Chapter Text
It was 3 in the morning and Aurisela was in complete agony.
In her defense, she didn’t mean to stay up this long. She just needed a distraction, anything would do, even running laps around campus in freezing weather. She took sharp, quick breaths of the cool nightime air as she fought to regain her breath.
It didn’t matter how far she ran or for how long because she couldn't run from her own memories. The very second she stopped running, even if only for a second, it all came rushing back to the forefront of her mind, the one place it could not be.
She’d had to stop herself from having a full on breakdown when she saw Relio today. He looked bad, even worse than usual when he went to see their mother for “resistance training”. He was trembling from head to toe and Auristela could feel the burn marks on his forearms as if they were her own.
She hated it. She hated it. She hated it so much it took everything in her and more to keep her hate concealed behind a perfectly constructed mask. And even then, her hate spilled from the edges of her chest cavity and onto those who mostly didn’t deserve it.
“If you don't heal what hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you.”
The saying echoed through the walls of her mind often when she was younger, when there was still love for the world and belief in the good of people in her. It was always something she held herself to, back when she tried not to let her hate get the better of her.
But the saying had done nothing for her. It didn’t make Relio’s pain go away. It didn’t stop their mother from hurting him. It didn’t make their father stand up for his only son. So it was useless to her.
She hated it. She hated everyone.
She hated her mother, for harming her brother.
She hated the temple priests, who heard his echoing screams nearly every day when they were kids but kept their heads down.
She hated her father, who knew what was happening even before Auristela did, but never offered anything more than empty comfort.
She hated the Jades, for their easy lifes far away from the pain and expectations she and Relio had to face everyday.
She hated the mortals, for being so weak and useless that they had to give their lives and freedom to protect them.
She hated the Golds, how their society condoned the torment they pushed upon their children.
She hated herself, for being unable to do anything about it. She hated sitting on the bathroom floor of his dorm atleast once a week to tend to her injured brothers arms. She hated being unable to steady her hands enough to properly wrap bandages around them. She hated crying everytime it happend even when Relio stopped.
She hated the world, and evey cursed thing it had brought upon her twin.
So she ran. She ran like her life depended on it, cherishing the way a delicious ache that blossomed in her lungs grew in her chest when she pushed her body to hard. The way she made herself nauseous with exhaustion and dizzy with pain. It made her thoughts go away, if only for a bit, shut off her brain if only for a moment.
Once the throbbing in her head subsided for long enough that she could stand upright, she began to run again. She figured since it was so late already she might aswell run until classes started, what’s a little more pain right now in comparison to going back to her room and dealing with such a tide of self-loathing she couldn’t get out of bed?
While she was running, her brain dimly registered a light source not far ahead of her. What it did not register though, was the archery targets.
A sharp pain that ran across the bridge of her nose shocked her out of headspace. She staggered and took few instinctive steps backwards as she tetntivaely put her her pointer and middle finger to the bridge of her nose. When she withdrew them there was blood stained across them.
Her mind was blurry at the edges from a lack of sleep, her thughts slow and unhurried from her exhaustion like mud swirling in a bog. She merely stood there as she watched her blood fill the grooves of her fingerpints, numbly observing as gold dripped from her fingers.
Auristela was only half aware that someone was touching her, and when her body finally registered a calloused hand on her shoulder, warm from actvieness and gentle with concern she gave into the urge to lean into it, if only slightly.
This seemed to alarm the person though, and the rising panic in their voice made Auristela flinch away and rub her temple with her palms, trying to clear her head.
“S t e l a . . . ?”
The voice was familiar, she realized, but it sounded like it was coming from underwater. Or perhaps she was the one underwater and the voice was from the surface, trying to pull her up. It felt like it. Like a fish caught in a fisherman’s sharp hook, she could feel herself being reigned in.
“S t e l a . . a r e y o u o k a y? ”
Her senses began to return to her, and everything seemed to fall back into place, like puzzle pieces being fit together, though she still couldn’t figure out the picture it was supposed to make.
