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It had been a few years since Cid had left Waloed and yet, he was surprised of how easily he moved around the corridors of the Royal Palace. Its layout was etched into every fiber of his muscles. He knew every hall on the way, every stone on the walls, every nook and cranny he could hide in to pass undetected. He could go through them as a ghost that could only be seen for a fraction of a second, quickly gone and dismissed as a trick of the light by the guards on patrol that night. He could take advantage of the knowledge of having done the same thing they were doing, walking up and down those corridors hundreds of times a night. He didn’t even need to think where he was going; his feet knew the way. His heart did too.
Cid stopped for a minute as he reached one of the more heavily guarded areas of the palace. He looked at the guards, and he could not prevent a small sigh from escaping his lungs when his brain started to flood with memories. He watched the young men and women of the Army, just doing what they were asked. Just trying to survive in this world, like everybody else. Like he once had done. They reminded him of all his years of service to the man who once saved him and to whom he felt indebted despite everything. A man that Cid would have followed to Hell and back had he not become as twisted as the branches of a centuries-old tree. His King, and the dreams that once guided them, became corrupted with time, corrupted by power, by greed. However, this time, his quarry was someone else.
Under the cover of the night, using the dim light of torches as guidance, he followed the light footsteps of a woman he knew all too well. He tried to synchronise his pace, his breath, even his heartbeat, all at once, to be as silent and inconspicuous as he could. To blend with the background or with her, to be her shadow. For the woman he was following was no other than the Commander of the Intelligence Forces of Waloed, Benedikta Harman.
And yet, with all his care, he had been careless.
“Well,… it seems we have an uninvited guest here.” Icy words carried by colder winds travelled up his spine, making his hair stand on end. A door closed behind him.
“I should have known better than to underestimate you.” He turned around to face her. “Although I am surprised that I managed to be exactly where I wanted to be. His Majesty should punish the guards responsible for this lack of security. Or maybe he is so focused on his battles outside that he has forgotten about the dangers within the walls.”
“Careful with your words, Cidolfus. King Barnabas already wants to hang you for your betrayal. Don’t make him also cut your tongue off for your insolence.”
“I’m sure he would. He is ruthless with those he brands as enemies. But what about you? Would you like that too?”
“I like to leave the displays of testosterone to you men. I am fond of less bloody methods to make men talk… or suffer.” Her lips curved upwards. “Let’s start easy, shall we? Why are you here?”
“My dearest Benedikta. As beautiful and direct as always.”
“Don’t test my patience. Why are you here?” she repeated, marking every word. “Why have you returned to the place you shamelessly left without a notice?”
“Is a man not allowed to be worried about his wife, whom he misses dearly?”
“Worry?”
The air began to change around them. The tense calm ended abruptly. Winds started to pick up and twist and twirl. Each footstep of Benedikta getting closer to him felt like the start of a tornado. There was no sound around them except for that of the steps, heavy and ominous, carried directly from the feet clashing on the floor to expectant ears just a couple of meters apart. Echo resounded around him but not like a mist, vaporous and ethereal. Instead, it was being injected inside his body through each and every pore of his skin. It was like dense and thick tar, overwhelming his senses and mind. He could not hear anything else but those steps and his own heartbeat. He could not focus on anything else but her face coming closer and closer to his. Nothing else reached him; nothing else existed inside that room. He was cut from everything and everyone but her; the world ceased to be. He was only brought back to reality by sharp nails grabbing his jaw.
“Miss me? You? You lost that right exactly when you left without telling me. You lost the right to miss me, to call me your wife, to wear this!” her free hand grabbed the thin silver chain around his neck, from which a ring hung. Cid felt Benedikta’s hand slightly shaking through the chain, her breath ragged and raging. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words were cut in his throat, sliced by the chain snapping as she pulled it free. The sound of the ring hitting the ground outweighed all else.“How dare you come back here as if nothing happened? How dare you appear in front of me without any shame for what you did? Without an apology!”
“I don’t apologize for what I feel is correct, Benedikta.”
Cid felt himself being thrown across the room like a ragdoll, hitting a wall before falling down to the floor. A dim, greenish light filled his sight. He tried to get up but was forced down by the weight of Benedikta’s body over his. His hands were trapped above his head, held down by a hand that resembled more a claw than human. Another hand forced his head to look at the woman over him.
Strands of green light covered her skin, her hair and her clothes. For a second, he thought he heard the ruffle of feathers around him, but he couldn’t see her wings, mesmerized as he was by her icy-blue eyes piercing him. She was Garuda, dominant of the winds, fierce like a storm. But Garuda was also her, Benedikta, gentle as a summer breeze. It was that duality within what had linked their lives to each other. It was the fate of the dominants to live in a human world without being fully human. To suffer the curse of their only companions being themselves and the few others like them. To be used and discarded like pawns. To never feel completely safe except in those brief moments when they had each other. To find peace and refuge in the form where people feared them. To be understood and loved, even if that love was a double-edged sword.
