Crystal Hearts • Book 2 Of The Crystal Trilogy • ⏸

-| 1 / missing you |-

A month passed after Crystal's disappearance and Scott hadn't stopped looking.

He was starting to get desperate, and who could blame him? He was travelling with Ash, his friend's horse, which he utterly hated (the horse returned the feelings), looking for said friend with his only clue being a withered rose that, strangely, hadn't fallen apart yet.

He kept that close.

How could he have been so stupid? He shouldn't have taken Crystal to the palace; he should have listened to Phoebe.

And Tristan's death... He knew that it was partially his fault. If he hadn't betrayed Crystal, Tristan wouldn't have stalled outside the palace. Maybe he wouldn't even be present at the time of Daniel's attempted murder.

Eventually he started thinking that maybe Crystal had gone back to Alastor's kingdom. That, or she'd teleported further down south. He decided that he'd check up the latter before returning to the false king's territory.

He was exhausted and couldn't bear the guilt weighing down on him. He might not have particularly liked Tristan, but he didn't like Crystal at the beginning either and he'd started to think that maybe he should have given him another chance, if he'd had the time.

But he didn't. Tristan Cornel was dead and his sister was nowhere to he found. Scott knew that he was to blame for this too. He might not have been entirely responsible for what happened, but he wasn't innocent either.

It was night when he finally took a break from travelling. He set camp and tried to sleep, but found himself unable to. His mind was racing, making him wonder where Crystal could have disappeared off to.

He knew that she wouldn't really welcome him with open arms and that she'd probably kill him if she ever saw him again, but Scott needed to tell her his side of the story, apologise and return her stuff to her, including the goddamn horse. He felt that she had every right to hate him, but she had to at least know what had lead up to the betrayal.

Then he'd leave her be. He'd go find his sister and start anew, away from all royal trouble. He'd had enough of all that.

He didn't expect Crystal to forgive him, because he knew that if he was in her place, he wouldn't forgive himself either.

I already can't forgive myself, we don't need to switch places for me to realise that, he thought.

He sat up and started staring at the fire opposite him, still wondering how he could have been so stupid and let things go that way.

And despite his exhaustion and sleep deprivation, he stayed awake all night, yet again.

×~❦~×

It had been a long month for Caroline. Her spirits were low and it was as if she'd never had an outburst against her father, but they had also started arguing daily, especially after Tristan's funeral (which took place at Alastor's kingdom because the public weren't aware of what had happened to Agnes and Grayson, Daniel's lost children).

Who would have thought that Crystal and Tristan were actually Caroline's cousins and not siblings? She'd been brought up in a way that she still found it hard to comprehend that. She tried to hide the fact that she knew about all that from her father, but her attempts were in vain, because soon she slipped up.

"Are you trying to fill in for your brothers place in the argument department?", Alastor yelled at her during a fight.

"It depends on how you define brother; is it your actual son or your kidnapped nephew?", she yelled back. She realised her mistake a little too late, but didn't hold back after that.