Jorkhan's sky seems to be crashing all around me and the grounds below my feet are swaying side to side, in a chaotic ride which is an imposter to the idea of a thrill, replacing it with a hectic bubbling of fear and longing that clash together vigorously in my guts.
There's darkening boarders clawing at the outskirts of my vision and stretching it so thin, the hazy water above the colour, isn't enough to flood away the burning touch that seeps onto every corner of my system, as I stare frozen at my long-lost, but never forgotten, best-friend.
Anwar.
He was so beautiful – Even now, as he stood clammy in his dirty-white singlet, that clings onto every nervous beat of his tender heart that thrashes so tenaciously in his chest, that it pushes all of his blood to his pale cheeks and swarms beads of sweat to seep into the singlet, seemingly gluing the toning below with the material.
He's wringing the leather of the rope in his hands so violently, that they wrap hues of purple onto his knuckles and palms, reminding me of the scars that had healed on my once, incredibly damaged hands.
Skinnier than I imagined him to be, my lips wobble for a short moment at the sight of his arms, which the muscles, barely cling onto the scrawny bone that creaks inside – Was he always this skinny? Or had I become used to the chubby and filled stomach's of the Kingdom?
He's still as tall as I remember, but not as tall as the mammoth named Kylo Ren, who holds so tightly onto my wrist, that I begin to loose circulation in my hand as I stare brokenly to Anwar, who refuses to look at me as he speaks with a dead tone, about the horse in-between us, which Kylo ran his gloved fingers over, seeming unknowing to the incredible emotions which battle in my glass heart – But I know he could feel them as tremendously as I did, it just seems he didn't care enough, for he must think I fretted over the long kiss from moments ago, rather than the golden boy before me.
His hair brought memories of golden wheat fields, of those many hued stems that danced in the sun's light, whispering gentle songs into the wind of unknowing for the future to come. With only small sidewards glances, here and there, I relish in the eyes of green hills of home, wanting so desperately to cut every one of Kylo's words short and fall into the trembling of Anwar's arms.
But I can't.
Who knows what the consequences of being exposed as the stable boy's, best-friend, but it surely cannot be good. Kylo will definitely see past his blindness and figure out I am not who I am, and underneath all these jewels and riches, I am as dirty and scrawny as Anwar.
And then, I will be punished for not keeping the secret... But that wasn't what ultimately stopped me from crashing to his feet and crying tears for his long-needed company, it was the knowing that I wouldn't be the only one punished in this pairing.
Anwar hadn't seemed to make it obvious yet either, and the uneasy part that chuckled in my guts, told me he ultimately knew that The First Order and the kingdom, were as cruel as he had always presumed them to be.
I need to tell him everything. I have to get Kylo out of here, or sneak away back to Anwar and cry into his heart, just like I had in my nightmare, that this isn't who I have truely become and that I am being held here almost captive, as much as the horses in the locked-stables were.
"Most of the general duties needed for tending to the horse will be done by the stable workers, including me, so there's not much workload involved, as per request." Anwar says lowly, taking the opportunity when Kylo looks to the head of the horse, to glance into my guilty eyes, as I recall the sadness that brewed in his own when he watched me kiss Kylo Ren, the killer of light and the eventual destroyer of Jorkhan, so tenderly.
He snaps his gaze away almost as quickly as it had made a home upon me.
Kylo Ren hums and gives me a small smile which I do not return,
"Good, good." He murmurs below his breath to nobody in particular, but they were clearly on the basis of Anwar's previous words.
I chomp on the inside of my cheek hard and forcefully, when I remember the way he had, so often, called me a, Good Girl – And the ever growing rapture of guilt and dismay, only punched deep holes into the pulsate of my sobbing heart, as I felt as if I was being unfaithful to Anwar. Not in the romantic way, though I often had wished, but in a sense that I knew he deeply loathed The First Order, and here I was, allowing the most powerful member of the Order, to wrap his long fingers around the veins of my wrist.
I taste the metallic flavour of sinking blood upon my tongue soon after, but the caution that should arrive in the painful crimson, is only subdued by the drawn-away tone and expression of the blonde boy.
He shrugs his broad shoulders casually, despite the rage that builds and tilts his head to the side, focusing his eyes to only the horse, that has now become my own – But I do not care for the mare anymore.
"The only thing I would suggest, is that either of you, insure that you check on him at least, once every two days, so he can get used to your company and trust you enough for eventual riding." Anwar explains so clearly, and I am suddenly thrown back to all those times where I watched him tend to the horses, either by adjusting their gear or brushing their mane, whilst also explaining the little quirks of each mare with a tender smile that I currently wish, could return to beacon me truely home.
