of her breath just to breathe. Or the warmth of her body and her body alone could bring him to life. It was as if the answers to the universe lay in her eyes, if only he surrendered himself to them. He felt like she was the last spec of color in a world of white and grey, and to move away now would be to lose it all forever... So instead of stepping away, he found himself inadvertently leaning in, drawn towards her, going as far as he could without actually stepping. Like the circle around his feet was a magical barrier and the only thing keeping them apart. [i]He chose his own destiny'[/i] Symbolic he thought it be, that she should be standing along the deepest most direct line before him while he himself was found inside the bubble. Intoxicated as his mind was, he could think of little beyond her scent and beauty. His eyes sunk deep into hers as he softly shook his head with an elegant polite refusal. Smiling sweetly, he reached up and took her gently by the wrist, careful not to touch her skin with his cold hands as he removed her grip from it. His hand stopped her. Not forcefully, not in warning—but gently, with purpose. As if to say: [i]you don’t have to[/i]. And something inside her… [i]paused.[/i] His fingers lingered at her wrist, warm even through the leather of his glove, and her pulse stuttered like a bird trapped behind glass. She’d known restraint before: Amaya’s glacial decorum, the rigid choreography of service, the way duty clipped her voice into measured tones. But this—Aliseth’s proximity, his breath fogging the air between them—was a language without rules, a silence louder than any command. Her eyes lifted, meeting his, and the world narrowed to the space between them. He did not kiss her. But he could have. And that knowledge pulsed through her like a second heartbeat. She did not retreat. She also did not lean in. Because some boundaries, once crossed, cannot be redrawn—and she wasn’t sure which version of herself she’d lose if she reached for more. So she hovered, a leaf caught in a draft, torn between the ache to fall and the terror of landing. [hr] [i]Amaya.[/i] Her name ghosted through Elara’s mind like a breath fogging glass. The princess, marble-carved and untouchable, whose affection had been a distant star—visible, admired, never grasped. Aliseth’s need was different: immediate, unguarded, a flame that threatened to melt the frost she’d nurtured for years. It wasn’t betrayal that hollowed her chest, but mourning—for the version of herself who’d once believed love could be earned through service, stoicism, and vanishing into another’s shadow. [hr] It didn’t feel like betrayal. It felt like grief. And grief, Elara had learned, could wear many faces. [hr] She spoke, at last, her voice low—barely louder than the hush of snow. “[color=royalblue]Do you think I care about station?[/color]” The question came without warning, the tension of it sharpened by honesty. “[color=royalblue]Do you think that’s what this is? Some unspoken rule that says I can’t stand beside you?[/color]” Her words held no scorn—only sorrow. Because she had seen it in his eyes, the way he hesitated to step fully across that line. Not because of her—but because of what the world had told him she represented. “[color=royalblue]If I was born to a pedestal… I never asked to be put on it.[/color]” She looked down, then, at the coat still draped over her shoulders. The warmth still lingered. So did the ache. “[color=royalblue]You remind me there’s still a version of myself beneath the role. Not just the handmaiden. Not just her.[/color]” Her hand gently covered his wrist—still gloved in its own distance—but she didn’t move it away. “[color=royalblue]But I don’t know who that woman is yet.[/color]” A breath. “[color=royalblue]I think… she wants to believe in something. Or someone.[/color]” Another pause. Then, quietly: “[color=royalblue]I think she wanted you to kiss her.[/color]” Her gaze flicked up, meeting his again. “[color=royalblue]But I’m not sure she could’ve kissed you back.[/color]” Then, softer: “[color=royalblue]So…thank you for both those things.[/color]” [color=goldenrod]"I [b]choose[/b] for this to be where we part ways."[/color] Aliseth whispered ever so softly, a slight tinge of regret staining his voice. His hands were still connected to her, the space between them having become space enough only for the mingling of their warm breaths or the radiating heat of their bodies. [color=goldenrod]"Please, keep the cloak, for now at least. It is my selfish desire that you have reason to seek me out for I would very much like to spend more time with the Elara who is more than a handmaiden"[/color] In a softer tone, he continued, [color=goldenrod]"No matter the direction you take, Elara, you are not the same person who left those footprints earlier."[/color] Aliseth glanced back at the path they had trodden only moments before—traces of their shared steps delicately etched into the snow. [color=goldenrod]"Those paths, those footprints, they are our roots from which we grow.”[/color] He raised a hand to cup her cheek as he gazed into her eyes. [color=goldenrod]"And you Elara, are ready to blossom. Believe in yourself.”[/color] Step by reluctant step, he backed away, his lingering fingers slowly releasing her as he stepped out of the enchanted circle cut into the snow. Regaining his composure, his posture straightened, and he assumed the formal bearing of a guard. With a precise salute—fist pressed against his chest followed by a deep, respectful bow—he addressed her. [color=goldenrod]"Lady Elara, your company has been a pleasure, and a kindness I fear I have not fully deserved. It has been an honor to make your acquaintance."[/color] Just before turning away, his guarded composure faltered for a heartbeat, revealing a longing in the depths of his dark eyes and a playful, hungry smile tugging at his cold lips. His leaving felt akin to stirring from a sweet dream, the comforting haze dissolving swiftly into the sharp clarity of waking. Elara stood rooted in place, her gaze trailing after Aliseth as the unseen threads connecting them strained thin and then snapped soundlessly as the chill air reclaimed the space between them. “[i]You are ready to blossom. Believe in yourself.[/i]” How effortlessly he had spoken those words, as if belief were as natural as drawing breath. Yet in his eyes—those dark mirrors reflecting quiet sincerity—she had glimpsed an authenticity that tugged at something deeply buried within her. Not because faith came easily, but precisely because it did not. Minutes ago, she’d left her home armoured in duty to cover her sorrow; now, stripped of pretense, she felt both flayed and forged anew. Elara strode toward the temple doors, the entrance yawning before her, its carvings of the goddess leering with eyes chiselled to judge. She paused, half-turning, though logic told her the path behind lay empty. Old habits, she supposed, died slower than hope. Their mingled footprints were already fading, devoured by night’s insatiable maw. Sighing, she turned for the last time and struck the temple doors with three raps. [/indent]