Prompt: #29 Attic

Summary: So much has happened between then and now. How does one live with only a memory?

A/N: This is an unexpected surprise for myself. It's a continuation to one of my one shots not associated to the Lacesco Series. If you haven't guessed which one by the end, I will leave an End Note for you. :)

Cenaculum is Latin for "attic".

Cenaculum

It has been so long since she had any sort of fun that she can almost believe there had never been such a time. With the increase of years added to her belt, she found it harder to remember what it had been like to be carefree. Vague memories of times long past were more like sifting sands against a strong breeze. There were just too many grains to gather once they had escaped. No way was there to create a full picture of the things that her mind had replayed so often in the years she had been forced to endure. The war had always been there. She was never so naïve enough to think that it was something new when all had erupted. No, it was just that she had been younger and therefore spared things then that she was no longer spared from now. Yet now, now that the war is over and her side utterly devastated in the aftermath, she had time to dwell on those days of innocence. Those innocent days that were so hard to forget yet easy to fade.

Incomplete images of these times lead her to the attic of the hollowed castle. It was a hidden room that she had always escaped to when she was younger and she doubted anyone remembered it now. Among all those priceless mementos of youth, she had busied herself within her own world within the stuffy, dusty room above the busy hustle of the once beautiful Tenebrae castle. It was the best place to try and remember those details that she could not easily call to mind. Her mind which so desperately needed such an escape. She would have thought she would remember just how dusty it was when she finally managed to pry the doorway open and step in. A brief glance told her that nobody had ventured into her childhood haven had been spared the chaos all the other rooms had not. The thought somehow made her feel safe, despite the uneasiness that there might be some rodent or insect in here that she would not appreciate seeing. Or even worse, another person. The war may be over but the dangers had not lessened.

Her hesitation was brief after her eyes settled onto the rows of neatly stacked and lined chests that had marked each year of her young life. Her parents and her nannies had meticulously categorized her life each year and made sure to place any hallmarks within each chest for the time when she would reach adulthood. A very detailed story of her childhood lay within this room. Now, she was past that reach of adulthood and well on her way towards the middle ages now and she can feel the years as they weigh upon her. The chests though, had stopped accumulating after her 18th birthday. Thinking about her life as it was when she was at that pinnacle of feminine beauty, made her cross the dirty, wooden floor boards to that chest first. She knew, instinctively and dreadfully that this chest would hold many things that she had never fully been able to bury and knew it would only bring her more loneliness. Visions and experiences of that year haunted her now and it was those glimpses that had brought her up here again in the first place. No matter how forlorn it may make her, she needed the warmth of their memory.

Even with her hands floating just above the lock of the chest, she can feel the memories assail her. She can hear the sounds that had surrounded her from that cherished time as if she were really back there again. Closing her eyes, she can almost believe that she is there as the pictures in her mind come into sharp focus. She can even smell the same scents that she had taken in on her walks. Such as her walk that fateful day. With shaking fingers, she undoes the latch and opens the lid of the large chest and peers inside. Her brain floods with the flow of the images that she had thought had faded but now they are as clear and vibrant as the day she had experienced them. After taking another moment to savor their return, she looks down and reaches for the delicate conch shell lying at the top of the piles. It's creamy color still as beautiful as the day she had found it. She runs the tips of her fingers along the smooth curves before holding it up to her ear and she can still hear the sounds of the ocean inside.

Might I have your name?

She can hear his voice as plainly as she can hear the sounds of the ocean in her ear and her breathe catches in her throat. The effect of that voice is as potent as it had been then, causing a shiver to go down her spine. Visions of puffy pink cotton candy crashing into a pale face and midnight spiky hair. Amused fathomless blue eyes twinkling in amusement as he looked down at her, heedless of how ridiculous he had looked with the tendrils of the sticky confection stuck within his eyebrows. She had never seen a more adorable sight in her life. Everything from that moment on flashed through her mind in a torrent of endless days together. Days of laughter and listless cares in the grips of first love. The warmth of his hand when he held hers, the brush of his lips against hers and the way their bodies had moved together on the dance floor during parties that lasted until morning light. Sleepless days because neither one of them could bear to separate and waste precious hours that could be spent together.

There is one thing that I need to know.

What?

I want to know what your real name is.

No, she had never told him her real name. There was no point in telling him. What difference would it have made? They would have had to start fighting right there because they were enemies. That was what they did. That is what they have done since that time they had been so young and in love. She had known he was in love with her then as she had been in love with him, because there was no hiding it. They had been too young to know how to be cautious about their feelings. That he had loved her was more important than anything else. He had gotten to know the girl and not an enemy. It was more important than her name. She had given him her heart and he had known that she did. There was no need to ruin everything by telling him her real name. To have given him her name would have torn them apart and she had needed to keep it whole. Call her selfish, but she had needed something whole even then and she needed it even more so now, all these many years afterwards.

