// Chapter 12 \\

It had been days, weeks, a month of orders, demands, and instructions. I did not grow tired as I could not rest. I was rebuilding my Court how I saw it fit and it seemed to be glowing swamps in the distance of my Court illuminated a bit brighter. The stark mountains that spiked from forest valleys standing even stronger. The own nature of my Court seemed to flourish in greeting to my rightful ruling.

Even though I did not take to visiting other Courts in that time, they'd taken to visiting me. Hongjoong and Yeosang were regulars despite whether they visited at the same time or not. Heeyoung came with Hongjoong quite frequently and a few times did Jongho accompany the siblings.

Leeyon had even visited a couple times herself. I was surprised to find we both grew on a bit friendlier terms. I was certainly feeling better than the one Eastern Court visit. She had been insightful as well— on the Dusk Court. Mingi had not visited and I could only imagine he was focused on preparing for High Monarch trials. The reason Leeyon knew anything of him was their courtship and I'd surprisingly found out through her how that had flourished to an engagement. It was a delightful pact, I thought. A Court which has terrain swallowed in water of endless ocean while the other was almost entirely ancient lava, magma, and the rock of it building the terrain of new land. It was some of the best news I had in awhile.

No one else had visited me. I'm sure Seonghwa knew I had no invitation open for him. My rage still boiled from what happened in the cellar a month ago, despite declining his offer. He'd still insisted and he antagonized my ruling. The prospering of my Court now was plenty of proof to prove him wrong. I felt proud of those changes. Despite that, it almost felt bad to say that I didn't need the dream realm.

There was nothing of the Takers either. Wooyoung kept silent in his cell though I didn't do much to step in it. The words had still chilled me, but not enough so that I couldn't have meetings and discussions with the Knights of my Court and of the concern in lack of Takers with the visitors that came. No Takers disturbed the peaceful silence, however. Not even Wooyoung, sitting far below my palace, but he remained to be heavily guarded.

And so things began to prosper. And I dared to even propose one of the things that had been on my mind for months. I may have been High Monarch of the Night Court— allowing whatever decree I so desired— but I still ran the proposition by her. How she took it however...

"Absolutely not," Her bright eyes were wide and face, which was flush, becoming pale every second that passed since I'd spoken the words.

I immediately slouched my shoulders and took on a position of brooding as I stared at her, "Nanny, I believe it would be great benefit to our Court-"

"It is one thing to lessen the restraints on your citizens," Nanny spoke and I grimaced. It was an order I gave at least a week ago, "But it is another to completely rid your Court of its class borders."

There it was. I let out an exaltation of knowing exactly that would be the response she'd have. A disagreement to something she could not fathom the innermost reason why I wished it. Because I remember how it was at the Dawn Court and for the small sights of how I saw its people. I saw them flourish with the lack of class systems. Seonghwa was cruel in ways but not in that way: cruel to his people. Whether I liked it or not, I saw the impact and how it changed myself with someone I held dear while we were there. Perhaps I was too busy gloating to see it in my own Court, but a part of me knew of the happenings anyhow. While wind seemed to wait in silence around me, it certainly stirred for the rest of my Court.

I tried to convey that in my golden gaze as I looked back up to Nanny's bright ones. I gave my most honest and convincing tone, "Nanny, I would not have come to tell you this just for the sake of your approval."

"But you did," She said knowingly. Her eyes were clear and wise and— I did come here for her approval. She lowered her head in a satisfactory manner but eyes still clear and words drawn, "You know such an order can't be risked."

It would not fit in part with the plan.

I immediately, yet slowly, nodded my head in understanding, golden eyes dipping to the floor. That was my answer. Just like that, I'd given in to her.

I couldn't believe my clear vision could become more clear, but I swore it did in that gesture. I kept my eyes pinned there and I heard the rustle of the elder woman. Was she fidgeting in her chair or making her move to leave? I didn't hear the footsteps nor quite cared as I became infatuated with the violets and blues of the carpeted floor.

The carpet acted like a whirlpool, drawing my eyes in. Suddenly, pinks and pastels and blacks and darks were added to the scene. A few strokes of red and gold, orange and cyan, white and many other colored specks filling that dark rich sky of color. Until, dare I say, I was looking to a night sky so much more powerful, beautiful, and exquisite to the sky of the Night Court I ruled.

A tear rolled down my cheek. It was as if my eyes illuminated this sky of creation and it answered with a few glittering flickers of the millions of ancient stars that drew me in. It greeted me, welcomed me, with open arms to their presence. But, as soon as it was conjured, it was gone.

