~.✧ Love & Tradition ✧.~

~.✧ a little bunny ✧.~

A/N I thought I might add a bit of a warning to the beginning of this one.... Not really sure how to warn you but just... prepare yourself emotionally because this one has made me cry before so... Yeah

(Part 2 of 4 in this series)

I stood in the hall, staring at the door, unmoving. Unseeing. I wasn't sure why I was here. I hadn't been in this room in almost two weeks. Not since...

My eyes flicked down to the handle, polished and shined perfectly by the palace staff. It waited for me to reach out, to grasp the metal and push to enter the room. But I didn't want to go inside. Yet at the same time...

I was here.

It was the middle of the night. I shouldn't be doing this right now of all times. I'd left Varien's room after being unable to sleep for hours. He'd been breathing soundly, lost in the oblivion and rest of sleep. Away from reality where he could forget all of this.

I couldn't sleep. I couldn't forget.

As if my hand had a mind of its own, it shakily raised and wrapped around the handle. My grip was weak, but my hand was heavy enough that it shifted down and the sound of the door unlatching softly emanated out into the hall.

Despite the whispered words of my mind, telling me to leave it be and head back to bed, I nudged the door open. Inside was a dark room. I knew what was within yet I still entered anyway. I still slid into the darkness.

We hadn't finished preparing the room quite yet. He wouldn't have used it until he was a little older since we'd been planning on keeping him in the King's Quarters with us so we could be near him at nights if he needed us.

All I wanted to do now was be near him. I wanted him to need us.

My feet shuffled deeper into the room, catching on the soft rug that warmed the stone floor. I gazed around, taking in the items we'd gotten around to placing ourselves since we'd wanted to do as much as we could for this room without the servants. To make it feel personal.

There was a small bed on the farthest wall, a chest at the end. A shelf lined the left side while a plush armchair sat on the right.

I approached the shelf, my eyes adjusting to the darkness as I investigated the few things that sat on the different levels. My eyes slowly gravitated towards an object just below my eyes and I felt them begin to sting.

I picked up the stuffed bunny that Varien had placed there. I thought back to that day as my eyelids began to line with tears.

"My mom made it for me before I was born," he explained, running his fingertips along the animal's felt ears. He looked over at me with a soft smile. "It was my favorite toy even though it was simple. But I thought I could pass it down."

I grinned, stepping closer to him and wrapping one arm around his waist. "They'll love it."

He nodded and then placed the bunny on the shelf. He pulled me even closer and we stood quietly, our minds content and excited for what was to come.

A tear streaked down my cheek as I held back a sob.

"You were so close..." I whispered, my throat tight as I buried my nose into the fabric of the stuffed animal. "Why aren't you here?"

Something broke inside of me and I collapsed to the ground, unable to withhold my sobs any longer. My tears streamed into the bunny's fur, my cries muffled into its little body.

I'd been through the worst life had thrown at me. I'd been kidnaped and told awful things. I'd had my life uprooted and everything changed. Yet I'd never felt this kind of devastation before. It felt as if my heart was being ripped from my chest and torn to shreds in front of me. All the love that I'd been preparing. All the hope I'd found and had for the future. All the excitement and anticipation. It was all for nothing. It was all a lie.

I couldn't take this anymore. I couldn't breathe.

My sobs felt like they would never stop. I became unaware of the world, time passing like an endless void. All I understood was this hollow, aching, terrifying pain in my chest where my heart once beat. Where it no longer functioned.

I wasn't sure how much time passed in my lost state of pain. My tears eventually lessened, my cheeks sticky and my body and mind becoming numb. The little bunny sat in my lap and I stared at it, unblinking. I would stare at it forever if it meant somehow getting him back, though I knew that wasn't possible.

After what felt like days, a hand gently brushed against my shoulder, dragging me out of the darkness for a brief moment. I slowly looked up and met a pair of brown, pain-filled eyes, reflecting exactly how I felt within.

Varien slowly sat down on the rug beside me, his eyes shifting down to the stuffed animal. He was silent, as he often was, but this silence held so much weight behind it, so many unspoken, desperate, broken thoughts. I heard them in the way his ever straight posture slumped, in the deep downward curve of his lips, in the glassiness shining over his eyes.

We sat there, the two of us in the darkness, looking at that stupid bunny like our lives were captured within its inanimate body. Right now, it really felt like they were. Our lives had been stolen the moment he'd come into this world, unmoving... unbreathing.

"What are we going to do?" I whispered, my voice weak, barely audible. I was desperately hoping he knew because I was too lost to find the next step.

But he only shook his head, muttering back, "I don't know."

The silence swelled again and I wished I was strong enough to try and find the next answers, to know what to do next. But it all hurt so much right now. I didn't feel strong enough to keep going.

"We never got to meet him..." I said, my eyes blurring again. "I never got to know him yet I miss him so much... How can it hurt so much?" I choked on a silent sob.

His fingers softly caressed my cheek and I leaned into the comforting touch, needing him to ground me. When I forced my eyes open and met his, tears were spilling down his face.

He shook his head, searching for his words. "I don't know‒" His voice cracked. "I don't know... But we have to push through even if..." He broke into a sob.

I crawled closer to him, wrapping my arms around him, holding him as close as possible as he did the same. Burying my nose into his shirt, I let it dry the wetness of my cheeks.

Varien gripped the back of my night gown in fistfuls, his forehead resting against my shoulder as his body became heavy with grief. The grief that was replacing his love. The grief that was overwhelming us.

We'd have another chance, I knew. But right now, it was so hard to think about being parents later when we'd been so close now.

We'd been so close.

A/N So.... *sigh* I seriously debated if I wanted to go this route with their story... Um, but I wrote it anyway even though I never planned on sharing it and making it cannon. But then I felt like it couldn't not be cannon yk? Even though it's horrible. This seriously makes me tear up almost every time I read it and I know, I'm so mean to Asria ToT But I promise there is hope to come later, even if they will always be affected by this.... I know this might be a lot to ask but if you have any thoughts you could somehow spare, there is always a place for them here ----->

(P.S. I will try to post the next few one shots in this series quickly so we don't have to dwell in this sadness much longer.)