Ruairi | Water | Freyja, Floki, Henriik

Freyja’s dress was an absolute eyesore that her natural beauty just barely made up for, which was something Floki had fixated on for the entirety of the speech she had given. How could he hear anything she had said when that dress was so loud? Anyone who could have said she looked radiant or stunning in the thing was not her friend, and if no one had the gall to be honest, Floki certainly would. The darker-haired male was only reminded of those thoughts as the woman began encroaching on his space.

“Hey, are you busy? I need an escort to the afterparty. For safety reasons.”

Floki’s gaze had drifted to her blatant gesture of her not-so-doting boyfriend, and gave a nod. “I catch your drift, Sparky,” he said, offering his arm in a gentlemanly fashion, though not without glancing in Sala’s direction and mourning that the petite blond wasn’t the one he was chauffeuring.

“Just to be clear,” Floki had begun as they started walking, gesturing to her dress with his free hand. “This shade of blue is not your color, next time I would try on a shade a little more reminiscent of… water, hm? I hear you might have a thing for it.” Floki grinned, of course referencing what he had heard occur outside of the cabin. It’s not like he could sleep when people were going in and out of the damn door that night, so it’s really their own fault he had eavesdropped on their little heart-to-heart.

Giving no objection to her whim to change, Floki filled the silence between them. “I thought you and Ruairi were supposed to be giving tonight’s speech, I was genuinely looking forward to the disaster that would have been. Your boyfriend’s a bit stiff, he’s not as entertaining to watch. Ruairi says that if he pulled the silver spoon out of his ass he might look a little more comfortable in general, but who am I to gossip?” Floki said, as if he might have possessed some thoughtful moral code, despite the smirk on his face.

“Listen, about that… I need to know what that was about the other day at the cabin. Did Ru say something about me? I need to know. I… I need to talk to him.”

How the tables have turned. Now it was Floki’s cue to shift a bit uncomfortably. “He says a lot of things about you,” the boy said vaguely, “What was referenced at the cabin, I fear, will put me in a bit of a predicament with the person I usually sleep in the same room with.” The temptation to gossip was too much for him though, and besides, if anything he was only relaying things Ruairi might tell her soon enough anyway, if the way he had watched Ruairi look at her on the walk back to the academy was any indication of how the blond felt toward her. “He might have mentioned the night of the kiss and burn you gave him in your room, more specifically the kiss, was something that - and quote- for just a second made him think he was happy. Genuinely happy, and that of course you of all people would be the person to give him something like that only to rip it away. He had also referenced that you made a cutting observation at some point, something about you hoping Heris would make him happy since you thought he never really was? Something along those lines. I never pegged him as a poet, but he said it far better than I can relay.”

<///////////>

It didn’t matter how furiously Ruairi had scrubbed his body and semi-bloodied clothes in the shower, it didn’t wash away the stain of what he had done in his memory. Heris is dead, and he could not cleanse himself of the lack of remorse he had for his actions. That’s what truly bothered him: how justified her death felt by his hands. She had, after all, tried to kill Freyja. What would have stopped her from killing him next? If he had let her get past him, maybe she would have, and then she would have taken Freyja down too. What he did was right. It had to be the right thing.

As the blond began dressing himself in more formal, grayscale attire for the evening to blend in, he couldn’t help but acknowledge the strange, ill feeling he felt weighing on every pump of blood that coursed through his veins. Checking his forehand with the back of his hand, he could have sworn he might have been running a fever. Or maybe he was simply still running hot on adrenaline. That made sense, enough for him to pass the thought of sickness off and step out of his room to venture towards the location of the afterparty.

For probably the first time in his life of attending parties, grabbing a drink was not among his top priorities. In fact, he didn’t quite feel up to ingesting any kind of alcohol. Ru was not himself tonight, and while there were a few things to blame for this, he found it was in his best interest to conceal how far he felt from himself as he weaved through clusters of people while looking for Freyja. He grew increasingly anxious at the idea she might have taken it upon herself to go down to the cells in the Sanctum. God no. She would find the body he had nowhere else to put. While he had used the trickles of water already down there to dilute and wash away most of the blood where he had left Heris, that body would begin to decompose sooner rather than later. Currently, he just felt the absolute need to find Freyja, and he would worry about cleaning up the rest of his mess later.

Just when he had stopped in a corner to survey the room in defeat, his blue gaze stopped at the sight of Freyja with Floki at her side. Relief flooded through him as she caught his gaze and began approaching him, although her evident inebriation made him wonder whether the information he had was safe to share with her in this state. The closer she got the more choked up he felt as well. She had pleaded for him to do one thing for her, but what she had asked of him would have put her in jeopardy, and he wholeheartedly believed that. While his blue eyes wandered over the entirety of her visage, he placed a foot forward as her arms began to coil around his neck. He didn’t feel afraid of her proximity this time, which if he didn’t have the weight of having just taken a life on his mind, he could have marveled at such a realization. “Freyja, I-” The words he had no real direction with faded from his thoughts as she smiled at him. A real smile. One that made his heart palpitate in a fashion he was beginning to feel accustomed to.

“I want you.”

Those were three words Ruairi had not anticipated to hear, certainly not right now, and his expression reflected it. Rather than spark whatever warm feeling he had initially had seconds ago, they only made his chest swell with guilt.

“You told me I shouldn’t settle for anything less than what I want. I want you.”

“You’re drunk,” Ru replied in a murmur, his gaze dropping while his hands raised and settled on her arms, a ploy to soothe the very real feeling that she would take poorly to his candor about Heris. Ruairi knew, contrary to what his mouth often declares, he is not the most genius man around. But he isn’t so foolish enough to not appreciate this feeling he had at the moment. Maybe it was the feeling of being wanted on what felt like more than a superficial level, maybe it was the feeling that this didn’t feel so wrong. Not at all, at that. This felt good.

“Before you jump to conclusions, like I know you will, please understand that I did try,” Ru began, lifting his gaze to meet hers with an expression as steady as his tone, even if the uncertainty in his gaze betrayed that. This was a risky place to talk about what he had done, but he felt much less afraid of even those consequences than he did about how Freyja would react. “The answers you wanted, Freyja, you weren’t going to get from her. She would have fed you half-truths and lies, anything to appeal to your emotions enough for you to hope that what she could have told you was true. And I thought…” Ru had to flick his gaze to the side as he swallowed a lump in his throat, and cleared it. “I thought I could extract the information you wanted, but when I tried, the messier it became, and the more I realized how much of a danger she posed. I didn’t mean to do it, not at first, but I- she’s gone. I killed her.”

Ru struggled to meet her gaze, knowing the more she processed what he said, the more upset she was becoming. It was the least he could expect, though. However, there was no part of him that wanted her to leave, not even as she removed her hands from around his neck and he made a hesitated attempt to grab her wrist. “This is me asking you to understand,” he said, pleaded, but relinquished his grasp before the idea of her burning him could have come to fruition. He wanted to believe that she would understand, maybe with a sober mind, and they could revisit this. But the more he stood there, stared at her, and what looked like betrayal she was expressing, the more he felt like what he had done might have inflicted an irreversible wound between them.

