#i just realized while writing this how catastrophic a typo for my character's name can be
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glitchypsi · 2 years ago
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i know i said no art repost today but that does not save you from Brain Age Porynaz II
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yesttoheaven · 4 years ago
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AMOR FATI
pairing – neil x female!reader
wc – 3.8k
warnings – mention of death, self-blame, anxious/intrusive thoughts, questioning reality, refusal of help, guns, stalking, but I swear there's a light at the end of the tunnel haha
a/n – The last time I suffered so hard for the death of a character, was when Newt died (Maze Runner) and now Neil has captured all my attention and his death has hit me in the same way 😩 I needed a happy ending so I decided to write this!
The Eternal Return and Amor Fati mentioned in this fic are one of the main ideas of Nietzsche's philosophy.
English is not my first language. I am getting help from google translator and he is not always a good ally, so I apologize for any typos or grammar errors.
Y/N – your name
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She approached the painting hanging on the wall, watching the details closely. Ouroboros. A serpent eating its own tail. Months ago, when Y/N was visiting an antique store in Mumbai, she saw that same symbol. The owner of the establishment approached when she realized her interest in the piece and explained that Ouroboros represents the ideas of movement, continuity and, in consequence, Eternal Return. A concept that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space.
"Max finally fell asleep." Kat returned to the living room, attracting Y/N's attention.
She walked away from the painting, taking back her seat on the sofa and asked:
"How is he after everything that happened?"
For a moment, Kat looked at the painting on the wall and then at the friend she won in the midst of confusion over the Algorithm. At that time, despite being fighting on the front lines to prevent a possible Third World War, Y/N seems complete. Happy. Today that happiness no longer exists in her eyes.
Letting out a sigh, the woman sat next to her, answering:
"Sator was never a present father. He was always busy... now i can see the kind of work he was involved in. Anyway, Max just got used to his absence."
"It's notable that he's happier at your side. When we first met Max was a bit of an introvert, but today he is radiant." Y/N confessed, showing a small smile and the blonde shook her head, agreeing with her words. "How's everything?"
"Perfectly well. It's weird sometimes... After years of being stuck in a failed relationship, freedom is good."
"It seems like life is good for one of us." The woman let out a bitter laugh, putting the latest events on a scale, but she didn’t want her friend to think she wasn’t happy for her. She really was. "I'm sorry, I just..." The words remain stuck in her throat, while she covers her face with her hands. In addition to physical and mental fatigue, Y/N tried to hide her grief.
Kat touched her shoulder, showing that she was here.
"I know you're hurt, but it's been three months and you never talked about what happened that day... This is not good for you."
"What do I have to say, Kat? The guy I fell in love with was a fucking time traveler! And now he's dead and I don't know what to do. My life just... stopped without him."
"I can imagine how difficult it's for you to cross that line without Neil at your side, but giving up is not an option. Grief is consuming you little by little and you are just accepting it..."
"We are trained to contain our emotions and deal with death in the best possible way. It used to be easy for me, but then he came and turned my life upside down." Y/N put her hands on her knees and stood up, walking without an exact destination. "Neil was always one step ahead of us all..." She stepped forward too and found the painting again, but her mind was lost in thoughts about him. Neil knew her so well. And he had a charming smile, but completely arrogant at the same time. "I was sent to Mumbai to help two agents and when I arrived at Priya's penthouse that night, there he was. When he saw me, that was the first and only time that he let his guard down. I'll never forget how he looked at me, it was one of those breathtaking moments... Completely cliché, I know."
On the sofa, Kat was impressed. When Y/N turned towards her, there was a bright smile on her face. The simple memory brought her a breath of happiness and Kat enjoyed seeing her friend like that, but unfortunately that moment did not last long. Memories aren't enough. Neil is dead and nothing can change that.
"I miss him so much, Kat." The smile disappeared as soon as tears appeared in her eyes, cascading down her cheeks.
"My dear..." Worried about her, the woman got up quickly and approached Y/N, wrapping her in a tight hug. "I'm really sorry."
