One thought kept running through my head.
You don't know someone until you know their greatest fears.
I would never have suspected that all that darkness was hidden behind a smug smile.
But now I had seen it, witnessed what Caelus was hiding, and I needed to go with him, to help him, to be with him.
My body, my mind, and my heart were crying out for it.
To be with him.
Why did I feel this way? I hated him.
I hated him. Right?
'Caelus! Wait!' I implored him once more, climbing up the hole that had taken us inside.
Once I was out, the rock moved, making it clear that it would not let us through until further notice.
When would we return to that horrendous place?
I didn't want to know, I didn't even want to think about it.
I just concentrated on following Caelus' footsteps.
I found him in the meadow we came through the portal.
He was sitting, watching the sun slowly descend, giving way to the three moons that heralded the coming of night.
I approached quietly, pretending he didn't hear me, though I knew he did.
I sat beside him, wrapping my arms around my legs.
The wildflowers brushed my hands, leaving their perfume on my skin.
I wanted to say so many things to him.
I wanted to tell him that I was with him, that I wouldn't leave him, that I would help him in any way I could. That we were together in this.
But the words wouldn't come out.
Only silence flooded me and the image of the sun saying goodbye made it clear that I just had to stay there.
There by his side.
We watched the sunset together, appreciating how the sky changed from light blue, to a combination of orange and purple, until it turned completely black.
I will always remember that moment as one of the most beautiful in my life.
For a second, time stood still, and I could appreciate being alive, being able to see something as beautiful as that sky, sitting next to him in the soft grass of that foreign Kingdom.
I released my hands from my legs, resting them on the grass.
His hand took me by surprise, but I didn't let him notice.
He took my hand gently, as if he was making sure I was really there.
I squeezed his hand to confirm it.
I wasn't going anywhere.
When the sun finally disappeared, the silence faded too, but it wasn't me who would end it.
'What you saw in there... by all the Gods...'
I turned my head towards him and waited for him to meet my eyes.
His beautiful blue eyes sought me out and found me in just a second.
'No one deserves to go through something like that, it was evil. I'm so sorry.'
'Why are you apologising? It wasn't your fault,' he said averting his gaze to the horizon.
'Are you kidding? I was the one who brought you here in the first place, the one who talked you into this madness.'
His gaze returned to mine. Without letting go of my hand, and in a low, sententious tone, he replied.
'I chose to come with you. And I don't regret it at all. Don't think for a second that this is your fault. I chose you.'
I didn't think I needed to hear that until he said it.
My heart had broken a little to see him suffer like that.
If this had been the first test, maybe it wouldn't have affected me so much. Indeed, I would have been happy to see the arrogant pirate suffer a little.
But we had been together for some time now. We had survived things that a normal person would only know as bedtime stories.
I had written a story with him. Our story. As hard as it was to admit, we were a team.
And I couldn't hate him, I couldn't keep saying I hated him. Because I really didn't.
Although I wasn't sure how I felt about him.
Not yet.
'Anyway, I'm sorry,' I repeated to make it clear that I was hurting for him.
'Don't feel sorry for me your Majesty, I'm not that pathetic,' he said, releasing my hand.
'Don't do that.'
'Do what?'
'Push me away.'
Crickets began to chirp, and for a second, that was all that could be heard, until I regained my strength.
'Don't you realise Caelus? I can't believe I'm saying this... I care about you, alright? You tried to keep me away, you treated me badly, you belittled me, and I did the same to you, because I was afraid to admit that I felt something... I have no idea what I feel, nothing seems to be simple any more. I just know that I don't want you to keep pushing me away. Don't you realise that we're in this together?'
It wasn't me talking any more.
I would never have dared to say that.
No, it wasn't me talking.
It was my heart.
I thought he'd go away, walk away from me or say something offensive like he always did, but instead, he just sat there, staring up at the sky, listening to my words and letting them settle.
'My plan was for you to know nothing about me, and in the end you were inside my head. After seeing all that, do you still feel the same? Do you still want me in your life?'
His question was accompanied by his powerful and sincere gaze.
He really wanted to know my answer.
I felt so stupidly guilty for feeling the way I did, for thinking what I was thinking.
Russell had awakened love in me for the first time, he had been the one to save me in more ways than one. But seeing Caelus, I felt something different.
I knew it wasn't hate, but I didn't know if it was love either. If it was love, it was very different from what I had once believed love should be.
Maybe love was more than just a word or a feeling. Maybe it came in different forms, in different ways.
But if so, what did it all mean?
Did I... did I feel that way about him?
'I don't know what I feel, I don't... all I know is, I can no longer imagine a life in which you are not a part of,' my words trembled with the sincerity that drove them.
Even if I didn't know what my feelings meant, I knew this was the truth. I could not imagine a life in which Caelus was not a part. As a friend... or as something more, I don't know, I just couldn't imagine myself without him.
By all Gods, I felt vulnerable, exposed, a small person in the face of a feeling too foreign.
How was it possible to feel something I had never felt before? How many feelings were hidden behind the walls of my heart?