Just when he had begun to open his mouth again, when he decided he wanted to follow her, he choked on an abrupt lack of air. Ru began coughing and reached for his throat, but having felt this feeling before, he knew with an intense spark of rage who was behind it even before Henriik began speaking. Snapping back with his own magic, Ru raised Henriik’s body temperature to an insufferable degree until he could breathe again. For some period of time, he had forgotten how ill he felt and how hot he was burning from the inside out. “Are we feeling insecure, Henriik?” Ru taunted, poising himself through narrowed eyes as he dared closer to the air element despite how awful he felt. When Henriik made a comment about Ru having ruined his life, the blond smiled as if it had been a joke. “It really must kill you to know how far from the truth that is. Really, I wish I could take the credit, but the harsh reality is that you’ve done all the heavy lifting yourself. Your life is a manufactured product of decisions made for you, and the consequences of your own. And you’re too small of a person deep down to try to change that.”

The words sounded exactly like something Ru’s own father would have said to him, so maybe there were cutting parallels between both his and Henriik’s lives, more than he had realized. Not that it made him any more tolerable of the air element though. Surprising to Ru though, Henriik took the first swing, which in the fashion that Ruairi was raised, meant he had every right to retaliate as he saw fit. “You might have a spine, after all,” Ru commented before he returned his own swing.

With two of the most frequently discussed academians brawling on the floor now, Floki had taken it upon himself to inspire a betting ring amid the audience that had gathered. If the boy thought it plausible, he entertained the idea of stepping in and breaking it up to play hero in front of Sala. What girl didn’t love a hero? Floki was also burdened with a sense to do right by someone he considered a friend, but who was he to intervene in letting boys be boys? It was more natural for him to capitalize off of violent chaos than to step in any way. But maybe, just this once, and for the sake of earning a girl’s attention, he would venture outside his own comfort zone.

Freyja | Fire | Arah, Henriik, Ru

Freyja had been halfway through her attempt to reassure Ru that her feelings were genuine when he began speaking again, his words seeming to venture closer to an explanation for his unusual behavior with every syllable.

“Before you jump to conclusions, like I know you will, please understand that I did try. The answers you wanted, Freyja, you weren’t going to get from her. She would have fed you half-truths and lies, anything to appeal to your emotions enough for you to hope that what she could have told you was true. And I thought… I thought I could extract the information you wanted, but when I tried, the messier it became, and the more I realized how much of a danger she posed. I didn’t mean to do it, not at first, but I- she’s gone. I killed her.”

The fire element’s hands went limp around his neck as she watched him with a glassy stare, initially unwilling to believe that he had taken something so valuable away from her.

“I… no. I… I want to see the body. I don’t believe you.” As her expression turned from denial toward some semblance of attempting to understand, she took a step back, relinquishing her body’s proximity to his but not fully pulling away. From betrayal she quickly moved into the comfort of control and strength in anger. Her eyes flashed from green to gold, and she looked him dead in the eye.

“This wasn’t real for you like it was for me, was it? You knew. You knew how important getting answers was for me and you took away my only chance at getting out of here. That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” She sighed, overwhelmed, with tears threatening to spill out of her eyes. As he attempted to grab her wrist, she pulled it away from him with force, allowing her palm to warm to a point where he knew what would happen if he held on.

“My fault for thinking this was a real truce. I don’t need anyone’s help in utterly despising you this time,” she hissed, stepping back as Henriik began a series of antics that resulted in the pair coming to blows. Raising her hands in defeat, she called over her shoulder as she strutted out, “kill each other for all I care, you’re both dead to me.”

As Henriik paused to watch Freyja leave, he said in a low tone to Ru, “I know what happened in that cell. Stay away from her or I’ll tell everyone what you did.”

——————————

For several hours, Freyja found herself drinking alone among the gravestones on the far side of the boathouse, far enough away from the madness to feel as if she could be alone with her thoughts. This was ultimately a false notion if Edward’s arrival had anything to do with it. He carried another bottle of alcohol with him, and he sat down silently in the grass beside the young woman.

“Perfect timing,” she mumbled, “Just when I thought I might have to break into the headmaster’s stash in an attempt to avoid coming up with an even more attention-grabbing exit.”

He offered her the bottle, and she took a swig, passing it back to him. He chuckled softly, studying her expression with such an attention to detail that she felt obligated to turn back toward him.

Reluctantly, Edward put down the bottle in the grass and reached out his hand to caress her cheek. The action was so delicate that it seemed as if she might disappear if he made the wrong movement. Although she was rather confused and certainly disinterested in pursuing a relationship with him, she allowed it, if only because it was a curious gesture that she had not been expecting from him.

“You are the most perfect specimen ever created,” he whispered, looking her in the eye. She turned away from him, picking up the bottle of alcohol in an attempt to diffuse the tension between them.

“You’re not so bad yourself for a man who goes around bartering for favors in his spare time.” She smiled teasingly, “perhaps not perfect, but few are. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of anyone other than the person you mentioned. Can you?”

“No,” he admitted, although there was a veracity in his voice that made her uneasy.

“Well, I do owe you something,” she flailed an arm, and the bottle went flying into the grass a second time. She moved into his personal bubble, weaving in and out of it with every hitch of his breath. Mere centimeters from closing the gap between them, she whispered, “how about we call it even?”

To her surprise, the second her lips reached his, he threw himself back with such force that she almost felt she had misjudged the series of events that had unfolded. “What the hell,” she exclaimed, studying him with bewilderment. Before she could do anything else, she was enveloped in a familiar purple haze, completely vulnerable to his will.

Despite his ability to wield magic, Edward was clearly in a frenzied state, causing Freyja to wonder if he’d ever been kissed before. He was being awfully strange about a kiss, and he’d even been acting strange before that. “You’re going to tell Henriik you want to do the pairing ceremony even if you don’t want to. Tell him that if you’re going to die, you at least want to die on your own terms. You’re going to stay away from Ruairi until after this all blows over. Don’t tell Arah anything about what happened while you were away.”

Only able to nod, she agreed as he sprung up from the grass, still no more tranquil than he had been prior. “You were never meant to be mine,” he said, although it seemed it was more to himself than to her. With that, he left her in the dark, dazed and trying to recall what had happened in the last moments.

As she arrived back to her dorm a few minutes after that interaction, Freyja swung the door open to find Henriik on Arah’s bed, sitting beside her. She seemed to have interrupted something private if their reactions had anything to do with it, but she did nothing to prevent herself from barreling into the tension, throwing the bottle of alcohol she’d acquired from Edward down on her bureau, in front of her mirror.

“Oh, good, you’re here.” She didn’t wait for a response before continuing in an equally patronizing tone. “I want to do the pairing ceremony with you, Henriik. If I’m going to die, I at least want it to be on my own terms.”

——————————

News of Freyja’s agreement to Henriik’s informal proposal reached the higher levels of the academy quite rapidly, and she was given several days off from her classes to make arrangements for the actual ceremonies. Although she’d spent more of it soul searching and keeping herself unfathomably busy to avoid confronting any loose emotions, which had already come out in hysterics on more than one occasion, she’d managed to plan both ceremonies with little buy-in from the air element, who was too busy to spend any time with her, it seemed. Finally, the day arrived for the pair to have their official pairing proposal ceremony, and they had decided to do it quite publicly—as they’d done everything else.