Her fingers were practically numb from cold, and she could feel the familiar person’s hands guiding her to sit somewhere. She could feel what was probably a blanket being wrapped around her shoulders and fingers brushing stray hairs from her face. She could smell sweat and sandalwood, and the air seemed to have gotten quite a few degrees warmer where she was at.
She took a deep breath and once her body deemed her safe, she promptly passed out.
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She woke up sometime later. Wether it had been a few seconds or a couple hours, she couldn’t tell. Her head spun when she brought it upwards, bright colors dashed across her field of vision as she attempted to regain her eyesight.
She was on a mat. A training mat. A stolen training mat. It must be, because wherever she was, she wasn’t in a gym. That, atleast, Auristela was aware of. She rubbed her eyes as she sat up, feeling something warm and soft cascade off her shoulders. A blanket. Pale beige in color and obviously well loved if the frayed edges were any indication. Auristela rubbed the fabric inbetween her fingers, for such a thin thing, it kept her much warmer than any blanket she’d had special ordered.
As her conscious returned to her, so did her common sense. She evaluated her surroundings whilst trying to remember why she was here in the first place. The room was dimly lit, only a single lantern was present in the room she was in. Whoever was here, they did not want to be seen.
Which made her being here all the more confusing.
She reconized the style of her surroundings, paper sliding doors leading to the outside and a flood made with bamboo wood. She was in a Minka styled building with shoji designed doors, which atuomattically meant she was somewhere offshoot of the West Wiing. Only the West Wing of the Academy had Minka styled buildings, as the arututechture of the Academy had evolved into a more Western style. The remaining buildings were purely for memorial purposes, so it was not visited often and was scarcely decorated. It also ment Auristela had ran much father than she thought.
Attempting to stand proved to be an awful idea, her legs were still half asleep and Auristela only just managed to stop herself falling. She froze when she heard a soft thwup and made her way to the sliding door, cautious as to keep her footsteps light and without sound. A few more thwup’s were made as she carefully gripped the door, pressing her fingers against the cool wooden handle. She winced when the door rubbed against the floor, making a conspicuous sound that thankfully didn’t seem to reach the ears of whomever was behind it.
She registered her shoulders first. Thick with muscle and tanned to a shade of Sienna brown, Umber freckles trickled down to her forearms, which were only visible in the summer and spring. A oak arrow was plucked from the quiver attached to her back, displacing an espresso colored braid, it was flicked back over her shoulder with annoyance as the arrow was fit into the string of the bow.
Arrow notched, she drew her arm back, pulling it with four fingers in an intense focus. She held onto it for a moment, as if in attempt to make herself even stiller than she already was before releasing the arrow from its hold. It made another thwup sound as the arrow penetrated the straw boss, going right through the bullseye.
Niya huffed in irritation a she began to draw another arrow, as if her perfect shot did nothing to please her. It was a confusing sight for Auristela to witness and for less than a moment she felt a rush of emmarasment, as if she’d seen something private. She shook it off as she contemplated Niya’s emotions, for as someone who took joy in even the dullest of tasks, seeing her so unaffected by what should have been an accomplishment made something uneasy twist in her stomach.
Curiosity burned within Auristela as she continued to watch Niya’s archery practice, Niya’s aim wasn’t perfect, of course, but it was good enough to best most of their classmates, herself exempted.
Niya seemed to only grow more frustrated with each imperfect hit. If it didn’t exactly hit the bullseye, she huffed as if the arrow was deliberately missing it’s mark. And even when it did hit a bullseye, she merely grabbed another arrow without taking a moment of pride. Everything about what Auristela was seeing was unsettling, when Niya was failing at something and made even the slightest amount of progress, she’d celebrate it as if she’d won a medal. That Niya decidedly not present.
Auristela scanned the open area where Niya had chosen to practice, there were broken arrows littered in the grass, but only a few. A nearby wooden table supported a collection of various items, including a simple ivory bow, a white drawstring backpack with a worn sparrow keychain attached to it, a few arrow shafts, a singular cream and white feather, and a bloodied arrowhead resting on a brown cloth.
Oh.
Oh.
The arrowhead.
A jolt of realization ran through her body like electricity as she connected the dots. That’s why she’s here. Auristela must have gotten nicked by one of those arrows while running, and in one way or another it lead to her passing out here. Niya must have thought it was her fault, which explained her unusually stony expression.
