It is the middle of an autumn night. A cold breeze flows through the house. Neither me nor Anna can sleep. It's not uncommon for us to go through unique experiences. Vowing to destroy the CBP however is something we haven't done before. Both of us are hectic sleepers, we're laying diaganoly on the bed, with our legs crossing each other. I can still hear Anna's breathing through the heavy rain. The sound reassures me, even more than the beating of my own heart.
"Zer, I don't understand life." Anna sighs. She's been through a lot of emotions in a very short time. She doesn't truly interact with people outside of me and Luca. She does talk with the people at the church every now and then, however that never goes further than casual conversations. So being confronted by Max, especially about a topic so sensitive, was necesary if she wishes to continue to grow as a human being. To the vast majority of humanity she's a hero for killing my brother, but there will always be people who see things differently. "Why did you have to save me that day? I should have bled to death."
"back then, did you feel satisfied dying?"
"I did not know what it meant to be satisfied. All I could think about was that I was able to accomplish my mission." She was nothing more than a puppet. I wished to see true light in those eyes. I wished for it to see the world it affected so much, be it for the better or for the worse.
"That's why I saved you." She has long understood this. I've told her this many times. Yet, Whenever life gets hard she asks this again. "How do you suppose the coming weeks will ensue?"
Anna thinks for a moment. She rolls towards me and puts her face right in front of mine. "have you ever seen me fail?"
"Never."
"Exactly." She reaches in closer to kiss me, but a ring of the door halts our moment of affection. A few seconds later Luca opens the door of our room. It seems he let himself in.
He walks up to the front of the bed and stares deeply at me. those eyes resembling a stary sky always makes one give it the attention it demands, even I fall victim to it. "I need to speak to you."
Any other moment I would have loved to help him, but i'm kinda in the middle of something. It seems Anna is of the same opinion. "Luca, are you blind?!" But her words go right over his head. He takes my arm and drags me out of the room.
"I need your advice on something." He drags me through the house until he finds the appropriate the room, one with a lock. He drags me along with him inside the room, and locks the door. with a snap of his fingers a very big couch appears in the middle of the empty room.
"Luca, couldn't this have waited until tomorrow?" My current attire is not the most appropriate. I'm wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a plain white t-shirt. I try to fake a tired voice, in the hope that would convince him, but it seems plainly obvious his stunt has made plenty of adrenaline course through my body.
"It needs to be now." Luca gives me a very serious look. A death stare. "If you tell any of this to that brainless idiot Anna I will kill you." He hesitates to speak for a moment. "It's about my sister. She needs love advice so to say. I know that idiot Anna will never be able to help me with this, before she met you she couldn't even conjure the thought of loving someone."
"Well I certainly have more experience than Anna." I can proudly say that in my teenage years I got into some encouters, but the period between that and meeting Anna is somewhat of dark period for my love life. "I won't tell anything to Anna. So bring your sister out." He hesitates, but after a few seconds a light shines through the room. A moment after that Luca is gone and a girl sits before me. Smaller than Luca and with longer hair, yet there would be no doubt in anyone's mind that these two are related. To a stranger this event might be confusing. This, however, is no suprise to me. Aurelia is Luca and Luca is Aurelia. I couldn't tell you who they were born as first. Anna told me that somewhere in their youth they decided to live as both sexes. they have always been unique. It's, however, not as if Aurelia and Luca are the exact same person. How one acts is entirely based off of the people you are with and the way they treat you. While to their schoolmates, Aurelia might seem as the hardworking and studious studentcouncil president, Luca seems like a slouch who is somehow still talented at whatever he does.
But now Aurelia looks like a complete wreck. It is not something many will have the opportunity to see. It is not something I have ever seen before (possible not even Anna). What could ever hurt someone as prideful as Aurelia so deeply? The tears start flowing from her eyes. "It hurts." she tries to speak in between the hiccups. "Tell me Zer. Is my heart supposed to hurt like this?" She seems slightly drunk. At her age she wouldn't be allowed to buy alcohol yet. There are, however, not many teens her age who haven't had their fair share of alcohol yet.
"Aurelia.." I try to clean the tears off of her face. I don't know what happened, but I can make a pretty decent guess. "Life doesn't always go your way. That's why you left that ivory tower, you wished to see the life of ordinary people, didn't you? You have seen so much of this universe, except the hearts of others." Her colour has been shining radiantly throughout her life and now the radiance of others is affecting her own colour.
"I wished for others to uplift me.." Her tears continue to flow, they seem like a ceaseless river. every tear takes away some of the bright color she radiates. "First Rachel leaves and now that fool of a teacher rejects my heartfelt plea. All I want to do now is to lay in bed, and to whallow in my tears. Zer, please tell me what you told Anna back then." through her tears she desperately tries to plead me. "If it was able to awaken her heart, then surely it would do the same to me!"
The words I told Anna back then. They were nothing different from what people had been telling her her whole life. A simple command. I snicker. "Sometimes I forget through all your achievements you're still a child." I embrace her. "All I did back then was show her my sincere love. Aurelia, I will always cherish you no matter how many jokes or threats you make. Surely there are still others who think the same in school?" I depart from the hug, stand up from the couch and take a hold of both her shoulder, forcing her to stand up from the couch. "Now stand like the Aurelia I know. I will even let you in on a little secret." Although there is no one else in the room except for us, I move closer to her ear and whisper. "Anna and me are planning on destroying the CBP."
She wipes some of her tears away and looks at me. "Really..?"
"Yes."
"Can I help?"
"Sure you can."
She starts to look a bit better. "Can I kill all of those knights?"
"Well all of them might be a bit much.."
"Are we starting tomorrow?"
I start laughing. "Aurelia you're going too fast." She seems to have sobered up a bit. The tears have stopped flowing. "You're face is ruined from all the sobbing, do you want to face them like that?" She tries to wipe away the stuffiness from her face, but her face continues being a wreck. "Let's talk about it a bit more tomorrow, how about you sleep with us tonight?"
If you told the me from a few years ago about this situation, I would have died laughing. "Me of all people helping a princess like you, what has my life gotten to?"
In his speech, which many call the start of revolution, my brother not only declared war on royalty of Oxward, but also on the religion that has persisted in every culture for many years now: animaxy. Just like my brother, I hold a huge disdain for the cosmic church. It is through their doctrine that humanity has stayed in its current form for the last few centuries. I hold a disdain for both the religion and the institution, so my affection for Aurelia might seem weird. Both the desire of her father and that of her own are, however, diferent than the one the church holds (One I don't particularly dislike), on top of that Anna seems to hold a special affection for her. That was enough for me to tolerate her in the beginning, but I've been cherishing her more and more lately. It seems I've taken up the role of the slightly incompetent older brother. The world is gonna go through a lot of changes soon, and surely she will have a roll to play in that, I wish to atleast guide her into an appropriate roll. My hope is for her to spread kindness. I glance in her direction, she has fallen asleep on the bank. Yet, she is still so young now, I hope she still has time to live out her life the way she wants to.
Sleep well my cosmic princess. May the meaning of those dreams bloom into this world like a flower from the heavens.