Chapter Text
APHELIOS
🌖All you wanted were a few flowers that bloomed at night near the lake. They were rare, beautiful enough to catch anyone's eye, and they were the perfect finishing touch for the decoration you had in mind.
🌖That these flowers only bloomed at midnight was just a detail.
🌖 And that the lake where they grew was part of a Solari camp was only another detail.
🌖 (Oh, really. I hope all the risk you're about to take for these beautiful flowers will be worth it.)
🌖 Silence reigned among the tents and cabins, and your stealthy effort to reach the lake finally bore fruit: the delicate flower rested between your fingers. Its fragrance was so sweet and intoxicating that it invited you closer to the pale petals, which sought to reflect the few beams of moonlight strong enough to pierce the dense rain clouds of that night.
🌖 And then the buzzing hit your ear, so fast that you barely had time to notice the glaring light in the darkness that almost struck your face.
🌖 And it would have, if Severum hadn't been wielded by Aphelios just meters away.
🌖 Somewhere behind you, a Solari sentinel fell.
🌖 Another beam of light. Another target. Another thud.
🌖 One by one, before alarms could sound and the soldiers inside the cabins noticed the attack, all the guards lay fallen.
🌖 In nervousness and confusion, you pressed the flower against your chest, crushing the fragile petals.
🌖 Aphelios approached, and as he advanced, the clouds began to break, and little by little the full moonlight bathed the ground, following his steps toward you—until his shadow touched you.
🌖 The moment he noticed your nervousness, Aphelios relaxed his shoulders; you weren't a threat, he wouldn't need to kill—not until the moon commanded it, of course.
🌖 You waited for him to say something. He noticed that you were waiting for him to say something. But all the boy could do was soften the expression of pain from still feeling the poison burning in his throat.
🌖 If you weren't a threat, not a target, not a Solari disguised as a pale, frightened woman, then Aphelios had no reason to keep staring at you; as soon as he turned his back, he noticed the melted flower between your fingers.
🌖 That froze him in place, his expression giving way to a youthful face weighed down by burdens far beyond his age.
🌖 He knew those flowers. He had several in the temple near what he called home; Alune and he used to play among them when they were younger.
🌖 You notice his attention on the flower in your hand, and you start to feel uneasy about it. Would he use that strange purple weapon on you for picking a tiny flower from the ground?
🌖 He raised a hand into the air, near his face, and for two heartbeats you thought the answer would be: yes.
🌖 But the moonlight began to condense into particles of light in Aphelios' hand, shaping a flower like the one you sought, only more shimmering, more alive, more beautiful.
🌖 In Aphelios' mind, Alune's voice whispered: "The moon speaks for you, brother."
🌖 And without another hesitation, he held out the new flower to you.
🌖 The poor boy didn't understand how he instinctively knew he should give it to you. Even more confusing was Alune claiming that the moon itself wanted to tell you something through that gesture. But just as the full moon was a symbol of mystery wrapped in white light, perhaps you were the new mystery illuminating his path.
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