Az is always saying that my adventures have a way of getting her into trouble, or at least, that's what she used to say when we were kids. I may not remember very much from that time, but Az's warning call is the one thing that has always stuck with me. Until I'd come back to the OZ, I couldn't remember who had said that to me, or why, but I'd always believed that at one time or another, I'd done something so massively stupid that I'd hurt someone important to me in the process. Turns out that I wasn't really wrong in the end, but even without that confirmation, I just couldn't get over the fear. I suppose you could say that stray memories have a way of messing a person's psyche up, which explains why I was always a bit of a loner growing up in Kansas. That all changed the day I got thrown into a travel storm and tossed back into the Outer Zone. One minute I'm a waitress in a dead-end job talking about hopping on my bike and checking out the West Coast by myself, and the next minute I'm a lost princess being chased all over the OZ by a wicked witch with my new best friends like I'd got stuck in some kind of fairytale. It was a lot to take in, I won't lie, and all the while Az's words kept haunting me, especially after I'd figured out what my adventures had cost her and the rest of our family, not to mention the rest of the OZ. It was a pretty heavy weight on me, trying to rescue my sister and save the OZ all at once, and I might not have been able to do it at all if it weren't for Glitch, Raw, and Cain. To say that I'm grateful to them would be an understatement. It's more like I owe them my life for everything I put them through, and I'm more than a little surprised that they still hang around. Again, though, if it weren't for them keeping me sane, I'm not sure where I'd be right now.
I've never been a big fan of fairytales, to be completely honest. I mean, sure, the adventure angle is entertaining, and I'll be the first to tell you that even I get a little doe-eyed over a good knight in shining armor. The problem that I've always had with the whole trope is that no one ever talks about what happens after the "the end" at the end of the story. I would love to think that all the characters live happily ever after, but in my experience, real life rarely works out that way. At least, it's never worked like that for me, anyway. Momster has always described me as a tomboy, and I don't like asking for help, so I make for a poor princess. I also don't really excel at attracting any knights in shining armor, it seems, unless you count Cain, and seeing that he's just as gallant and courtly as I am graceful and charming, I don't see any epic encounters happening there. This would all be okay, and I could accept the fact that I'm a bit of a square peg in a round hole, except I have absolutely nothing to do. I find it more than a little infuriating that I go from the "savior of the OZ" when I have absolutely no memory and no control of my light, to a complete liability once I've freed my family and have an inkling of who I really am.
"It is for the best, my darling," my mother had stated casually as she poured me a cup of tea.
We had been sitting in the garden that I'd come to prefer over the past week, and she'd asked me here for tea under the guise of catching up with me since we'd all be so busy since moving back into the palace after the eclipse.
I picked at the hem of the dress she'd asked me to wear, mulling over how to answer without sounding ungrateful. I focused instead on the dress I'd been coaxed into wearing. It was a pretty blue dress – the same color as my eyes, actually – and its simple lines and tea length were enough apparently to mollify my mother's sense of decorum and my preference for lack of pretention, so I'd accepted it without too much argument. Right now, though, it was frustrating me only because it felt like the physical manifestation of how I was feeling: trapped.
"Mother," I finally replied in a terse voice, knowing that I was doing a poor job of hiding the frustration in my voice but continuing anyway, "I'm not asking for a diplomatic posting or anything. I just need to be helpful somewhere. I'm very good at fixing things. Can't I help the staff with repairs in the palace? Or maybe help with the soup kitchen down by City Hall?"
My mother was covertly watching me complain over the top of her teacup, and I could tell that although she was most likely considering my suggestions, she was probably going to turn them down again. "I am sorry, DG, but it is simply out of the question." She answered as she set her teacup down on the table. Watching her, I realized that even when she was saying no to me, her manner was annoyingly graceful, and her voice a subtle combination of soft and firm. Even the way she neatly folded her hands in her lap was an artful example of exercising her body language to pacify me, which I would have found irritating except for the overall effectiveness of the entire act.