Kylo nods simply, barely giving Anwar the decency of even a subtle glance,
"I'm sure she will be delighted to make his accompany that often," He says with his deep tones, and I glare at the rosy tinge upon his lips as he turns back to me once more, "She loves the horses, so you must be doing a good job at keeping them to standards."
He speaks at me, but not to me.
My stomach tightens into a brutal knot and I avoid turning my lips into a scowl upon him. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I chant over and over in my head, but the delusional side of me, still adds their whispering of... But not his touch. But not his touch. But not his touch.
I wring my wrist in his leather hands, but he only twists the skin in my movement, making the cut in my cheek only worsen as I bite harder onto the teeth indents I had already caused, at the burning sensation he causes painfully.
Anwar glances slowly between the two of us, his eyes taking their time upon the golden glare of my crown and then narrowing at the reddening skin beneath the leather of Kylo's grip.
"She does?" He clenches his jaw, playing along despite the fact he knew me better than anyone in Jorkhan did. Suddenly, he gives me a distant, forced smile and I gasp silently to the stretch of his lips as he says, "I'm glad you enjoy them, but I have only been working at these stables for a week now, the main handler in the stable crew went missing a while back."
A week. He's been here for a week, and I didn't even have the slightest inkling.
Bile rises acidly into the bottom of my throat, and I swallow the memory of opening my legs to Kylo Ren, whilst Anwar was, unknowingly, only paces away.
"Have you always been a stable holder?" Kylo turns to him and asks, pretending as if he cared the slightest bit. I mean, he was the one who made the original worker disappear anyway – And suddenly, I am grateful for his stubbornness, for it means Anwar would have never been either asked or forced to tend to the palace's horses.
Anwar tears his eyes off me for the thousandth time today and beneath the booming of the winds that clash against the wooden barn, I wished the gales of his emeralds could stay. He nods to Kylo,
"Yes Sir, I used to work with the animals at the farms and orchards in the South-Eastern areas of Jorkhan." Anwar answers low, and my chin trembles at the mention of the orchards from his tongue. Used to – He doesn't tend to them anymore. Did he at least get to say goodbye to his animals before he left, or was he as unlucky as I was? Was he torn from the slavery of the orchards and told to use his labour here instead?
"The South-East orchards?" Kylo rolls the sentence along his tongue, then holding out his leather hand to Anwar, who glares at it intently whilst I furrow my brows upon it in sudden perplexity, "I have heard they are a great essential to the economy – I thank you for your hand in the rise of Jorkhan's supply and trade."
"You're welcome, I am sure those who work at the orchards are humbled to be working for such a grand Order," He bites, shaking Kylo's hand too lightly and quickly, then swiping his palm on the material of his pants as if he didn't want to catch whatever virus Kylo had, that made him turn so evil, "Although, if the weather keeps acting like it is now, I am sure there won't be an orchard anymore!"
Anwar's tone was utterly sarcastic, matched by the bitterness of his gaze and mouth that upturned towards Kylo, who doesn't bother to snap at him yet, but I know it builds deep within the monster of his soul, which was as chaotic as the rain that began to plummet onto the roofing of the barn.
A tendril of growing worry rises within me, Anwar was right – Weather like this will surely crush the orchards if it goes on for too long. I recall a couple of years ago when there were brutal storms that lasted almost two weeks, and it had ultimately wiped out the new growing of the soil, meaning for the next picking – There was nothing to pick at all.
"– Anyway, how does the horse run?" Kylo then says, finally removing his hold from around my wrist, only to then interlock those long fingers into mine, which barely hung back onto him.
Anwar suddenly, furrows his brows and becomes taken aback. Twisting the leather in his hands even tighter, he scoffs, much to my dismay,
"Sir, the horse isn't a machine, he runs as free as any can in the confining of the paddock."
Kylo hovered right there, quite soundless for so long, simply staring Anwar down with a dark look that made my own bones, fall to mush in the heavy tension of the silent standoff between the two. His hands then curl into a fists and the hand that held onto mine, didn't care that my bones were in the middle of it as I hissed in pain, but it seems to fall onto deaf ears.
One moment he resembled a raging sense of unclarity as he only persisted for pushed boundaries, the next he was deep shades of black and mercury as he spits angrily to the man in-front of him, who I had always known that his sarcasm and strong heart, would get him in trouble one day,
"Listen –" Kylo barks, holding a finger out and scowling, "I don't know who think you are, I got rid of the last trainer and I will do the same with you if you keep speaking with such an attitude."
