the9-space-whales

[the9-space-whales]

1:31 and the Closet Door is Closed

I woke late into the night. The flashing red light from my nightstand tells me that the power had gone out as I slept. My clock is reset. I don't know what time it is, the only thing I know is that I woke late into the night and the power had gone out. I can’t keep my eyes open and my mouth is dry. The curtains are pulled back and there are branches waving outside my window. It’s late into the night and there is no moon.

The air in my room feels heavy and suffocates me underneath my once comforting blankets. In a daze, I kicked them off, lightheaded as if there was no oxygen in the room. I consider going back to sleep before I hear a creak downstairs. In a fraction of a second, I’m awake. I’m awake and it’s late into the night and I heard a noise downstairs. The room is dark and the air is heavy, I’m suffocating beneath the weight of the silence and sweat. The sweat clinging to my skin tells me I’m not dreaming. I’m sweating, but the air is cold. The thermometer was reset.

The hardwood floor is cold, and for a moment I wish for a pair of socks. Then I hear that creak downstairs and I’m awake. I walk carefully with no noise and pass the slightly open closet. Two pairs of eyes glower at me from the abyss contained within and my stomach drops and my heart leaps into my throat. Wide eyes blink up at me from the darkness and I think, Red and Adam. It’s just the cats.

The whole house is cold and silent. I wish I had socks. I find the thermometer downstairs and turn it back on. A comfortable 70 degrees. The house is silent and still. For a moment I wonder where the cats are, and then I see the eyes. Yellow and glaring, I see the eyes outside reflecting my kitchen light, I can’t move my feet or my eyes, and those eyes, so yellow, stare back. A blink and they’re gone.

I will my limbs to move and inch towards the backdoor, one arm outstretched towards the light as I try to hide behind the closed curtains and flick the lights on. Just a fox. I don’t realize the tension in my muscles until I breathe out, my breath fogging slightly on the glass. The cats are by the door, watching the fox with pricked ears. It’s just the cats.

My mouth is dry and my eyes are tired. I don’t know what time it is as I get a glass of water. The water is crisp, but the air is mild. I go upstairs to go to bed and pass the thermometer again. A comfortable 70 degrees. The floor is cold and I wish I had socks. I woke late into the night and I wonder where the cats are.

The air has lost its weight. I can breathe and my heart rests comfortably in my chest. The clock is still and I look at the time. 1:31 and the closet door is closed.

[the9-space-whales]

Snowfall

Alpine let out a cry as Willow knocked him over once again. Her face was devoid of sympathy as she glared down at him, the harmless wooden sword grasped with practiced confidence in her hand.

“That was terrible, kid,” she rasped, lips pulling back in a sneer. “How can you expect to be of any use to your country if you can’t even walk straight?”

Alpine bowed his head at her clear disappointment. It’d only been three days of this training, but it seemed that, to Willow, he was as hopeless as a baby bird. Alpine longed to give up, to go back to Willow’s weird house with leaves on the roof and hide away in the room the old woman had given him. The only thing stopping him was Willow herself.

“Get back up and do it again,” she hissed, using the sword to push the young boy to his feet. “Quit with the nerves, don’t let it show. I don’t care if you don’t feel brave, all that matters is that you look it. Even the best warriors fear confidence.”

And so he tried again.

This would go on for hours each day: Alpine would fail and Willow would scold him for it and then push him to get up and try again. She refused to let him stop until she thought she could get nothing more from him. Then, they would return to Willow’s home and eat a hot meal, typically soup and bread, and go to bed. Wake up and repeat.

After a month of the near-every day training, Alpine was exhausted, but supposedly improving.

“Good, again,” his mentor muttered, her face no less stern than it had been on the first day.

Alpine, thoroughly winded and waiting for the woman to finally call it a day, huffed in response, “Again? This is the 30th time in a row I’ve gotten it right, can’t we just say it’s done?”

Alpine rarely spoke up against Willow’s orders. She was older and more experienced, so clearly she knew things he didn’t- not to mention she did this kind of thing for a living. He’d learned quickly not to talk back to her after what happened the first time. He wasn’t looking to get chewed out like that again.

But today was different. He was tired and he wanted to crawl into a hole for three months before he’d even think of starting this rigorous training again. The sun was sinking towards the horizon and he realized it was past the time Willow normally stopped. He at least wanted to know what she was thinking.

“I said it’s good,” she snarled, but he knew she wasn’t angry or annoyed. Her grip stayed constant, not tightening nor loosening its hold. “But I know you can do better. And when you reach better, you keep practicing even then. This isn’t just something you learn and be done with it. You perfect it, and once you’ve done that? You do it again.”

Alpine was rendered speechless. Sure, he didn’t think Willow hated him per se, but he’d at least thought she had a distaste for him. Over the past month, he’d gotten to know Willow and her tells, like how he knew she wasn’t actually angry when she looked and acted the part. But this was the first time she’d ever complimented him, clearly at least. There were other times when she’d say things and Alpine wondered what she meant, but he could never dwell on it for long before she was pushing him to his feet and ordering him to do it again.

Alpine’s mind floated back to the present as something cold landed on his nose. He blinked and looked around, noticing snowflakes falling gently all around.

“Kid,” Willow called. Alpine looked over to see her face relaxed, the creases between her brows and the deep frown that once decorated her face now gone without a trace. “I want you to know something. I’m not pushing you like this because we’re under some time constraint or something; I’m doing it because I know you can take it. I know you could be an amazing warrior if you would only try.” She breathed out slowly, her breath visible in front of her face, and kneeled down. “Alpine. You’re not weak. What happened to you was out of your control. You can’t let the past control your future. You have a family back home, right? You wanna get back to them? Then you try. You put in the effort so you can go home, go and see your sister and mother again. You will succeed because you have someone who believes in you.”