Although I resisted the urge to groan in frustration, I couldn't help the look of utter exasperation that I was sure I was flashing at her in technicolor. My mother's response was, fortunately, less diplomatic this time, and she stifled a laugh before she let out a rather loud sigh. "DG," she replied in a low, earnest voice, "please be reasonable. I would very much like to allow you to do the things you've suggested, but you have your own recuperation to consider. You have lost so much time over the past annuals, and as much as I know you hate being reminded, you are a princess, and –"
"Being a princess comes with certain responsibilities," I finished for her. Clearly, I'd heard this speech before, but until now it had been Tutor lecturing me about everything I was failing to do rather than her. "I'm aware of my responsibilities, Mother, that's why I suggested the other jobs."
"You are failing to remember your most important role, my darling," Mother reminded me gently.
I was far beyond irritated now and was so over hiding my irritation. With a huff then, I folded my bare arms in front of me and inquired sardonically, "and what would that be? Useless figurehead?"
I think I'd hit a nerve, because my mother's usually benign expression darkened for a minute, and she shook her head minutely before she replied shortly, "You are a daughter of light, DG, and you will be expected to perform acts of service that only such a person can." She was clearly getting exasperated with my lack of understanding, so she huffed at me before she expounded, "We do not simply 'fix' things, as you so aptly put it. We use our light to restore balance to the OZ, very much in the same way that you healed that tree in the fields of the Papay, but on a much larger scale."
I felt like someone had just knocked me over the head and for a minute I was speechless. I had healed that tree purely by accident, and I hadn't been able to replicate it consistently since then. I popped up from my seat and paced the gazebo while I thought about this, and without realizing it, I began to chew on my lip. When I finally turned to face my mother, I was still struggling for words, but I did manage to blurt out, "but I haven't gotten my memories back yet, and without them, I can't control my light, mother! How am I supposed to heal an entire orchard, much less the OZ?"
My mother, surprisingly, did not appear upset by my outburst. If anything, she seemed sympathetic, and when she arose to stand with me at the edge of the gazebo, she placed a hand in mine and squeezed it gently. "Why don't we start with something smaller while you're still regaining your memories, my darling. Perhaps this garden? It used to be a favorite place of yours when you were small."
I was chewing on my lip again, I knew it, but as I couldn't think of a reasonable answer to my mother's suggestion, I continued doing that rather than retorting with something snarky and unhelpful. My mother was forgiving at least and squeezed my hand once more before she let go and stepped away.
"Just think about it, DG. I shall leave you to consider it." She offered gently as she glided down the steps.
I only barely registered my mother swishing down the gravel path ahead of me that led out of what she'd called a garden. My mind just couldn't get past the overgrown square around me, separated from the rest of the palace grounds and Central City by a high stone wall. I couldn't tell you why I was so drawn to this space, but it wasn't because it was what she'd called a garden. It didn't look like one now, with the exception of the Victorian looking gazebo I was standing on. The greenest thing in the entire space was the gazebo, really. Its cast iron was painted a bright emerald green that would have made it disappear into the garden around it if it was in full bloom, and the wooden floor was as dark a brown as the earth around it should have been, if the garden had been cared for at all. It wasn't that the place was dead – I'd spent enough time on a farm to know when something was lying dormant. Most things in this space would come back with a bit of water and a little elbow grease. Following the line of the garden path ahead of me to the left, however, was a gnarled old tree that looked like it might be on its last leg. Despite it being late spring, its canopy was absent, and the bark was trying to peel away from its trunk like it had been suffering from a long and painful sunburn. It hurt me, somehow, to look at that tree – like I was intruding on it, and all I wanted to do was ease its pain somehow.
