A House Filled With Night

Runa had never seen the Sons of Midnight so uniformly captivated by random, stupid things as they were at breakfast the next morning. They talked about the weather, how delicious the muffins tasted, or the quality of their sleep the night before. Everything except runaways, Torin, and suspiciously abnormal behaviors were discussed.

Torin hadn’t joined them for breakfast; in fact, Runa hadn’t seen him at all since the night before. When she asked about this, all four brothers insisted loudly and simultaneously that he was baking bread in the kitchen.

“Bread?”

They nodded.

“Why?”

“Because he likes bread—” started Sylvain.

“For Lala!” shouted Fiske.

She stared at them dumbly for a moment before sighing.

“Where is he?”

“He’s baking bread,” murmured Fiske, weakly.

Casimir scoffed and threw down his napkin. “This is ridiculous.” He looked at Runa and tilted his head in the direction of a door behind him. “He’s in the gardens. That way. By the statue of the girl with the deer.”

She stood up, smiling at Casimir as she left the room. He pretended not to notice. The other brothers were already hounding him for giving Torin away.

The gardens looked even more lovely than the courtyard, although less ornate. They felt like a jungle. All around were wild trees, bright tangling flowers, vibrant mosses, and speckled mushrooms. It appeared to be free from any sort of preconceived human organization, and yet, it managed to form a beautiful design all its own. This made it a good place to walk, a good place to think, and a good place to hide.

Runa debated calling out for Torin. Would he respond to her, or would he hide further in? Simultaneously, she wondered why she felt so determined to find him in the first place. Though she tried, there was no logical reason to be found. After the previous night, wouldn’t she be better off running from him? Did it not confirm her worst suspicions about the dangers of the House and the Sons of Midnight? Even so, nothing she told herself could make her feet stop moving onward. So Runa silently crept forward through the wild gardens, allowing the clamor of her thoughts to dissipate into the twittering of birds and the rush of leaves in the wind.

Around the next bend, she finally spotted him. He was sitting on a stone bench, dressed in what seemed to be pajamas: silk pants and a loose shirt, both the same dark shade of teal. How long had he been out in the gardens? His back was bent over and his head bowed. He was turning something over in his hands. It seemed to be a very familiar apple.

“Torin?”

He jumped out of his seat and fumbled around for a moment before thrusting the apple into his shirt. It immediately slipped through to the ground. He bent over quickly and scooped it up, shoving it behind his back.

“Oh. Hello, Runa. I...”

She considered whether she should pretend not to notice, but found herself giggling before she could stop herself. He bit his lip and scratched the back of his head. At last, he gave up altogether and brought the apple forward.

“I’ve actually kept it because...actually...I thought it would be—” He smiled ruefully. “Who am I trying to fool? If I’m honest, I’ve been treasuring your gift ever since you gave it to me. I wanted to remember that night, because I wondered if I would ever see you again. Just now, I was wondering the same thing.”

He looked so sorrowful. Runa was just happy to see him alive and well.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “What happened last night?”

He looked up at her. His eyes were cold and hard. “Runa, you have to leave.”

“What?”

He took a step closer to her and grabbed her wrist, holding it up in front of her face. The bronze ring glinted in the sunlight that streamed through the trees. With his other hand, he grasped the ring, pulled it off, and threw it to the ground.

“Go. I don’t care what my brothers say. You can’t stay here anymore. I don’t want you to get hurt. Run, and never come back. Run as far as you can, as fast as you can. Don’t turn around, don’t linger—don’t even pause to catch a breath.”

Runa stared disbelievingly at the ring, which now lay in the dirt by their feet. He removed it so easily, with hardly a second thought. Her chain had been broken; the bars of her cell shattered. She didn’t even have to listen to the end of his sentence if she didn’t want to. By now, she could be doing exactly as he said: running off toward the gate, slipping out, and never turning back for the rest of her life.

So why wasn’t she?

“I...I don’t understand,” began Runa.

“You don’t have to understand anything. Go! Go, before the others notice something is off.”

“I—”

Torin almost growled in frustration. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you see? Or did you already forget what I was like last night? Just know that what you saw was nothing. It wasn’t even the beginning of what it could’ve been. It could’ve been worse—much worse. You don’t even know how much worse it could’ve been.”

She knew he was saying things to scare her. Instead, he had only succeeded in making her sad. As insane as it was, in that moment, all she could think about was how ignorant she had been to the pain that he hid. Every inch of his face was taut with the torture of unknown fears.

Wordlessly, she drew closer to him. “Torin,” Runa began, reaching out to him. He flinched away from her touch.

Why, when she should be planning her fastest route to the exit, was she instead trying to figure out how to make Torin’s smile return? Perhaps it was just because he had given her food, a big room, and a soft bed. Perhaps because she felt indebted to him for that time when he helped her escape the palace. Most likely, it was because of the comfort and convenience she experienced thanks to him, unlike anything she had ever known in all of her miserable life. But maybe, just maybe, it was because of the honesty in his laughter while they talked, the kindness in his eyes as they walked together, or the sweetness in his voice when he told her he hoped for her happiness.

Runa reached out for his hand, grasping it with both of hers. “Torin, I don’t understand a lot about you, or your brothers. Maybe I don’t understand anything at all. But I’ve seen enough to know one thing. I know you would never hurt me.”

He pulled away a little, but with the force of a man who wanted to lose the battle. “You can’t know that. There’s no way—”

“I know you won’t hurt me.”

When he looked up at her, a wild notion entered into her head.

I want to fix all of this.

She couldn’t say how or why this thought came. It slipped through, like the whisper of a breeze in the dead of night. From the moment of its conception, she knew it was foolish—doomed to failure. But it was as real as the rustle of the leaves around them, and it settled more deeply into her heart with every second that Torin’s eyes desperately searched hers.

—

In a gallery deep inside the House, Sylvain stood before a new painting. A massive cliff spanned half the length of the canvas, plummeting down into a vile abyss. A swarm of dark angels clambered below, struggling to escape their pit of grime, shadow, and unknown horrors. In their eyes was the anguish of starving lungs in need of fresh air. At the very top of the cliff, a young girl kneeled at the edge, her head just peeking over into the darkness beyond. Fearlessly, one arm extended downward. Small fingers stretched to reach the monsters beneath her.

Sylvain took in the scene before him with a rueful sigh. And then, he smiled.

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~ A/N ~

Oh, Sylvain. Classic helicopter mom.

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