Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a new piece called Silver Fire, a one-shot for Empire of Joy's Angst Contest plus being a gift for the great Flame Falcon, an amazing friend of mine on this site, being based off a song called Wherever You Will Go sung by Charlene Soraia, a beautiful composition of music that has torn at my heart strings a many times. Now, I am knocking out two birds with one stone, but I am still nervous as it is a contest piece and me and those sometimes to do not boil over well at all, hahaha. This is like the latest I've been to posting an entry when I even had boasted to Empire of Joy that I'd be the first to post. Look how that went, right? But enough small chitchat, there's a contest entry to get to. Hope you all enjoy!
He's dead... I am sorry to let you know this. Weren't you close? I imagine so... being buddies in the war and all. He's dead... dead is he, he is dead. HE IS DEAD!
Robin Karrson snapped awake at the thundering scream inside his head, his body lurched forward, the bed creaking. His eyes flashed to the window by his bedroom side which behind the shimmering glass panel had a storm breaking out in the expanse of a grey cloud empire. Lightning and thunder destroyed the airways in a hazardous symphony of timpani and trumpet sound. He shivered, noticing that the entire room had been drowned out in black. The storm must've knocked out the power.
Don't you know he's dead? Why are you still worrying over him?
"Shut up!" he growled, yelling at the own voice in his head. "Get out of it, now!"
There is a memory that flickers in his brain, bringing a twinge of pain that causes him to collapse to one knee. Cobalt hair, glimmering navy eyes, a gentle smile, brandishing hands clawing down his back... he cannot shake the truth. Robin's best friend, Ike Griel, was dead at a youthful age of thirty. From the moment the two signed up together at the age of eighteen straight out of school to enlist in the army, they shared many nights under thin bed sheets with the hail of machinegun fire being their cover at dawn.
Robin had been thrilled to find out that his best friend managed to find love in their grand home, a Zelda Harkinian with vibrant slender sepia hair down her back, glistening diamond eyes, an even more peaceful smile... he truly wanted to feel happy for the friend that always stuck by his side. But he'd wake up at night swearing to the stars, that the very relationship Ike and Zelda shared together, the outsider did with the bluenette as well, once upon a time, once upon a time in a foolish event that they knocked off as camaraderie.
When Robin found out that Zelda was pregnant... he shattered the mirror on his vanity, and Ike had come running through the halls of the old mansion residing on the outskirts of town, ready to be at his friend's side to clutch hands in their own, crimson leaflets pouring down each other. Robin took that opportunity to give Ike one last kiss, salty and tear stained with much feeling behind it before vanishing back to the same army he swore he'd never return for. But, Ike wouldn't let him go that easy, he had sworn it the day they had been ushered into the armed forces. Back to another tour the two best friends fought, and when Robin had been given the notice that he'd return home for local duty, there lay a cracking beneath his skin.
Ike was killed, murdered rather, by a band of tangos out in the desert outside the base. Robin watched him die, watched someone he shared amicable feelings with for so long crumble underneath a pelting of bullets, gray shots of death with thunder cracks under an upturned jeep. Flying back to his old life alone on the airplane three thousand feet up, all Robin could remember of Ike Griel was his eyes in passing, open and wide, empty and soulless. To return to Zelda's side, now caught up at eight months into her pregnancy, a widow... Robin put aside his feelings for her, he became her caretaker, and with his pension, that old mansion on the hillside outside of town became their primary residence.
He's dead.
"Yeah," Robin scoffed. "I know he's dead. Thanks for telling me fifty times over." Zelda still had no idea that her husband was never returning home with life in his breath, that there'd be crimson stained fingernails holding her hand in a firm grip that couldn't be broken voluntarily, rather forced.
Robin shuddered, the storm outside had blown out all the lights. Time to resort back to the dark ages of candles and witch light. He passed by a mirror on his way out, the same one he had broken. That very morning Ike had driven to the nearest home goods store and bought the same exact one to prove to his friend that he still loved him, even if they couldn't share a bed or kiss together anymore. That avenue had been shut down for many years, Ike would tell him over glasses of wine.