Alpine watched Willow with wide eyes and tried not to let the tears fall. Suddenly, this field he dreaded returning to every morning felt like home.

Willow sat on the snowy ground and sighed, placing her wooden sword to the side. “You said you’re from Splendor, right? What’s that like?”

“Well, it’s a real pretty place…”

837 words.

[the9-space-whales]

Oh Sleeper Awake

Bluejay stared down at the body in the bed, an emotionless expression on her face. Cosmo had finally passed and suddenly Bluejay was faced with everything that had led up to this moment, from her birth to Cosmo’s sickness, and now here. She felt many things- distraught mostly, but she also felt a strange sense of calmness. The kind of calm that comes with the answer to a question you’d been asking for your whole life.

It was no secret among her friends and her siblings that Bluejay hated Cosmo, to the point she even refused to call the woman her mother. Most of the time, if someone asked, she called her her ‘birth mother,’ not that that helped much either. She didn’t feel like she had a mother. Sure, Winter raised her and her brothers and sisters, but she wasn’t motherly. She was a caretaker.

Not a mother.

And it took Cosmo’s final breath leaving her body for Bluejay to realize why she’d done this. She had always resented her real mother for not caring for them beyond preparing them- her sisters, specifically, Cosmo couldn’t care any less about her sons- for the throne. The classes and disappointment weren’t out of love, they weren’t because she was their mother and they her daughters; it was because she had to. And Bluejay hated her for it, and she would continue to do so. No matter what she felt watching her in the eerie stillness of death.

There was a reason now, and it wasn’t because Cosmo hadn’t loved them. She had, but it was too dangerous to show it. Standing there, watching her mother, Bluejay felt no sadness. Quite frankly, she didn’t feel anything about her mother being dead.

She was distraught because this meant it was now her responsibility to care for the country and its people.

And suddenly, she wasn’t ready.

Bluejay barely recognized the sound of the door shutting before realizing she’d left the room. Shaking her head, she didn’t think as her feet led her to her comfort space.

Azrael. Rosemarie. The two doves amongst a flock of pigeons in Bluejay’s humble opinion.

“Hiya, Bluejay!” Rosey chirped as soon as the door to the two girls’ home opened. Since Bluejay couldn’t live outside her designated floor, the other two got their own home on Azrael’s level so Bluejay could visit whenever she needed to.

Azrael’s head appeared from the kitchen. “You aren’t looking so good, dove, why don’t you sit down? I’ll bring you some tea.”

“Thanks,” Bluejay breathed, tired eyes landing on Rosey lounging across the couch, the book she’d been reading now face down on her chest.

“Hey, what happened?” the pink-haired girl questioned, her bubbly happiness vanishing the second she noticed her friend’s face. “We’re here to listen, any time.”

“I know,” Bluejay murmured, laying back on the couch with her eyes closed. “What are you reading?”

Rosey was quiet for a moment before answering, likely noticing the change of subject. “It’s The Tails and Tales, it’s a collection of fairy tales. The original ones meant to scare kids.”

Azrael entered the room with a kettle and some cups. “Those kids have it so much nicer these days. No more terrifying stories about why you shouldn’t try flying earlier than you’re meant to.”

Rosey snorted. “That’s just because they know better now.”

“We were dumb kids,” Bluejay huffed, her laugh nearly humorless. “Only takes seeing your siblings or cousins falling to their deaths a couple of times before you realize what not to do and teach that to your own kids.”

Warmth spread across Bluejay’s face as a piping hot cup of tea was held underneath her nose. She thanked the beautiful ginger quietly as she took it, relishing the warmth of the cup in her hands.

“Are you gonna talk about what’s wrong or do you just want us to be here?” the girl asked, her voice as soft as the expression on her face.

Bluejay sighed. “You can’t mention this to anyone else until it’s officially released, okay?” The two females nodded. “My mother just died, about two hours ago. Before you say anything, that’s not why I’m… not happy.”

“Then what’s making you unhappy?”

“Well, since Cosmo is dead, there’s a need for a new Queen, which, me being the oldest, falls onto my shoulders. And I don’t want it.”

Rosey sat up and turned to face Bluejay. “Why not? Everyone dreams of that kind of stuff.”

“Well, yeah, it’s all well and good until you realize the true responsibilities that come with it. The whole ‘heavy on the heart but light upon the head’ kind of thing.” She sat back further into the cushions. “No one in history has declined the throne. Makes it hard to say no. But I don’t want it. I bet I’m not the first, everyone else was just a bunch of cowards, too afraid to be the first.”

“Then be the first.”

Bluejay’s eyes looked to Azrael’s, searching for any ounce of uncertainty. But there was none. Only clarity. Confidence.

“Every day, I strive to be like you,” Bluejay smiled. “Winter’s gonna strangle me when she hears this.”

“Don’t think about Winter, or anyone else really.” Azrael’s hand gently tugged on one of Bluejay’s ears. Clarity. “Think about yourself, how you feel, and what you want. Don’t let what others want dictate your future. It’s not selfish to yearn for something else.”

Bluejay was desperately holding back tears. “Stars, you gotta stop that kind of stuff. I’m gonna cry.”

“Cry, then,” she shot back with joking cruelty. “It’s not shameful to have emotions, you know. And you know I’ll never stop. You’re my friend, it’s my job to know you practically more than you know yourself.”

Cosmo hadn’t kept her distance because she didn’t love them. She’d done it so they wouldn’t be blinded by grief before taking the throne. And that wasn’t the kind of future Bluejay wanted with Azrael.

997 words