Those stars flickered in not the same as they greeted my gaze but in a fading, dying light. The sky of rich lush color dulled. The darkness of that sky began to seep as well. It brightened, but in no such way of warmth because I shivered as it did so. What was once those specks of stars quickly became the ruff patched of the grey stone that was once that colorful sky. The change of the scene came all too quickly that I couldn't register, at first, that it was no longer the sky I was looking at.

It was a stone. Hard, rough, and cool stone that bit at my palms that were pressed against it. It bit at my legs, those rough crystalline edges that scraped with the promise of what was torn away from a different time— a time that no longer existed.

I convulsed in pain. Not from the cool unforgiving stone or the unforgiving air of this place. It was from what was done. My body, all of it, every corner, erupted in cold searing pain. A single tear that had glided down my cheek had turned into many— down both cheeks— as I sobbed. My hair even clumped as I shuttered out another gasp, it's cool silk trying to calm the rivers of tears with no avail. Just as what I'd done had led to no avail.

I'd done it again. Why? It all ached— ached. It's not the same fullness as what I was meant to soon taste, but it was something. I'd taken it and taken it and taken it. They gave it and gave it and then they took it. I kept taking, though, because I thought their selfish craving was still the same as mine.

I'd taken it. I did not like it. Not anymore.

But they still took it and it hurt.

And that's why tears slipped from those dulled cheeks. They slipped from those smooth hills and dropped, the warmth of what was left of me shattering on that cold stone. It could've been a tiny diamond— impenetrable— and still would've felt the ripple at the contact with the small jagged edges of that stone. The coolness alone wouldn't have spared that diamond from scattering its glistenings across the floor. That fate was what had befallen the tear. That tear soon became tears, plunging and shattering on the ruin of what was once something that could reshape those tears.

No, every tear that left me now became another part of me lost to a fate so cruel it had to be worse than death. It compared to nothing I was weeping over but it still took away another part of me. Another part that would not like my own fate; a fate which I truly pegged to be worse than the one that was worse than death. I prayed to something that it wasn't, but I knew that the prayer was a lie and I was all too right.

I was losing me.

I was losing me. I was losing me. I was losing me.

Suddenly, the ache in my body became one in my mind as I clutched my skull. I arched and reeled and curled in on myself. My gaze fell to my dull lap as my eyes widened and I panted. I didn't let the bruises or scars of my bare body bother me now. My past pain meant nothing as I desperately pulled the hands from my hair to my cheeks to gather and batch the tears of a being I feared I lost in that moment.

I let my mind scatter in that panic.

My hands tried to grasp the water that splayed and spilled, hitting the stone or sloshing in the tiny crevices of my hand as the amount I caught was so little. I tried cupping my hands over my eyes to let those tears seep back in. Bring that being back again. The tears seemed to never drop back into those eyes, however. Instead, it was like more poured out.

I am afraid.

Like my body went against my mind's crazed and panic orders and let that being I clinged desperately onto flood out. Like my own body resented that part which was found to be weakest. What was known by few, but the few that knew had condemned me for it. Because that being had stopped me from losing myself entirely. The tears kept running.

Help me.

My sobs hitched just as the door handles moved in a slow creak. If it weren't for the room being filled immediately with the sound of the melody in that soothing hum, I would've panicked. I would've let my mind scatter even more, but even my mind knew with the small brush of comfort it was given. The scattering and the panic was gone with another thrum from his throat as he sung that pleasant melody. He knew all too well how it always calmed me down.

His footsteps sounded on that rough, cold, and unforgiven ground and somehow, maybe not for the ground itself, settled the cold of its demeanor. Maybe it settled all the cold of this place. It wasn't warm— he himself couldn't do that as he was cold too— but it was definitely less; a softening blow he'd always give.

I moved my hands away from my eyes and slowly lowered my head. The scent he brought with him hit me so clear then: raspberry and chocolate chip.

He set the tray of tea and cookies on the ottoman on the other side of the room. That tray could've been my beacon of color and life staring into the dull and lifeless room. He turned then, though, and I knew that the tray wasn't my true beacon.

He looked to me and our eyes met. His clothes were dark and his face dull and pale as my own, but his dark and icy vibrant eyes shone.

Those eyes sparkled in a way that reminded me of that wondrous night sky and the surmount of comfort in them was endless. They were like nothing of this dull and dark place and nothing stood out in comparison. Not even my eyes that were looking at him.