Freyja arrived on Henriik’s arm after everyone had arrived, wearing a pale gray gown that she’d made many alterations to in order to allow it to live up to her standards. If she had to wear a color associated with the element she was pairing to, she at least wanted it to be fashionable. In contrast, Henriik looked extremely uncomfortable and out of place in a bright orange suit with red and black accents, something that drew much more attention to him than he was comfortable with. It seemed clear to Freyja that they could not have been more incompatible, yet she was allowing it to happen despite this.

“I thought that gown had sleeves,” Henriik said to Freyja in a low tone.

“And I thought that air elements were only allowed to pair with other air elements. And yet,” she shot back, without missing a beat.

“And yet.”

As they walked in, they were announced by the headmaster, whom they’d chosen as one of their sponsors. The other was the ethics professor, who, in his attempt to make the solemn event lighthearted, spent more of his speech recounting how glad he was that Freyja wasn’t going to be spending a lifetime with a certain water element student of his that remained unnamed than giving an account of Freyja’s actual life. Henriik’s uncle had done his job perfectly, giving a heartfelt and sincere eulogy for Henriik that provided all of the major details of his life as well as his well wishes for their potential afterlife together. Freyja’s eulogy not only reminded her that she had no life and no memories to recount, but also, due to frequent reminders, who was to blame for taking away her answers and why they seemed to blow up everything they touched together, both literally and figuratively. She kept her eyes glued to the lectern and the two speakers, keeping her mind busy as not to react in any measurable way in front of such a large crowd.

Finally, it came time for the exchange of black roses, and the preliminary vows. Henriik said his first, then she accepted the black rose from him, extending the other out to him as she repeated his words.

“Henriik Delamater, I would rather die with you than live one more day apart from you. I accept your proposal.” She swallowed the truth in a handful of breaths, though it burned in her chest and her stomach nonetheless.

As the crowd erupted into applause, Freyja glanced down, noticing the magic that the ethics professor was using to bring tattoos to light on their hands. As Henriik looked away, his already done, the professor briefly flashed an image of a water symbol amidst his weaving of Henriik’s symbol into her skin. As he blanched, Freyja did too. They made a brief moment of eye contact, as in mutual understanding of the faux pas and what it meant, before Freyja recovered and joined Henriik in revealing the new air symbol tattooed into her skin, as he was doing with hers. Briefly, she noticed his and recognized it. She wondered where it could have been from, and if she was having a memory from her past. This was unlikely, she thought, as she had never heard of an individual knowing their symbol of self until they had been paired. The thought struck her as odd as she and Henriik exited the stage, hand in hand.

As they took congratulations from many of the students in the courtyard, she was surprised to see the curly-haired blond approaching her. With his urgent request to talk to her, she almost agreed, but something deep within her blatantly disregarded this desire as if counteracted by a sense of obligation.

Repeating his words of wanting to talk to her, Freyja scoffed, eyeing him bitterly. Looking him straight in the eye, she replied, “I guess we don’t always get what we want, now do we?”

Turning on her heel and slipping her arm into the air element’s, she clearly stated a, “come on Henriik, let’s go elsewhere,” and walked off, leaving the water element to watch her leave.

Ruairi | Water | Freyja, Arah

“Holy shit, man. Like really, this is the holiest shit I’ve ever given about anything.” When Floki had gotten himself entangled in the insanity surrounding his roommate and his questionable relationship with Freyja, he missed the part in the clause of being Ru’s friend that came with murder, conspiracy, and a general whirlwind of fuckery which only seemed to grow the longer he spent around him.

“I know,” Ruairi muttered. There was no amount of Henriik’s magic that could have taken more of Ru’s breath away than the fact that Henriik knew about what he had done to Heris. How he had come to learn of it in such a short amount of time was as puzzling as it was wholly terrifying. Especially as both him and Floki were standing where the alleged body had been left in the cell of the Sanctum. There was a very real part of him that considered just surrendering to the madness; giving up and giving in. In a searing reverse, he had inadvertently burned his own bridge with Freyja to ash, committed a murder that the last person who should have known in the entire span of the universe knows about, and was unsure of which side of the rope of insanity and insecurity he was leaning toward. Quite honestly, all of his mounting problems felt like some form of retribution for something he might have done in a past life. Or more likely, whatever luck he had finally ran out.

“Are you sure she was dead? You know, dead dead, and not just somewhat dead?” Floki asked, leaning down to study the ground where there was seemingly no trace of any foul play. “On a different note, how would one go about transferring to a different dormitory room? I have reason to believe my current roommate is going to be the death of me just from association.”

“My everything hurts,” Ru sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and tightly closing his eyes, unable to entertain Floki any longer. “I’m going to go to bed before I manage to spontaneously combust.”

“You wish.”

“Shut up.”

<///////////////////>

There was never going to be an opportunity for Ru to gain back the time he lost listening to the tortuous likes of Henriik’s life, and a monologue that not-so-vaguely referenced him on multiple accounts delivered by a professor that Ruairi now vowed to piss into the drink of and disguise it as water when the opportunity arose. While his own gaze had primarily stayed fixated on Freyja from his place in the back, it did not stop him from feeling the shift of eyes thrown his way from others in attendance. Surely there was a majority expecting a scene following the events of the party, and Ru had to actively work to not be perceived as looking as disgusted as he felt about the event unfolding before everyone at the moment. Though ultimately Ru had decided to risk dismissing Henriik’s threat if only to try to be level with Freyja. Five minutes was all he needed.

Seizing the opportunity to approach Freyja as everyone else had flocked to offer congratulations he felt were not as sincere as everyone made it seem, for only a second he froze when he stopped in front of her. He was reminded of every risk he took when it came to being in an arm’s length of her, and how everytime he did the consequences only grew more severe. “I want to talk to you, in private,” he said, attempting to decipher the sway of the debate behind her eyes. Before he could spill about how sure he was that if she gave him the chance to explain that she would understand just how much of him was on her side, she delivered the blow that vanquished the chance.

“I guess we don’t always get what we want, now do we?”

Watching her form shrink the further she walked away almost made him feel just as small as she was becoming to his range of vision. Ru was angry with Freyja but not in the way he had been prior to everything they’ve shared in learning together. He always knew she was frustrating, but never so much has he felt the inclination to pull his hair out and physically shake enough sense into her just to force her to listen to him - just long enough for him to make things right.

<////////////////>

The days stacked and each one Ruairi had been holding his breath and waiting for Freyja to make a dramatic display of changing her mind about pairing with Henriik. That it had all been a stunt aimed at getting to watch Ru suffer, because that’s what she did best. Isn’t it? She hadn’t even granted him the time of day to say so much as ‘hi’ over the past several days. And now that it was the day before the pairing ceremony, it suddenly felt too real to Ru. So much so that he had abandoned the entirety of his academics for the day to pace in his room, submerged in his head because he couldn’t defer any of this mounting anxiety outward. And even if he could, what would the weight of his worries even accomplish?