Without a single thought, I found myself running to it, almost like I had when I'd first gotten to the OZ – hearing someone crying out in pain, begging for help. I didn't think about if I was the right person to help, or even if I'd be able to. I just knew I had to try. The first time, it had been a mixture of voices: Cain, Adora, and Jeb fighting for their lives that had drawn me out of the forest. Now it wasn't so much a voice, but a feeling: soft but urging, weak but pleading with such urgency that I couldn't ignore it. Then my hands were suddenly outstretched and grasping the trunk of that tree, and I felt compelled to release every bit of pent-up pain and frustration that had been jammed inside of me, begging to be let out. I may have wanted to help that tree in the beginning, thinking that maybe if I could bring it back as my mother had intimated, that somehow, I might be on my way to recuperation myself. In the end though, I think it was helping me more than the other way around, because the longer I stood there – first crying, and then outright sobbing, I felt all the venom of frustration and anger seep out of me. My body felt limp all the sudden, and I might have collapsed there in a heap of messy emotion, except a set of familiar firm, warm hands grasped me by the shoulders and turned me as arms wrapped around me, holding me as we both dropped slowly to the ground at the feet of the tree.
"Hey Princess," I heard Cain's voice softly rumbling against my cheek.
I was still crying, but I could feel the torrent slowing as I allowed myself to lean into Cain's chest, where I could hear his heart thudding rhythmically and slowly next to my ear. I faintly registered one of Cain's hands stroking my hair, and another was passing up and down my back while he continued to softly sooth me. At some point during my crying fit, I'd grabbed the lapels of his coat, and I buried myself deeper into his coat where I felt somehow safer and wanted. In gasping for breath, I inhaled a faint scent of linen and cedar that, admittedly, aroused me just a little and made me feel a little light-headed. It was at this moment that I realized what I was doing, and who I was doing it with, and my head popped up, finding Cain's face bent down close to mine. He was so close that I could feel the warmth of his breath, albeit faint and thready as if he was having difficulty breathing himself. When I popped up to meet his eyes, I found them first dazed, then wide and surprised, as if I'd caught him at the breaking of a similarly startling realization – like he was enjoying our closeness just as much as I was without even realizing it until the moment I tore myself away.
I sat back under the guise of needing to wipe my face and I did so with the heel of my hand while I greeted him in my least husky tone. "I'm glad you showed up when you did," I laughed a little too brightly, "otherwise I might have started hugging the tree next. As cathartic as I'm sure that would be, I'm not sure that that's what mother had in mind when she suggested that I heal the garden."
I was more than a little embarrassed still, and little worried that I'd somehow overstepped with Cain, but I couldn't help but glance up at him to gauge his reaction to me. I was a little surprised by – and a little bit drawn to – the sight of Cain smiling up at the tree he was now leaning against. I just couldn't stop stealing looks at him, feeling like I was seeing a side of him I'd never seen before. This was a younger, less troubled version of the grumpy old Tin Man I'd just spent the last few weeks with. This was a man that still had a beating heart and, dare I say it, a sense of humor, and I was amazed to think that I might have caused it somehow.
He actually chuckled a little under his breath as he sighed up at my old giving tree, and he finally let his eyes draw back down to me when he spoke in reply. "Princess, you can cry on me as much as you need to. I'm sure I'm a bit more comfortable than this gnarly old fellow anyway, even if I'm not much better company most days. At least the tree doesn't tell you what to do."
I'd heard a song in some old bar once about eyes smiling, and I'd always thought it was a sappy visual, but now, as I sat there being smiled at by Cain, I was totally without argument. The Tin Man's eyes were literally sparkling as he sat there looking back at me, not really smiling in the usual sense, but speaking volumes with his eyes. They were like two glittering diamonds in that moment, and I felt suddenly trapped in them without hope or want of getting away. But then he looked back up into the absent canopy of that tree and sighed again, this time almost wistfully.
I felt a little guilty for somehow causing Cain any discomfort, and I offered him a quiet consolation, hoping to see him smile once more. "You don't tell me what to do all the time, Cain, only when I'm getting my stick ready for battle. I don't think there's much chance of that here, do you?"
Then, Cain did something that really threw me for a loop. He actually laughed, and it was both so deep and light at the same time that I couldn't help but grin in reply. I was still smiling when he returned his gaze to me, and he replied earnestly, "No, I guess not, Kid. You got me there."
He patted the grass next to him then, inviting me to sit with him against the tree, and I obliged, allowing myself to sit shoulder to shoulder with him now while we continued to rest against the old tree at our backsides. It was another minute before either of us spoke again, and it was Cain again, sounding thoughtful and quiet when he spoke.
