Josiah stood outside his study, staring down the window and watching the flame. The sight sent shivers down him as he took in the lone figure who stood by the fire.

The light cast from it showed Lumi standing rigid in place. She did not move. Her appearance was something both sinister and unearthly.

She had left the study after Josiah told her. He had followed her, but any words said did not reach her.

She turned to him then, when they had both reached the bedroom. Her tears were gone. She was void and the blankness of her eyes scared Josiah.

"I need to do this. And if you stop me- I will retaliate." Her voice no longer held any warmth as she looked up at him. He felt fear and panic rush through him. He didn't know what she meant, but she had shown him in the next hour as she stripped off her clothes and covered her body in a white paint.

She put on a white dress and became something else.

Josiah watched her now. She had been standing by the fire for two days, unmoving. He wondered how long she would continue to stand there.

He could see Ramus' shadow in the distance. The male came and went, pacing uneasily whenever he showed himself. He also did not know what to do with the mourning Queen.

There was a hush over the palace. The staff hardly spoke a word.

They stared at the figure that used to be the woman who greeted them with a smile in the hallway. They took in the sight of her, feeling chills run through their spines of the paint that had been smeared onto her skin.

On the third day, as Josiah stood in the background watching the flames with her, she turned.

"Lumi..." he stepped forward, but she still did not acknowledge any who were around.

"I am going hunting. No one can come with me."

Ramus opened his mouth, his worried eyes glancing to Josiah, but Josiah held up his hand, staring down at his Queen.

"For how long?"

She finally looked up to meet his gaze. "However long it takes."

They then watched her disappear into the darkness. Her white dress had not been replaced, but knives now adorned her body.

Josiah felt a jolt run through him when she turned at the last second to meet his eyes.

He wished he could embrace her. He wished he could kiss her, and tell her anything to make that look of pain go away. But he was beginning to come to terms with the truth that had long been staring at him in the face.

"Should I follow her, My King?"

Josiah turned to the anxious Ramus. He smiled at the male and how he seemed to be on edge without Lumi in his eyesight.

"No...she needs to do this in her own way, Ramus."

"She's unguarded. She's not protected. Anything can happen."

"I know," Josiah whispered. Both men looked out into the forest, and both men felt the clench of anxiety in their hearts.

* * *

"I didn't see Queen Lumikki?"

Josiah sighed at Soter's question. The other council members looked at the male, their eyes trying to give an obvious signal to drop the subject.

Soter looked around in confusion before staring back at Josiah and clearing his throat, "well...I'm sure she's around here somewhere...but I have the reports of the border and the response for the villages and how the laws are being accepted for those who live closest to the Winter Kingdom."

Josiah nodded, and the meeting continued.

"What is the progress on the inventors?" One council member asked.

Josiah smiled. It was the only smile he had managed this week, without Lumi there. "Good. They are making good progress. Within the next year, the lighting systems that we had hoped for should be working. And then we will have them start in major cities to develop and modernize it. We'll have to make a report on how many jobs this will produce and qualifications that can be done to accept hires into this area as we move to various locations."

"Do you really think we could light up a whole city?" One council member asked.

Josiah smiled, "the water systems we already have installed will work as the main way to create the influx of power. We are already working on several other alternatives though. It will take years- maybe even decades...and no doubt it will be a project my son will carry on...but yes...it can be done. The power source is even being looked at for the use of mining."

The men around the table cheered. Some bowed to their King in respect of the advancements that had been made. But none were ignorant at the timing in which these changes occurred. They all silently thanked the absent Queen- wherever she may have been in that moment- for coming to their kingdom in their hour of need.

As the men shuffled out, Ramus entered the room. Josiah took one glance at the male before he was on his feet running.

"Is she-?"

"The entrance."

Josiah felt his breath catch at the words. She had been gone for a week and he felt like the absence had torn him apart.

He rounded the corner and stopped.

There she was. But she was no less broken.

Female staff members surrounded her. Josiah watched as they took wet clothes to her skin- the white that had been put on now stained with dirt and blood.

He watched as they washed her body- arms, legs, neck- what skin was exposed. Some murmured soothing words to their Queen. Others remained silent, as tears escaped from their eyes.

Lumi held out her arms, her own eyes staring down at the females who connected to her pain.

Josiah stepped forward, and all looked up to take him in.

"Lumi..." his voice choked at the end. The female staff stepped away and one woman handed Josiah a wet towel.

He nodded his thanks, and slowly stepped forward, taking the cloth and wiping her face.

"Hello," he whispered.

He felt something in his chest clench as she smiled up at him. It was the smile he missed. It was her smile.

"Hello," she said.

He didn't have the heart to ask her what had happened that week she was gone. What she had done to be covered in blood and dirt and where she had traveled.