In all the time Ruairi had spent using Floki as the crutch to absorb everything he said, Ru had forgotten about Arah, and how much more of a loyal ear she was to depend on. And if this was all a stunt Freyja was waiting to end at the last minute, then the only person in the vicinity who would know that would be Arah. In an impulsive span of seconds Ruairi had come to the conclusion that Arah was the face he needed to see, and the one he might have also wanted to see all the same.

Confident he might have looked nearly as disheveled as he felt, if the way his hair appeared from how many times he had already violently raked his hands through it today were of any form of evidence, Ru felt fine with Arah being the person to see him at a low point. It’s been a long time since he mapped out exactly what Arah’s schedule was, but his theory on her being in her and Freyja’s room was proven true as she opened the door to his insistent knocking. “Is Freyja here?” Was the first thing he asked forwardly, though allowing his eyes to drift past her and rake the room himself for any signs of the fire element’s presence. “Good,” he mumbled as she verbally confirmed what he had already deduced, and stepped inside. Choosing to briefly ignore the way Arah had looked at him but nonetheless let him in, Ru was displeased with the scent of the room. It smelt a lot like Freyja did, and he had no desire to be so acquainted with her scent, and yet he was.

“Please tell me she isn’t really going through with it,” he pleaded, turning back to face Arah. “This is just what she does, right? She does these stupid, reckless things out of spite of everyone else regardless of the shitshow it brings. And it’s not like she loves Henriik, not enough to risk her life. So what’s her endgame here, Arah? Because I am having a very hard time believing she’s going to actually go through with this, and the only person she’d be willing to tell about ending it at the last minute would be you.” He ranted, taking little time to breathe in between each word, not that his rhythm of breaths regardless were by any means steady. As he felt the itch to pace, instead he brought a closed fist up and briefly pressed it against his mouth, mulling over his next barrage of words.

There were so many things he needed to say to Freyja that he could not say to Arah, and there were so many things he wished he could tell Arah but didn’t want to risk involving her in anything more dangerous that was going on. “I’m not trying to ruin this for her over some weird jealousy thing, or crush, or whatever her or anyone else could say, alright? No matter how many times I’ve sworn to hate her for as long as we both lived, I’ve never hated her enough to actually want to see her die. She was my friend before she was my enemy, so please, Arah, tell me she isn’t as serious about pairing with Henriik as she’s making everyone else believe. Because I don’t believe it.” And Ruairi knew that he likely wouldn’t believe it either until he saw it. But he didn’t want it to come to him having to see her die next to someone who would have let her die when they were children. And Ru couldn’t tell Arah what he had seen in the insecurity challenge with Henriik, although it only served for him to question why Henriik would do this if he thought it would kill them both. Unless the only objective was getting rid of Freyja, no matter the cost. And that thought alone was both angering and crippling all in one swing.

Arah / Freyja | Earth / Fire | Henriik, Ru

By the time Ru arrived at Freyja and Arah’s room, the earth element was convinced that he’d already driven himself to the point of insanity and had come back just enough to make his thoughts coherent for her to understand. It was clear to her from the moment he’d appeared at their door that telling him to come back later–or never–was not going to be an option, and in an uncanny resemblance to the person he had arrived to discuss, she simply sat at her desk and allowed a dramatic monologue to occur before she even thought of responding.

Having had extensive experience with the female version of the blond, Arah simply took in the dramatic flair of the moment as she thought about what he had to say. Instead of directly responding to the long string of questions he’d posed, half to her and half to the universe, Arah went back to the beginning of her observations, as well as a significant amount of information she’d been keeping in for the last week or more. With the two of them keeping her in the dark, she felt that she deserved to have her questions answered, too.

“You look like hell,” she began, gesturing to his hair and the sickly look about him, “have you even been sleeping? And what’s been going on with the two of you, I feel like last week life was normal for all of us, and I’ve been here while the two of you broke a thousand rules to leave campus together, and now you care about her and she hates you and she’s going through with a pairing ceremony she would never go through with in her right mind.” She buried her head in her hands in an act of desperation at the thought of losing her roommate and her friend, although, like Ru, she was privy to some information that she could never say to him.

Drawing a deep breath, she added, “I’m not saying that it’s any of my business what’s going on between the two of you, but it used to be, and you’ll forgive me if I’m having a bit of whiplash at the way the two of you have been treating me recently. I don’t know any more about what’s happening with her than you do. In fact, I’m pretty sure I know less than you. As far as I know, she’s really going to do it, and if she’s not, she didn’t ask me for help. But,” she held up a formal invitation to the ceremony, as well as two spare vials of a liquid that seemed to be an exact match for the pairing elixir, “if it gives you any sort of peace regarding the situation, I’m not planning on letting her go through with it, and I’m supposed to bring a guest. You’re welcome to be mine as long as you’re not planning on doing anything that will cause any more chaos than what I’m planning on doing myself.”

—

The next day came fairly quickly, although in fairness to Freyja, it seemed a more valuable night when it brought about the prospect that it could have been her last. Late into the evening, she’d gone back to her room and pleaded with Arah for help in reversing the effects of the ceremony, saying that she ‘had to’ go through with it, even if she didn’t want to. Although Arah couldn’t understand the fire element’s strong conviction toward going through with the ceremony, she agreed to Freyja’s plan, which was to replace just one of the potions with a placebo. She’d insisted that Henriik would kill her if he survived too, so Arah easily agreed to her plan to kill him and save her. She never mentioned anything regarding the water element, not that Freyja would have asked, anyway. It seemed that anything that had occurred between them had been shut out to some part of her mind that she wasn’t accessing at that moment, although her lack of sanity was clear. In the few minutes Arah spent with Freyja, she broke down into hysterics of laughter and sobs for nearly half of it at the simplest things. It was clear that she was not doing well.

Freyja’s morning had been spent staying out of harm’s way and being prepared in various ways for the ceremony while Henriik did the same in another part of the castle. As far as she was aware, Arah had already done what she needed to do in order to save her from properly doing this ceremony, so all of the hair and makeup and jewelry and other things of this nature seemed like a useless way to spend half of a day, especially if it could have been her last. Instead of mourning her life, Freyja spent time mourning her time at the academy, knowing that, however this day ended, it would be the last one she ever spent here. She wasn’t entirely sure what the future would hold, and a part of her regretted what she was about to do. Death seemed like a simpler answer, especially when so many of the students at the academy had resources spanning across every realm she could think of going to. Wasn’t it true that she was going to die either way?

The ceremony was set to take place in the meadow near the old amphitheater, the same one that she’d dragged the blond off to just days prior. Things seemed so different then. By the time she arrived with Henriik wearing another unsightly and overly modest black gown that he’d selected for her, hundreds of chairs had been set out before the stage that they’d set up, which featured a large bed that was adequately decorated for the occasion. They were announced and she walked in on Henriik’s arm, both wearing all black, both prepared to give their lives for something that seemed so impertinent. She risked a glance to Arah, only to pick out of the crowd a curly-haired blond that made her stomach drop. She fought with herself to keep the tears from spilling as she caught his forlorn gaze, too afraid to look back there a second time to confirm if Arah had done what she was supposed to or not. In such a dire situation, it suddenly seemed to Freyja that no one was trustworthy. Not Henriik, not Arah, and not Ru. Not anyone in the crowd, and especially not any of the administration at the school. At the end of her life, what could she say except that it was lonely and pointless?