Her brain also decided at that very moment to supply her with a memory from last week, Auristela remembered vaguely an instructor lecturing Niya on her poor aim, and how she couldn’t continue to rely solely on close range weapons like she’d been doing. If Auristela knew how much it would’ve gotten to Niya, she probably wouldn’t have immediately grabbed a bow an arrow to shoot a bullseye on the target Niya was failing to get a hit on, smilling smugly as she turned her back on Niya’s furious expression.
Something like guilt found it’s way up Auristela’s throat, making her warm with shame at her childish antics. She shoved it down, thinking about how she was probably apart of the reason Niya was sacrificing sleep to pratice brought up complicated feelings. One’s she wasn’t ready to face yet. Deep down, she knew it was herself that drove the wedge between them, it was her own fault that her and Niya always seemed to be at eachother’s necks, but she couldn’t help it.
Niya was just such an easy person to hate.
Auristela contemplated shutting the door and finding another way out, but somthing soft and vulnerable tugged on her from somewhere deep, begging her stay. She took a deep breath and a tentative step out the door and amost immediately harvest gold eyes locked onto her. Auristela felt Niya soaking the sight of her up akin to a sponge in a bucket of water, like the just the sight of her was making her fuller.
“You’re alright.” Niya essentially breathed the words, as if she was scared speaking any louder would shatter Auristela. Which, to her credit, was not wholly incorrect. Being the sole focus on Niya’s attention always felt overpowering, it left Auristela feeling little more that an insect being pinned to a frame. Usually, Aurstela pushed back with a glare, shoving every malicious feeling to the front, in a useless hope it would cause her to back off, or atleast show a little respect.
But Niya never showed any fear of Auristela, or caution, for that matter. Instead, she was mostly angry with her these days, which Auristela found suited her needs quite well. It was better for both of them this way.
She couldn’t stand to go back to the time when Niya looked at her like she was everything.
“Did you think a little arrow was going to make me drop dead? You wish.” Auristela sneered, but in her state it came out flat and pathetic. Frustration flickered in Niya’s gaze, but there was a little hurt there too, with the slightest tace of grief. It made Auristela wish she never learned how to read even further into Niya’s already open expressions. She chose to ignore it.
“If you’d looked where you were going, maybe you’d actually have seen the arrow instead of getting hit and passing out of me!” Niya puffed her chest in indignation, but they both knew there was no heat behind it. There hardly ever was. She’d have to push harder.
“Perhaps if you hadn’t had such lousy aim, you wouldn’t have hit me.” She arranged her face into a condesending smile. “You really are awful, even a Jade would know how to shoot better than you”
Almost instantly, Niya’s features twisted into a snarl, and Auristela knew she’d hit her mark. Comparing her to the Jades was a soft spot, and one she used to her advantage as much as possible. Auristela’s plain dislike of Jades had always been a source of grief for Niya, esspecially since she was friends with a particularly annoying one.
“Not everybody is as perfect as Lumbre’s precious daughter” Niya snapped in anger, and Auristela reeled like she’d been sucker punched. So they were both aiming low today, huh. Auristela knew she deserved it after bringing Teo into it, but implication she was anything like her mother still hurt like nothing else.
Niya also looked shocked, like she too couldn’t believe she’d said that. Regret showed openly in her features and Auristela wanted to revel in it. She wanted to wait for Niya’s apology and give her own, and then melt into Niya’s arms and forget the rest. She wanted to tell her she didn’t mean to be a nuisance, and that she was grateful that Niya looked after her, and that she was happy Niya still cared for her.
“I’m sorry Auristela, I didnt mea-” Niya began, but Auristela cut her off, the use of her full name slicing a wound deeper than she expected. Suddenly she needed to leave right this very moment.
“I’m leaving.” Was all she offered as a response before snatching her phone from the floor next to the mat she’d been sleeping on and pretty much bolting past Niya, walking fast and confidently so she might seem like she knew where she was going.
She couldn’t keep thinking about what she’d lost and how it was all her fault or she’d collapse and never be able to get back up again.