Roses and Thorns

Hearth

"So, do you know what happened?" he asks.

Here goes the interrogation. "Not a clue!" I confess. "Anassa wasn't letting anyone into the library and Ivy didn't want to talk about it. She just told me they went their separate ways."

"It was the ambrosia." Ace sighs. "I bet it was the ambrosia."

I roll onto my back, curling myself in the blankets. "I can't make her stop. I can't help her at all. Whenever I get close to doing something useful, to making progress, she shuts me out again and I'll see her around town with that awful squinting glare she does. Sometimes she doesn't even come home to sleep. She just gets up and leaves."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I've talked to her myself, and she's mentioned feeling trapped by you two. Do you think you might come off as aggressive?"

My mind is a mess of cloud fuzz and I can't recall an encounter relevant to the issue. Drama has become part of the daily grind. "I don't know."

"You might need to take a few steps back. Not every day can be an intervention. Ivy's going to have to live her own life and make her own choices."

I scoff. "Rose won't want to hear that. Well, she wouldn't, but she's already given up. Sounds like you have too."
"Quite the opposite. I have full confidence Ivy will be fine. That's why we need to give her space." I roll back upwards, clenching my paws together. He's right. "Aside from your sisters, I worry about you. You act as if your sisters' issues have been tied about your Verhamera's Horns." Ace emphasizes the whimper of worry in his voice. "They're dragging you backwards."

"Well, you'd know, since you have siblings and all, counting Asha."

He tilts his head. "Not really. Our family gets a bit nippy in times of turmoil, but for the most part, we try to leave each other to our own devices. We all still talk, but unless one of us explicitly asks for help, it's not our problem. We've never had serious issues, though, so that might be part of it."

Envy burns brighter than the fire within me "Must be nice."

"You can come here and live at any time." When I recoil in shock, he adds, "If you think it will help your sisters, they could come too."

"They won't leave." I brush him off, regaining my senses. "Forget bailing the house out, they would have wallowed in the water until they drowned with no complaints."

"Your sisters are pretty determined to live in the past."

Rose has always seemed more determined just to continue, but she and Ivy that same worry whenever I mention our home or the past. "It's all we have of Mari and the Eudicas, I suppose. We were young. We made a rash decision."

Ace flinches as the word 'rash'. "You regret it?"

"Never." I stretch out my neck, trying to get a good view of the room without getting to my paws. It's dark, though the moon has yet to burst free from the trees. It's a curious time to be home alone, especially in such a large family. "Should we be waiting on anyone?"

"Why do you ask?"

I smirk, as if offering an invitation. "I want to make sure we're completely alone."

"We will be."

Go on.

The two words need not be spoken. I see it in his eyes. I draw close to him, feeling his fire-touched fur, bright, hot, and almost brittle. The two of us are made perfect in the firelight. We are two silhouettes outlined in the orange hues of the flame, the archetypal lovers on the verge of a new beginning...

"I've something to confess."

Go on.

The wind outside roars against the house and the fire hisses. The world grows alive, provoked, dangerous, and then just as quickly goes still like a lake at dawn. Each breath I take trips over the syllables, the precious three words, and I shudder like the dying flame.

I look up into Ace's eyes and declare, "I love you."

"I know." The luster in his eyes grows dark. He's struggling to keep my gaze.

"Wh-where do we go from here?" I ask, feeling dizzy. The floor spins beneath us and the fire spits out embers with an angry crackle. What would Ivy do? What would Ivy do?
Ace curves in on himself, moving away just enough for us to stop touching, connected only by the blanket. "I should have spoken sooner, but I don't want to hurt you. Daisy, I- these last two years have been the best of my young life, and I can't think of a day that hasn't been brightened by your companionship... but I don't... I can't promise you a relationship."

"Oh." I feel something thicker than smoke enter my lungs, harsh and suffocating. Despite this, I feel cold, as if the fire has been snuffed out. Proof to the contrary stares me down, coats everything red, makes the world strange and flat, foreign to my eyes. Heat swells in my eyes and I get to my paws, trying to look unharmed.

I can taste something like fear on the air, a bundle of undefined negative emotions and a sympathy that can comfort neither of us. Ace gets up as well, and the fire begins to flicker out. It is no danger to the house, but how much worse will the cold be without it? "I should go get Asha."

We take a similar path, but there's nothing in it. I think forwards, imagining thousands of nights like this, and the pain grows.

I breathe again once he ducks back into his own home, and I am alone in the dark.

I shouldn't hurt like this. Guilt overwhelms pain and then pain falls back over it like a wave. Over the sound of my own inner turmoil, I hear a distant howling, high and clear. I raise my head to join it, feeling their pain, their loneliness, though I know not who sings with me tonight.

It is comfort enough just to share my sorrow.