Archive of Our Own ^beta

She wakes when the light is blue—
(not dark, not bright, but the in-between, the secret color of waiting).

Mother is gone already—the quilt still warm where she lay, but the pillow hollow, holding only silence. Alia knows the pattern now: Mama stays until her lashes fall, her body loosens, her thumb slips from her lip. Then—vanishes, quiet as mist.
(Alia tries to catch her, to keep her—tries to stay awake with eyes pinched wide. She fails most nights. She always fails.)

But she does not cry. Not anymore.
(It has been weeks since the last time—Paul says that makes her a big girl, and she believes him, because Paul is never wrong, not about stars, not about anything.)

Barefoot, she pads to the window, the boards cool against her soles. She presses her cheek to the glass, fog-wet and shivering, and the pane sighs with her breath. The garden stretches below—soft, green, alive with morning secrets. She holds her breath, and there they are:

Two shadows in the mist—her brother, her father.

Paul spins, swift and bright, the sword in his hands humming the air awake. The mist parts for him (she thinks it likes him, the way bees like flowers).
Father stands with arms crossed, broad and steady, but Alia sees what Paul cannot: the secret curve of his smile when Paul’s face is turned away.

The world is quiet except for their music—the slice and whistle, the breath and pause. Alia watches and watches until her toes go numb, until she thinks maybe she will sink right through the floorboards and join them, barefoot in the grass, light as fog, quicker than the bees.

𑣲₊ ⊹

Alia knows she is strange—Mother never says it with her mouth, but with her eyes (soft, worried, searching her face as though something might spill out). Too quiet, too sharp, too old in corners where children are not supposed to be.

But today she is not strange at all.
Today she is only a girl—only Alia.

She wears the yellow dress, the one with sunflower buttons (round as suns, bright as morning). The fabric is stiff from drying on the line, still smelling of soap and wind. She twirls until the hem flares wide, until her hair clings to her cheeks, until she nearly topples—laughs when she falls anyway.

In the garden she kneels among violets, lets the dirt smudge her palms, her knees. The grass stains quick and dark, and she knows Mama will scold (but not very hard, not if she looks sweet and sorry).

She tears the knees on purpose—presses them harder into stone until the threads give way. It feels like victory: proof that she belongs to earth, to play, to this moment. Not to the strange things inside her head.

The buttons shine when the sun leans close. She imagines they are eyes, watching her kindly, winking secrets only she can hear.

𑣲₊ ⊹

Paul always finds her—always. (She hides in curtains, behind the gate, under the table with the tablecloth like a tent—but still he comes, sure as the tide. He has a way of knowing.)

Today he comes with his tunic grass-stained, his cheek sun-warmed, a streak of dirt just under his chin. He drops beside her in the grass, long legs folding awkwardly, birdlike, wings tucked in.

“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Thinking about bees.”
“What about them?”
“They never get lonely.”

He blinks, slow, as if tasting the words. Then laughs—sudden, startled from deep inside. It bursts out, sharp and golden, and a finch leaps from the lemon tree as though even it was surprised.

Alia tilts her head, watching. She thinks she loves him best like this—when he doesn’t understand her, when he doesn’t even try, when he simply laughs and lets her be strange.

The air around him smells of field-wind, green and open, but also the bite of iron from the training yard (sharp, metallic, a taste she imagines on her tongue). His shoulder is warm when she leans into it anyway, small body folding against his.

Paul doesn’t move, doesn’t question. He lets her lean. (He always does.)

She whispers, as if telling a secret, “If I was a bee, I would follow you from flower to flower.”
Paul blinks again, then ruffles her hair like he always does—gentle, but not gentle enough, messing all her neatness.

She scowls. He laughs again. The finch does not return.

When his laughter fades, he tilts his head, considering her. Then he drops to all fours, buzzing loudly, circling her with ridiculous seriousness. “I am a bee,” he declares. “Beware.”

Alia shrieks—half joy, half terror—and scrambles up, darting across the garden. Paul chases, buzzing in great loops, arms out like wings. He is clumsy, too big for the game, but he plays it anyway. She darts between lemon trees, skirts the violets, doubles back toward the gate. His shadow always follows, stretching long across the grass.

When he catches her, it is with a swoop, lifting her high into the air so her feet kick and dangle. She squeals until she cannot squeal anymore. He sets her down, both of them breathless, their laughter spilling into the morning like water over stone.

“You’d make a terrible bee,” she tells him, solemn now, brushing hair from her eyes.
“And you’d make a noisy one,” he says, grinning.