"I spent the last three months locked up in my a-apartment because I thought I could handle this situation on my own. At times I b-believed it was just a fever dream... Maybe I was losing my mind, but this is proof that everything was real." Through tears blurring her vision, she looked at the watch on her wrist, remembering that night.
Y/N was in a private cabin on the ship. The others were with Ives and Wheeler, going over the mission in search of any loose ends. A standard procedure. Y/N knew she should be with them, but she needed a moment alone to organize her thoughts. And that moment is now. The past few weeks had been a real mess. The inversion was difficult to explain and mainly to understand. She was used to field missions, but being an inverted soldier on the battlefield was not in her plans. Either way, she agreed to be a part of it and running away with biased assumptions was not going to help. Humanity depends on them.
Three knocking on the door caught Y/N's attention, but she remained silent, waiting for the person to give up and leave, but when it didn't, she just murmured 'Come in'.
"So, here you are." The man used a surprised tone of voice and closed the door behind him. "What will our superior think when he learns that you are running away from the briefing?"
She let out a laugh before answering in the same mood:
"Don't worry, I know this mission like the back of my hand. I just needed a moment."
"There's something wrong? Are you ok?" Neil spilled the questions quickly, visibly concerned for her.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Neil." Y/N smiled at him, but looked away just seconds later, confessing: "Maybe I'm a little surprised by the situation. I have spent years dealing with terrorists, but the inversion is really not my point."
"I'm not good with advice, but someone once said to me: Don't try to understand. Certain things in the world do not need an explanation."
"It's wise advice, but I'm a methodical person. Logic has always been my ally in missions."
"A methodical person, huh?" He asked with an arrogant smile playing on his lips and she just rolled her eyes. "I know how worried you were when Sator shot Kat, but we are using the inversion to save the world and you're one of the most brilliant agents I have ever seen. Everything will be fine."
"Are you praising me?"
"What's that? Can't I praise my partner's talent?" Neil pulled up a chair to sit across from her, crossing his arms.
"In that case, thank you. Remind me to put this on my resume." Those words made him laugh and that sound could easily be compared to music in her ears.
Touching her knee, Neil added:
"We are very confident with the mission. You don't need to worry."
"Are you sure?"
"I cannot say that unforeseen events do not happen, but we are prepared for that." Y/N knew he was right, but this mission is the biggest one so far. It's not about saving a country. It's about saving the entire world. This was arousing insecurities in her and it was like walking in a minefield. Ironically, she was familiar with this, but not in such catastrophic proportions. "I want you to have this." The man took his watch off his wrist and handed it to her.
"What’s that supposed to mean?" The question came out as a whisper from between her lips.
It didn't make sense. Why does everything in this conversation look like a farewell?
"We will be on opposite sides tomorrow, but i want you to know... I will always be with you, Y/N."
"I saw the way he looked at you... That's how I used to look at Sator before he became a monster in my life." Kat started, running a hand through Y/N's hair. "When I was lying on that stretcher and partially drugged with the medicines, I saw him beside you... watching you sleep. There was so much love in his eyes. Love for a lifetime, Y/N. So don't do this to yourself. The way he left hurt us all, but there was nothing you or any other agent could do to change what happened at Stalask-12. Neil saved the world. This gave us a second chance. You cannot give up now. This organization needs you. And keeping your mind busy at that moment is the first step towards a fresh start."
"N-No, I can't..." She broke the hug, shaking her head in denial. "I left the organization."
"What? Don't you work for Tenet anymore? But when we first met you told me that you can't imagine working in another area... And that this is your life's work."
"Being an agent is my life's work. I was in Yemen when Tenet found me and assigned me to this mission. My only job is to make this world a less hostile place, but the motto of this organization is not what I believe, Kat. What's happened's happened. Really? It doesn't work for me." Y/N ended the sentence with drops of anger in her voice and Kat did not say a single word.
