The Last of Those Eyes

The next several nights were reply less. And in the mean time Lorin stuck to reading Lady Leaf’s diary, occasionally joined by Celeste. He felt closer to her than ever before, and Socorro always seemed to give them the sort of look when they were together that he knew more than they did. But then again he did, after all, he had been responsible for telling the both of them they had feelings for one another in the first place, back before everything happened and their world was turned upside down. They were all starting to get used to this new life; it was simple, yet just quite nice. No events, no servants, just three friends living in a small house with no titles or anything. But of course Renata knew where they were, so there was no escaping her turning up one day at the end of June to knock on their door and give them a intricate little envelope. Lorin suddenly felt all the ease he had been feeling for the past fall away when he read the event printed on the letter; the next lord’s meeting.

“Huh, thought you could escape from that didn’t you? Well, someone knew where I was and I have to pass the letter on to you. You may be in luck and not have to go however if we can’t find a usable Gryphon Carriage in time,” Renata said plainly, Lorin read the date.

“Not until the end of August I suppose, could be worse.”

“Indeed. The 29th right? Well, on second thoughts, you may not be so lucky in getting out of it, two months is plenty of time.”

“How’s guard recruiting going?”

“Tediously. How’s living your life simply going?”

“We were quite enjoying it. But hey, what can you do.”

“You know you really lost your sense of humour you did.”

“Well spotted, but it’s not really a fantastic image to have permanently stuck in your mind, a dead face, of someone you know.”

“Ok, don’t take it out on me I’m still older than you.” Renata looked around her outside before continuing briefly, it was about to rain from the look of the clouds, “I’d better go, I’ll come back here soon when I find out how things are going.” And with that she turned on her heels and marched back off away from the cottage.

Lorin meanwhile went upstairs with Celeste to put the letter in the supplies bag, where they were storing letters and papers and such, including Leaf’s diaries. Lorin turned to Celeste when he had put the letters away and grabbed her round the waist to pull her closer towards him. They kissed, lightly, before separating again. They always did that on random occasions, sometimes for longer, and also sometimes just to talk. Lorin decided to go back downstairs and sorted out what needed to go for tonight’s dinner.

As Lorin went round to the dining table to find the bag of food, he noticed something. Just by the inaccessible cellar door was a note, evidently pushed under the door. He picked it up, and recognized the bulky handwriting in that instant, they had a reply! He called down Celeste and Socorro and they all sat down together at the table to read the note. The handwriting was indeed very shaky and some of the spellings were a little off, but it was nevertheless readable.

Dear Lorin, Celeste and Socorro,
I am sorry, my writing is not very well, and I find it hard. I am fine, not yong anymore, but fine. Yes I put you to sleep so you would not see me. My powers are shame, but I disapeared becus I knew I would live past Cameron. He had a hard life, I am part immortal, I did not want to see him die like Caelum did. My powers killed someone, you don’t now what its like. And where did it go wrong? Greed. Human nachur. It was the same in Belga all those years ago. My dad died in my arms, both times, I now the feeling. I am sorry.
Aquila Vadale.

Considering he had little writing experience, it was pretty good, he had obviously worked out some spellings from the note that the trio had given to him, but they didn’t mind particularly, he had written back. In a way it made Lorin feel guilty; there he was getting nightmares about seeing his father dead before him once, for two minutes, Aquila had not only seen his dad dead twice, he’d watched him die, in his arms. He snapped out of his thoughts as Celeste and Socorro said his name.

“Anything malo Lorin?” Socorro asked. Celeste nodded in agreement to also ask his question.

“No... I was just thinking about something.”

“You sure Lorin?” Celeste responded, Lorin nodded, and they said no more.

Celeste stood up and gave him a quick peck on the forehead before taking some food out of the food bag and asking the boys what they wanted to eat later. Socorro wanted pasta, Lorin was indifferent meanwhile, and didn’t make a suggestion. He didn’t move as Socorro stood up and took with him the note to put along with everything else into the supplies bag.

The rest of the day was frightfully uneventful, Celeste cooked dinner, they all ate dinner together (with Socorro making faces and artwork with the food on his wooden plate, they had found the wooden plates in the cupboards already there). Afterwards Lorin was the one cleaning up whilst Socorro was still acting about third of his age and tossing the plates in the air whilst Lorin was trying to clean them. Lorin eventually did get pretty annoyed with this behaviour and barked at his crazy young friend to stop messing around and calm down. He would be eighteen in August; Lorin’s birthday was afterwards however, in November, his 20th. That made him feel old.