What the soldier saw was despicableness, pure and loathing disgust. Anxiety crept in his throat, Robin walking past it without giving another glance whatsoever to his reflection. Pallid hair blowing in an amicable wind, coral eyes with a hint of glitter, the cheeriness dying by the darkening scowl that rippled across his features.
His footsteps echoed off the wooden floors and brick walls of the mansion, as he hurried hastily down the hallways to the main dining room, where the candles sat. Another round of memories flooded his mind, this time so fast it caused Robin to crumble to his knees in mourning. Ike's lips on his own, while he protested that he had a wife, he had someone in his life that he cared for more than the silverette beneath him, yet the brutish man would continue his assault... so much for a relationship, right? Their cries would bounce off the bunkers, their eyes matching each other in a rippling darkness.
A scream, a rose, a droplet of blood splashing into a pool of water, Zelda's pained eyes in labor, her hands clenching a bed sheet as she yelled and yelled and yelled, it hurt, it hurt so much! And Robin would be behind a glass door, unable to move, watching as he failed Ike once again to protect the person he cared about, the man had to have been frowning and weeping from his grave.
Robin couldn't relent, an ear-splitting shriek leeching from his lips, tearing across the sound barrier. "Ike!" He sank to the ground, weeping, weeping so horribly and foul that even the floorboards turned their heads to let him loathe in self-pity. He still loved Ike, but he shouldn't, there was an amazing woman betrothed to him, carrying his only child and never getting to shake the infant's hand and say he's a father... Ike would want Robin to be the father.
He couldn't do that, not after loving the man, not the woman.
"Robin? Are you alright?"
A gentle voice pierced out through the black, the midnight shawl lifting up slightly. The soldier looked up to see Zelda standing in the hallway, a halo from the lit candle in her hands forming shadows to creep alongside the walls. She was as beautiful as he remembered her to be, the hair, the eyes, the smile, the tenderness only a mother could exude.
"I'm alright." Robin said, waving his hand nonchalant. He's dead. Ike is beyond dead, you foolish git!
"I heard you scream... my legs carried me as fast as they could." she spoke, her voice rising faintly above a whisper. Zelda edged forward, and did her best to sink down next to the silverette. Being eight months pregnant, she honestly needed to be in bed dreaming of her lover. Her belly protruded from the rest of her body, smooth and rotund.
"Just a nightmare. Sleep walking."
"You mentioned his name, you realize? Had it echo down the halls."
"Who's name?"
Zelda swallowed. "Ike's."
Robin's features wavered, almost threatening to cry once more. He hung his head down in shame. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I was going down the hall to get a candle, and I thought of him. Rather, what was-"
"You can stop fretting about it," her voice broke like sunshine through a cloud, bright and flowing. "I got the invoice the day it happened. My husband, Ike Griel is dead, and I have to carry my child alone. There are worse ways of finding out such terrible news."
He blinked, shocked rather. She knew? And didn't bother telling him? What the... god he needed a drink. Robin swallowed the fear he didn't know he had been holding. "I- I was going to tell you, just never knew when. Had to keep the memory up, you know?"
"One can only try to keep the dream alive, sometimes it is best to let it go and have everything work out in a way you never imagined." Zelda said, placing a hand on his, their fingers touching, the touch bristling electricity between them.
Robin blushed, though for a whole other reason. Did she know of their... how could he get something out like that? "Um... there's something else I hadn't disclosed with you about Ike. He and I, we... uh... well, you see to put in lesser terms-"
"You can relax about that too," Zelda reassured him, patting her hand on his at this point, an airy laugh following her words. "Ike told me when we got married what he had done in his youth. I am not ashamed in knowing my husband used to love a man, and you shouldn't be either. The past is something you can never change, it shapes you and trying to go about faking it won't save anyone, rather it'll hurt, and it'll hurt you."
If the silverette had been blushing beforehand, now his entire face was covered in scarlet, and he coughed out, almost wanting to puke out the nearest window. God... what was she thinking? That Zelda knew her husband and his best friend had... gah! Even in death, even in death Ike found ways to poke through.
"I can only imagine what you're thinking."
