Luminous

87 - Fool's Errand ❣️

Coris's soothing hand never left her back. Meya scrunched her watering eyes against the shame. Hyacinth was a mirror—it showed her what old-Meya would've looked like had she been allowed to grow, and she was repulsed by her own ideal reflection. She was doomed to become like Mum, like Marin, like Arinel—weak, complacent, subservient women she had once scorned. Because she didn't have the stomach to become the fire.

"You once asked me what I saw in you. Loyalty, bravery, ambition, wit, I answered. I lied."

At long last, Coris broke the silence. Meya perked up, gawking. His eyes were distant, lost in the past.

"You have those qualities, of course, but so did I. And countless others. And you've seen the horrors we've inflicted upon these three lands. It's not a question of who has the most. You also possessed something else much rarer."

Coris gathered her onto his lap as he settled down, his back against a thick, aged stalagmite. Meya jolted at the feel of his icy fingertips resting on the uneven surface of her sunken scar. He bent down and pressed his lips to it. They were just as cold as his fingers.

"Seven years ago, you chose to save me." He murmured, his soft, ticklish breaths puffing onto her scar, "You were the most downtrodden, miserable soul in the whole of Crosset. I was a boy who lived a life of privilege, a despicable monster who was there to hunt you. Not to mention I was Crosset's only hope of survival."

"Us nobility only have so much room to consider matters outside of power, profit, and self-preservation. Everything was logical, cold and calculated—even my parents' love. When you saved me, I couldn't make sense of it." His taut lips unraveled into a bitter smile.

"You were battered and bruised, starving. In pain like living death. You betrayed your people and helped me escape to safety. Sung me a lullaby. Kept me warm as I slept in your arms."

He shook his head slowly, his voice choked with emotion.

"When dark times brought out the worst in man, you protected me and led me home, like a mother would. Persuaded rather than threatened me to save the very people who banished you. Whenever the odds seem bleak—remembering what you did—it's always given me hope. Urged me to do better. Because—even when violence seems to be the only way, you'll always strive to find another. You'd walk the path of the fool, if it meant doing what is good—what is kind."

"You saved Crosset the way you saved Arinel and her entourage, the Greeneyes in Jaise, and Zier, and me. You fought like a woman. And I believe the three lands—the parts we've been to, at the least—is a much better place than what it would have been otherwise."

"Lexi—"

Tears tumbled down Meya's cheeks. She'd never once thought of it that way before. She realized then, why she had often felt so lost—she had lost a dear memory, a crucial part of herself. The choice that would have just as easily doomed Crosset as saved it. It was who she was, who she wanted to be. 

She'd betrayed her own people, her dragonkind—often on impulse, and had no idea what it had been for. She realized now—she wanted to find a better, kinder alternative. Perhaps, that was something she could live with, something she could aspire to be.

Meya rested her head on Coris's chest. She pressed a kiss on his hand in thanks, then heaved a long, shivering sigh.

"I wanna help Arinel. But I can't bear the thought of you lying with her."

"I know. Neither do I. We'll find another way." He caressed her hair in reassurance, "I love you."

His whispered words echoed in the stillness. Meya didn't realize until she felt her tears blazing a path down her numb cheeks that she was crying. A myriad of emotions overwhelmed her one after another in hot and cold flashes. She was touched—then in denial that she was touched—then annoyed he hadn't given her even a second to prepare, to remember this moment—then convinced she must have been hallucinating from the nausea—then relieved he felt the same—then worried he'd change his mind if she told him about the babe—then angry that Freda made her a peasant and him a dying nobleman and that nothing would ever come out of it anyway.