Think of me when you think back on the summer that you will always remember fondly…. I want to be the one that got away.

If I chase after you now?

You won't.

What if I never see you again?

Then we'll still have the summer afterall.

Maybe it was the passing of so many years. Maybe it was that there had been so much destruction and blackness. Maybe it was that she found herself alone. Perhaps a combination of all three that had her wishing that he had chased after her afterall. What would have happened if he had? Would anything have changed? Would it have even made a difference in the things that she had, had to live with after they had parted? Could she have still been able to walk away if she had known that she would never be able to duplicate the feelings she had, had for him? It had been the right thing to do and yet, she could not help but wish that things had been different anyway.

It made no difference now. Her bloom of summer had passed. She knew that more than most. The innocent being that she had once been was no more. There was never going back to the summer as she had once thought of it. All she had to look forward to was the winter of her life instead. The cold bitterness that only awareness can grant, was all that she had now to keep her company. The summer and youth had been so short and fleeting in comparison to the long and endless chill of winter. The warm wetness on her cheeks is almost welcome when everything else about her seems so frozen. She had become ice after being so hardened with the trials of war. The heavy weight of responsibility and the multitudes of mistakes. She could never feel so carefree again. She would never have the burden of responsibility lifted.

Letting out a long sigh of regret, she looks down into the chest again and feels everything as if they were fresh. That summer had so dominated her life that year that there was not much else that she had kept to remember the rest. Compared to the other things, there really was no comparison anyway. She had been happy then. Happy in a way only love can give you. Now, her soul was broken. Who would have guessed that the bright, smiling creature she had been was the weary being now. Her past self would have pitied the pathetic creature she had become. Maybe not pity. Perhaps more along the lines of sympathy and apathy would be better suited. She envied the young this chance at a more hopeful future. One that she had sought to secure while paying the horrible price of her own happiness. It was too late for her and her generation. They were now too jaded, too tainted to hope. The most they could achieve would be contentment. Her contentment would be the safety of her people. She could find a measure of ease in that at least.

Idly, her eyes wandered over the various keepsakes she had collected during that blissful summer with a sad small smile on her lips. Her eyes are moist as she notes each of them. Wristbands from the clubs they had frequented, adverts from their activities, a napkin from the resort she had stayed at, prizes from the games they had played, were all still in here. One thing though, did not seem quite right. In the far corner, there was a mid sized clothe bag that she did not recognize. Well, not immediately anyway. It was only when she lifted the rounded bag to turn it over did she see the slogan of the pier they had spent so much time at. It felt as if the bag had been filled with air, like a balloon. Strange. It was light but not empty. There was no way it could still be so inflated after so long within the chest. She pulls the ties that kept it closed and peered inside.

Her entire body stiffens in shock and she sits back limply on the backs of her calves, feeling weak. Feint and breathless, her mind scrambles for an explanation fo this. How was this possible? Was she dreaming? Was she really still on the battle field, lying within the thin tent that did little to keep the elements away? That was the only possibility. This was not possible at all! She had to be dreaming. With trembling fingers, she reaches into the bag and pulls out the plastic bag within. Inside its clear, protective shell was a massive puff of pink cloud.

Cotton Candy.

"I still want to know what your real name is, Nox," a steady, deeper masculine voice says from behind her. So different and yet the same as the one she had known. The effect on her is the same. That had not changed.

A shiver runs down her spine.

It feels almost as if she had summoned him in her revisit to the past. She turns slowly to face the one that could bring it all back to life completely.

He has changed. The years had altered him as it had hers. Youth had vanished from his features and his once loose, laid back stance was now stoic and hard. He, like her, was hardened after so many years of battle. His eyes, those that had once sparkled with amusement, no longer sparkled. They did something else entirely and she is not sure what to make of it. She does not know what to make of the man that stands before her now. Gone was the boy she had known and a man, a King, had taken his place. She had never gotten a chance to be this close to him throughout the years. They had never fought within the same realm of each other. Even when her side had surrendered, she had not been in the near vicinity to see him accept it. She wonder how much of a change he notices in her.