As was the custom, the pair lined up at the back of the aisle to begin a receiving line to say their goodbyes to everyone. The majority of their goodbyes were standard and emotionless, save for the row that contained Floki and Sala, and the next, which contained Arah and Ru. Freyja suddenly got emotional when it was Floki’s turn to approach them, and she did all she could do to smile in a bittersweet manner at him and fight back the tears that were forming in her eyes.

“It was a pleasure to know you…sometimes…” she laughed softly, wiping away a tear with her gloved hand. “Have a nice life, okay?” She caught Ru’s eye as the next row began to file into the line, and she did everything she could to keep the delicate facade she was wearing intact. The next was Sala, and although they hadn’t come together, Freyja used the moment that she got with the blonde to make it very clear that she felt they should leave together, not withholding details she felt were necessary to convince Sala that she should take a second glance in Floki’s direction. It was a pleasant, although brief, distraction from the unbelievable reality of her life.

Arah was next, and Freyja hugged her tightly, watching the way the water element lingered awkwardly behind her as she studied him from her position in Arah’s arms. She used her moment with Arah to confirm what had been done quite quietly as to avoid creating any suspicion with Henriik, who was standing beside her and taking his own time to say his goodbyes as she did. Once she’d properly thanked Arah and told her that she’d see her later despite the guilty feeling in her gut, she moved on to Ru. It was better this way.

Deciding to be merciful in the way she interacted with him for the very last time, she studied his unfaltering expression for any signs of concern. “I hope you don’t remember me this way,” she stated calmly, not smiling but not acting defensively either. “But I hope you don’t remember me the way we were before, either. Remember me however you want, you’re the one who’s going to live beyond the next twenty minutes.”

Awkwardly, she hesitated, then went to hug him before Henriik pulled her back. “Don’t touch him, alright? Please? It’s our day.”

“Very well,” she responded, gesturing to him that it was time for him to leave. Despite this, Henriik’s behavior was suspicious, and it wasn’t something she was simply going to let go. As he went to leave, she extended her right hand to brush against Ru’s, allowing the bare skin of her forearm to reach his hand. She knew that the couple were not supposed to touch anyone prior to the ceremony, but she’d never been told why, and she’d surely not understood why he’d allowed it with everyone but Ru. Was he really that jealous? As she lifted the glove to see the former tattoo manifesting into something that wasn’t dissimilar to the marks she’d seen on the walls in the sanctum when she’d pressed Ru against the wall, she wondered what that meant and how this shift of the tattoos would affect the sense of impending doom that was upon her.

After the vows were said and they were each handed a chalice with the potion in it, another pang of guilt hit Freyja and she studied Henriik’s expression. Even if he hadn’t always treated her well, it wasn’t fair to him to die because of her. He deserved to finally stand up to his uncle and prove to him that what he’d prophesied regarding Freyja bringing about Henriik’s end wasn’t true. Even if it cost her everything.

“Here, switch me,” Freyja mumbled, smiling weakly. “No funny business?”

“Fine,” he accepted, not without skepticism. “No funny business.”

As she held the chalice she believed held the true pairing elixir, she mouthed an apology to Arah, catching Ru’s eye toward the end of this apology and allowing it to mean something to both of the people she was leaving behind. And, before she could feel any less bold, she swallowed all of it, stumbling backward toward the bed as she collapsed weakly. In a faster period of time than she could have ever imagined, all of her senses failed her and everything went black.

Arah | Earth | Freyja, Ru

In the months since the pairing ceremony, Arah had remained at the academy due to both the societal pressures that were being placed on her and how deeply she’d gotten in with the happenings of the institution. She hadn’t meant to dig herself such a deep hole, but it’d happened so quickly, and there wasn’t much that could be done about it now that she’d graduated. She cast these thoughts and feelings of guilt aside at the scene of grandiosity that was the Craiel estate, a particular blond in the center of what was equally a picture of perfect wealth and perfect isolation.

Although Arah could realize that her reasoning wasn’t entirely fair, the young woman couldn’t help but feel like she wouldn’t have been placed in this predicament if it hadn’t been for how wrong things had gone. All of this was supposed to be hers, in partnership with the curly-haired blond. The first thing that she noticed, even from a distance, was that his hair was cut short, and his clothing was far more pristine than anything he might’ve worn by choice. As he stood, turned away from her approach, she felt as though he could’ve spared himself this loneliness if he’d only fallen in love with her instead. It wasn’t like she didn’t understand the allure of Freyja, but parts of Arah had retained the cultural values of her people, which put a deeply-rooted fear of fire elements into her mind from a young age. Although she loved Freyja like a sister, the more apprehensive, peace-seeking side of the earth element wished that Ru had never realized his feelings for her, and had denied himself earlier happiness in order to avoid what was occurring now.

“Hey, you,” Arah smiled softly as she arrived at the edge of the fountain, calm gaze studying the blond intently. It wasn’t exactly like she wanted to damage their relationship now by telling him the truth about how deeply she’d gotten involved with Henriik, his father, and the rest of them, not when that would certainly be perceived as a betrayal by him. Especially when it meant that she’d interacted some with his father at meetings of the Administration over the past several months and had even looked to gain some semblance of a leg up on being a member of their family by interacting with him at times. Of course, like many of the members of the Administration in power, he desired to have nothing to do with a lowly earth element, and they only treated her as a means to control what couldn’t be controlled: this so-called fateful pairing and whatever prophecies they were being compared to these days.

Despite this, Arah still felt some level of empathy for the situation, and her desire to be a voice for her people still caused her to need to be close to Ru. The Administration was still calling for Freyja’s extermination, and although they hadn’t decided on a way to manage this yet, Arah had manipulated the situation to her advantage by proposing a spell that would harness the fire element’s power and give it to anyone of their choosing. She failed to mention that the spell likely meant that the young woman would awake from her coma that had resulted from previous attempts to harness her power in the pairing ceremony, although part of her believed that the removal of Freyja’s powers would result in her death anyway. No one had managed a feat like this before, so it wasn’t exactly like she had any confidence in the results. But, it was something, and it gave her an opportunity to interact with Ru and make good on her assurances that she’d do everything in her power to change the circumstances that surrounded him.

“I think I’ve finally found a way to break the coma,” she blurted out, seeing that her presence wasn’t as relieving to him as she hoped it’d be. It seemed like the only way to his heart these days revolved around a girl who only seemed to break his over and over again. Inhaling slowly, she added, “but, it’s going to force me to take her powers away. We think the coma might be linked to her magic, and removing it and putting it elsewhere for a while could help. It could also harm her. Are you sure you want to do this?”

Gently, she placed her hand on his forearm, looking him in the eye but finding nothing there. Not like she used to. “I know how hard this has been for you, I don’t want you to feel more disappointed, so if you don’t want to do it, I understand.”

Of course, the blond’s answer was that he did want to do it, as was his answer with everything that had to do with the fire element. As she walked down the elaborate corridors of his home, she couldn’t help but feel small and plain. She was dressed in her academy uniform because, although she’d been back for a day, she had nothing nicer to wear to such an immaculate estate. Although she didn’t feel comfortable in a place like this at all, she knew that living here was the only way to do better for herself and her people. She had sacrificed everything for this goal, even her friendships with the two individuals who had carried her through so many years of schooling. They just didn’t know yet.