Through the newspapers, Max's mother followed what was happening in Yemen over the years – a real endless war – and knowing that Y/N was in the middle of it, makes the situation unquestionable. People died in front of her eyes. Friends of the corporation. And then some time later, Tenet arrived with a fresh start, but in the end everything remained the same. She lost Neil. It is as if her life's work never had a happy ending because the world will never stop being a hostile place.
"He knows?" It was easy for Y/N to identify who she was talking about. The Protagonist. Or just TP.
"Here's another problem. I worked with him and indirectly worked for him at the same time! God, that man created this organization! And his name remains a mystery to us all!" She pinched the tip of her nose, feeling frustrated with all the secrets that haunt this organization. "And answering your question, yes, he knows, but he did not argue about it. I was a complete mess and he was not doing very well either... He stayed in my apartment for the first month, probably to make sure I didn't do anything stupid." And Y/N would be forever grateful for that. She likes him. Just as friends, of course. TP was a reserved man, but it was he who held her when everything was falling apart. "But we've had a fight. I blamed him for what happened at Stalask-12 and since then we haven't spoken anymore."
It was easy to see that they carried more pain than they could actually bear. Y/N lost her great love and the man lost his best friend. The situation just turned into a conflict between them and that was the result.
Realizing the sadness reflected in Y/N's eyes, Kat decided to change the subject of the conversation. Keeping that thought, she smiled and pointed to the painting on the wall. Maybe that could help.
"You seemed interested in this one."
"Oh yes, in my spare time I am a lover of art and its meanings. It is really attractive the way Ouroboros is connected to the Eternal Return..."
"And Amor Fati too." Kat completed, piquing Y/N's curiosity. This part was new to her. "It's impossible to affirm the Eternal Return without loving life. We need to learn that things happen as they do. Sometimes seemingly good. Sometimes seemingly bad. We don’t always get it our way... Unless we choose that whatever way it is, is our way. When we choose to Amor Fati, to love everything that happens, to love our fate, then we will always get it our way. Because the way it is, is the way it is. Unchangable. And therefore it must be good, even if it sucks."
These words touched Y/N's heart. This was a contradiction to what she is experiencing right now. Love your fate. She would like to understand and accept what happened, she really wanted, but why is it so difficult to move on?
Because Neil is dead.
That was the only explanation for her. The end of a relationship would be more acceptable. If he were alive, things would be completely different now. However, grief is overwhelming. How could she just accept what happened?
"I... I gotta go." That was all she managed to say before picking up her bag and leave the penthouse, ignoring Kat's protests.
When the elevator doors closed, an exhausted sigh left her mouth and the instant she saw her reflection in the mirror, Y/N wanted to cry again. After three months alone, she thought visiting her friend would be a good idea. Kat was willing to help, but the problem was that Y/N is not allowing herself to be helped. As soon as the doors opened, she left the metal box and found the hotel lobby partially empty. Her watch showed it was 3:13 AM, this explains the absence of people on the street as well. In front of her car, she searched the bag for the key and coincidentally her cell phone started to vibrate. Probably the text messages were from Kat, but confusion hit Y/N the instant she looked at the identifier and saw that the messages did not belong to any of her contacts.
Stay away from the car
They put a bomb
I'm on my way
Her first reaction was to take a few steps back and look around, trying to understand what’s going on and find the person responsible for these texts, but Y/N was alone in the dark street. When she thought it might be an unnecessary prank, a black SUV approached at high speed. The car stopped just a few meters away from where she was, but that was enough to make her body freeze.
"Y/N, come on!" The man exclaimed, the urgency in his voice would have made her run immediately, but she didn't move. Her feet had frozen on the floor. This cannot be real. "Come on, get in the car! We don't have much time!" He tried again, it was possible to hear the sound of the other cars approaching.
Y/N watched in slow motion the moment he left the car and ran towards her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
"How is this possible?" She asked in a whisper, completely lost in his blue eyes.
"It's good to see you too." Neil admitted, feeling his heart race. She looked so fragile in his arms. Very different from the last time he saw her. "We have to go." He accompanied her to the car and as soon as Y/N took the passenger seat, he returned to his seat.