"DG," he asked, speaking quietly as if wanting to ensure no one else could hear us, "what did you mean about your mother telling you to heal the garden?"
I let out a long, heavy puff of air and answered him in short order, "she says that as a daughter of light, my greatest task is to heal the OZ. That I shouldn't fritter my energies away on doing other potentially helpful things while I need to heal myself first. She says that I need to recuperate so that I can get my memories and my light back – "
"So you can heal the OZ like you did that tree in the fields of the Papay, right?" Cain interrupted me succinctly.
I glanced sideways at him and offered him a tight nod. "Yeah, there's just one problem."
"What, besides the fact that you haven't gotten more than a fraction of your memories back in the past cycle?" Cain interrupted again, sounding comfortingly irritated on my behalf.
I nearly smiled for that fact alone, but swallowed the urge down when I replied darkly, "Yeah, that's a factor, but no. I was thinking about the fact that I healed that tree purely by accident. I have no idea how I did it."
Cain was chewing on his own memories clearly, and his eyes were far off when he added, "not to mention the fact that you were pretty scared at the time. I mean, is it possible that your light was somehow activated by strong emotion?"
I returned my gaze to the tree above us and huffed. "I guess so, maybe, but if that was true, then why isn't this one any better? I mean, I did just completely unload on it."
Cain sighed too and I noted his own head leaning back next to mine in my peripheral sight. After a moment of silence between us, he finally spoke again, and his voice was soft while I felt his hand slip into mine. "Maybe it wasn't the right emotion, Princess," he said quietly just before he squeezed my hand and released it.
I was still too shaken up to fully absorb what Cain might be implying, not to mention surprised by my own disappointment that he'd removed his hand from mine, that I didn't fully realize what Cain was doing. The moment he'd released my hand, he was suddenly standing and facing me with his hand outreached to mine, offering himself in assistance so I could get up. Although still a bit rattled, I accepted reluctantly, knowing that his next words were going to be something like, "It's time to go," or "buck up buttercup," but I took his hand anyway, bracing myself mentally for the change in tone of our conversation.
"If you figure it out though, come and find me. I love a good apple, you know." Cain said instead, grinning again almost as if to mock my internal skepticism.
"You're on, Tin Man," I scoffed in reply, looking down to brush off my dress after he'd pulled me up and hoping he wouldn't notice that my face had grown hot in response to his eyes, glittering on me again and making me go somehow weak in the knees the longer he smiled at me.
If he did notice, he thankfully said nothing, and instead walked me to my lesson with Tutor, chatting me up about less personal topics all the while as if wanting to keep the more intimate portion of our friendship in the garden now behind us. In my mind though, I still saw those magnetic eyes glittering on me, seeing right through my battlements as if they didn't exist at all.
Try as I might, I couldn't get Cain out of my head for the rest of that day. If I wasn't recollecting his smile, his laugh, or the woody scent I'd inhaled when I got impossibly close to him, I was remembering his suggestion about the connection between emotion and my light. I wasn't really convinced that he was right, but I was willing to entertain the notion if it would break the obnoxious stalemate inside me. The problem was, as much as I might have wanted to take his suggestions into account, I just couldn't stop thinking about him at the most random moments, and the distraction was beginning to cause secondary problems. Lessons with Tutor were nearly as frustrating as my failed attempt with that tree for how very little I was accomplishing, and I couldn't seem to do more than a couple parlor tricks before my abilities sputtered out like they'd run out of gas. I had been trying so hard to get Cain out of my head that I'd apparently used all my mental energy on it, and the frustration caused by that was nearly as bad as the rest. I was so annoyed that I couldn't help the groan that came out of me at the end of my last attempt, and Tutor wasn't hiding his displeasure any more than I was.
"DG, you have to concentrate!" Tutor had exclaimed in exasperation when my last attempt to levitate a vase had ended in it shattering on the library floor between us.
"Sure," I burst out in false exuberance, "let me just pull up a few fake memories. Maybe that will help!" I paused in my rant only to fall back onto the couch, and I folded my arms like a petulant child when I got there, only opening my mouth to grumble in a similarly un-princesslike manner, "at the very least, we might try floating something that doesn't break. Less to pick up."