Finally arriving at Freyja’s bedside, the earth element couldn’t help but feel sorry for the condition the young woman was in. Although she appeared exactly as she had the day the blond had carried her through Edward’s portal, her skin was paler and she had a sickly look to her that was not helped by the lifeless appearance of her body. She glanced up from the chair that had been pulled up to the young woman’s bedside, surely a place that Ruairi had spent the majority of the last few months while Arah had been finishing her education. She felt guilty for her role in how they’d gotten here, but ultimately knew that there were many other figures who had gotten them to this point, not excluding him.

“Are you sure you want to be here while I do this? If something bad happens…” She sighed softly, continuing, “it’s just that I know you, and I know that a piece of your heart has been ripped out of your chest every time this hasn’t worked. If something happens to her and you witness it, I’m not sure you’ll ever make it past that. I’m worried about you.”

Many minutes passed as Arah worked on the spell that she’d been working on for the past several months, and despite the noticeable exertion it was causing the earth element, it seemed to be doing nothing to Freyja. After what felt like hours and must have been if the dimming light in the sky was any indication, Arah withdrew, feeling the effects of her work in the young woman’s body. She was rapidly growing colder and colder until her body convulsed as a reaction to her dangerously low temperature and her lips and fingers turned blue.

“It worked,” Arah said disbelievingly, more pleased with the success of her spell than the state of the woman before her. “Her magic’s been transferred…somewhere. I don’t know where, but the fact that her body’s reacting must be a good sign.”

Standing back as Ru barreled toward the young woman to use his magic to warm her up, Arah added, “if what we know about pairings is right, she should be able to adopt some of your magic. I’m not sure how that works with two types of magic that are so harmful to each other, but if her body doesn’t reject the water magic, I assume her body temperature will adjust to the levels that water elements can tolerate without the presence of her own magic to stop it.”

Although the earth element had previously had some hope of the young woman’s condition slowly deteriorating to cause an easy solution to all of her problems, Arah wasn’t surprised that, like always, things seemed to be working out in their favor. Although she was still shivering fiercely, Ru’s magic seemed to be helping to keep her alive, and soon she was making small movements with her limbs that were indicative of some level of consciousness.

As Ru sat directly at her side and Arah stood over the bed to see the effects of her work, Freyja’s green eyes slowly opened, then shut, then stayed open for slightly longer. This pattern continued for a few minutes as she gained strength and adjusted to the light in the room after having her eyes shut for so long. Weakly, after some time, Freyja mumbled, “I must be in hell if you’re here.” She studied the blond for a prolonged moment, the slightest hint of softness behind a weak and pained expression. Then, between shivers, she added, “seeing you with that haircut is enough punishment for a lifetime.”

Freyja | Fire | Arah, Ru

The first thing that Freyja felt was pain as she slowly came to. It was like waking up from a dream or slowly floating up to the surface from deep water, her alertness increasing in subtle ways as she began to notice muffled sounds from the space around her and the searing feeling in her limbs screamed louder. Although she preferred being unconscious to feeling such a terrible sensation, she couldn’t help the fact that her body was forcing her awake, and in a matter of moments she felt the control she had of her body increase until she managed to use her strength to open her eyes, only then realizing how much she was shaking due to the temperature of the room.

As she struggled with the action of keeping her eyes open, a familiar face became more apparent within the space she could see. She wasn’t prepared to move her head or any other part of herself when it felt like something was killing her from the inside out, a feeling which she’d only ever felt one other time in her life: her magic was leaving her. In her mind, the pairing ceremony had just happened, and she was still dying despite any attempts Ruairi and the others had made to wake her back up. They must’ve moved her to the grand hall at the academy, it was ugly and sterile enough. And, in some odd power trip of his, the water element must have wanted to wake her up so that he could get the final word in her dying moments. Like that would ever happen.

“I must be in hell if you’re here,” she mustered up the strength for these words despite the overwhelming sensations that were at war within her body. Her magic was leaving her and leaving an excruciating sensation in its wake, not to mention the terrible cold that existed as the power that maintained her body temperature left her body. Then, somewhere in the midst of that, there was a warm, glowing feeling that seemed to be the only thing keeping her alive. It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling, but she was in no position to complain if someone was looking to make her last moments slightly more pleasant.

Studying the blond’s expression weakly, she began to travel upward from an expression that was too confusing and painful to acknowledge to a haircut that was somehow even more dreadful than the idea of confronting any feelings or regrets she might’ve had on her deathbed. In a second effort that was just slightly more controlled than her first, Freyja fought the convulsions of her shaking body to offer an insult that she hoped would be something of a peace offering. “Seeing you with that haircut is enough punishment for a lifetime.”

“Trying to make up for your lame last words already,” came the response, and the blond offered a tired smile. Freyja couldn’t place it, but Ru’s general demeanor–paired with the haircut and the poorly-concealed darkness beneath his eyes–was the only evidence that went against everything she thought she knew upon waking up. He hadn’t suddenly started to look this bad in a couple of hours, which meant that she’d survived beyond when she’d expected to. This was equally relieving and terrifying, but she didn’t dare to hope that she’d managed to escape death when all of her sensations were screaming that it was nearer than ever.

Although she couldn’t follow the blond’s gaze to find the subject of his gratitude, Freyja was equally relieved and unsurprised to find Arah hovering on the other side of the bed, covering her with another blanket that felt like it could have weighed as much as her. Considering how she’d left things with her former rival–if that was even an appropriate title for something so complicated–she was surprised to find that he was the one orchestrating her care and thanking Arah for something which she assumed had to do with the fact that she was awake and alive. Instead of offering additional gratitude to the young woman, she decided to conserve her strength for something that hadn’t already been said.

Freyja winced again with the pain that had only seemed to grow worse with increasing levels of alertness, and as she did so, she felt Ru’s attentive stare burning into the side of her face. “You have to tell me if my magic starts to make you sick or uncomfortable,” he stated, which led Freyja to the realization that it was him who was creating the least terrible of the three sensations that were overwhelming her in that moment.

“I’m only going to be dead in a matter of moments anyway, what’s a little measure of the human experience between peers?” She swallowed slowly, trying to gather enough coordination to hug the blankets tighter to her chest before adding, “letting my magic drain out of me slowly isn’t so fun to watch, I imagine. Why not boil me alive?”

She studied an expression on his face that almost resembled pain, although it was clear from the first glance that Ruairi had gone back into emotional lockdown, as she’d seen him do more than once over the years. She wondered how long she’d been unconscious that he’d gone from feeling the full range of human emotion to still feeling everything but attempting to show nothing. She wondered what might’ve happened to him that caused him to look so much like a ghost of himself, though undoubtedly it had to do with his deeply-rooted daddy issues. The other times she’d seen this from him almost always included a repression on the behalf of his parents, whom she’d never met but had come to despise for her own reasons.

