Drabble:159
When the anniversary of the St Vlad's strigoi massacre rolled around, Rose wanted to go back and visit campus. And Christian wanted to go too, if not to participate in the commemoration ceremony, then to visit the church attic one more time-the attic where he'd brooded through his teen years; the same one where he'd met Princess Vasilisa Dragomir, and she'd changed his life. And of course, where his charge (and his Roza) went, Dimitri went too.
They'd planned to spend two days in the school, the first day being the actual anniversary of the tragedy, where they'd attend a memorial ceremony with the guardians, students and staff of the school. And they wanted to spend the second day unwinding, wandering around their old stomping grounds.
So, they arrived on campus the morning of the ceremony, just with enough time for settling into their rooms and having a quick lunch, before they rushed to join the ceremony. All three of them had been asked to sit in the front rows of the auditorium, no matter how much Dimitri and Rose begged permission to be allowed to stand against the walls with other guardians. They acquiesced after Alberta personally requested them to join her and Celeste and Emil and Stan on their row, where they also had been designated to sit-as survivors-and heroes-of the carnage.
The ceremony lasted for the better part of two hours, where some of the top guardians (including Alberta) took turns speaking about the ordeal, and praising the survivors for their resilience. Christian and Rose were especially embarrassed when each of the guardians took the opportunity to point them out as the unequivocal heroes of the battle (and the rest of the student body gaped and gasped at them).
The reigning principal of the school had wanted them to speak about their personal experience of that night (obviously having stipulated that Rose should leave out her act of insubordination of abandoning her post and going hunting for Christian-stupidly-alone, from her account), but neither he nor she wanted to speak about it.
Though what the duo had done had been badass, to say the least, they'd dealt death that night, and a lot of lives-innocent lives-had been lost, and they refused to glorify that. Neither of them said as much, but they didn't need to. Christian and Rose had looked at one another, and it had been understood.
After the ceremony, the trio had been in a gloomy mood, so instead of hanging out together as they usually did in Court most afternoons, they went their separate ways.
Christian went to sit in his attic, trying to get rid of the suffocating feeling in his chest. He stared out of his stained-glass windows and watched the students mill together, in the quad.
Rose directly walked to the north-eastern corner of the campus, where Mase had been laid to rest. Once there, she opened her coat to fetch one single rosebud, and put it on top of the grave of the boy who had died loving her. She sat on the cold ground beside his tombstone, and thought over their younger years, and all that had happened since, and in the solitude, she shed a couple of tears. She left only when her phone buzzed, reminding her of the communal dinner.
Dinner that night was subdued, and no one was really in a mood to socialize. The trio sat together, taking comfort in one another, not needing to speak one word. And together, Rose and Dimitri walked Christian to guest-housing (where he'd sleep, but only after talking to Liss once), before they strolled back to Dimitri's old room, hand in hand, her head resting on his shoulder.
The last year, they'd all spent that night in various stages of exhaustion and injury, and terror, but tonight, after the ceremony, even though their hearts were heavy, they slept serenely, having made peace with the ghosts of their past.
Sorry for the heavy content, but it refused to remain unsaid!
And now you have a choice-do you want to know how they spent their next day, or find out where Dimitri had disappeared off to?
Happy reading…or not .
Cheers!