He only cared that she was here, safe and standing before him.

"Kestrel missed you," he said.

He saw her smile soften at the words. "I missed you both."

"Let's have dinner," his words came out as a question, waiting for her response.

She held out her hand, and Josiah took it, kissing it despite the paint, the dirt and the red.

"I love you," he whispered.

"I know," she said.

* * *

The next weeks passed. The activity of the palace was always busy- there was always something occurring and something happening.

Attacks on the border occurred, but they were less frequent now.

A new rebel leader arose after Soter had dismantled his own group, but not many found it a worthy enough cause to join.

"There will always be conflict," Lumi told Josiah one night, "there will always be two sides- an opposition and the other. You cannot have just one, and sometimes those opposite are born from ignorance. I can't tell you which of the two is always the ignorant one, but words can only do so much when you both are convinced you are right."

And her words held their truth.

Life continued in the Galexious Kingdom as small advancements were made.

Josiah laughed when his son finally took his first steps at a little over a year old.

Lumi had sniffed at the age, her arms crossed in disapproval.

"I was almost two before I took my first steps," Josiah admitted. She turned to look at him in horror.

"You were not!" She said.

He nodded, "I think my mother was to blame for that. She was always carrying me. I never had the opportunity because my feet hardly ever touched the floor."

His knowing eyes meet with the guilty look of Lumi's as she stared away from him.

"Well...he can walk now...that's all that matters," she gruffly said.

He had laughed at her response. Kestrel had laughed with him, earning a glare from his mother.

The peace that Josiah felt, encompassed him. He looked at the darkness and wondered at the fear he felt from it before he had met her.

His peace was not something he clung to now. He did not have an anxiety in his heart that one day the illusion would shatter.

This was real.

He saw the night sky, and wondered why he thought the image always made him feel like he had lived in a dream. She had woken him up. She had shaken his soul so violently, forcing him to open his eyes.

He may be surrounded in darkness, but that did not mean he had to suffer from it.

On a day like any other, as he and Lumi sat at the table with Kestrel, a messenger came in.

"I have a letter for Queen Lumikki."

Both Josiah and Lumi thought nothing of it. Elowen and Lumi were friends now through their correspondences, and their letters arrived so quickly, that Josiah wondered sometimes how fast the messengers rode to deliver them.

He watched Lumi take it eagerly, before stopping. She stared at the paper, something unknown flickering in her eyes.

He stopped and sat up, "is everything alright?"

She looked at him blankly before turning back to the letter, "yes..."

He went back to his breakfast, eyeing the letter with suspicion now as she opened it carefully. She pulled the paper out, her eyes darting back and forth as she read it.

Josiah waited impatiently for her to speak. It was only a page, but her silence seemed to stretch out forever until finally, he asked.

"Well?"

She folded the paper carefully and sat it down. Her eyes were focused ahead of her as she covered them with her hand. Inhaling deeply she looked at Josiah.

He stood when he saw there were tears in her eyes.

He kneeled next to her, "what is it Lumi? What happened?"

"Josiah this letter..." she held the paper and gave it to him. He quickly opened it and read it. His eyes widened with each word, disbelief and anger ripping through him.

"They...they what...how dare they!"

Lumi's head snapped to him as he stood in anger, waving the page.

"What is this? Who would dare write this?"

"It has the official royal seal. It is not a joke, Josiah."

He stopped to reread the letter. His eyes flashed in anger again as he took in the words.

She stood, reaching for the paper but he pulled back.

"You can't."

They both froze. Lumi's hand was still extended, but at his words she pulled back.

His desperate plea came to her again, "you can't Lumi. Not after what they did."

She stared up at him. "I didn't expect this to happen, Josiah...It never occurred to me that they would do this...I thought I was...forgotten to them-" her voice was steady as she inhaled deeply, "my father passed, therefore, my oldest brother Jafari is now King...he has every right to change the laws. Just as how you did with your own council members. You got rid of the traditions you thought harmful and unneeded...and that's what he did..." her voice choked at the end as she stepped closer to him.

"They have invited me back. Officially. I am no longer forgotten. I can see my family, Josiah. I can see my-," she stopped her words, but Josiah knew what she had been about to say.

Home.

"Your family is here," he said, looking at Kestrel who stared at the both of them while seated at the table in his chair.

Lumi stared at her son, taking him in before she looked back at Josiah.

He dropped the letter, taking her shoulders in his hands. He wanted to shake her. To make her see that these people had abandoned her. She owed them nothing.

"They forgot you."

"Clearly they didn't," she said, looking down at the letter.

"Lumi," his voice held a warning as she looked up, "don't do this. They hurt you. They abandoned you. They left you alone in a foreign place without...without anyone."