A comfortable moment passed, though Freyja couldn’t help but feel heavy with the weight of the room. Arah was present but seemed a thousand miles away, Ruairi was clearly not himself in any way, shape, or form, and both were studying her as if she were some sort of science project they’d just barely managed to pull off. The blond let out a heavy sigh that only validated what she knew already, but she was grateful when he spoke again. “I’m glad you’re awake,” he seemed genuine, although it appeared that every atom in his body wished not to be. She was sure he’d been maintaining the company line if he’d been at home with family recently. She wondered when he’d left and come back. Perhaps he’d been expelled, or called home for some reason. “I never got the chance to tell you how stupid you are, I guess it’s just one of those things you’re better at than me.”

This was the first thing to warrant a weak smile from Freyja, who’d barely been hanging onto her neutral expression as she fought to conceal any indication of the pain lying beneath. The slightest glitter of amusement flashed across her green eyes as she studied the bright blue of his. They lingered there for a brief moment before she was reminded of her looming fate, and suddenly whatever hope she saw in his eyes caused her own hope to diminish, so she cast a sideways glance toward Arah to avoid the heavy feeling in her chest that was from more than the blankets. “There’s a lot of those things,” she shot back, still struggling to keep her words measured. “Another is applying concealer, that trainwreck on your face is a rookie performance.”

Then, without allowing too much time to pass, she spoke again. “Speaking of stupid, how’s Henriik?” The red-haired girl kept her gaze on Arah, both because she was using her strength to talk rather than move, and because she didn’t want to see the pain on the water element’s face when she asked that question. The earth element appeared to be a bundle of nerves and underlying emotion, none of which she was able to track. This wasn’t a reaction to her friend’s death, this was something deeper.

“Better than you, that’s for sure,” Arah finally admitted. “We were worried about you, what you did should have cost you your life.”

Freyja ignored the implications and the plethora of questions the girl’s statement brought to mind, and instead just focused on getting the most important questions answered. “How long was I out for, centuries? Are you both paired with children by now?” Forcing her head back to the other side to find Ru, she added, “no offense to your repressed dad look, I’m sure there are plenty of women out there looking for a young man who has the aura of their grandfather. You could be immortal if you believed in things of that nature.”

When she made this comment, she physically felt the shift in the air as he and Arah exchanged glances. She decided that whatever it was was probably something that she didn’t want to know about, and with the added belief that she didn’t have long to live, she decided that ignorance was bliss. An awkward silence loomed for a moment as Arah and Ru seemed to be communicating–albeit poorly–with glances across the dimly-lit room, and before long, Arah approached Freyja to squeeze her hand in an awkward attempt to avoid addressing the gap between what she remembered and what existed in the present. “I’m going to head out before it gets too dangerous out there, but I’ll see you both soon, alright?” Then, smiling softly at Ru in a pained way that Freyja didn’t necessarily understand, the earth element added, “You know where I’ll be if you need me.”

Leaving Freyja and Ruairi in a space that felt tangibly smaller and more tense without her presence, the fire element spent several moments watching the blond’s expression as he returned the action. There was a certain level of disbelief behind his eyes as he watched Freyja, as if he were speaking to someone who’d long been dead and gone. Still yet, there were other emotions hidden beneath the surface. Anger, resentment, hurt, and most painfully, empathy. While she had no comfort in knowing where she was or who else was here, the only thing she knew for sure was that he was not leaving her, even if she tried to force him to.

Seeing the exhaustion written all over his face and body, it returned to Freyja’s mind that he was the only thing keeping her alive in that moment. “You know, you’re going to run out of magic eventually.” She said this defensively, as if she were dancing around the things that really needed to be said. Inhaling softly, she decided to gather her courage to say at least one thing that she knew was true. Looking straight into his soul with a profound sadness in her gaze, she smiled a weak, bittersweet smile. “You’re going to have to learn how to let me go eventually, don’t you know that?”

A single tear fell down her face, and, to her surprise, she felt no pain as it touched her skin. However, given the circumstances, she assumed that it was simply a result of the pain that was ravaging the rest of her body, and thought nothing of it beyond that. Although thousands of other words she wanted to say to him flooded her mind and closed up in her throat, she couldn’t help but leave them inside, not knowing what any of this meant or if he was even the same person he’d been at the pairing ceremony. She didn’t know how much time had passed or if she even mattered to him anymore beyond whatever it was that they used to be, before they’d ever become so much more. All she knew was that he was the only one who wanted to stay with her while she was on her deathbed, and even that warranted thousands of questions that she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answers to. Maybe she was better off remembering him as whatever they were before things got so complicated.

Freyja | Fire | Ru <3

Freyja studied his expression in the aftermath of her words, watching the way he tried to keep everything so controlled, so measured. She could see the way he was breaking on the inside, beneath the carefully-constructed composure that had fooled everyone else for so long. Maybe it was because they had despised each other for so many years and had pushed each other to the brink for so long that she was so adept at identifying when the water element was at his breaking point, or maybe it was just because, despite all of their differences, looking at him was like looking in the mirror. Whatever they were, they were the same, and there was no time in Freyja’s life that this fact had been as obvious as it was right now.

When his gloved hand reached out to gently wipe the tear away from her face, her expression softened to reveal not just the physical pain that she was in but the deep emotional turmoil that it was to be touched by him again. Her face showed the utter devastation that it was to be sharing this moment with him together, perhaps the last thing that would ever be theirs. His next words sounded to Freyja more like desperate pleadings than a confident stating of a fact, which is what she knew he was trying to convey. When he continued on to speak of the loss of her powers, she only felt that he was still trying to convince both of them of something other than the inevitable, a space for them to share that felt less desperate than the knowledge that, even if she did live, there would be no world where the two of them could exist beyond the academy in a way that wouldn’t end in loss and grief.

Watching Ru as he continued to keep himself collected, Freyja wanted to ask him what it was all for. Who was he trying to be strong for? Didn’t he know that she was the only person who had never asked him to be something that he wasn’t for her sake? All of the times that she’d broken him down to his lowest, and they’d still ended up here. Why wasn’t it okay for her to see him at his worst? Still, these thoughts were a heavy weight on her chest, and one that seemed too burdensome for a moment like this. It took humility she didn’t have to keep herself from reminding him of these things, and of the fact that she was the only one. If she was dying, reminding him that he was losing the only person who understood him at that level would only be cruel to the both of them, almost as cruel as it would be if they lived. As far as she knew, either she was paired with Henriik, or she’d somehow been raised from the dead still unpaired. Either of these still left the excruciating responsibility of letting him go to her, and her alone.

With both of them equally lost in thoughts and lost in a thoughtless cloud of exhaustion that seemed to swallow up the tension in the room, Freyja was surprised when he spoke again, perhaps because she’d denied him the comfort of hearing her give in to the lies he was telling himself about how it would all be okay. When she returned her gaze to him he seemed reluctant to divulge the information that seemed to be circling his mind, and when he finally did, she followed the movement of his hand on the bed, bracing herself for what she assumed was going to be terrible news based on the way he was acting.

