The Fortress in the Clouds

ALL GOOD THINGS eventually had to come to an end. Naomi’s dream lasted for about three weeks before she had to wake up and face the nightmare that was her reality.

At first, the signs that showed were small and subtle. She would feel sick and ghastly, waking up in pools of her own cold sweat. Then, it grew worse. She started to remember the nightmares that haunted her after midnight, screaming her voice hoarse until Argus would burst into her room with a frantic look on his face and sword in hand.

Whenever her sky blue eyes met his forest green ones, she would always see the dread and sympathy that laced those irises.

Naomi hated that look but every time, she would still ask him to stay. It was only in the morning when she remembered the night before’s dream so very vividly did she finally crack.

“I’m leaving.”

Shock burst into Argus’s body, ricocheting through his mind as he leaned a little away from the railing. His head whipped to the side to examine Naomi’s face clearly as if desperately trying to sniff out any sign of lies.

“What?”

“It is my mother. I had a dream about her again. She is dying, Argus. I have to go back and make sure it is just a dream and nothing more,” Naomi explained.

“Wait, but, no. Like you said, it is nothing more than a dream. If you go back, they will make you marry that older man again. What if your mother isn’t sick at all? What if it is just the witch playing tricks on you?” Argus was desperate. He tried to come up with a thousand different reasons to why Naomi should stay.

However, deep in his heart, he knew that if he truly wanted the best for her, it was to set her free. Naomi was still a bird and the fortress was just a gold gilded cage as compared to the town’s rusty iron ones. Both places were cages, an item used to trap beings that deserved to be free.

“Argus...” Naomi trailed off. Her bag was already packed and placed right by her feet. Argus noticed, of course. She had already made up her mind.

Naomi was just here to say goodbye.

“I don’t want to see you go,” he mumbled, eyes downcast and staring intensely at his boots.

Argus felt Naomi’s warm fingers graze his cheekbone, scorching a trail down every curve of his cheek, down his jaw, all before resting on his chin. Lightly, she tilted his face up to look her in the eyes.

It was painful for her to smile but Naomi did it anyway. In three week’s time, she had reconnected with a boy she met once upon a time in her childhood. She lived in a world she once thought was imaginary, a place where monsters were banished and happiness prevailed gloriously.

“Everyone leaves, some earlier than others.” She pursed her lips, sighing softly before leaning forward to press a lingering kiss on Argus’s cheek. Her lips brushed over the corner of his lips just the slightest, leaving a tingling sensation where their skins connected. “But if you truly want them in your life, if you are truly meant to have each other in your lives, you will meet again.”

Met with an expression that she could not read, Naomi was entranced by Argus’s look. He had a gaze that was now transformed into the green of the sea. The light from the rising sun glazed his eyes over but there was no sparkle. Argus was a soldier at defeat, kneeled in front of the person that had slain his brothers by oath.

When he did not speak, Naomi reached down for her bag, pulling out her little journal before pressing it into Argus’s hands. His eyes barely left hers but his fingers curled around the journal without hesitation.

“Keep this with you to remember me,” she said. This was it. This was her goodbye and farewell.

Argus was still silent. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed, creases forming on the little bit of skin in between. A little hurt by his silence, Naomi braved a weak smile before spinning on her heel, retracing her steps out of the fortress.

Just before she turned out of his sight, Argus’s lips finally parted. She had not heard his words since she was already a good distance away but his goodbye was more for himself than for her. It was barely above a whisper, spoken at a volume that Argus could barely even hear for himself.

“Goodbye, Naomi.”

Since there was no one to lead the way, it took Naomi a longer time to get home than it had for her to get to the fortress. The sun was already beginning it’s descent, painting the world with an orange bronze that would have been breathless to look at if it weren’t for the rock that weighed her heart down mercilessly.

She had been disappointed that Argus had not even spared her a simple goodbye. However, a rare fleeting positive thought echoed in her mind that made her smile for just a small second.

If he hadn’t said his goodbye, it would mean that he was planning to see her again.

Although it was a far fetched idea, it was enough to make Naomi trudge on, resolve in her movements. It was time for her to go back to her home and face the demons that she ran away from the last time they encountered.

When her humble cottage finally came into view, Naomi knew that something was not right almost immediately. Smoke was not bellowing from the fireplace and though it was already sunset, there was barely any light coming from inside the house to face the growing darkness.

Naomi quickened her pace, her boots thudding heavily on the ground as she tugged the skirt of her dress upwards so that mud would not get on them. She burst through the doors of the cottage, heart beating frantically as she looked around her.

“Mother?” She called out when she noticed that the couch was empty. Mugs of ale were left on the table, some toppled over and empty while some were left half drank. It was not like her mother to waste alcohol like so. “Mother where are you?”

The old wooden floor creaked every time Naomi’s steps were a little too heavy. It was threatening to break, fold, or crack but Naomi did not care. Her mother was missing and she was getting a taste of her own medicine.

“Mother? Is that you?” She asked when she opened the door to her mother’s bedroom, finding the poor woman still missing.

The bed was empty, left cold and untouched but the woman’s voice could be heard. It was weak and barely even audible. Hence, Naomi followed the sound of the voice, veering left and right until she located the origin.

There on her bed, Naomi’s mother laid weak and pale. Her lips had no color, eyes closed tightly shut as her body shivered even with the layer of blanket over her body. Cold perspiration trickled down the sides of her forehead, a pool already forming and creating damp spots over the covers.

“Mother!” Naomi cried out in surprise, immediately falling over to the bedside. “Mother? What has happened to you?”

She fumbled at her mother’s curly hair, palms pressed against the older woman’s cheek before raising it to touch her forehead.

“You are burning up.”

The woman gave a weak cough, her eyelids pressed firmly shut before it faltered and opened up, looking— no, searching for Naomi.

“My child, is it really you?” She gasped, her hand trembling, threatening to lift off of the bed but instead it does not budge.

“Yes, Mother. I am home. I am so sorry I ever left. I should have been here to take care of you. How could I have been so selfish?” Naomi sobbed.

“You are home and that is all that matters.” Groggily, her mother’s eyes slowly closed shut again, words fading off into a whisper. The slow rise and fall of her chest signified that she was fast asleep.

Seeing her mother at the brink of death was enough to bring Naomi back. All at once, her life in the fortress was pushed back to the deepest and darkest trenches of her mind, forced to be forgotten. That, even if it weren’t all in her imagination, was a memory of the past.

There will never be any good to dwell in the past when the present needed her the most.