After days of boredom, Alix brought me a present. I spent much of my time drawing to try and bat away the boredom and dark thoughts. I tried to stick to happy subjects like nature and scenery, but oftentimes the darkness seeped into my work. I threw it all away after so I never had to see it again. I was feeling positive on this day though, sitting across from Alix. It was hard not to be when he had such a bright, goofy smile on his face.
Codie had come home from school earlier and was now doing homework on her bed. She did not look over at us much. I was reading and Alix was fiddling with his thumbs, possibly in some sort of deep thought. Key was here too, sitting on the floor with Copper, who had also made an appearance. They were playing checkers, occasionally screaming and scaring the rest of us half to death. It was a Friday, so the whole gang was hanging out at Alix's house.
Because were a small gang. With not much place else to go.
I was sitting on Alix's bed when he came over, holding something from behind his back. He took it out and presented me with a package wrapped in paper. "I didn't want to do this with so many people here, but...open it. It's for tonight. I've got something special planned."
Everyone turned to look at us, and I saw his cheeks flush a bit. I raised an eyebrow and he laughed. "Oh, shut up," he said. "It's nice. It's a bit of pressure now, but I think you'll like it."
"I helped pick it out!" Codie piped up with a grin.
"Then I'm sure I'll love it, sweetheart," I told her. I opened the package and out fell a beautiful piece of silk. I held it up to see it catch the light in beautiful ways, and saw that it was a dress. It was a soft orange that was bold but not too vibrant. With a knee length cut and easy v-neck, it was simply beautiful. "Oh my. Thank you so much."
"I'm glad you like it," Alix said. "I thought it might be fitting tonight."
"Today? Is it...?" I asked slowly.
"Morgana's Day? May first? If that's your question, then yes." He nodded.
Codie interjected, "It's my favorite holiday."
"You say that every holiday," Alix teased her.
"This one, I mean it," she insisted, pushing aside her homework. "It's so pretty. The lights and the castle."
I smiled widely and said warmly, "And I'll be a part of the color, thanks to you. Thank you, sweetheart. You have wonderful taste."
"If only I could get a little bit of that gratitude," Alix mumbled teasingly under his breath.
"Gratitude?" I laughed at him. "You wouldn't know gratitude if it came up to you and gave you a big kiss."
"Well. It wouldn't hurt to try, right?"
I laughed at him some more before I pulled on his collar and brought him close. I kissed him softly but his tongue was in my mouth pretty shortly after.
I could hear cheerful laughing, and Copper saying, "Break it up, lovebirds. There are children present."
I pulled away from Alix, and I laughed, too.
"It's okay," Codie said seriously. "I've read it in books all the time. They used their tongues, too." She talked with a completely straight face, and I could tell she truly meant it.
Alix turned red as a beet, his whole face scrunching in embarrassment. "Whatever books you're reading, you need to stop. I did not use tongue!"
Everyone burst out laughing, me the loudest. I even doubled over. "Oh yes you did!" I corrected, laughing even harder.
Laughs grew louder and Alix gave me a fake seething look, but a grin was spread wide across his face. Everyone was so happy, it was impossible to not share the mood. Key had on a genuinely happy face, and I felt myself grow even more joyful. Codie happily said, "I like Guin!"
"Shut your pretty face," Alix teased, shaking his head. "What am I going to do with you?"
I winked at him. "I could think of some things."
"Hey," Copper said. "Let's go, Key, Codie. We're going to the castle to see the lights." He looked at us. "You two kids have a good night, and don't get into too much trouble."
He ushered them out the door and shot me a wink before they all left for good. I chuckled, taking in the quiet for a moment. "I guess I'll go change."
"You could stay here and do it," he suggested playfully.
I cuffed him across the back of the head. "Shut up, jokester." I laughed as I went into the bathroom. I could hear him laughing too.
I changed into the dress. It was a little big, but it was a nice color and fit well enough that I was happy with how my figure looked. Better too big than too tight. I spread orange paint delicately over my face with thick eyeliner, to avoid recognition but still look like myself. I wound my hair up into a loose bun, strands falling out around my face before I decided I was up to standards.
I walked out of the bathroom and his back was to me. He had changed too, into a nicer set of clothes. Nothing formal like a ball, but a clean, well kept shirt and pants. He had combed down his hair, which actually looked odd. It did not look bad, just very different than what I was used to.
He turned and his face lit up when he saw me. His smile spread across his face and his eyes lit up. When I came closer, I could see exactly how beautiful blue they were, like the sky on a clear day. "You're so beautiful," he whispered, almost in a daze.
Then he came to his senses, clearing his throat. "Oh. Um-I mean, you're...no, I meant it. You look...stunning," he stammered.
"You clean up nicely, too," I replied with a smile of my own. I reached up to his face and ran my hand along his cheek. He leaned into my hand, letting his eyes close. Then, I reached up and messed up his slicked back hair. "I like it better like this."
