The number of civilians walking through the city streets begins to dwindle with the coming of sunset. I’d been busy keeping watch over the community while awaiting the appointed time for mine and Vestil’s rendezvous. It had been a relaxing afternoon but it still wasn’t enough to overwrite the sullen thoughts teeming about in my mind. The absence of a precious friend makes for certain that I’d be left feeling that the patrol was incomplete no matter how productive it had become.

My thoughts are filled with her so much to the point where my limits are surpassed. I lose my power to withhold and give into my desires. Brandishing my KNITE, I seek through my contacts and find her name among the other maidens’. I tap the screen and place it against my ear to hear the sounds of digital chirping.

Anticipation shoots like lightning through my veins and when the call completes its transfer, my heart begins to race.

“Juna? Are you there? Did the call go through?”

“…Khiron?” Her voice comes through clearly. A surge of joy gives me an impulse to bounce on my heels in excitement, but I restrain myself to keep my composure.

“I’m so glad to hear your voice. I’ve missed you today.”

“…Missed me?”

“Yes. So, so much. It’s almost sunset and I’d never gotten the chance to see you. It’s… It’s an incredibly bizarre feeling. But it’s been a busy day. Are you well? Have you eaten anything?”

Though I continue contesting my emotions to stay cool, my mouth betrays me and spills out my thoughts in a torrent. Yet hers continues to be soft spoken as she answers me.

“…I’ve been studying. I’ve been doing my best.”

“But have you taken care of yourself and eaten? Besides what Jupa had given you, that is? I know it’s been hard, but constantly being sealed up in your room reading isn’t the best for your health. I’m hoping that I’ll have good news to share with you tonight.”

“I ate her food while we’d met for a short time. She’s the new maiden, isn’t she?”

“She is. She’d first appeared with an unexpected amount of energy. We’ve been able to talk a bit both yesterday and today. She really is a character. But beyond that; when you’re back to feeling well, I hope that you’ll both be able to spend more time getting to know each other. She happens to be concerned for your well being as well. And everyone just wishes they had more time to spend with you.”

“She’s worried for me?”

“That’s right. She’d told me that she would help you in any way she could while I’m away.” There’s a silence on the line for a brief time. “But speaking of others, I’d met with Ophikka today as well. Now that I think of it, it’s probably a little strange that I’m calling him by his name, but that’s to his wishes. It’ll be a story I can’t wait to share with you. Maybe I could even fill you in on that tonight. While he’d visited the manor, he’d spoken well how much he too wishes he could meet and spend time with you. If you were to, I’m sure he would want you to call him Ophikka as well.”

“The good news isn’t that he’d used his status to overrule the sentence, is it?” She comes over languidly.

“No, nothing like that. He’d said that he’d respect our desires. I’d… come to reason that you wouldn’t want to have the title simply handed over to you. Especially after what had happened. We’ve both been a good match with how hardheaded we can be. I think I’ve come to realize that even more nowadays. Always earning everything through sweat and living by the book as best as we can. I’d imagined that you would feel betrayed and unworthy with anything else but having overcome the challenge yourself. I would have felt the same way with the title of Celestial Knight.”

“Maybe we are both stubborn after all…”

I watch a couple pass by. They chat together and the woman laughs to herself as the man’s voice picks up with his sarcastic humor. There isn’t a care to be found between them.

“I’d remembered something today. It was a time we’d shared long ago when we’d only known each other for a little more than a year. I hadn’t thought of that moment for a while but it came back to me so suddenly. There’s likely no use in beating around the bush. I wish you were here with me right now. Not having you here on patrol doesn’t feel complete. It feels kind of wrong because there’s something important missing to all of it.”

Even more silence as she sits and listens. Though it’s unlike her to be so mute, I let it be and know well that it’s much like the previous times she’d struggled to cope with a heart snipped in two.

