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Sylus had never really known grief.
He lost his mother before he could remember her, and his father was anything but loving. The day the nursing home called to inform him of his death, all Sylus could do was sigh in relief.
Some days, he dreams of a child in the meadows, running in reckless abandon as he chased butterflies across the field. Somewhere near was a white haired woman with crimson eyes, gently calling on to him and making sure he never got too far. The child would always come back, because in his mother’s arms he knew he was safe.
Sometimes Sylus wonders if those dreams were memory or wishful thinking. Was it grief if it was for something he didn’t even know happened? Or was he simply trying to find some semblance of connection to make him feel more human?
When he was a teenager, he knew a girl at school. She was taller than him, and had purple eyes that showed kindness before her actions could. They would talk in class, spend time after school and just… be. Some days she would come to school with a bruised eye, the kind that even heavy duty concealer had a hard time covering up. And if anybody was familiar with cruelty at home, it was him.
So he would sit near her, talk about school, even take her to ice cream shops and arcades where they could forget the darkness that awaits back home. But he never had it in him to talk to her about why her eyes were swollen, or why she came to school wearing a cast on her wrist, or the days her kind eyes felt empty. He thought he would live within the silent understanding of what it was to be suffering, until she eventually stopped coming to school one day.
Could he call the loss for his friend grief?
If grief was an emptiness carved into your chest, then his had always been hollow before it could even be filled. He told himself he was fine with that. That some people were born without the luxury of attachments, and he was one of them.
Until Lili.
She had a way of slipping into his life without asking permission, like sunlight sneaking through the cracks of a boarded window. He noticed her first in the little things: how she would tilt her head when she was listening, as though every word he said deserved to be kept. How her laugh didn’t just rise in the air but stayed, lingering in his chest long after she left the room.
And then, somehow, Lili became his home. And in time, Aria and Kai were born.
Sylus still wasn’t sure he understood grief. But fear. Fear, that, he knew. And if there was one fear that rooted itself deep in his bones, it was losing his family.
It hit him one evening as he watched Kai wobble across the living room floor, determined to make it from the couch to Lili without toppling over. Lili sat waiting with her arms outstretched, laughing encouragement, her hair loose around her face.
Kai stumbled once, caught himself, and then barreled forward with reckless confidence. For a split second, Sylus saw not his son but the dream-child in the meadow. Running, running, until he might disappear. His chest seized, and before he could stop himself, he moved as though to catch Kai, to pull him back, to keep him safe.
But Kai reached Lili’s arms, triumphant, squealing in delight. Lili glanced over her shoulder at him, curious, as though she could sense the storm behind his stillness.
Sylus forced his hands back into his pockets.
He told himself it was nothing. Just a father being cautious. But when Lili smiled at him all soft, knowing, the kind of smile that reached into the hollowest corners of him… something inside eased.
Slowly, he crossed the room, crouching beside them. Kai tumbled into his lap with a giggle, small hands tugging at his sleeve. Sylus ruffled the boy’s hair, almost shy in the gesture, and Lili’s hand brushed his as she adjusted Kai against them both.
The fear was still there, yes. But when he looked at them—his son’s bright eyes, Lili’s steady warmth, his daughter peeking from the hallway to join them—the meadow no longer belonged to dreams.
It was here, in front of him.
And for the first time, Sylus thought: maybe that was enough.