Tutor flicked his wrist, which somehow caused the glass shards all over the floor to shoot into the fire like thousands of tiny, coordinated projectiles. When they reached their destination, they exploded like tiny technicolor fireworks in the fireplace before they disappeared altogether. I was more than a little impressed despite my frustration, and I snapped my mouth shut before another complaint could cross my lips. Tutor had made his point at least, but he didn't drive the nail in any further, fortunately, and instead sat next to me to lecture me in a kinder way.
"DG," he sighed, "you have to give your memories time. They will return on their own, and in the meantime, you must gain some control of what light you do have. To do that, you must find a way to calm down. Your anger is what is making your light unpredictable."
I was speechless for a moment, my brain stumbling on his insistence that I calm down. I was getting steadily more and more irritated that everyone seemed to know more about my light than I did, and this apparently included Cain given what Tutor had just said. Besides this fact, I was infuriated by the unjust nature of the whole situation. Just a month – I mean a cycle – ago, I'd been traipsing all over the OZ looking for some mystical Emerald and trying not to get murdered by Longcoats. Now I was being asked to sit in a gilded cage and practice magic tricks while people were still in need of help just outside the palace walls. I felt like I had proved my worth with that journey, but apparently, it wasn't enough.
"Tutor, how can I be anything other than angry? Has anyone ever considered that my memories might not come back? I mean it's been a cycle already, and what has come back are a bunch of disconnected flashes. I got more memories back by being out in the OZ, but I'm not allowed to do that now that I'm a daughter of light, and although I might be able to help set things right, I'm apparently not supposed to get my hands dirty unless it's by using my light!"
I ended my tirade by grabbing the closest pillow and shoving it into my face so I could muffle my scream. Tutor, thankfully, did not lecture me for being improper. He just sat there with an annoyingly sympathetic smile on his face, waiting for me to finish. Seeing that he hadn't yet asked me what was distracting me today, I stopped there, hoping that I wouldn't have to dodge him as well as Cain in the near future.
Tutor seemed to be considering me, despite this, as if I had presented an interesting puzzle to him, and he sat back with a thoughtful "hmm" while he continued to look lost in thought. Finally, he sat up again and smiled as he spoke brightly, "Well, there's a simple answer. Don't try to. At least, not all the time."
He stood up then and continued to speak; now explaining himself further, I'm sure, because of the confused look growing on my face. "Your mother might not be wrong about your garden, Princess. You spent a good deal of time there as a child – you even had your own set of tools that you kept hidden in there somewhere – maybe what you need is exactly what you've said. You need to be out, and you need to get your hands dirty. I know it's not really what you meant, but you have to start somewhere. I think you're trying too hard to be someone you think we want you to be, and you need to spend more time just being. There will be plenty of time for all the rest. You don't have to save the world in one day, you know."
A breath I didn't know I'd been holding escaped me then in a long, heavy huff. He wasn't wrong, and neither was my mother. I just didn't know how to be any other way – especially when I felt so responsible for everything that had happened – but I seemed to be the only person concerned with that. Maybe all I needed was to slow down long enough for nature to catch up, I considered, and maybe working in the garden would give me at least one good distraction from the list of troubles piling up inside my head. I hate showing any sign of defeat though, so I shrugged noncommittally and stood up, determined that I should maintain a general air of protest in the event that I might gain a little more ground in the end somehow. At the very least, Tutor seemed to have given me an out from performing more meaningless tricks for the day, so I took my opportunity.
"Fine, but I don't think it will work." I replied in a tired, dull tone to signal my apparent defeat. "No time like the present, I guess."
Tutor seemed to have latched on to my guise, and smiled as he replied encouragingly, "There you go, Princess, that's the spirit. We'll continue tomorrow?"
I was already marching out the door, and I waved in a show of compliance without saying anything more. Part of me must have hoped that Cain would be waiting for me when I exited the room, because the presence of my nightguard, Gates, sent my heart dropping into my feet. This realization gave me another reason to be annoyed with myself, and I only barely acknowledged the towering teddy bear before I marched on.