"You know he loved you, Robin. Ike always loved you. If it wasn't me he was praising, it was you. You were more than a friend to him, a brother he could seek refuge under... that wherever you go-"
"I'll go too," Robin finished for her. "I know that saying. He'd say it to me every evening while we slept under the stars. It always reassured me he'd be there for me in the darkest hours, when all my hope would wither and die away. Ike would... he would..." He couldn't finish that statement, fingers intertwining with Zelda, bones clenching together.
The two sat in the hall, letting the candlelight be the only spark around them as the plit plat of the raindrops outside hit the concrete. Under the flash of lightning that caused their shadows to dance in a frenzy, the friend left without his heart, the widow left without her better half, they let their heads rest against each other and sigh under the cloud of rain, their heartbeats roaring together.
They must've sat for hours, and in the hours of the night the rain never lessened, the power never came back on.
Robin focused his eyes on a particular spot in the floorboards, his right hand gently placing itself on her shoulder. "He loved you too, Zelda. His feelings for me, whatever those may have been... those always paled in comparison to you and the life you carry. Ike, even in the midst of a blitzkrieg would go on and on and on about you, sometimes enough to make me sick with the terms of endearment because Ike never, never portrayed himself on the battlefield as a man of endearment. The moment he had laid eyes on you across the bar that one snowy evening... he knew in his heart of hearts, Zelda Harkinian would be his wife."
Zelda went quiet, and she simply placed the candlestick down. "I know..." she whispered quietly, wringing her hands before requiring Robin's assistance to stand. "I suppose we must return to bed, right? It is early in the morning, and we need our rest. When the time comes, when my child is here... you may name him as Ike would've. I know he wouldn't mind."
"Zelda-" Robin started.
She cut him off with a kiss to his cheek. "Shhh..." When she retracted, all he could do was stare in openness. "You fret too much. It's not good for my baby. It'll start complaining before it even says I love you." Zelda turned to leave, abiding the silverette good night, when the flicker of flame gave him a view of the holder the wax stick stood in.
"Wait..." he said.
The brunette stopped effortlessly. "Yes?"
"Let me see your candlestick, please." Robin asked.
He took it in his hands, and a smile grew on his face. This candlestick was impressive, a gold bowl made from a weathered pottery class, olive black stencil lines etched along the rim of the bowl, a pool of melted wax at the bottom with a reflective pool, Robin's coral eyes staring back at him. In a fancy manuscript, written in an illustrious silver, was the name Ike Griel.
"What?" Zelda prodded, noticing the grin.
"Ike made this candlestick in a pottery class years ago. His name is on it," he showed it to her, and Zelda smiled afterwards. "See?"
"Why would he have kept it all this time?"
"Back then he had dedicated it to me," Robin admitted. "It was why he wrote his name in silver. Resembled me and his history together on a bowl... I remember we had to name our pieces back then for a presentation in class. You have any guess what he put as the name?"
"No... I honestly do not."
The silverette smiled. "Silver fire."
He's dead. Ike Griel is dead.
Robin shook his head no at the thought, as he gave Zelda back the candlestick.
Ike Griel may have not had a physical body walking the Earth, with shoes to scuffle up the dirt... but he was always there, always around those he cared about. In Robin and Zelda's hearts, in the materials he made. The candlestick simply represented that he gave light, warmth, and reassurance in the darkest of times, even though he had been put in a coffin six feet deep into the ground.
As long as the silver fire burned on and on and on, the soul of Ike Griel never would die.
Robin smiled to himself at this, his head hitting the pillows of his bedroom once more after abiding Zelda tonight.
He stared up at the ceiling, and the faint memory of Ike's lips on his flickered once more, though it only made the silverette grin more.
"You'll always be with me, Ike Griel." he said.
With that, the soldier curled in on himself to sleep, urging his brain to dream.
To dream of rampant silver fire and a set of navy eyes.
There we are you guys! Man, I'm really happy to have this piece out, and I hope to Flame Falcon you enjoyed it. To my contest members, thanks for giving me a challenge as this was tough to write, a very... subjective matter. I hope this can do somewhat well, but you cannot win them all, surely. I love you all so much, and I highly reckon you go and listen to the song I based this off of, for there are very inspiring words to not just friendships, but relationships new and old... sometimes you can't replicate feelings, but rather hope to mirror them. Have an amazing day! Bye!
~ Paradigm