If it had been any other moment in their lives, Freyja would have believed that Ruairi was lying to her when he told her that she’d been living in his house. Yet, his tone indicated to her that even he couldn’t believe what he was saying, as if it was one of the first times he’d said it out loud and he was still trying to convince himself that it was not only true but had been a good idea. Before she could ask more questions about why he’d brought her here and what had happened in the aftermath of her reckless decisions–which would likely lead to more conversations she wasn’t entirely excited to have, yet–he’d spiraled again into defending himself as if she could even manage the strength to find hatred for him in her heart. Although there was so much to unpack and seemingly so little time to do it, all she could find it within herself to do was move her hand closer to his with a concentrated effort that took all of her might. Though she didn’t reach his hand, the thought was what counted, and it was enough to stop him in his tracks before he spiraled any further.

“Hey,” she said softly, letting her eyes find their way back to his. “I know,” she replied in an extremely heartfelt tone, the first two words since she’d been awake that resembled some level of her typical level of confidence. She nodded softly, offering him another weak smile. “I know.”

As he suggested that she get some sleep, she eyed him warily, knowing that what he was saying was absolutely true but allowing the fear of everything that was happening to consume the safety she had felt when all she could focus on was pain. Although the feeling of having her magic stripped from her was still excruciating and hadn’t ceased, she’d been awake long enough to adapt to it so that it didn’t give off the level of shock that it had when she’d first woken up. In addition, his magic seemed effective in keeping her body temperature at a level that was not necessarily warm, but wasn’t deadly to her, either. Therefore, with new fears unlocked in her mind, she looked up at him, deliberating whether or not to even say the words that were on her mind.

“What if,” she started, gathering her thoughts and considering that she could still back out of saying what was on her mind. Instead, she allowed the words to linger, slowly releasing each of them into the air with a profound sadness and the reluctance of someone who was professing something they had little control over. “What if I’m afraid of leaving you…for good…this time? What if…I don’t…want to?”

__________________

Much to her surprise and relief, Freyja awoke the next morning to the light streaming in through one of the large windows that faced the bed. She hadn’t noticed the open curtains the evening prior, nor the other individuals who were milling about the house, waiting for an instruction from the family or so it seemed. Realizing that Freyja had more strength than she had the night prior despite the fact that what was once pain had left a feeling of utter soreness in its wake, Freyja lifted her head and turned to find the blond asleep in the chair beside her bed looking utterly peaceful despite the weight that she knew was heavy on his shoulders. She watched him for a moment, first to ensure that he was still breathing, and then because she realized how rare of an opportunity this was that she was getting. No matter what she didn’t know and what she would find out over the next few days, she was here with him now, alive, and experiencing a moment that she never thought she would have with someone that she never thought she could care so deeply for. While there was still anger and resentment yet to be discovered, the feelings she’d been pushing down for weeks were more prominent, and especially those which had just come from the new knowledge that he’d saved her life…again.

Although she debated whether she even wanted to wake him up, she slowly maneuvered her weak limbs in order to sit up in the bed, watching him for a moment more with the slightest smile on her face before she removed it hastily. Did she even deserve to feel happiness or peace from someone whom she’d not-so-distantly told she never wanted to see again? Should she still allow the feelings she had for him to linger, even if it had been confirmed that she was created to be eternal soulmates with someone else? When he woke up, was he going to tell her that she needed to leave, and that he never wanted to see her again?

Pushing these doubts aside, Freyja decided to confront whatever may have come next, even if it broke her heart. Reluctantly, she allowed her hand to find its way to his cheek, cupping his face as she touched him gently, trying to wake him up in a way that wasn’t as dramatic and harmful to their relationship as what she’d done to Arah on more than one occasion.

“Hey,” she said softly, “Ru, wake up.”

Once again, Freyja took in the experience of touching the blond as something that might’ve been happening for the last time, and although this left a great sadness inside of her, it also caused her to feel gratitude for the fact that it was happening at all. She knew that she didn’t deserve to have more time with him, yet it was something that had been given to her. She didn’t know what to make of this.

As he stirred and exited the room with little more than the promise of breakfast, Freyja couldn’t help but wonder what her touch meant to him anymore and if she was out of line for doing anything beyond the boundaries of their former rivalry. Was she just someone who was paired to Henriik to him these days? Was she still more? It wasn’t obvious to her by the way he reacted, which was something complex and profound all in itself, and she began to wish that she had some level of ability to see into his thoughts. She knew that there was a certain complexity between them and that he’d surely had a lot on his mind over the last few months if he was the one who had decided to head this whole operation of waking her up, but she had no idea exactly what was running through his mind as he woke up next to her with her hand on his face.

The longer he was gone, the more Freyja’s thoughts shifted from curiosity about him to curiosity about his home. She’d spent so many years with him at the academy wondering what his family’s estate was like, what kind of people his parents were that they never came to visit him, and mostly, what caused him to leave every year acting like himself and return looking like someone she barely recognized. If she was honest with herself, there was a reason she’d agreed to play that stupid kissing game with Edward and Ru in the boathouse on one of their first nights back, and it was more to irritate Ru into becoming more like himself than to actually wield any level of dominance over him. She tried to do little things like this every year they returned without seeming too suspicious as to her intentions, and now was her only chance to get the answers as to why that was ever necessary in the first place.

Still in the dress she’d died in and as weak as a corpse, but operating with the level of authority of a queen, Freyja began directing the people who had been assigned with her around to assist with things like giving her directions. Despite their reluctance to help and the fear in their eyes which told Freyja everything she needed to know about what she was walking into, the words ‘I’m not asking, I’m telling’ were effective in garnering the assistance of a stronger, younger individual in helping her to walk down the hall while her feet and legs were still only partially willing to cooperate. In some universe she might’ve realized that it wasn’t the best idea to be up and moving around with minimal help after the kind of trauma she’d been through, but the only thing that had gone through the last three months unscathed was her resolve.

After walking down a maze of corridors that all seemed identical with bare, neutral walls stripped of any art, decor, or life to indicate where exactly she was going, Freyja briefly wondered if this was more of a prison than a homestead. This thought was cast aside as she walked straight into the bewildered stares of the two people who were most easily identifiable as the two wardens alongside their son. Putting on an amused yet charming smile, Freyja watched the whole thing play out for several moments before she decided to make matters worse.

“I’m alive,” she announced, as if the fact that she were mobile in the clothes she’d died in wasn’t indicative of that fact all on its own. When she saw the looks that his parents were giving her, paired with his parents’ successful efforts to get the staff member that was helping her to release her from his protective hold, Freyja decided to add, “I'd say it's nice to finally meet you, but that's yet to be decided. I suppose I'm more surprised to find out that you exist considering the fact that I attended school with your son for twelve years and you couldn’t even be bothered once to show up for him when it counted.”

After a few seconds of standing on her own following the servant’s dismissal from the dining area, Freyja began to grow faint, the dizziness and weakness already prominent just from the fairly long walk it had taken to arrive at her destination. She was grateful when Ru came to her aid hastily, his arm supporting her waist, and suddenly she found herself more focused on the close proximity she was in to him than whatever insults his parents decided to throw her way. She was locked in on his eyes for a moment or two as she tried to ignore the obvious discomfort he was feeling with the situation and just focused on the concern in his eyes toward protecting her mixed with whatever feelings he had toward being in such close space with her after what must’ve felt to him like an eternity apart.

“Hi,” she squeaked, smiling a more genuine smile up at him before returning her gaze back to the judgmental stares of his parents, who were surely taking in the depth of the feelings their son had for someone that they had made an enemy for so long.