“I want you to have as much time and space as you need. If you want to stay in your room, I promise I’ll respect that and I won’t push or let myself become pushy. I know I’d said this before in the past so it’s probably redundant to do it again, but I just want you to know that it’s okay. So long as you’re safe, that’s more than enough for me. Just make sure you’re eating and you’re not wearing yourself down. I’ll send someone else to meet you and deliver whatever you need as well.”

“I… don’t want that…”

“You don’t? What is it that you don’t like?”

“I’m sorry. I’m… I can’t say it. I just can’t. It’s so hard for me and I don’t know why. Why I’m like this. I’m just…” Her voice trails off slowly.

Even if she can’t say it, I already understand. Even if I’d been so clumsy in the past, that night in the rain made me understand so deeply.

She’s conflicted.

The strength she has and the strength she desires both cause a polarized mess inside of her. When she’d asked me to stay with her that night, it all began to make sense to me just how much she holds herself back and harms herself when she’s lost her way.

She wishes she had someone there to hold her and to help her through the pain, but she fights herself and pushes others away. She locks herself up tightly. From in her heart and in her room. Alone with her thoughts, she punishes herself while doubts overtake her and cause even more heartache. All of her studying her an attempt to cope, but her expectations for who she thinks she should be only condemn her more with every word she reads from her books.

The sad reality is that I can’t help her. Not now and after all of these years. The pure heartache that truth brings me emerges through the roughened skin of my chest like flames from a furnace. I know that if I give into my own desires I’ll wind up stealing away her potential for growth. I’d take away the very chance she has to at last mend her own wounds that have torn her apart since her youth. It’s up to her to overcome the pain she has deep inside. That very same pain which had broken its seal beneath that pouring rain before she’d fallen on her own sword.

For her to heal, she must admit that she needs help and wants someone to hold her. She needs to overcome her own fears of showing her weakness to others and admitting that she’s afraid. That’s she’s not well. To stop hindering herself and running away from the truth. There’s no other way than to accept that it’s okay for to ask for help and to show weakness to others.

If I were to die then would she let herself die too?

The sudden thought that intrudes on me strikes me with terror deeper than I could ever verbalize.

I wonder over everything while I remember the feeling of her body pressed against mine while I was soaked through with rain. Even today the sensations are so perfect and vivid.

“It’s okay, Juna. It’ll all be okay. I know it might be simpler said, but I mean it. Please have trust in me when I say that.”

A hum of summer wind tickles my face while I look to the horizon and see the sun preparing itself for sleep. The lighter hues of sunflower begin to string themselves up high, giving me my sign written in gold.

“I’m doing all that I can and I’m going to be doing even more here in a bit. You can rely on me as you always have. And Vestil is here for you too. Even all of the maidens. So please take are of yourself. You mean the world to all of us.”

“I’ve been studying.” I can tell that her mind is somewhere else as she makes that statement. “I’ve been studying so I can show everyone that I’m a true magician. When I get the chance to, I’ll prove it. I swear. I’m a real magician just like her.”

“You’ve already done so much and you are a magician. The best magician I’ve ever met both inside and out.”

“I need to become stronger. I’ll become stronger.”

“Juna…”

“I’ll let you go. I need to study some more. I need to learn more or I’ll never be good enough.”

I hear her voice begin to fluctuate. Before I can respond, the call drops along with my heart. I feel her words. Her insistent, stubborn self mutilation lacerates me. I grip onto my shirt and breathe deeply.

Rather than show herself mercy and kindness, she’s fallen back into her worst habits and has strayed further from the place she needs to be. Further away from everyone and everything so she can be alone in a world that is cruel to her.

I have moment wondering whether or not I’ll redial her, but I keep my thumb still. Before I can fall into my own bad habits that would cause me to overcrowd and suffocate her. I for myself to pocket my KNITE and then push off from the wall I’d began to lean against partway through our conversation as things grew heavy.

To keep myself busy and prevent the scar from taking advantage of me in my own moment of weakness, I begin on my way to Vestil. All the negativity I feel will be put to use tonight as I sting the stinger.