The Aventine Chronicles : War Island

Chapter Five - A Winter in Old Aventine

"The snow, teacher. The snow isn't cold"

In a glimpse she could harldy be seen. She was kneeling, investigating. She looked one with the white plains, the ice and the falling snow.

"Do you know what cold is, my love?" 

Her face, whiter. Her lips as pale only as a rose. Her hair were flocks of ghost's, ivory, and touches of black. An even whiter velvet cloaked her little, tender body. But her eyes betrayed the death that she seemed, they were as red as her lips was.

She looked at Myrmidon with those pair of crimsons. He had known her since she was brought to him, yet those eyes still terrified him. But no harm ever came from her, she couldn't even fathom what pain is.

Myr  smiled back at her. She didn't know what cold was, she never knew and had no memory of it. Only that people oddly shrug when they looked cold, or said they were. Sometimes during their walks, when the teacher wasn't watching she would try to shrug whenever she touched the ice.

"I will know of it, like you promised." 

She was a child of Aventine descent, a daughter of Ceres.

"Yes child, like I promised."

But she never knew whose daughter she was from. The only father she ever loved was Myr, who constantly preferred to be called teacher. The only home she remembers is with him, with the white winters of Old Avetine and the trips she had with him to the royals of all Romano. When she was good and didn't wander off by own.

Often times they stayed for days in the Union. The teacher always seemed to hate the visits they had in the New District. But she grew fond of it, loved it since she first set her eyes of the Union. There were too many people that she couldn't count all of them with her fingers, like the millions of stars she couldn't count in the cloudless, open sky summers they spent at the Union. She loved the airships that flew everywhere, liquid lights that flowed on every surface and inside every wall. In the darkness of the night, she was a light of her own. But in the Union, her brightness belonged. She didn't stand out. Nobody stood still and stared at her.

The teacher always hated when she wasn't at her chambers.

"When is summer teacher?"

How she longed to go back to the Union. One time, when they were fast asleep the teacher was called in by the Housers for a whole night of counsel. The senate needed him urgently, so Myr left her and didn't bother to wake her up. But she was never asleep.

"Tomorrow, on a fortnight, or maybe in the eve of our sleep." 

She was found by Myr talking to the shoppers in the Long Alley.  The teacher looked so angry that she jokingly described his face as red as her eyes.

"Celestine, let's go home dear. I'm cold"

The teacher shrugged. But she knew he wasn't really cold, he  just pretended he was.

"Please a little more, teacher. I'm tired of books. They're all boring"

When she wasn't doing anything, and when the teacher felt like reading he told her stories of the Annuals back and the other countries and very descriptively explained the importance of the Cause. 

There were books that she loved, and there were books that she read. She faced towards another path.

"Celestine come quick! Look you're bleeding!"

Indeed she was, a crimson stain covered almost all of her right leg. It stained the velvet cloak covering her.

"When did you cut yourself, when you were kneeling?"

She didn't feel any pain, so she never knew where she was cut. In fact she couldn't find the wound she thought the blood wasn't hers. Still she frantically looked for a wound, somewhere. She was afraid.

"Teacher..."

"Teacher... where is the blood coming from. Take it off me!"

 

She was sobbing.

Celestine didn't understand, she never knew. For a moment she thought her eyes were bleeding, that was why. She was panicking as trails of blood on the white snow followed her steps, it was everywhere she walked. Her bloodied frantic hands looked monstrous to her, but the teacher seemed not as terrified as she was. Surely Myr knew what was happening to her.

"Calm down my love. The blood is yours, you're a woman now"

"Don't be afraid, you're finally of age"

These words didn't matter to her, still she didn't understand why she was bleeding. Her sobs covered her eyes with water that she hardly saw. She didn't see where her feet was and accidentally tripped.

But the teacher caught her, embraced her and held her tightly. She felt his warm hands on her shoulders and his body at her back. 

"Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid"

Her sobs came to a halt. Her cries seemed to burrow at the touch of her face. It felt warm.

"Teacher"Celestine said, while chasing her breathing.

Myr lost his grip, turned to face Celestine. Looked at her crimson eyes that still terrified him, studied her troubled pale face, her wet rose lips. His hands now with her bloodied hands, as if reassuring her that nothing was wrong.

"Yes, my love? Don't be afraid"Myr asked and exclaimed.

He looked very closely at her face, it was indeed as white as snow. But it was only now that he had seen a bluish throbbing vein on her right temple. She saw her heavy breathing, but her face kindled as her lips started to form words.

"I feel you"

They stood there, in the plains. Embracing. Blood stains on both of them. Snow falling, not even hardly. The light of the sun peering through little corners that the clouds missed. Another winter in Old Aventine.