Blue Sun/Late Spring

Chapter One

Spring rolls around at the end of march, hard to believe, as the air is still cold. Most flowers don't start blooming till may, you can't tell that it's spring, if it wasn't for the birds that start singing the most beautiful duets with the wind that tickles the naked trees... Or that's what they say, the air is never as cold here. Oh to breathe in that crisp breeze, oh to witness the discomfort of freezing... Just imagine seeing the flowers bloom in late spring, wild and free, outside the garden beds that force them to stay right where they were planted...

Noa quickly heads through the halls that don't seem to have a beginning nor an end, trying his best to not seem stressed or like being in a rush. Though being stressed might be an understatement looking at his situation right now. He wasn't on duty just until now, though it still feels like his responsibility. The rising sun colors the halls in a beautiful golden tone. It is quiet, though Noa feels like you can always feel it in the air when the day is important. Door. Open. Nothing. Door. Open. Nothing. Door. Open. Nothing. Door. Open. Nothing. He looks outside one of the big window and sighs, not sure if it's annoyance or exasperation, when he spots a little dot in the garden. Now he knows for sure. It's annoyance.

It is late September and it's already getting pretty cold at night, but the morning sun lays its beams like a warm cloth on Noas tanned arms. He passes the fountain and the bridge that leads over the little pond and with every step he takes the little dot takes more and more human shape. 

He had crouched down right next to one of the flowerbeds, not registering him or anything else as it seems. He's focused on the cat that had just rolled over on its back as he's gently petting it. "Where does this cat come from?" Noas voice cuts sharply through the morning silence. The pale figure jumps a little as if feeling caught. Good. "She just walked up to me", Elijah replies not taken his eyes off the cat, his voice as gentle and soft as ever, but with this slightly unhinged undertone that drives Noa mad. Yet he finds himself soften up as he hears the words of the younger one. He crouches down next to him, steading out his weight with the glaive he's still tightly holding onto.

"Please let me know beforehand when you want to visit the garden, i can't have you walk around alone, especially not outside." He quickly adds, "It's not a problem if you want to step outside early...but you can't just leave and worry everyone, just imagine if-" The dark haired boy just nods. "Yes, I'm sorry." His pale figure seems wrong in the garden, it somewhat doesn't fit in. And as Noa is watching him he wishes once again to see some sort of change in his face. Anything. Be mad, be furious, he would not have minded, he just needs him to care. The cat is purring; enjoying the gentle pats and the warm sunlight that bathes her in warmth. "Are you nervous about today?", Noa asks gently, the boy just shrugs. "It's the path that was laid out from the start, I know what's coming", oh why can't he be a little less poetic, a little less gentle...a little more human. It's not his fault, there's just something about him that makes him seem so untouchable, so angelic, yet so fragile. 

"Do you want to pet her too?", Elijah asks, it is so sudden that Noa struggles to react right away. "Truth is, I'm a little scared of cats, don't need to pet one." There is a pause where Elijah eyes the cat and Noa before his gentle laughter fill the quiet garden. Noa chuckles as he watches the boy covering his mouth with his free hand and can't help but feeling warm sensation that makes him forget the time as well as the cold and the eventful day they'll be facing. If he didn't know better Noa would've said that it's the morning sun that hands its warmth right to him. But he knows. He knows that he knows. And he knows that he shouldn't. He shouldn't know that it's not the morning sun. It's not the morning sun. It's not the morning sun. It's not the morning sun... 

It's the morning sun that forces him to wake up, to realize that he has been dreaming once again. There's nothing warm about the sun now, close to the east border it rather seems to cool down the world and make his heart a little bit heavier once again. When opening his eyes completely the dark wooden ceiling is what's welcoming him back in reality. The room he's staying in is tiny, but it's not a sleeping hall where he would've shared a room with several other men, one snoring louder than the other.  The sun tickles his skin and the sheets are itchy. Yet he'd stay in bed if he could. But he needs to do what is his duty, the duty he had failed to fulfill two years ago. He sits up rubbing his tired eyes; this journey of his is exhausting and he doesn't know yet if it'll be rather a sanguinely or a depressing day. Looking at the start of it, probably the second one. The problem with dreams is, that they look for the things tugged away as far away in your memory as possible. You can deny and avoid this past as much as possible but the dreams; they know. And they make you realize how you've been lying to yourself about it all. Not that it had been a good time, no, that would've been the good pain, it's the broken bones, the rotten teeth that make getting up so much harder now.