"Hey Green Giant," I greeted Gates as I shut the library door behind me, only pausing long enough so he could gather himself up to follow me.
Although I noticed a hint of a smirk on Gates' face, he replied in his usual respectful, "Your Highness," before he fell into step behind me. He didn't offer any friendly jibe in return or ask me what was on my mind.
Ordinarily, I might have poked at him until he caved, hating the protocols that I was sure Cain himself put in place despite the fact that he rarely followed them himself. This evening, however, I was in no mood to talk. Talking might only lead to me giving away the thing that was now troubling me more that my lack of memories or magical control: my apparent latent feelings for the Tin Man. It felt wrong to get moony over a man who had just lost his wife – alright, he'd probably lost her more than a few annuals ago, but I was sure that based on the way he'd reacted to finding her grave a cycle ago, the grief was still fresh. Besides, he's never treated me as much more than an annoying kid, I lied to myself, trying to ignore the obvious handful of times that he'd actually been close enough to me to do anything else. When I let my mind wander onto these times, I realized that I was a really bad liar. The first time I'd initiated a hug, I'd caught him by surprise, but he was anything but offended. The next time, just before we'd made our final move on the Sorceress, he'd been the one to hug me, and although it wasn't much more than a plutonic show of affection, it hadn't been completely innocent either. Then there was that moment earlier in the garden. I sucked in a sharp breath with the memory of how it had felt in his arms. How he'd looked at me when he thought I wasn't looking. How his smile had made my heart skip a few beats. Then it hit me – we were both always finding reasons to be close to each other – as if we were drawn to each other, and I felt even more guilty for not putting a stop to it sooner.
Then, Gates cleared his throat, and I realized that I had stopped walking. "Oh!" I gasped, "Sorry Gates, I guess I'm not feeling so well. I think I'd better go lie down." I muttered as I resumed my march, now towards my quarters so I could lock myself in before I ran into a wall or did something else that was equally spastic.
"No need for apologies, ma'am." Gates replied kindly a few steps behind me.
I barely realized Gates was speaking when I resumed walking, and I was so rattled now that I had to actively remind myself not to break out into a run when I turned the corner leading to my hallway. I didn't think Gates would appreciate my sudden burst of energy, as Cain had probably told him that I was some kind of flight risk. Nor did I think it was a good idea to show any sign of distress in the event that Cain happened to exit his room, which was within steps of my own. Fortunately, Cain seemed to be somewhere else, and did not appear before I closed myself within my own rooms, leaving Gates outside looking somewhat confused by my quick retreat. For a minute, I couldn't do much more than lean against those double doors, taking one slow, steady breath at a time until my heart slowed down.
What the heck is wrong with you, DG? I thought irritably with a shake of my head. I pushed away from the doors and marched through my bedroom behind the next door and into my bathroom beyond, thinking maybe a hot shower might excise the unwanted thoughts from my head. There was not a single reason for me to be losing my mind over Cain, except maybe that I'd fallen into that fairytale trap that I found so unbelievably irritating before.
"I've been brainwashed, that's all." I muttered cheerlessly as I stepped into the steaming stream of water a few minutes later, deciding resolutely that I'd been taking too many princess lessons, and had been too removed from the real world in the past cycle. That could be the only reason for the delusion of romance that had popped into my head unwarranted earlier. That and my emotional breakdown clouding my judgement coupled with Cain's steadfast, reliable nature. He just always seemed to be there when I needed him, so in my moment of weakness, I mistook his consistency for that age-old cliché about knights in their shining armor.
"I need a hobby," I muttered critically, as I got out, deciding that at the very least, I'd remain scarce until everyone else had gone to bed.