His teeth flashed in the light as he kept smiling. "Oh, thank god. I do, too. Are we ready to go?"
I nodded, so he replied, "I'd hold your hand but we have ladder climbing to do. Ladies first." He gestured at the ladder. I grabbed the first rung and climbed down quickly. Even though I had some muscle from my training with the Magia, it was still an absolute pain to go up and down this ladder, especially when tired. The quicker you went down, the quicker it was over.
When we both had two feet on the ground, I slipped my hand into Alix's. He had eye black under his eyes and single orange stripes on his cheeks. It was traditional to face paint on this day. It was a day to focus on your past instead of yourself, and the more orange, the better.
We walked through the streets, and for once, I was unafraid of being seen. I held my head high and it felt so good, like I was reclaiming my country bit by bit. We walked through the streets along with everyone else who was looking to celebrate the past. It was a more somber holiday, but it was my favorite. The colors were so beautiful and the food was always warm and wholesome. But my favorite part was how the people banded together, forgiving all problems and strife to pray and remember those who came before them and those who had left.
It had always been a bittersweet time for me, though. Every Morgana's Day, Tristain and I would light a lantern for our mother from the castle roof. We would trade stories and sweets and bond through our love of one person. This was the first time I was in the city for my favorite day, and I was immediately in love with the lights strung along the streets, the immense amount of people walking about, and the smells of comfort food everywhere we walked.
I tried to stop a few times, but Alix kept pulling me along. "Where are we going?" I asked, trying to stop to gawk at the lights strung up on a building.
"It's a surprise. You'll love it. There's not very high standards there, considering you're amazed at everything, but still. I have a plan."
"Alright, Oh Mighty Man With a Plan. Lead the way." I giggled and followed along.
He seemed to get more antsy the more we walked. We began to travel faster, but we were already almost to the edge of the city. "Alix, where are we going?"
"Trust me," he said quietly. Then we emerged at the end of the city at the beach. Docked on the sands were people with all sorts of boats, but none bigger than your average fishing boats.
Alix brought me to a canoe that looked like more than a few others. "We're going on that?" I asked, and he suddenly looked unsure. "It's great," I assured him.
"Let's go out. We've only got so much time." He climbed in the boat and took the oars. I climbed in after him, sitting across from him.
"How'd you get a boat?" I asked as he started rowing out. I crossed one leg over the other and looked out over the water, dipping my fingers into it. It was pale as skin kept from sun, and once we made it past the break, it was as still as death.
"Loan from a friend." He oared hard, and I watched the muscles in his arms flex. He was so strong and well muscled... and I finally came to my senses and looked back at the ocean in embarrassment, flicking my eyes back and forth over the water.
"It's so beautiful," I expressed as I looked out at the beach, far on the horizon now.
"Yeah, it really is," he replied. The sun was hanging low in the sky, and I was afraid it was going to set soon. I pushed away my worries and looked back at Alix. He was smiling at me, finally having stopped rowing.
Lights were flickering to life in the sky around us as people lit floating lanterns and sent them up to flirt with the beautiful stars beginning to appear in the darkening sky. Each lantern represented something past, usually a person. It was magnificent to see everyone's prayers sharing the same space in the same sky. Our hopes, our losses, our friends and family became one. On this night, I felt the most connected to my city, like we were all a family carrying the same burdens, and sharing them to ease the pain. We carry each other's burdens. All of us.
Alix brought out a pile of lanterns and I bit my lip. "We need twice as many. So many ghosts." Last year, I had had one lantern and he had had two.
"They're good ghosts. I truly believe that they're here for us." He handed me a lantern and took two for himself. You always started with the oldest and moved forward in the pass, up until the present. "Those furthest passed," he said solemnly.
I wrote on the bottom, "Dearest mother, Queen Corliss. Mom. There's not a day that I don't think of you. I know that you're with me, and I know you're proud of me. I miss you so much. I love you. With all my love, Your Flower Guin."
Alix was still writing when I looked up, his brow furrowed in concentration. He had two to write, and he had not had his lanterns for as many as I had. This was only his second year. I put a hand on his shoulder. "I help carry your burdens," I said softly.
"I help carry your burdens," he repeated back to me, finishing up. I didn't look at his and he didn't look at mine. Neither of us asked, because this was more private and personal than anything we could do with our bodies.
The deepest love in my life had been for my mother, so much that I remembered her, even now so many years later. Alix has lost both his parents in a short period of time. His father had died in a peasant rebellion, one of the very few. It had been put down with overwhelming force, but not fast enough to save Alix's father. I remember Alix not coming into work for days. I was so worried for him in that short time of turmoil in the country, I wandered the streets and poured my heart into the Magia more than ever.
