mann im still thinking about that one foolish stream jaiden was on and was talking to him and forever (?) and said basically, “yeah roier is my platonic partner.” And like that alone fucking kills me but what nukes my tombstone is that IS. she said IS!! present tense roier IS her platonic partner. he’s married to cellbit but that doesnt change what they have!! cellbit Is roier’s romantic partner and jaiden Is roier’s platonic partner and one does not negate the other and fucking. it’s jaiden who says that. jaiden who was surprised to be invited to their wedding. she’s no less important to roier and she Knows that now. she was so reluctant to take up space in roier’s life (and i cant stop thinking about the house she built and then abandoned to live in his, and then to refer to the house as his) but here she is. roier has a new partner now but that doesnt mean she’s been replaced it just means that there’s a new place in his heart for a husband to go. she doesnt have to leave to make space he wants her to stay and she knows that.
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You wake up tired.
It no longer surprises you. You cannot remember the last time you were allowed a full night’s rest. Sleep comes to you in fragments these days; too many times each night to count, you are startled awake so violently that it is difficult to fall asleep again. Your dreams come in fragments, too, and it is becoming harder and harder to tell whether they are the same dream flashing back and forth between a thousand scenes or a thousand different dreams. You may glimpse a deep, wild ocean, or a cold, beautiful winter morning, or a raging scream that comes from you and yet from something entirely different—the list goes on. The moments are incohesive, and yet you feel like something you can’t quite place connects them. Like you only have to fill in the gaps. You cannot, of course, fill in the gaps.
You used to wake up feeling disappointed at it all. The fragmented visions, the gaps where something should connect them, and the uneasy sleep were frustrating at best. Now, it is only to be expected. Each day your time for evenings at home grows shorter and shorter as your training gets more and more intense, and yet each night you manage to put off going to sleep for longer and longer. You know that you will wake a thousand times with only the night sky, the rustling trees, and the knots in your ceiling to keep you company. You know that you will wake exhausted in the morning. You know that there is hardly any point to sleeping.
Oftentimes, your unease brings you to the stables. To your horse. It is still warm there. It will not be that way for much longer, though. Winter grows nearer with each dawn; the grass is already cold and crisp with frost when you wake each morning, and on colder days, your breath fogs even when the sun is highest. Soon enough, the stables will be too cold for anything but animals equipped with thick, warm coats made to let them live through the Jorvegian midwinter.
Sleeping in the stables is becoming more and more difficult, either way. Though you are never directly questioned, you know that people have begun to notice. When you leave for training far too early in the morning and far too undone to have woken up anywhere but your horse’s stall, people are already around. They begin whispering as soon as you have passed them on the village paths. How are you to save the world? How are you to lead the way? How are you to learn to control yourself if you cannot even sleep properly anywhere but the stables?
You do not actually hear them, of course—Valedale’s residents are too tactful and too used to speaking in hushed tones to let you catch their conversations—but you can only assume that these are their words.
When faced with you directly, on the other hand, they are all too nice and appreciative. Should you run even the simplest errand for one of them, they will thank you so profusely that one might think you were the goddess herself and that being graced with your presence was the greatest blessing they could have been given. Should you happen to look anything other than incredibly busy, it is impossible for you to ride through Valedale at midday without somebody stopping you to give their thanks for your constant, diligent and dutiful efforts towards keeping the island safe and to wish you well in the name of Aideen. Stood in the shadow of a house or half-hidden behind a building, others will be silently watching. Whispering. Sometimes, there is awe in their eyes. Other times, they look at you with an expression indecipherable to you. They must think that you cannot see them. Either that, or they don’t care that you can. You aren’t sure which is the better option.
The villagers doubt you, and yet you are their last and only hope. The only one on this island who can supposedly set things right once and for all. With each day that passes, even you find yourself having more and more trouble believing that you will succeed. Though you do not have the visions to prove it, a deep dread within you tells you that the Soul Riders are not the only faction to be gaining power. You have tried to find proof of it, but in your mind there is a blank, foggy space where you know you should be able to find something of use, almost like somebody is concealing something from your view. This only makes the feeling grow stronger; you can think of few people who would be that interested, much less capable, of hiding from your mind’s eye.
You do not speak of it. You cannot. It is not what you are to focus on. The most important thing—the only important thing—is your training. It is the only way you know to give yourself hope. It is the only way you know to keep going. And so, you rise with the sun every morning, painstakingly making your way through the village and up the frost-lined path to the mountainside paddock, and you do your best to hold onto whatever strength you have left.
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