GUYS I DID IT OMG. First Koralie fic chapter! I love them so much. They're so good for my soul. My writing style is kind of a mess rn and these chapters are going to be so much shorter than my SSWH chapters but that should mean I have more updates more often! Have fun <3
Oralie
Oralie knocked once and strolled in before Bronte could reach the door. She shoved aside the simple gray pillows on his couch and dropped face-down on top.
"Oralie?" Bronte sounded startled, but his usual annoyance was not absent from his voice.
She rolled over until she was facing the ceiling.
Bronte leaned over the couch, blocking her view, and he tilted his head. "Tea?"
She felt she might throw up if she consumed anything, but maybe something warm would soothe her trembling heart.
A few moments, or seconds, or hours later, Bronte sat calmly on the couch across from her, pouring tea into two delicate white cups in the center of the coffee table. It was the set she and Kenric had gifted to him. It'd started as a joke, but Bronte (though he'd never say it) loved it so much, he used it every day.
Something rose in her throat at the thought of Kenric, and the memories they shared laughing on Bronte's couch, holding those teacups, as Bronte scowled at them, grumbling something about third-wheeling and foolish children.
It took everything out of her to sit up. She stared at the cups, twin puffs of steam curling off the top. There should've been a third.
Bronte merely sipped his tea in silence. She looked over at where he'd been working in the open kitchen space, papers scattered across the granite counter, but he made no effort to return, and didn't grumble about her interruption. Nor did he ask impatiently what was going on. He barely even looked at her, like this had been his plan the whole afternoon.
She wrapped her hands around her cup, feeling it burn her fingers. "Have you ever wondered," she whispered to her tea, "that everything we've done as Councillors has been for nothing?"
"We serve the Lost Cities," Bronte replied. "We do our best for the good of the world."
It was a common answer, monotonous and overused, and she hated it. But he knew that.
"No. We make the worst decision between two wrong choices. There's never been a right answer, and by the time we realize that, it's too late." Over, and over, and over again. When will they ever learn from their mistakes? "I thought by becoming a Councillor, I could help, but it's all — nothing is —"
"Wait," he said, a faint crease between his brows. "Where is this coming from?"
Oralie leaned back against the couch, staring up at the chandelier. The architecture of each Councillor's tower was the same. Kenric had that chandelier. He always chose a different color to shine through each day. Too often, it was pink — when she'd asked once why, he'd winked and said it was his favorite color.
Beautiful and strong and brave. And then he'd leaned in and whispered, How could my poor heart resist?
Oralie had blushed, foolishly. But she didn't feel strong now without him here.
"I can't stop thinking about him," she said, but it came out choked, barely a breath.
"Oh," Bronte said softly, something that might've been sympathy in his voice. He rounded the coffee table and sat next to her instead, his presence beside her warm and strangely comforting, though he was terrible at comforting people — she knew this for a fact. She also knew that when she was grieving, Bronte was the only one who didn't try so hard to help, and yet he was the one who helped the most. It was the little things he did. The tea he offered.
"Grief is supposed to get easier to deal with with time," she said, tears blurring the sight of him, "but it feels like it's only getting worse. I keep thinking of —"
That moment. That moment when she'd lost him.
I love you, Ora, he'd transmitted. You were always my reason.
And then he was gone, with no explanation for what that meant, no chance for her to say it back.
She set the teacup down carefully and took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing the painful lump in her throat away. But her head felt too cold and dizzyingly hot at the same time. "I should've stepped down. We could've been happy. None of this would've happened."
Her thoughts flashed to her nightmares, which were slowly beginning to plague her days. The look on his face when he'd pushed her to safety. The desperation spilling through his voice when he'd transmitted, no matter how calm he pretended to be. Not afraid of fire, but afraid she wouldn't know how he felt. Afraid she wouldn't be safe. Afraid for her, and only for her.
The image of the Everblaze consuming him, blinding. His body limp as the fire raged on. As if it'd been fueled by his life.
She awoke screaming, every night, praying he was okay. And then she realized he was gone while she was here, and she could not decide which was a worse nightmare.
"So why didn't you?" Bronte asked, swirling sugar into his tea, and Oralie startled back into reality.
Why didn't you?
Everything she'd ever wanted before she met Kenric was to impact the world somehow. "I thought I could make a difference.
But after she met him, she only wanted him. Wanting him had felt selfish. But then he was gone, and she felt more selfish for taking the life he could've had.
"But nothing I do makes a difference."
She should've stepped down. She should've been with him. She . . . Skies, she missed him.