There is more to his statement than just the simple request for her name. He is asking her for the truth that she had been too afraid to face back then. The telling of truth would change what they had been to a reality instead of a mere fantasy. Because within that dreamy summer she was Nox and he was Lucis. They had been two different aspects of themselves. He had not been the prince of the people she had been taught to hate all her life and she had not been the princess of his enemy. Why did he want it to be real now? She feels the warm wetness on her cheeks again as her heart fills with so much emotion that she thinks she will die.

"We are past summer now," she says with shaken breath.

He approaches her in pointed strides before kneeling down to level his face with hers. This close, she can see the depth of his eyes again and feels the pull of him. A pull she has not felt in all the long years she had tried to find it in someone else.

"We have," he agrees, but he does not look as mournful as she feels. "But it has never been far behind us, has it."

It was more of a statement than a question and it amazes her that he had kept those same memories with him as she had.

"No," she agrees this time. "I have never been able to completely forget it."
This time there is regret in his eyes.

"I should have chased after you that night," he says.

"I should have let you," she counters, because she knows he would have if she had just let him.

He does not say anything in answer to that, but she can see his internal struggle and she feels the need to confess.

"I wanted it to be something to cherish for the dark times I knew were coming."

"Did they help?" he asks and there is bitterness in his tone now.

"Yes," she says and it is true. If she had no future, she at least had a past to think back on. "We were not supposed to happen."

He cannot refute that, even though his eyes tell her that he wants to. Their meeting that fateful summer day had been an accident. They should never have met in the first place. If any of their protectors had known that they had let them meet their enemy in such a casual manner, they would have broken out into war right there. The resulting riots would have been disastrous for that quaint summer village. It had been a completely wonderful coincidence that they had chosen the same neutral place to spend their summer away from the chaos of real life. They had been too young to do anything about their feelings anyway. The truth of who they really were would have caused more destruction than good in the end. She had known that. He must know that too now. Neither one of them had, had a choice either way. It did not matter that she nor he had wanted to live such hard, solitary lives in result. She knows he has not found another.

So many lost years spent fighting between their people until they had reached the inevitability she had always foreseen. He would win. His side would conquer. She had always known he would. What she needed him to understand was that he had needed to conquer it the way that he had or else he would not have grown into the man he is now. As hard has it has been and will continue to be, he would not be who he was now if she had let him chase her that night so long ago.

"But we did meet," he presses but he leaves out the rest. It does not matter because it hangs between so thickly it is useless to have to address it.

"We did," she says with some semblance of a smile. She looks down at the pink cotton candy in her hands and remembers how it had been the instigator. Such a simple confection had started something so complex and deep. "And I would not take that back for anything."

He looks away from her then, to stare at the confection in her hands. His expression is hard to decipher and she tries to hide her disappointment by looking at the treat in her hands too. Did he regret their ever meeting?

"I have not eaten that since," he tells her, causing her to look back at him.

"Would you like to share?" she offers and she does manage to sound teasing this time.

"You are not angry that I have intruded here?" he asks and she finds the question odd. She tells him so but he wants to know if she is angry.

"No, this castle, as everything else within this kingdom is yours," she answers. He had won the war. All that had once been hers was now his by right of his victory. Even this room and all it held within it, belonged to him. She could not and did not resent him that.

"Yet there is only one thing within this kingdom that I really want," he says.

She tries to keep her eyes downcast when she feels his fingers grasp her chin and lifts her face to look back up into his.

"I want to know what your real name is," he whispers.

Her blue eyes widen and she gasps in a breathe. More tears escape her eyes.

"You know my name," she says fearfully now because she is scared to hope for what this could mean. What she wishes it did mean.

He does not look disappointed in her evasion. There is a look in his eyes that she cannot read again. His thumb caresses her chin in a soothing gesture that makes her heart flutter.

"You said if we never saw each other again we would always have the summer," he reminds her.

Her eyes fly to his before she nods, very slowly.

"Could we not have the rest of the seasons as well?"

She closes her eyes against the fresh torrent of tears leaking from her eyes. "I would love that," she says weakly, but she can see that he has read how strong her conviction is within her eyes.

His smile is real this time as he stares down at her. "The Spring and Summer of our lives have passed," he says. "But at least we will have each other to keep warm during the long winter that follows."

She nods with a loud sob, as she reaches up and pulls him closer by his neck and weeps against the collar of his jacket. Clinging to him, because she feels like he is the only thing in their crumbling world that had been and would always be, what was real. Everything else had been the nightmare and the fantasy.

"My name is Stella," she says, wiping her eyes and pulling back to smiles at him.

His smile widens as he reaches and helps her wipe the tears from her cheeks.

"Noctis."

In case you haven't guessed, this is the sequel to my old one shot, Summertime. :)