For her this moment was like a fever dream, so she just looked down and started counting her fingers. One, two, three, four, five... Neil noticed, but said nothing, just kept driving. The cars were fast approaching, but he would do everything possible and impossible to get Y/N away from these people.
"Give me your cell phone." He looked at her for a brief moment, but when Y/N didn’t react, he wasn't sure if she heard it, so he just took the phone from her hand and threw it out the window. That was enough to get her out of the numbness:
"What the fuck, Neil?!"
Despite the adrenaline rushing through his body, the man laughed.
"If I found you because of your cell phone, they can too." After that, he crossed the red light and made a risky turn, trying to end this chase. "Before you ask, no, this is not a dream. Unfortunately this is very real..." Neil didn't like what he saw when he adjusted the rearview mirror. "And now they are getting ready to shoot us."
That observation put Y/N on alert and she looked back, seeing a man with an AKS-74U and another with a Beretta M12.
"If you knew it wasn't a dream, why didn't you bring an armored car?" She ran her tongue between her lips, smiling at the man beside her. Neil tried to argue, but she just took off her seat belt and picked up the Glock 19 stuck in the vest he was wearing.
Y/N crawled out of the car and sat at the window opening. This encouraged the men in the two cars to start shooting, trying desperately to hit her. Neil shouted something that she couldn't understand and then she felt one of his hands on her thigh, giving her stability to continue with the plan. With her arm resting on the roof of the vehicle, Y/N aimed the gun at the car that was closest to them. Her intention was not to start a firefight in the middle of one of the main avenues in the city, but she had no other option. Holding her breath, she fired the first shot and the bullet hit the tire, taking the car out of circulation. Y/N celebrated while preparing for the second car, but dealing with this one was not an easy task. Now they were in a tunnel and, consequently, losing speed because of the other cars that came along the way. Neil left two pats on her leg, indicating that she had better get back in the car and that is what she did. Screams, honks and gunshots echoed through the tunnel, turning the place into a war zone. Whoever these men were, Y/N knew they weren't going to give up.
Tired of playing cat and mouse, she went to the back seat, getting on her knees. Through the broken glass above the trunk, Y/N adjusted the aim of her gun, ignoring the sniper and focusing on the driver. With another accurate shot, the bullet hit the man's chest and he lost control of the vehicle. The car overturned for a while, streaking the asphalt, but no other car was involved in the accident. Y/N sighed in relief and looked for another possible threat, just checking, but when she realized that the area was clean, she returned to the passenger seat, leaving the gun on the dashboard in front of her.
"Next time I'm going to get an armored car." Neil comments, stepping on the gas. "Nice shot, by the way."
"Anytime." Y/N smiled, trying to control her breathing.
With the adrenaline disappearing from her body, it was hard for her to believe that this was really happening. For many nights she cried, wondering what it would be like if Neil just came back to her, but now she was afraid to wake up and realize that it was just another vivid dream.
The sun was rising when they arrived in a shed away from the city. Seen from the outside, the place was a little scary, but the interior wasn't that bad. There was some equipment like trackers, walkie-talkie, bulletproof vests, weapons, ammunition; a table with a mess of papers and on the other side two beds and something that Y/N supposed to be a private bathroom.
"Where we are?"
We. That simple word echoed in her mind. Y/N thought that "we" didn't exist anymore.
"For now in a safe place. It's dangerous for you out there." He answered the question and took a bottle of water, handing it to her after taking a generous sip.
"Who are these people, Neil?" She wanted answers, lots of answers, and that frustrated the british spy because for the first time he didn't know what could happen.
Neil had a mission and that mission ended with him dying in Stalask-12, but after what TP did, everything changed.
"We have a name..." He wanted to say more, he wanted to reassure her, but that was all he had at the moment.
Y/N drank some water and left the bottle on the table, looking at some reports and photos. All photos were of the same man.
Lenard Vaher
"But apparently they don't just want you..."
It took a few seconds and when the realization hit Y/N, concern appeared on her face.
No, not him.
"Where's TP? He's safe, right?"