He finally came to me as an absolute mess and cried next to me for days. I could do nothing but insist he didn't hide his tears from me. I distinctly remember tucking a purple blanket around his shoulders and putting a mug of hot chocolate into his hands. "I help carry your burdens," I had murmured, putting a hand on his shoulder before I left him alone. In the last second, he turned his eyes up to me and for the first time, I noticed the faintest speckles of brown in his eyes, like little robin's eggs were sitting above his nose.
I lit my lantern and pressed it up into the sky with all of my well wishes. A quick blessing and prayer to Morgana for my past, Vnadrick for the present, and Uesli for the days ahead of me. I helped Alix light both of his lanterns and send them up at once. I looked at him and he looked so sorrowful, lighting those lanterns for only the second time. His face was painfully sad as he watched them fly away and join the rest of their companions in the darkening night.
Alix's mother was somehow worse. Alix's mother had gone into a shock. She went to work every day, completed her minimum wage job with as minimal effort as possible, and then went home to the two children she had to support and raise alone. An eight year old and a seventeen year old who were looking to her to put in effort and be the example, but when she went home, she cried and drank herself to sleep every night. She was fired after two weeks when she could not pull herself together, and she only fell lower, never even getting out of bed.
She gave up.
And she left Alix with an eight year old and a useless mother to take care of. He got a second job and took on being palace guard as a real profession. He worked so hard to support his whole family, and it started to pull him apart at the seams. He was left to the elements of life, and it hurt him so badly. He refused my money, he refused my help all for his stupid pride.
Then, she got up. His mother went out and found a job. She remembered her responsibilities and for once, the love for her children trumped the anguish of losing her husband. She found a second job, too, and told—no, made—Alix quit his second job. Alix was just a palace guard again, and he was a homeschooled kid who loved his family. The pieces were finally taking their place when his mother was found at the bottom of their fourth floor house. Did she fall? Or...did she jump? Nobody knew, and I didn't think anyone really wanted to know.
Alix was stranded with a little girl wondering where her parents had gone. She was old enough to remember but young enough to not understand. I had been her age. I had been eight, too, when my mother died. It was so hard. I felt for that little girl, I did so fiercely. I never met her because it was not my place. I tried my best to persuade Alix to take my money, for her, but he never would.
Honor. Duty. Pride.
I gave him credit where credit was due, though. He found a way to survive. Even I had no idea how he did it. I would not have endured the struggles he faced. I would have been another starving girl on the streets.
He handed me another two lanterns and watched me this time. This was the first time lighting these lanterns, and I felt my heart beating, but it was more like a fist grabbing it and squeezing it to the rhythm a heart should take.
I wrote carefully on the bottom of the first one, "Father, May your journey be safe and your past pure. If anyone will be strong through anything to come in the next life, it will be you. Good tidings, good luck." I hesitated only a moment before writing "I love you. Love, Guinevere."
On Tristain's, my head blanked. I felt my throat plug up with the words stolen from us, the words I would never get to say to my brother for rest of my life. Nothing felt enough. Nothing felt right to express the seventeen years we had had. So in the end, I wrote, Tristain. I love you to the moon and then to the sun. You were a light in my darkness. Love, your forever baby sister.
I drew a picture of the sun and lit the lantern with quiet tears running down my face. That was the last lantern to light, and I felt a slight relief, but still, the guilt was there. If only I could light a lantern for everyone who had died in the castle attack and Magia blowup, but that would take all night and fill up the sky with a sun of brightness.
Alix handed me a bouquet of beautiful orange flowers—tiger lilies spotted like leopards. I picked them off of their stems and sent them floating on the lazy tides of the ocean. They were illuminated by soft lantern light, and the entire scene had a mystical glow. It didn't seem real, but like something that could only exist in dreams. On a day of mourning, the air hung thick with melancholy.
When I looked back at Alix, there were two more lanterns in Alix's lap. "Who...?" I asked, racking my brains.
He handed one to me and kept one for himself in silence. He looked off into the distance, leaving me to figure it out for myself.
It took me a second to remember who it was for, but I shook my head quickly. "I don't deserve to light a lantern for Capo."
"You miss him. This is about forgiveness and remembrance. You love him. Go on." He smiled reassuringly.
I took a long time to think about it, staring at the lantern. Eventually I decided that to avoid past mistakes, he needed to be remembered. I wanted to remember him. "Capo: Leader. Mentor. Friend." I wrote simply and then sent it up to the sky quickly.
Alix showed me the simple name written on his: Iaan. He let it go and then we were done with lanterns for another year. I was exhausted now after such a mentally tiring task. It was hard, mourning so much loss in such a small amount of time. I took Alix's hand and leaned my back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me as we watched more lanterns flicker to life in the sky, along with the stars shining just as brightly.
The sky was growing the darkest of blacks but there were so many lights from stars and lanterns to bat it away. Looking up at the night sky as it grew dark, I wasn't afraid. I had a knight to protect me from the vastness of nighttime. Regardless, there was so much light in the sky that I felt that less scared of the monsters haunting the darkness. We all helped carry each other's burdens.