In the midst of his bitter raging, I pulled my hand out of the tightening of his fists and clung it upon the fearful beat of my chest as my eyes blew wide in silent worry.
Anwar doesn't flinch, but there is a knowing voice in the back of his mind that tells him to withdraw as he glances to the dangerous lightsaber by Kylo Ren's side.
When his face falls slightly, I want to pick it back up again, even if it is into a scowl that resembles the man's beside me.
The pain of missing him never calms beneath the carrying winds and rain from above the roofing, and with every lonely patter of droplets, it only becomes more unbearable as I eagerly await the moment when I can be alone with him.
Just with his presence back near me, I suddenly and all at once, realise how much I truely missed him all along. Though I am much less scrawny than I was, every meal I had eaten in his absence, tasted like cardboard and no chewing made it easy to swallow. Everything reminded me of him, the grass, the paddocks, the horses, the wine – Everything was tied to him like a coiled up string of my heart, and I so desperately wanted to only tie it tighter now around me, wrapping my soul up like a careful present and placing it in his grimy hands to keep.
If I stop and dwell for too long, I know my face will become unknowingly wet with endless streams of tears, but in this moment I cannot fathom anything else other than the ache in my heart which finally feels something it hadn't felt in a while... Home.
"I'm sor–" Anwar starts to apologise, but I cut him of before he ever has to bow down to someone so despicable,
"It's okay!" I speak for the first time before him, my own tone sounding strikingly different to how I remember.
I notice the way he sucks a sharp breath inwards at the sound, his neck muscles tightening as he does so. Then laying his eyes prominently upon me, this time they don't stare with fear of being caught by Kylo's, but instead, stay with the promising gleam of green.
He was as stern as stone, but there was definitely a lot of wild emotions going on beneath his pale mask of indifference. I would presume him to be a statue until his eyes finally bored into my own. The green less golden, those distant eyes are his shield and sword, sucking out my soul and tucking it beneath his own armour as his lips tugged upwards into a smile as I only mimicked it and prolonged the attention.
"What does he like to eat?" I motion to the horse, asking a simple question that I already knew from a handful of his lessons overtime – But I did't care, for I got to talk to him directly, leaving Kylo Ren to stand behind as I ran my hand over the white mane of the beautiful mare.
Anwar takes a small step forwards on the other-side, placing his hand upon the horse's back and chuckling as he said, "Mainly the carrots and hay..." His eyes shine playfully, "And occasionally, chocolate. She likes chocolate."
I laugh brightly at the mention. A glimmer of another promising trickle of hope as he so easily falls into the person I once knew him to be, as he faintly recalls the treat he had gotten me the day I had left... Something only he and I knew. Something we both laughed lightly over, for a brisk too long.
"I like chocolate too." I say.
My cooling heart suddenly warms and it is his smile that burns it once again, like an illumination to my darkness, a flame to my furnace. Somehow, even forgetting about Kylo's presence, I feel as if Anwar had searched the moment I left, and had finally found me.
It was only him and I in this tender second that paused in only our time, setting the surroundings to a slow and even forcing the rain's pattering to silence, as everything turned into a bleak black and white around his halo of gold – Him and I, standing proud in our screaming colour.
Tears dwelled in my eyes, causing illusions to my gaze. The barn was quiet, but not behind the beating of my own, heavy heart. When the bright lights whirl around me in an angry vortex, my peripheral's became blocked by two new guests, and I once again, realised I am not as alone as I had presumed in my sudden daydream.
"Ren." A high voice suddenly calls, pulling me out of my time-pause. When we all turn to it, Kylo included, I am set with the matching twins of ginger and matching, scowling faces of upturned noses to the stench of the barn.
General Hux scoffs disgustedly at the horses that peek out of their wooden stables, and Ruby straightens her shoulders behind him as he continues with his disgruntled tone that is directed only to Kylo Ren.
"The Supreme Leader requests your call." He says, "I advise that you tend to it now."
I turn away from Anwar and the horse, before my own soul digs its nails into the golden-haired man and refuses to ever look away. Kylo's jaw is locked tight upon the General, but when he turns back to face me with those deep, brown eyes, they soften upon me and he sighs, whilst nodding to Hux.
He truely, didn't see anything.
Ruby takes a short step forwards, kicking a strand of hay off her laces and then shoving the loose strands of her bright hair, behind her ears.
"Princess, I have also come to get you, in Kylo Ren's sudden departure." She says, not bothering to plaster that fake smile upon her thin lips or lift her tone, "Would you accompany me back to your quarters?"