"He was going to see you when Lenard's men kidnapped him. This happened three weeks ago." And considering the anger in Neil's voice, finding TP was proving an almost impossible task, but in the midst of so much concern, one point attracted Y/N's attention.
"You said he was going to see me..."
"There was something he needed to tell you." Neil sighed, resting his hands on the table. A few strands of blond hair fell over his forehead, but he quickly shook his head back, as he always did. "He returned to Stalask-12, Y/N."
After that statement, the only sound that could be heard was Neil's footsteps closing the distance between them and the first thing she did was put her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. Neil smiled. And that was not one of his famous smiles. That was a shy smile. His heart was beating like a drum and it was all because of her. Loving Y/N was something so special and pure, that Neil accepted his fate without a second thought. Saving the world, he was giving her a second chance to live, but now he is the one who received a second chance.
"I missed you every day." Before she could begin to consider the meaning behind his words, he settled his mouth upon hers, robbing her of thought.
She closed her eyes and melted against him, flattening her hands on his arms. Neil caught her bottom lip in his teeth, nibbling and licking at it until she thought she might perish from the intensity of the feeling. She whimpered at the sensation, and he rewarded the sound by deepening the kiss, giving her everything she desired. His tongue stroked hers, slow and insistent. A lush, decadent pleasure unfolded within them, snaking through their veins as though it had lain coiled in anticipation for years.
Just waiting for this moment.
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a/n – really hope you enjoy it and thank you soooo much for reading ;)
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a-spell-a-rebel-yell · 6 years ago
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and then, I’m up with the birds
Title: and then, I’m up with the birds
Rating: G
Genre: slice of life
Word count: 2,101
Summary: who would ever thought a stranger could give you so much insight on your life, on the first time you met them?
Author’s Note: hello, surprise! i might haven’t found anything better as a greeting, but at least this time my post is a fic (!!!) and posted early haha. it’s just me trying to ponder about stuffs and exercising my writing skills. as usual, everything is un-beta-ed, so expect typos/grammar error hehe. this work is loosely based on Coldplay’s song Up With the Birds, hence the title. also you might’ve noticed i always use ‘he’ and ’she’ as my characters, it’s just me being lazy and couldn’t find names for my characters, ‘he’ and ’she’ used only to differentiate Character #1 and Character #2 lol. hope you guys like this one, have a nice weekend :-)
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That Sunday afternoon, clouds finally released the last droplets it held, signaling the typical fresh, earthy fragrance that always came visiting after the shower of rain. The apple red bench he was sitting on felt like a contrast to both the murky sky and lake, a shining distraction.
A lot was what he had in his heart and mind, taking every bit of his sanity—the burden of his everyday life, the stacks of problem that seemed to follow him around, the nightmares that stained his memories. Each syllable of his thoughts was heavy, dragging him down in his every move.
Then a voice interrupted his silent mourning.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
He hadn’t noticed he got company. This stranger—a woman probably in the same age as him—must had had materialised from thin air then sat next to him or something, he reckoned. She had her sleepy eyes looking forward and her voice dreamy, almost as if it was a boat floating gently following the stagnant waves of the sea of nowhere. Everything about her felt familiar to him, as if he had known her for so long. Even so, the current situation creeped him a bit.
Every atom of his body wanted to just scream at her to keep her nose out of people’s business. But before he could do so, he heard himself reply in a flat tone, “Living does no good for me.”
“Why is that so?” She asked, tone still kept light and warm.
The more he heard her talk, the easier the words roll out of his tongue, despite the moroseness and despondency behind what they truly meant. The tone she used somehow managed to lull him into a sense of security. Not that much for him to tell all of his deepest secrets, but just enough to give an impression that she wouldn’t mind him spilling whatever was clogging his mind—no matter what it was about. “The world no longer means anything to me.”
“Have you ever listened to the way the birds talk?” She inquired, her head slightly tilting to one side. Only at this moment did she turn to look at him, her eyes boring into his, imploring.
