@asterites said : ❛ life is like that, isn’t it ? ❜ | ( deathless starters / accepting !! )
𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀 𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃. This was not intended to be cruel, but merely a statement of truth. She did not carry the weight of eldest child responsibility and heir to Tenebrae the way Ravus did. She did not even possess the gift of the Oracle. By all accounts, Stella should have been an average girl.
Yet, early on, it was evident that Stella could see and perceive things that no one else could. Sylva had voiced her concerns to Aulea on several occasions regarding the child’s odd behaviour and claims of seeing things — things that, to the average onlooker, were not really there.
It was only in death that Aulea finally understood.
There was no one else in the room and Aulea didn’t expect there to be. No one came in here anymore. Not since Regis had closed it off after her passing, left to the ravages of time as though the dusty layers of forgotten mementos would create a balm upon his wounded heart. She did not blame him. But Stella, precocious as she was, had found her way into the Queen’s abandoned sitting room as if drawn by some invisible tether. Perhaps she’d sensed Aulea’s presence there. Or perhaps she’d merely been overcome with curiosity. Whatever the case was, Aulea found her staring into a pair of wide, solemn eyes and felt seen. Truly seen.
Their conversation was brief at the time, and Stella was eventually ushered out of the room by a servant; but the child always found her way back somehow.
On one particular day, Stella found the spectre of Noctis’ mother staring out the window, bereft. Aulea seemed to feel that more often lately as the years passed and Noctis grew older; she was missing so much of his life, unable to tell him that she was there with him always.
Stella picked up on it, those same solemn eyes following the Queen’s gaze out the window.
Life is like that, isn’t it? she asked. Aulea didn’t realise some of her pain had been given a voice until Stella had spoken up.
The Queen startled, but her expression sobered into something more like quiet contemplation. When she looked out the window again, she could see Noctis and Lunafreya in the garden. Her smile was soft, and fond.
❛ It doesn’t have to be. ❜