Celeste had gone to fetch more water whilst Lorin washed up and came in with the full bucket shortly after Socorro had been evicted out from the kitchen to retreat upstairs. She put the bucket down on the counter next to the washing up basin and began to help Lorin with the washing. They had gotten through quite far with the washing up before anyone spoke.

“Where’s Socorro? I heard shouting,” the girl asked.

“He was fooling around, tossing plates into the air and dropping them, I won’t lie, it became annoying after the first two minutes, I lost it after seven.” Celeste sighed and then chuckled.

“No chorus of ‘holy socks’?”

“Nope, and ‘holy socks’ I can just about live with.”

“His ‘holy socks’ literally have holes in them. I need to sew them up tomorrow. Any clothes of yours that need fixing?” Celeste put down a dish she had just washed and upon realising there was nothing left to wash, helped Lorin by putting away the washing up he was drying with a cloth.

“No, but I’ll do the washing tomorrow if that helps”

“Thank you Lorin. What do you think that lord’s meeting will be like?”

“I dread to even think about it to be frank. That Tarquin...”

“He could at least have some consideration for the sanity of others and get rid of the hideous goatee he sports. One moment, it’s getting dark. Candle time methinks.” It wasn’t particularly late, but the nights were getting longer. And he put the final dish that he was drying away as Celeste lit two of the candles that were in the cupboard nearest to the basin. She put one on the dining room table and looked at him, “If I had known that you would have finished the drying, I wouldn’t have lit two candles.” Lorin gave her a kind of half smile and approached her.

“It’s been a while since we last danced together.”

“I know.” She tipped her head demurely, and Lorin caressed her cheek. They then started to hold each other for a dance, slowly, in the fading daylight and the flicker of the candles.

They didn’t speak, just danced, and time just ran away from them as they twirled through the room. But Lorin didn’t see the room or the candlelight, he only saw the face of Celeste, her green eyes look up at him, and her black hair rippling around her shoulders down to her back. He loved it when she didn’t tie her hair up. He didn’t quite know how long they were dancing for, certainly a long time. The only good thing that had come out of the events after the ball, he could spend as much time with Celeste as he wanted.

They broke off once again as they heard a crash coming from upstairs. On investigation it was Socorro tripping up the stairs after having spied on them. After settling him back down and an awkward silence during which Socorro went to bed hastily. Celeste and Lorin stayed up downstairs for a little while longer, just talking quietly to each other, flirting at some points, their night was their own. But even they had their limits, as one of the candles started to go out, Celeste retired off to bed as well, leaving Lorin by himself. He went over and stood by the washing up basin and the bucket of water, he knew what he was waiting for.

He was stood there for several hours, and kept thinking that the other candle would go out, but still kept standing there, until finally, what he had been waiting to happen, happened. First he heard the sound of something heavy, struggling against ancient hinges, and then he saw the cellar door open, before a dark figure emerged from the doorway and closed the old door behind it.

“Well good evening,” Lorin whispered loudly. The figure jumped round, and clutched its chest for a moment, before storming towards Lorin and the still lit candle. The figure was about to put out the candle, but Lorin stopped it, “Wait, I want to see your face, else I don’t know if you really are who I think you are.”

“Fair enough,” the mature yet weirdly mixed accented male voice whispered, or snapped more like, “But don’t think I’m going to be an angel in features.” He moved into the candle light a little more, until Lorin could see his face.

To say he wasn’t angelic in features would be a lie. He was well over six centuries old, yet he barely looked fifty, and his largely grey hair still had flecks of flaxen blond in sight. His skin was lined, yet not badly, and he still had the dark tan he could be identified from, and those aqua eyes. Aquila Vadale, in the flesh, and he was very tall.

“I swear you looked older the last time I saw you,” Lorin said.

“When I use my powers, I tend to look older, and demonic in face. Such is my life.”

“But it used to be good didn’t it?”

“Yep, until my son started looking older than me. He started to be called ‘Old Cam’ while I was still looked around 20ish. My dad died about ten years before him. I knew when Cam was going to die, his crippled leg had terrible joint pains, and he was going blind, deaf, and losing his memory. I disappeared just before it happened, I couldn’t bear to watch. Immortality is lonely, even though strictly speaking, I’m not even immortal, I just age super slowly.”