The sudden change of topic morphed his eyebrows into a frown. It slightly caught him off guard. “Birds don’t talk. They chirp.”
“Same difference.” She shrugged nonchalantly, a thin smile rising on her face.
“Well—uh, maybe,” he stuttered at last, after some time of left in daze by the first time he saw her smile. It also might have smoothen out his frown. “Maybe, I suppose. What do they talk about then, these birds?”
“The birds they say, at the break of day, start again,” she replied, in time with a flock of bird hovering above them. “I heard them say.”
“Couldn’t it be a more easier instruction?” He blurted out, unable to stop his cynical side to think how ridiculous what she just said was. “Starting again each day… That’s one hell of a task.”
“I know…” She trailed, eyes on the distance again. But in the next second she sent her stare back at him along with a hearty laugh. “It’s so hard to just walk away, isn’t it.”
For that one, he could only hum in agreement. He watched her for a while. Her contagious laughter almost made the corner of his mouth curl up. Almost.
He was about to continue retelling his misfortunes eating up his life, but she got there first.
“The birds they say, all a choir,” she jammed her eyes shut, as if she was trying hard to grasp the sand of her memories between her fragile fingers. “Start again, a little higher. It feels like a spark in a sea of grey.”
He felt content, somehow. Though he wasn’t sure whether it was because of the sudden breeze of wind sweeping over them, or the things she just told him. Either way, he didn’t think of how absurd what he just heard was this time, to his surprise.
Something pulled his attention in from his peripheral vision. It was the bright reflection of the sun on the surface of the murky lake hitting his eyes. “That’s not true. I’ve tried everything…” he muttered, "it never worked."
“Look up, the sky is blue, isn’t it? Even after all that rain,” she pointed out, almost as if she was ignoring what he said. She leaned back, eyes inspecting the mile high sky. “Dream that lie until it’s true. Keep on trying.”
He followed suit. He didn’t even realize the sky gradually turned into its charming azure blue again. He never realized it did so after the heavy rain stopped. He inspected her again in silence, almost speechless at how she managed to give him reasonable, adequate answers consecutively.
Still, he digressed. “I never believed in that. Looks like life has its ways to prevent me from acquiring what I made every effort for."
"Then take back all the punches you threw,” she replied simply, this time folding her arms across her abdomen, as if ready to take a light nap. “Put away all of your expectations and guesswork on how you want things to work out or suspicions on what will happen if you do or don’t do something… life has its own grandiose scheme of things, so just go for it anyway.”
“It’s not like tomorrow brings a new, clean slate for me. I’m too polluted to begin with. I’ve done worse things, some mistakes I can’t just withdrew from easily,” he murmured, voice just below a whisper, "things I regret that I can never forget.”
“Have your arms turned into wings yet?” She asked, again seemingly to take no notice of what might be implied from what he said. She straightened herself up, back on staring at him.
“I don’t have wi—” he abruptly stopped himself once he realized what she really meant, a look of confusion furrowed his eyebrows once again. Was he hearing things, or was she mildly insane? But the solemn look on her face told him otherwise. “Excuse me, what?”
“Have you learned from your wrongdoings yet?” She elaborated. The words would have sounded interrogatory and judging, if it wouldn’t for her soft voice and amused expression on her face. "Have you own up to your mistakes and grown out of it yet?”
That stops him on his track once more. Though for the first time, he didn’t know what to answer. Had he?
“Like you, I did some awful deeds and fell into that dark, catastrophic abyss. But I crawled out of it and has rebuilt myself since. I evolve,” she went on. She had her fingers adjoined at the thumb, impersonating bodiless wings. "Like the birds, my arms turn into wings.”
Lots of questions circulating in his mind, but all he could muster out was the one that had been weighing his heart down. “But don’t you feel—“
“Remorse? Guilt? Shame? Pangs of conscience?” She supplied, grinning. “Oh yes I do. Or did. But you know, all those clumsy things sent me up to this wonderful world. No matter how cruel it has been to me.”