Everything was so much easier with him. She could breathe only when he was near. The world seemed just a little brighter. A little more manageable, a little easier to fix.
She wanted him back already. Hadn't whatever this punishment was gone long enough?
It was hard. To know he would never return. She hated the constant reminders, but she needed them nonetheless.
"I always thought that once all of this was over, I could step down," she whispered thickly, brushing away another tear. "We could step down. Together." Another sob overtook her words, a fitful waterfall of grief.
Bronte studied her, eyes soft, but he seemed bewildered as to what else he should do.
She sniffed. "Do you have a tissue?"
"I don't cry," he said. "I don't have tissues."
She glared at him, irritated and somehow eternally grateful he could so easily give her something else to think about. "I know you have spring allergies. Where are your tissues?"
He took another sip of tea, just to drive her mad. "Drawer."
She opened the drawer of the small table next to the couch holding a lamp and plucked a tissue from the box. She blew into it as quietly as she could, but Bronte wrinkled his nose.
"Gross."
"I hope I got makeup stains on your couch.
"You said you were waiting," Bronte said after another moment. "Until this was over. Once what was over?"
She laughed bitterly, motioning vaguely around her. "The Black Swan. The Neverseen. Sophie Foster. Changing the world."
Bronte studied his cup solemnly, and she wondered what he saw in there. Perhaps he gained all of his wisdom not from centuries of experience, but from his afternoon tea. "The world will always need changing."
She picked up her tea again, wishing she saw what Bronte saw. "And my world is gone."
Bronte set his empty tea cup down, the soft clinking of glass whirling her back to the times she and Kenric had been at countless parties neither of them wanted to be at, clinking their glasses of fizzleberry wine and toasting to the life they couldn't have.
She blinked, and she was back in Bronte's living room, on the edge of falling apart into so many pieces, she'd never be put back together again. Not that she wanted to be, unless it was him bringing her back.
"Your life was always entwined with his. It was always the two of you. Kenric and Oralie. Oralie and Kenric." Bronte sighed, shaking his head. "He was insufferable about it."
She had to smile at that. He wasn't wrong. Though it wasn't legal for them to be in love, Kenric took every change he could to practically shout their names from the rooftops — only insofar as the law allowed, of course, but that still provided quite a bit of leeway under their 'just friends' pretense.
To Oralie, it'd been adorable.
""You have to keep going for him. Keep living for him. Change the world the way he wanted for you."
What's the point? she wanted to ask. What's the point if he's gone?
But neither of them would have an answer for that.
And she felt so, so lonely.
"Oralie," Bronte said softly.
She looked up at him, wishing she could hide the grief in her eyes. Usually, she could. But right now, it felt impossible.
Usually, when she felt like she had no choice but to shatter into a million pieces, she went to Kenric. He'd hold her together for her as long as she needed. But now . . . God, now . . . She couldn't breathe. It was like a world without him was simply an endless panic attack — how could she hope to live when he wasn't there?
Why had he saved her life?
The question echoed the way it always did, bitter and lonely and begging so desperately, already giving up.
She knew the answer, of course.
But why had he saved her when he knew she couldn't survive without him?
A horrible part of her that she pushed deep down, along with other dark feelings of guilt and anger, wondered if he was the lucky one. She wouldn't wish this feeling on him in a million lifetimes.
"I . . ." Bronte sighed softly, his gaze dropping to his empty cup, and Oralie was tempted to pour him another cup of tea so he could give her some more of that wisdom.
"This is the part where you say you're here for me," she said when he didn't continue.
Bronte looked as if that was decidedly not what he was going to say, but he only nodded. "Right. That."
She tried to smile, taking a sip of her tea — and grimaced.
He scowled.
"It's cold." She shrugged sheepishly.
"You should've drank it when it was hot," he grumbled.
She stood. "I'm going to warm it up."
"Oralie," he said as she passed by him.
She turned to look at him, but he didn't say anything else for a long moment.
"You're not letting yourself grieve," he said, something like defeat flickering in his eyes, like he knew he couldn't convince her, but he had to try nonetheless.
"I'm always grieving," she whispered desperately, as if perhaps he could find an answer to her unspoken question. But he only looked at her, silent.
Indeed, she was always grieving.
And it seemed she always would be.
Please vote and comment! I hope you enjoyed. I love Koralie. This chapter was so much more emotionally draining than I thought it'd be. I'll post Chapter 2 soon and then Chapter 3 we'll have Kenric!! <3 Love y'all
October 3rd, 2023, 10:52 p.m.