“I’m not immortal or particularly special in any way, just Lorin.”

“Lord Lorin from what I heard... By the way, I heard the way you and Celeste speak to each other, until I got your note and actually discovered that you two had different surnames, I thought you were married.” Aquila joined him in leaning against the counter.

“This place isn’t actually haunted is it?”

“No, although there are still places I tend to avoid going near, such as the willow tree out by the river, and the Robin’s cottage in the woods, which is in a state of disrepair, majorly.”

“Why the willow tree? What’s wrong with it?”

“My ex lover hung herself from it after something my son said really upset her. His wild personality had already made her depressed enough anyway, and she was his mother.”

“Ouch.”

“Yep, and then a few months later, along comes her twin sister, who finds out about her death, and decides she wants to kill me for it, but she never did as you can see. I have Carola and my dad to thank for that... Cam tried, but she absolutely loathed Cam, the moment she set eyes on him. I won’t go into the details why, there’s a whole building with that story. What happened to you three which meant you had to take refuge here?” Lorin sighed, and looked at the flame of the candle flickering behind them both.

“I guess the best place to start is to say that my sister, Honora, she had a lot of guys proposing to her on a daily basis, most of them she’d never met before, in fact all of them. Most of them got the meaning of ‘no’ first time round, but not Tarquin Delphine. The lord of the Delphines, and sworn enemy of the Vadales. One night he kidnapped her, erased her memory, so she had never heard of all of us, and was convinced that Tarquin was her lover. Me, my dad and Celeste were injured, and I owe Socorro my life, if he hadn’t come when he did, I wouldn’t be here. Anyway, then came the ball, my dad sent me along without him, with Celeste and Socorro with me, but when we came back... just gone. I walked into that room at home to see him dead, along with everyone else that stayed behind at the manor, even the servants. The manor had been set on fire, so we had to get out, and we escaped to here, the only area left to the Vadales.”

“And all this in a few months? Well, I’ve had a lot of stuff happen in my life, but not so close together.” They stood together for a while longer, before Aquila went towards the front door, Lorin followed him outside, leaving the candle to go out behind them. They stopped in the moonlight near the river.

“I... I need your advice,” Lorin said, looking up at the tall elder.

“What’s that?”

“It’s just... you mentioned that you though Celeste and I were married. I love her more than anything else, but I’m a lord and people may not like the idea of me and her... plus I could endanger her life-“

“So? Just marry her already listening to you two and knowing that you two are so hesitant really drives me insane. If she was concerned about her safety in loving you, she wouldn’t have stayed by you for this long, and if you were really, deep down, worried what other people thought of you two, you wouldn’t be together. There are two people in a relationship. No one else.”

“You think so?”

“Yep, I know so; I have an old story as an example. My son and daughter in law. My son proposed to her, she accepted, and knew full well her best friend wouldn’t like that.”

“I know what happened, that’s not very comforting.”

“Maybe, but they still stuck together, and also I doubt that friend you owe your life to will try to kill you, and cripple you in the attempt.”

“Fair.”

“Good, and shall we go back inside? You should probably go to sleep soon anyway.”

“You’re not my dad!”

“No but I’m your great great great great great great great great great great don’t know how many times great granddad! I think what I say goes.” He gave Lorin a sort of superior look, and led him back into the kitchen, where now both candles had gone out.

“At least there are about a million spare candles in the cupboard,” Lorin said, he saw Aquila smile slightly at this.

“You know why?” Aquila then walked over to the candle on the dining room table, and hissed something, which caused not only a dim light but... the candle filling itself up again with wax. He then took the candle, gave it to Lorin to put it in the cupboard before doing the same to the other candle. This time Lorin could see his eyes go red and his face age and get fiercer. And the candle rejuvenate itself, before everything returned to normal, and the candle looked brand new. Lorin put it away before expressing how impressed he was.

“It’s a simple trick, I can’t do much,” the elder said, “Also, the reason this house still stands, is me as well. Now, I don’t really want to send you off to bed for more nightmares, so-“

“You’re going to magic me asleep again right?”

“Got it in one.”

“I’m honestly not that tired you know.”

“I don’t care, and listen, the more people talk to me, the lonelier I’ll feel when they go, so only talk to me in an emergency. It was nice to have a conversation just now, but I don’t want to be insane. I’m sorry.” He stretched out a hand towards Lorin’s face like he had done last time, his eyes went red, and his face aged, that dim light showed, and all went black.