I'd almost forgotten even the song he sang until I broke from the eclipse of his stare from the sudden stride he took to where I crouched on the floor. The stride wasn't at all intimidating or a display of power. It was a gentle, calming walk he gave in a few steps before he crouched to my face. His eyes searched mine and he said something then. Something and my name. Then his hands caressed my cheeks and suddenly the chill dullness of them might've sparked a bit in color and warmth.

How wrong I was. How wrong I was of him. Why did I not go to him?

My chest heaved, mouth clenched, and eyes squinting as I let out more tears. Suddenly, the original pain had come back to ache my mind and body.

He hushed me so gently, whispered, and cooed— so gently, I'd listened or my body did that for me too. My panting turned into long, deep, and calming breaths, and no tears leaked from my eyes. I wasn't sure if that being was still intact, but I wasn't focused on that. I was still focused on his eyes.

His humming melody had stopped long ago, but the calmness of his presence remained. He let his thumbs gently glide from the back of my face to the front. Our eyes remained staring at each other as he used those thumbs to wipe the tears away. I wasn't scared if they shattered on the floor anymore because I knew he collected that being. I knew that his eyes returned that being to me and that was how I knew it was still with me.

The caress he gave my cheeks slowed to a stop and, for a moment, all we did was have gold connect with deep ice blue. He leaned in then, his smooth yet dangerous lips felt there— our lips connected too. And the feeling of his hands moving to wrap around me numbed and faded with the darkness and the memory.

Yet, those blue eyes were livid and remained in the backs of my eyelids.

It seemed like that for a bit: endless, comforting, and silent darkness. It felt like that for a while— for an eternity.

Then, clear memory washed over me before my vision unveiled it.

My eyes shot open before my body shot up into an upright position. I heaved a breath at the irked sense that fell over me— no, a worse sense. It all faded slightly as that darkness came down over me and my eyes closed to reveal that image.

San, eyes closed and cladded in Taker garbs had his hands wrapped around my bare body as we kissed.

My eyes flung back open as the numbness of my mind that had come close to dragging me back into its depths finally faded. I sat there and panted for a good moment, on the floor of my study, waiting for another blink to bait me back into that darkness. Only after a while did I convince myself that it wouldn't happen again and I wondered just what had happened to me then. I thought back on what I saw. Only then did I grow sick and the bile which swirled inside shot up through my throat. It never reached my mouth though, as I fought my bodily reaction with a few swallows. I was panting and sore and in pain, but it wasn't the feeling I had from that...

That dream.

I didn't even remember falling asleep.

I looked in the mirror and couldn't believe who I saw on the other side. My tan skin was surprisingly paled and almost seemed as dull as the image I saw, the tears that fell from my face in that dream. Then I saw the red puffs around my eyes.

I shakily made my hand lift from the silk of the carpet, that blue and violet I couldn't even know if I'd actually seen before closed eyes. I slowly, so slowly, lifted that hand up. I watched it painstakingly move from the floor, above my body, and to my face through that mirror. I touched my cheek and there was a faint dampness that was there.

It was a dream. It had to be a dream.

I looked about the dark oak cases and blue violet fineries of the place. I looked up to the lowered table in front of me and the couch on the other side where Nanny had sat as I told her my proposition.

Had that even been real?

Nanny was nowhere in sight.

I could not sense a shutter or a shiver of the Taker my mind now paranoidly thought of. The cold that was present was the comforting cool of Night Court and it felt more like warmth after the dream I just had. But I still shivered.

My mind scattered, yet, I didn't feel dizzy at all as I got to my feet. The only thing that made me believe it was real was when I looked back to the mirror, to the golden eyes and the bit of color that returned to skin. But, most importantly, I looked at the clothes of ivory and dark blue of a dress I'd worn to my study for that day and knew I wasn't that bare and bruised girl from that dream. Certainly, now, no bruises covered my body.

My swallow was dry and hard as I willed my breathing to calm. My hands balled into fists at my side as I let only a few thoughts roam in my head as I looked at myself in the mirror. I weighed the options in my mind and I knew the way my jaw clenched in my reflection conveyed I knew I had no such happiness in what I was about to admit. Then, I turned and made my way out of the room, knowing what my next step was— where it was I needed to go.

How convenient it was to figure out it had been half a year since I was invited to that place for that ball that started everything— the ball of the Dawn Court.

REMEMBER:​​​​​​

1. Smack dat butiful star

2. Leave a comment talkin abt dis tea

3. Share dis tea induced book with yo fwends

WHY? Because I appreciate it 🥺

\\ See u in the next chapter! \\