"I chose that. They didn't. I live with my choices and consequences that come from them."

"They wouldn't have let you do that if they really loved you."

"I wouldn't have let them stop me, because I love them."

They were at an impasse. Josiah knew that. He knew he was losing.

He lowered his head, feeling his knees give out as he fell. His arms wrapped around her frame, head falling to her stomach. He felt her hands go to his hair, as her fingers ran through them.

"This is it. This is the moment that I feared would happen. You're going to leave me," he felt a desperation kick into him as he pulled her tighter.

She lowered herself to her knees, framing his face with her hands.

"Josiah."

His name brought him back as he looked at her.

"Josiah. I will come back. This is my Kingdom. You are my husband. I need you to have faith in me. Trust my love for you."

He grabbed her hands and kissed the palms. He took deep steadying breaths.

"My love," she whispered, "my past made me into the woman you are looking at now. And I'm not going to become ashamed or put aside my heritage in order to make your acceptance of me easier. I am who I am- and if you cannot love that, then I'm going to be forever lost to you."

There was a silence between them. Lumi stared at him. He saw her own desperation in her eyes. Her own strength and determination, but also the fragility that came with her words.

He could see it now. He had missed it. He had pushed it aside when it became obvious with the words of others or the actions she displayed- as it was in this moment.

She was telling him in her own words, that she wanted his acceptance. She didn't need it. But she wanted it.

He reached for her, and she smiled.

"I'll miss you," he said.

She kissed him, "I won't be gone long."

* * *

The procession was short.

The dark carriage of the Galexious Kingdom left the fields of fall and entered the lands of Summer. The guards looked around, squinting at the sight of the overbearing light and heat that encompassed them.

Their journey had been long and tiresome. They eyed the land warily, wondering how much further they had to go before they reached their destination.

Ramus glanced inside the carriage, making sure his Queen was okay. She stared at the land, smiling and unable to look away. Her eyes caught his and the smile on her face only widened as they continued.

He could see the restlessness in her. The nervous energy that was there.

It affected the guards and made Ramus uneasy also. The feeling seemed to grow as he saw one or two people on the side of the road. He stared at them as they watched the carriage pass by.

His instincts took over as he saw some mount horses in the distance and ride off.

He wanted to stop or go a different route, but he knew no others. This land was unfamiliar to him. He wondered if this was a trap that had been set for his Queen.

The guards and he eyed the road with anxiety as they saw more people lining the side of it in the distance.

Noise could faintly be made out.

It was not until they went closer, that it could finally be heard.

Cheering. Applause. Shouting.

The people who lined the road- who looked so much like the Queen inside the carriage- yelled and screamed their praise as tears streamed down their faces.

Many threw flowers, shouting their thanks and blessing. Praising her for saving them.

"Queen Lumikki! Queen Lumikki!"

The guards looked at their Queen, startled, but she seemed just as shocked. She looked up at Ramus, and he smiled at the sight of the tears that now could be seen on her own face as she placed her hands on her cheeks and began to cry.

Off in the distance, a little boy tugged at his father's sleeve.

The father looked down as the boy pointed, "who is that, papa?"

The father smiled and glanced at the coming carriage. The dark vessel that seemed the opposite of the majestic ride she had left in those years ago.

He bent down to be eye level with his son, "do you want to hear the story?"

The boy's eyes lit up. He loved his father's stories.

"Yes," he said, excited.

"Well...," the father lifted his son to his shoulder, letting him have a higher view of the carriage that was now passing by. The boy's eyes widened as he saw the beautiful woman who was seated within.

His face turned to look down at his father as the man continued to speak, his words barely heard over the cheering crowd, "Let me tell you a story of when the sun fell."

The boy tilted his head, "how did it fall?"

The man grinned as his body followed the movement of the carriage and the fading image of the dark object.

"Oh...in the best of ways. In the noblest of ways. This is a story of when the Sun fell in love with her people. When the Sun fell in love with her country- when the Sun fell in love with her homeland and its customs."

"Does it have a happy ending?" The boy asked.

The man laughed, "you should know better than to ask that. It's not about whether it has a happy ending or not. It's about what you learned in ."

I think those last two words say it all ♥

It has been an incredible journey since starting this story and now, at the end. Thank you for all who have read until the end- who have stuck with me this far.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I really can't express in words the emotions I feel whenever I finish a story, or how much I wish I could convey to you the love and messages I want to show through the words that have been read (I just get so overwhelmed!) So once again, thank you. I really can't say it enough.

Thank you for your amazing comments, for your reads, for your votes, for giving love to this story and for going on this journey with me. Thank you.

Please note there is a bonus chapter! ** and there is also a little end note showcasing where the idea of the story originated from (thank you, 13-year-old me).

Until Next time,

Loves,