Benedikta leaned closer to him, her breath caressing his face as she moved close to his ear.
“Is that all you are going to say?” Her voice was now more of a shriek than a voice, hitting parts of his brain that had not been active in a long time. He fought to have his hands free, but it only made her harden her grip. “Where is your strength now? All righteous and mighty just a few seconds ago, but powerless against a few words? You men are pathetic. You cover yourselves in metal and leather, point your weapons at people, and think the world should bow before you. But if you take all those fabrics from you, you are nothing but weak and pitiful beings. We, women, are different. We can be as tough and powerful as men clad in armour, but if you take us out of our clothes…” She moved the hand that once held his jaw to her chest, slashing and ripping off the fabric of her clothes, exposing her bare skin to the air “then those same men who think that they can conquer the world will kneel before us and utter promises that they cannot keep. Don’t worry about that, though. You will beg for my forgiveness, Cidolfus.”
She started kissing his neck first slowly and softly, with her tongue covering the spot that her lips had just left. Her teeth touched the skin, pressing but not breaking it, and Cid shivered from that light contact. The pressure on his wrists disappeared, replaced by a single nail running down his arm. He still had them pinned to the ground, unable to move them, held together by a soft but powerful invisible force.
They were never shy of using their eikonic heritage for less ortodox purposes. Probably they enjoyed it more than using them for war, but the position in which he was now a disadvantageous one. Cid knew that he should be more frightened than he was. Benedikta could be cold and detached sometimes; while Garuda was always merciless, and yet, something within was telling him to not be afraid, to continue playing this game of cat and mouse that they were playing.
Cid could not tell if it was just him wanting to feel the connection that they used to have, or that he was plainly stupid. Maybe both. Maybe he just wanted the touch of wind on his skin, saying without words what he should do to please her, like right now it was telling him to stay still and be good for her, as she continued to kiss and bite him while her hands caressed his chest, opening his shirt. He moaned loudly at the first contact that he had in ages with her skin.
“You are enjoying this more than you should, Lord Commander. How disappointing.” She rose from her position, still straddling him, but denying him of any other form of contact. Cid took a moment between breaths to study her face. On the surface he could see her determination to hate him. It grew around her like ivy, choking any other feelings that she might have had except for the smallest glint of hope hiding in her eyes. It was beautiful and frigthening.
He let his own surge of eikonic power wash over himself. Small bolts of purple lightning crackling over him, feeling as natural as his own skin. For him, Ramuh had always been his source of power, not only physical, but also mental. Calling upon him when he needed clarity was a reflex that he could always count on. Most of the times, that clarity was the only thing that kept him from harm, other times though, it gave him the strength to fight for what he wanted. In that moment, he just breathed.
“Perhaps I am too big of an idiot to run away from certain death if it comes from you. I don’t care. Let’s just enjoy the moment whatever it may bring.” The pressure on his wrists lessened, giving him a barely desired freedom from her grasp. He lifted himself just enough to run his fingers over her cheek and brush his lips over hers.
Wind and lightning twisted, twirled and crackled. The deafening sound of natural chaos contained within a small space, wanting to destroy everything in it. It was the prelude to the slaughter of their minds. A symphony to the death of rational thought. The perfect storm.
———
Hours passed as quickly as seconds as dawn approached mercilessly. Time had lost all its meaning and melted away by feelings of yearning and belonging. Where words had failed to express what they wanted to say, their bodies had taken up the task of revealing their true desires. How much they missed each other. How much it hurt to be separated from each other. How easy it was to be again in each other’s arms as if nothing had happened, as if the months and years had not passed. As if he had never left. But it was only a mirage, and Cid was again plagued by the same guilt he had felt that fateful day.
Most things get easier with time. Wounds close, they heal, and pain is replaced by sweet memories of better times. As soldiers, they were both trained not to let their feelings cloud their reason, their beliefs, and their purpose. They should know better than to stray from the path they had chosen. Be as allies or enemies, friends or foes, loving or hating each other, it was their hopes and ideas that gave meaning to their lives. And as tough as he thought he was, he wished to be stronger to go against fate. But he was not, and his fate was not here in Waloed. With him, His King. With her, his poison and his remedy. His sweetest Benedikta. His eternal love.
Most things get easier with time, but saying goodbye to her was not one of them. Not when he didn’t even want to do it.
“Don’t leave me again, Cid”, she whispered as sleep claimed her. As her eyes closed and her breathing calmed. Her body relaxed against him, fitting perfectly in his arms, filling a hole in his heart. He thought of the dozens of men and women who would have killed to be in his place. How they would have never abandoned her, betrayed her, and broken her.
Don’t leave me again.
Again.
