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Silver can't sleep—an increasingly common occurence, as of late—so he decides to take a walk.
The soft spring breeze that dances with the curtains of Diasomnia’s open windows seems to follow him down the hallway. It’s a gentle reminder that the natural world has kept moving in the wake of everything that’s happened, and if the weight of it all wasn’t still on his mind, he’d say that it’s a beautiful night.
As he approaches the destination he didn't know he was heading for, he can hear a complete racket inside. After hearing a particularly loud crash of what he's pretty sure are actual cymbals, he finally summons the courage to knock.
“It’s unlocked!” Lilia calls.
Countless times Silver’s opened the door to a small cabin in the woods unannounced and dropped by this very room without anything more than a rap on the door, but something about not declaring himself feels wrong now. He clears his throat as he walks into the absolute disaster zone before him and says, “It’s me.”
“Ah! Come to help me unpack? Seems my attempt to declutter before I left wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped.”
“Something like that,” he replies. He starts toward the pyramid of boxes crammed up against the wall. Lilia’s back remains turned, but even the sight of his father alive and well in his peripheral is enough to threaten his composure, motivating him to take an even keener interest in the boxes, fixing his gaze on the life packed away in cardboard in front of him.
“Aren't you sweet? I wonder who could've raised such a helpful boy.” When his quip is met with silence, he clarifies, “I’m only joking, you know. Sit, I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”
Silver doesn’t move. “It's the middle of the night,” he remarks, his body rigid as he draws on all his stoicism honed over the years to keep his voice even.
“That's never stopped us before,” Lilia says, his usual singsong timbre flattened by the lightest weight of concern but quickly smoothed over by more rustling.
Silver feels a hot swell in his throat and tries to hide his sniffle with a deep breath, but before he knows it, he’s shedding tears with each blink. Lilia appears in front of him with crossed arms and wide, curious eyes, and Silver instinctively turns away.
“I thought so,” he says, frowning. “Tell me what's wrong.”
“I’m sorry. I thought I was over this.” He doesn't need to explain what this is. They've taken to euphemizing the whole situation: this, that, the incident, anything to avoid talking about Malleus’ overblot, Lilia’s dream, and the fact that their family, quietly stitched together in the woods of Briar Valley, was about to be ripped apart.
“It's okay if you're not,” Lilia says, a feather-light sigh leaving his nose. “Sit, Silver,” he repeats. “I believe it's time for a conversation long overdue.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Drink,” he orders gently, cross-legged across from him on the rug, still only half-unfurled.
Silver picks up the cup in front of him, a horribly tacky souvenir that’s chipped at the bottom and reads, “I VISITED CRIMSON CITY AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID MUG!” The warm ceramic feels good against his palm, though, and the bitter taste of the terribly weak but necessary coffee—thankfully without the grounds—soothes his throat enough for him to croak out, “It's awful.”
“Hehe! Isn't it just? There's a novelty to it, though, don't you think? A whole pot of coffee brewed with just a push of a button!”
The comfortable silence that follows eventually stretches to an uncomfortable one, and eventually to an unbearable one.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Lilia awkwardly thumbs the lip of his own cup, eyes cast down and pensive, and says, “I should have told you this a long time ago: you have nothing to repay me for.”
“But—”
“No buts. Would you expect Malleus to repay you for guarding him?”
“What?” The thought is so unfathomable that he immediately starts, “Of course not. That's my sworn duty.”
“Precisely. A job is one thing, but to duty to another is a deliberate choice, Silver. One made out of love.” He pauses, thinking for a moment. Silver can tell by his slowed blink as he starts tentatively, “I imagine some of the details of my dream were a great shock to you.”
Another sob threatens to wrack his body, and he fights it, but he's so fatigued from the past two weeks that he loses the battle almost instantly. He starts bawling again, and Lilia opens his arms for him to practically collapse into, only minding the coffee cups set to the side. “You shielded me from so much. I… I had no idea.”
“There, there,” he says, patting his back like he's a child all over again—in his eyes, he probably still is. “I’d hoped you’d never find out. But now I see how wrong I was for that. I’m sorry.”
“There's nothing for you to apologize for.”
Lilia pulls away to hold Silver’s face in his hands and wipes his tears from his cheeks with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Goodness. Sometimes I wonder if it was really me who did such a bang-up job, or if you're just that kind by nature. Most children would be furious, you know,” he adds with a chuckle.
“I could never be,” Silver says, and he means it. Not after seeing all that. Maleanor’s final expression of determination still haunts him; he can't imagine how visceral it must be in Lilia’s memory for his dream to depict it so clearly after all this time. “You loved her,” he says. “And even in your grief, you still managed to hatch Malleus. You took me in as your own, even though my parents…” He trails off. For some reason, finishing that sentence requires a strength he kicks himself for not having yet. Instead, he tries to gather himself once more, this attempt more successful; he manages to sit back up with a sniff.
“I’ve loved quite a few people in my time, even through great difficulty,” Lilia admits softly, yanking the stretched-out cuffs of his sleeves back down to cover his knuckles. “But that doesn't make me impressive, Silver. It just makes me lucky.”
“But you had to let them go.” We’ll have to let go someday, he leaves unsaid.
He knows Lilia hears it anyway from the way he sighs in response and concedes, “True. That happens when you get to be my age. I won't lie and say I’m completely at peace with it. But right now, at this moment, I’m sitting on the floor drinking coffee in the middle of the night with my son. And I don’t wish to take how completely miraculous that is for granted by borrowing grief from a past I’ve grown from or a future that could change at any moment.” He smiles, the moment stretching out like syrupy amber, his words fossilizing themselves into Silver’s mind.
As far as Silver's concerned, the bravery it takes to say something like that and truly mean it—and he can tell he does—still makes his father the most impressive person he’s ever known.
“I just want you to be happy,” Silver says, feeling weirdly silly as he does. “You deserve nothing less.”
“This life has already given me far more than I deserve,” Lilia promises. “I’m content. That means more to me than something as fleeting as happiness.”
“They both sound like the same thing.”
“Mm. Perhaps they are. I’m an old fool, you know.”
Silver knows he knows he’s not. He can also tell it’s a bit of a reprimand, a bit of a wish, and maybe even a bit of a question, too, but he doesn’t object further. Instead, he takes his father’s advice, takes solace in the moonlight that shines through the slats of open blinds, and takes comfort in Lilia’s idle humming as he sips at his coffee again.
For just a moment, he can’t help but think it’s a beautiful night.