His eyes wouldn't leave me, couldn't stop staring at me with something akin to surprise.
'Why must you always be so bloody perfect?'
The tremor in his voice made me realise that he was as terrified as I was. We both had no idea what we were facing. It was so peculiar, so unique, that it was scary to look at it in the face.
I slid a little towards him, as if his eyes were drawing me in, my whole body responding to him.
He did the same, and in a second, he took my face in his hands.
Our noses collided, met, caressed. I closed my eyes, appreciating the closeness of his face, living with intensity every second of his contact.
How did this happen?
I had to stop, I had to stop it.
But I didn't want to.
You know what I wanted to do? I wanted to feel his lips on mine.
I felt so guilty for the desire that had been awakened in me, but I couldn't help it.
I opened my eyes and noticed that his eyes were closed. His fingers had entwined themselves in my loose hair.
I waited a few seconds, begging him to open his eyes and look at me. To look at me and tell me that this was okay. That we weren't crazy. That it was right.
Open your eyes, look at me, please.
My magic wanted to call him, but I held it back. I couldn't even control my magic with him. What was happening to me?
His eyes opened quickly.
He let go of my face, my hair, my touch.
He stood up and cupped his face in his hands.
I sat on the grass, not knowing how to react.
I felt so stupid.
What had I done?
I was ashamed of myself, this was my fault. My fault for listening to that voice in my head. This was not love. It couldn't be love.
'Let's pretend this never happened, it was nonsense to begin with,' I said with as much disappointment as I could muster.
I was disappointed in myself.
'Good thing I'm so important in your life. How quickly you change your mind princess, it's just a game to you.'
I jerked up and walked over to him.
I wasn't going to let him do this, let him blame me for something that wasn't my fault. He was as wrong as I was. He was the one confusing me.
'A game? I'm the one playing with you? You're the one who hates me and suddenly needs me. You're the one who tells me you don't want to know anything about me and then you trust me like you trust yourself. Why don't you be a man for once and explain me what in the world you're doing? Make up your mind for once.'
'Oh believe me, I've made up my mind.'
He faced me head on. His height towered over me, but his strength didn't repel me.
I didn't move an inch, I still needed to unload.
'Really? Are you going to tell me or do I have to go back to that cave to find out how you feel?'
I wanted to hurt him, I wanted to hurt him like he hurt me over and over again.
This could not be love.
Love should be simpler, not so complicated.
Love was not supposed to hurt.
'You don't understand. I am not like other people. I can't just...'
'Can't you just what? Feel?'
He took a deep breath, still looking at me.
'I'm sorry... that was...'
Maybe I had gone too far, but I couldn't go back.
I could see it in his eyes, there were a million things he kept secret, locked inside him.
'How am I supposed to understand you if you won't let me in?'
I stepped forward and rested my hand on his chest.
'Caelus, please let me in.'
'It's not that simple,' he said with his head down.
'What are you so afraid of?'
'I never... I never let anyone...'
He looked up and I noticed there was so much insecurity behind his expression.
He wasn't pushing me away because he wanted to make me suffer, he wasn't drawing back because he was playing with my feelings.
He was doing it because he was afraid of hurting me.
'You can't go on living like this Caelus, you can't go on closing yourself off and pushing everyone away from you. It will consume you.'
'I'd rather be consumed by it than let someone like you find out who I really am. I don't want you to get hurt. Because as hard as it is for you to accept it, I care about you Gaia.'
He cared about me.
He really cared about me as much as I cared about him.
But now was not the time to face that again. I had to get to the bottom of this and make one thing clear to him.
'I know who you are, you are not going to hurt me.'
'No, you don't know anything.'
'I know you created a Kingdom all by yourself. I know you saved all those people who were abandoned. You gave them a home. I know you fight for equality in all the Kingdoms. I know you dream of peace. I know you are loyal to all those who are with you. I know you helped me even when you shouldn't have. I know who you are, and I've only seen the surface.'
I don't know what made my hand touch his cheek, but I did. I caressed his face with the palm of my hand and felt his warmth.
He closed his eyes, inhaling my touch.
'Gaia...'
'I don't dislike you as much as you think I do.'
'There is so much you don't know.'
'I want to know it all.'
'No, there's something that...'
'There is nothing...'
'I was that monster.'
'What?'
He pulled my hand away from his face.
I stared at him.
What did he mean? It couldn't be possible.
That was his fear.
I assumed he had seen that monster but....
'I am that monster,' he lifted his shirt and showed me his arms, illuminated by the light of the three moons. 'Through these veins runs a magic so dark you'd be terrified at the thought of it. I feed on the terror of others. I absorb the lives of my victims. I can't control it, it activates itself. I make them disappear. It doesn't matter if they are people I care about or not, if they are close to me when I take that form, I consume them. And worst of all, even though I am that monster, every time I turn, I enjoy it. There you have it, I enjoy being a dark creature. That's me, Gaia. I am a monster. That's what you wanted to know? Congratulations, you got to the bottom and found only darkness. Because that's what's in here,' he said, touching his chest, 'only darkness.'