I didn't want any company when I decided to go back down to the so-called garden that had been deemed my personal project. It wasn't so much that I wanted to work in the dark, but something about my encounter with what I now knew was an apple tree seemed unfinished. I waited for what seemed like an eternity. Dinner came and went, and not long after, I heard the muffled sound of Cain's voice on the other side of the door, most likely checking in with Gates to see what had happened to me. Whatever Gates had said, Cain seemed to accept it, because after a soft sigh, I could hear him wishing my guard goodnight. After that, the telltale click of another door closing told me that Cain had given up seeing me for the night and had gone to his own room. It was still too soon to make a break for it – I would put money on Cain just lying in wait behind his own door for some time longer before he finally decided that I'd actually gone to bed and did the same – I'd have to wait him out twice as long as I would have done for anyone else given that he was just as stubborn as me. It had grown completely dark outside my windows, and the lights from the city outside the palace walls seemed to blink and twinkle like little stars while the people moving about outside dwindled down to just a few guards making regular paths through the grounds. From here, I could make out my own path, which, if timed right, would avoid any uncomfortable run-ins with Cain's men, assuming I could get past the chief sentinel down the hall. I just needed to wait a little while longer.
Then midnight came and went, and I could hear soft breathing on the other side of my doors. Gates was certainly asleep now, meaning that Cain had probably switched out his lights at least an hour ago. Deciding that I'd waited long enough, I checked myself over once, making sure that I was ready to slip out. Pajamas of the darkest blue would help me blend into the night, and silken, skin-like slippers would help me creep past Cain quietly. If anyone ran into me, I could claim to be sleepwalking. Cain was another story all together. Lying wouldn't work on him in the event that he caught me. I would just have to own up to all of it, save perhaps the part about crushing on him like some idiot schoolgirl. With a final, steading breath, I crept over to my door and cracked it just wide enough to peak out. Gates was stationed next to the door, but by all accounts, was also completely knocked out, making my exit that much easier. Closing my door and getting past Cain were the next hurdles, which I breezed past entirely too easily. It was like someone was letting me go, although I couldn't say who, or why.
It mattered very little to me anyway, since I wasn't going far, and had every intention of returning once I'd satisfied the curiosity burning its way through my head. So, I shook that niggling thought aside and crept down the hall, and then down the stairs, and into the grounds beyond. I was still marveling at the ease of my traversal when I entered that garden again, and I wondered vaguely whether I was walking into some kind of trap, except there was nothing there to really harm me, and I didn't care anyway, given how intent I was on my goal. It never occurred to me that anyone might actually be watching me, and I didn't bother to look when I crept up to that old tree again.
"Hey old friend," I murmured on instinct as I laid my hands on the tree's rough bark.
The last time I'd done that, I had really been thinking about anything except unloading every negative thought that had overtaken me. This time, I just knew that I had to listen. To what, I couldn't say, but I knew I wouldn't hear anything if I let my thoughts and my emotions take over again. My eyes shut almost involuntarily, and I allowed my mind to go blank as I focused only on the breath going in and out of my body. Time seemed to slow, and the night noises around me became somehow muffled, until all I could hear was a familiar, rhythmic thud like a heartbeat vibrating through my fingertips and humming in my ears. If it was possible for my heart to burst, I think it might have in that moment, for I was suddenly flooded with so much warmth and love that I could feel tears springing from my eyes and streaming down my face. It was a soft, gentle crying though, very different from before, and all the while that heartbeat continued to sooth and console me, like I was being held by someone who loved me without any condition. I realized that I had felt this feeling of unconditional love only once before, that it had been on this very spot with Cain. When I accepted that fact, I quickly realized that I felt the same for him. What's more, there wasn't anything wrong with loving Cain, there never was, I just couldn't accept it before because the last time I'd let myself get close to someone, I'd abandoned them to annuals of pain and isolation.
Then, as if someone else was putting the thought into my head, it occurred to me that I didn't have to work it all out in one night. I didn't even have to tell Cain how I felt. Not yet anyway. For now, it was enough to just be. That was all that was really being asked of me anyway, I was just too stubborn to hear it. Until now. I could feel a smile creeping up on my face with that thought, and I opened my eyes to the sight I'd hoped to see. The tree had been healed, and a low-hanging branch seemed to wave at me, where a freshly grown, red apple gleamed in the moonlight. I accepted the tree's 'thank you', and the task that the tree had given me. Heal thyself, I could hear the tree saying in my mind, and without any further argument, I decided that I'd start in the simplest way; by going to bed.