I gasp audibly and snap my gaze back to Anwar, only to worryingly place it back onto Kylo as I give him a shaky breath of begging,
"C-Can I stay for a little longer?" I utter pleadingly, but for all the wrong reasons. "I want to stay with the horse."
Forget the horse. I want to stay with its keeper.
Kylo takes this opportunity to lift his hands to my forearms and rub the tender flesh, which only stings at his touch. Just when he is about to speak, Ruby takes no time in cutting him off as she rolls her pale, blue eyes and says,
"The storm is only brewing, my Princess." Her nonchalant voice speaks. Kylo lets go of me and nods to her words,
"And the rains are beginning to fall. It isn't safe for you to be kept in this barn whilst the weather is like this." She warns, to which Hux even hums an agreement upon – The two of them were so similar, it hurts. Maybe, they leached upon each-other's hatred for everything. Or maybe, they were both born in the same manufacturing for bland souls.
"Listen to her." Kylo breaks me out of my train of thought, his breath fanning warmly onto the pink that forms on my nose that grows numb in the cold, which I didn't notice until he withdrew his hands from my arms and motioned me by my lower back, over to Ruby's side.
"Go back to our quarters, I will be there shortly after." He says, and my heart breaks at the mention, for Anwar listens to every single word spoken, but never interjects, now knowing his place in my system of forgery.
I'm left with a dumbfounded look on my face as I stutter incoherent words to the look upon Anwar's face, but I know there is nothing I can do that will make either of the three, let me stay.
My shoulders cave and so does the rest of me as I follow Kylo's direction and make my way over to Ruby.
"Good girl," Kylo chimes, uncaring of the other people who heard my praising as he looks over to Anwar and says, "I am certain that–"
"Anwar." The blonde boy answers the hidden question. Kylo only continues,
"I am certain that Anwar will insure that the horse is kept safe whilst you are gone." He says, as if I am a child who doesn't want to part ways with their toys.
Anwar nods, playing along.
"Yes," He straightens his shoulders and twines the leather leash behind his back, "And maybe, if the weather is better, you could come around tomorrow."
Ruby's hand curls behind my shoulder, scoffing lowly at his words and slightly pushing me to the exit of the barn as the door's slap and slam shut and open in the wind.
"We will see about that," She utters, "Come, Princess, before the rain gets any worse."
As she pushes me out of the barn, uncaring of my unwilling feet that only wish to run back to the boy, I kept my gaze back-drawn upon him, until the moment the barn doors shut and cut the emerald's glow away.
But the hue still warmed my heart, as just as he was gone again, he gave me a small, knowing smile. I grin back at the wooden panelling, which he stays behind.
Once again, my mind anchored in time and space – Everything else forgotten. Now, all my heart can do is beat warm blood around my veins in a hope that the storm will end upon it. All my mind can do is finally understand the most logical path to another safety and to something more tangible than running into his arms, with Kylo watching as I just trudge through the rain with Ruby in-front of me, instead.
The rain conjures a sweet pattern upon my skin, the thousands of liquid globes reflecting the greenery of nature. It is only ice on this cold day, but still, a welcomed shower to add to the senses that overflowed out of my pores and eyes.
As the tears begin to weld, it seems for the first time in forever, they come with a baring of that tangible, needful, hope. For this is only the start, and now I feel as if nothing can stop Anwar and I from getting the hell out of here, even if there will be roadblocks such as Kylo, on our path to freedom.
Bad weather or not tomorrow, I have to see him.
There was a reason he was here. Whether he brought himself or destiny tugged him along, I will have to find that out soon, but in the small smile he gave to me before I left again, I knew certainly that this wasn't where we ended.
No – He is here for a purpose, as am I, even if the only purpose is to leave. Only a couple of days ago, I had crumpled into my own sorrows, feeling as if there is no way I can ever get out of here alive, but with Anwar? I feel as if anything is possible with the safety of his tough hands and peaceful heart.
We will get out soon, this I believe wholeheartedly. We had been torn apart before, but this time we are not going to let that happen again, I saw the promise of this in his eyes. And as I cried silently to myself on the way back to my quarters, allowing the rain's own tears to camouflage mine, I listen to the whispering of Jorkhan's winds, that tell me something I had always known.
Anwar and I were built to fall apart in the dangers of this world, but our desire to save each-other out of all of harm's way, was what made fate design us to fall back together.
This place wasn't home, it was far from it – And neither were the orchards. No – My home was with Anwar and now, I am fuelled with the burning craving that is hungrier than the gnaw at the lining of Anwar's starving stomach... A hunger that will be fed soon enough when he and I do what we both desperately need to,
Find our true home.