That word pierced his heart as her sword might have, had he been any person other than him the one to dare to break her heart not once, but twice. Many had tried to win her, all of them but Cid failed. He won. Or so he thought. How could he call that winning when she had destroyed him with one word? He had seen her smile, laugh, and sleep by his side entirely at ease. He had seen a side of Benedikta that nobody else was allowed to see. She had permitted him to see her at her weakest; she had taken her heart out and offered it many times. She had confided and confessed her darkest secrets and her deepest sorrows just to him. And, in return, he had deceived her. He had promised to be at her side in good and bad times, to grow old and die at her side when the time came. He broke all those promises, and Cid felt disgusted at himself because he was going to do the same once again. Once again, there was the same conflict between his reason and his heart.
He wanted to tell her that he would not leave again and accept whatever punishment he deserved to earn her forgiveness and stay together like he promised and wanted. They could run away together, never to be seen again in Valisthea. War would never catch them again; they would not be used again as tools for killing to fulfil some wicked person’s desires. To live peacefully, just the two of them, as it was meant to be. Their dreams of peace finally coming true, even if that meant for the whole world to go down in flames. There would be nothing left except for them and their little piece of paradise. Safety and comfort for them, darkness and destruction for everything else. If only he could bring himself to be a bit more selfish. To live by passion and not reason, to fulfil his heart’s desire and be consumed by the flame of love. But in doing that, he would be killing the same thing he was trying to save. She could never leave Her King willingly. He could never live with the thought of sacrificing others for his benefit. Their love withering and rotting, giving life to resentment and loathing. Giving up reason for passion would result in nothing but the end of their love and, perhaps, of their own lives.
Cid left the bed, trying to numb his thoughts with the mindless task of picking up the clothes that the night had scattered across the room. Somehow, he was relieved that they were not torn beyond recognition in their frenzy, although there were some minor but fixable cuts here and there. The only marks of what happened between them will be on their bodies and their souls until, one day; they will fade and disappear. A day that Cid would dread if it ever came. The last thing he picked up from the floor was the first one taken from him; the ring that once symbolized a simple promise said in simpler times.
As he got up, he caught his reflection in a small mirror on what looked like a vanity table. His neck had a vivid red line where the chain bit the skin as it was ripped out in anger, with little spots of blood peeking out of the broken skin. However, stopping to check the mark allowed him to see the room he had been lured into for the first time. It was different, bigger and more luxurious than the one they used to share many months ago, although not extravagant. Benedikta had always favoured sobriety, which had not changed, but maybe she was finally settling into a more comfortable lifestyle. Perhaps she was starting to believe that King Barnabas wanted her as his queen. It would be the life she deserved, but not the one Cid could give her. And it was the sweetest lie he could have believed, if only Barnabas could love anything else but his own misguided goals.
He scanned the few items that were neatly arranged on the vanity; one of them caught his eye over the others. It was a hexagonal wooden box, not bigger than his palm, with small leaves carved on the lid. The first present he had ever bought her. Probably not the most expensive or spectacular thing in the world, but it was beautiful and one of the few things he could afford all those years back. Cid picked it in his hand, surprised that she had kept it despite the pain and betrayal she must have felt when he left. Maybe she was more sentimental than she showed. He felt something small and hard shift inside it. Curiosity won, and he lifted the lid carefully, only to abruptly close it when he saw the first shimmer of silver.
“I am truly the greatest of fools.” he muttered to himself. His strength of will started to falter for the second time in minutes. He had never felt so conflicted within himself, the fight between his heart and his brain raging stronger, threatening to make him break into a million pieces, never to be complete again.
Cid took a few seconds to steady his breathing before returning to the bed, now fully clothed. He looked at Benedikta like it was the first time seeing the sunrise. He wanted to commit every detail of her to memory, her form, her soft skin, the way she slept on her side as if she expected another body to be beside her keeping her warm. One hand ran softly over her cheek, taking a wild strand of hair off her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“I love you, Benna. I love you more than anything. I’ve loved you ever since the first time I laid my eyes upon you. But I cannot stay. I cannot believe any more of his lies. I cannot keep pretending that this is right.” He felt his voice cracking with every word, reflecting his breaking heart. “Every day since I left has been torture. Every day I prayed that we could find common ground and be together again. Every day there is a fight between my duty and my desires, and I’m losing it. Every day I find myself wishing that I was at your feet, asking you to forgive me for making you suffer so needlessly. But also, every day I wish you could see the truth as I have and understand my motives. Until then, farewell, my love. I hope one day we find ourselves free from any burden that keeps us apart.”
Stars faded in the sky, washed away by sunlight, and Cid walked those familiar corridors once again. Maybe for the last time. So he left a piece of his soul there, in that room, so it could keep watch over the person he loved more than life itself. At least he could keep a bit of his promise that way. To never truly leave her until they could be reunited again. In life or in death.