Her guesses hit way too close to home for him. It was like thrusting the dagger deeper into his already bleeding heart. He dwindled, “I don’t—I’ve never thought of it that way."
“‘Course you haven’t,” she laughed again. She nudged his arm gently with the tip of her elbow. "Sometimes we all need someone else’s perspective to help us see things and it’s fine.”
“I guess so.” He laughed along, unbelieving he just did so, even more to hear it rang with bona fide cheer. It felt… relieving. Each exhale of breath felt as if it duplicate that deflation of a balloon, lowering the pressure in his chest.
“And that’s how I deduced it,” she added, "all that happened and all the people I met, good or bad, they carved the pathway that lead me to where I am today.”
The odds where he crossed paths with her seemed to be astronomical, nearly fairytale-like, yet here they were sitting side by side. He glanced at her again. “Like how you did for me today.”
She returned the gesture. “Like how you did for me, too.”
They laughed again in unison. They hadn’t moved for slightest bit from their seats at the red bench, though there were lots that changed. The sky was clear, no cloud to be found, the gust of wind that occasionally came ruffled the leaves of the trees, the comfortable silence that was only intervened once in a while by the sound of the lake’s ripples, the cool air the after-rain brought along slipping through their coats, all harmonically created a relaxed ambience. Especially what he and she had between them, from where they stand on the common ground, they had stacked the first stones of a bond.
“How can it be so easy for you?” He uttered suddenly once their laughter died down, querying. Without knowing, he got too intrigued more than he let on. “To accept it all?"
“Little birds are pushed from their nest by their mothers for them to let go and train their wings how to fly. Life pushed me out of my comfort zone and I see it as a sign I have to let go of the past and move on,” she explained, her index finger moving in such elegance, drawing her words in front of their eyes. “And then, I’m up with the birds.”
He mulled the words over. As much as his basic instinct told him not to trust strangers he just met, she made sense more than anyone he had ever met in his life. For the past half an hour, she lifted the shroud that once covered his eyes for all his life, she made him see what he couldn’t before.
His curiosity went further. It got him to let slip and ask what he truly wanted to know, what he truly feared. “After all this time, after everything, has life treated you fair since?”
“You fully well know the answer to your own question.” She said with a smile still, though it came as a wistful one this time.
He witnessed with his own eyes the way her smile was dissolved out of its genuineness. That made him understand more than words would ever do. “It hasn’t.”
She gave a dry laugh, nodding. “Life will never change for us. It changes us—regardless whether we accustomed ourselves to it or not. Might have to go where they don’t know my name, float all over the world just to see him again…”
Even without him listening to what she said, he could fathom what she was trying to put out. Because he heard it in her voice, crystal clear: the heartache masked under yearning hope for what might have been for loved ones lost a long time ago.
But then he saw it—a shadow of a grin plastered on her face that he wasn’t aware of before—and he understood. “There’s something else, isn't it?”
“A plot twist?” She feigned innocence, though a moment later a wide smile that exploded on her face gave her away. "Yes.”
“A real game changer, I bet,” he chuckled. Only by then he could put a word to what he felt towards her: amazement. Thinking back, if he was the boat, she undoubtedly was the raise on the waves that calmed his mind. “Do tell me."
“In defiance of it all, I won’t show or fear any pain. Whatever is waiting for me will happen and I’ll meet it when it does,” she declared valiantly, undeterred. "Even though all my armor might rust in the rain. Onward I’ll march, relentlessly.”
Seeing is believing, they said. And boy, did he really see it, that action indeed spoke volumes more than words ever would, sheer will mixed with happiness splayed all across her face features: her smile so radiant and eyes gleaming with determination, making her face aglow.
Still, he had to ask—he just wanted to hear her say it, for the curse to be broken for once and for all, and for him to be free at last. “How are you so sure about it?"
As if she deciphered what he truly meant, behind his intent gaze, she spoke again in a much reassuring, gentler tone. “A simple plot, but I know one day good things are coming our way.”
Unconsciously, as a smile rose on his own face, he chanted the magic words. “A simple plot, but I know one day good things are coming our way."
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