Hey guys! If you are on DeiviantArt, you might have read this. Also, one thing I wanted to point out is that I drew the cover photo. Hope you like this! -IADS
-MEILIN
The docks would soon be completely empty. The ocean before her shone like glass in the light of the setting sun. Sailboats embarked, their destination unknown to her. They would travel far away through the night. Far away from this land of tears.
She wished she could fly away like a bird upon the wind, anywhere else and leave her pain behind. Leave it here to rot away and become nothing more than just an agonizing dream. She wished it would disappear with the aching void of pain and despair and the monster that was dragging her down, slowly down into that void and swallowing her soul.
She let her tears fall silently while the faces flashed before her eyes. She was responsible for their deaths, for the harrowing pain they had endured. Her Father had died and she had led him to his grave. Tarik had felt betrayal like the sting of a knife's piercing wound. There were countless dreams she had shattered and she had caused more pain than she had thought possible.
The snap of a twig woke her out of her daze. A tall figure emerged from the brush behind her and her heart leapt. She hurriedly brushed the tears off her face. She was not going to let Rollan see her crying, of all people.
"I know you're crying, so don't worry about it. In fact, I was starting to worry you weren't human." He smiled at her and crouched down beside her, "You're obviously not ok, so I'm not even going to ask. What's wrong?"
"What makes you think I need something to cry about?" She snapped, glaring at him,
"Because I know you, and you don't cry about nothing." His smile had turned to a look of concern. It was kind of sweet, once she thought about it… No! Rollan is your friend, and nothing else! Wait, why did I assume that's what it meant?
"How did you find me?" She asked,
"You're avoiding my question, but if you must know; Essix saw someone, and I thought I would go check it out." He sat down next to her, "I know something's wrong. You don't have to tell me exactly what it is, you can be as vague as the line between winter and spring. You don't have to tell me anything."
Taken aback by how serious he sounds, she replied with, "How well do you think you know me then, Falconmaster?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm and challenge as she said the last word,
He smiled again, "Well, I know that you never eat the same thing for breakfast and that it's always something weird; You always put on your right boot first; You absolutely cannot stand Euran jigs; You are probably the only person on earth who can be silent in shackles; You can never sleep past sunrise, and you like to curse at me in Zhongese." He paused, "And that's just getting started. Your turn, oh Princess Panda the great and mighty." He fake bowed.
"You almost always have biscuits and gravy for breakfast; you scratch your wrist when you're nervous; you eat hunched over your food and hold your knife like you would stab someone if they try to take it; you hate extreme heat and extreme cold and always say that you like the opposite of the one we're enduring; you never move when you sleep; you are incredible loud and sound like an army of stampeding elephants in the woods; you are so independant it's ridiculous, are stubborn as all hell, and you could not solve one of Abeke's riddles to save your life." She smiled at him, then stood up. "We should get going, unless we want to stumble our way through the dark."
He stood up in one swift movement, then something on the ground caught his attention, "Meilin, you dropped something," He held up a piece of paper. His eyes widened mischievously, "Oo, What's this? The last letter from a long lost love who died in battle? A secret note written in invisible ink?... A hit list?" He grinned at her and she shook her head, smiling.
"And I was hoping to keep my secret life as an assassin secret…" She scoffed, "Really? That's the best you've got? Give me that!" She grabbed for the note, but he held it out of her reach,
"No! I've got to see what it is! Snooping is necessary for my survival! You don't want me to up and die, now, do you?"
"It's beginning to sound tempting," She reached for the note again. She didn't know what it was. She had several small pieces of parchment in her pockets.
He unfolded it with one hand and read it out loud while holding it above his head, " 'You probably won't get this,' Aha! My love letter theory was right! 'I don't even know why I'm sending it," He stopped, a look of realization forming on his face, "You kept it?" He turned back to face her, lowering the note.
"I- Yes. I kept it." She kept her tone even, though her heart was racing for some reason.
He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. It took her a moment to register, but as soon as she did, she kissed him back.
When they broke apart, he whispered in her ear, "I think I might be in love with you,"
She smiled at him and kissed him again before saying, "I think I love you too."
And so they stood there in a tight embrace with their lips pressed together, drifting away from the land of tears and the deep abyss and the monsters faded away.