She grins back anyway.

𑣲₊ ⊹

The gate creaks when she pushes it—long, groaning, as though it has a voice of its own (a tired old woman, stooping, pressing a hand to her back). She says excuse me to it, because if you don’t mind your manners with gates, they will close on you when you least expect it. She knows this. Paul told her.

The hinges smell like rainwater and rust. The wood is damp, moss curling in its cracks. She traces it with her finger—green, velvet-green, the color of frogs after rain. Her finger comes away stained. She thinks the gate has given her a secret mark, a sign she belongs.

The garden hums—bees over the foxglove, a blue dragonfly wobbling low, the sea somewhere behind the stone walls. Everything is listening (she feels it—leaves leaning closer, flowers tilting their heads).

She kneels in the path. The gravel pricks through her knees, but she doesn’t care. Violets are blooming near the wall, tucked shyly in the shade. They look like little purple faces—bashful, whispering. She tells them secrets in a hush:

—that Paul promised to take her up the cliff next time, no matter what Mother says.
—that sometimes she hides behind the curtains until dust makes her sneeze (she pinches her nose to stop it, but the sneeze always escapes).
—that Father’s hands smell of cedar, always, always, as if the smell lives in his skin.

The violets do not answer. But she knows they keep her secrets safe.

She rises again, brushes dirt from her knees, and thinks: if she runs fast enough down the gravel path, the sea-wind will lift her. She tucks her chin, spreads her arms, runs until her lungs are fire. The pebbles sting her heels. The world blurs.

She is sure, for one shining second, that she is not touching the ground at all.

She crouches again, eyes sharp as a cat’s—because ants are making a parade across the path. Black ones, shiny, purposeful. She drops a petal in their way, to see if they’ll treat it as an obstacle or a gift. (They scurry around it. She decides they are stubborn. She respects that.)

A bee bumbles past her ear. She tells it: don’t sting me and I’ll be your friend forever. (The bee doesn’t answer—but it doesn’t sting, which is answer enough.)

The fountain at the far end is broken—water slipping crooked from its lip, falling heavy into the stone basin. She loves the sound, the splash-splash, like the sea trying to learn a new song. She dips her hand in, cold cold cold, then shakes it hard, scattering droplets like coins. One lands on her cheek. She licks it—tastes like nothing. Like clear glass.

She imagines the fountain is a giant’s mouth, and if she threw herself in, it would swallow her whole, carry her somewhere secret under the garden. (She almost does it. Almost. But Paul told her never to lean too far. Giants only swallow foolish girls.)

The air tastes green here. (She doesn’t know how else to name it—green like leaves, green like stems snapping, green like something alive enough to breathe with her.)

She picks up a twig, holds it like a sword, declares herself the guardian of the gate. Nothing gets past her without permission. Not the dragonfly, not the clouds overhead, not even the little breath of wind sneaking through the hedge. She says who goes there?—then answers herself in a deep voice—only me, sir.

The violets giggle (she swears they do).

When the clouds move and the sunlight spills down all at once, she stops running, stops guarding, just—tilts her head back. Arms out. She thinks maybe the sun is a hand reaching down, about to lift her. Maybe this is the moment she will finally, finally fly.

She leaps—once, twice. Gravel sprays beneath her feet. She is certain she’s higher than before. Certain the gate is watching. Certain the flowers are holding their breath.

But the ground takes her back (it always does).

Still—she knows. Next time she’ll go a little faster. A little braver. And then she won’t come down at all.

She thinks about telling Paul—how she almost flew, how the sun nearly took her hand. He will laugh, not in a mean way but in that way where his eyes crinkle (she likes to see that, it makes his whole face shine). He’ll say not yet, little sister, and promise to race her down the cliffs so she can practice. And maybe he’ll let her win again. Maybe.

She imagines telling Mother, too, about the violets keeping her secrets. Mama will press her lips together, not quite smiling, brushing back her hair as though she is listening but also thinking about something else (always thinking, thinking). Alia will insist—violets do listen, Mama, they do. And Mama will nod, slow, and say, then we must be careful what we tell them. (Which means Mother believes her after all.)

And Father—yes, she will tell Father about the gate giving her a green mark, how it claimed her as its own. He will lift her hand, study the moss-smear very solemnly, then kiss it as though it’s a knight’s crest. (He always takes her seriously, even when she says things that make Paul roll his eyes.) She decides she loves him best for that. For the cedar smell that clings, for the way his hands fold hers like bird wings.

She wonders—if she flies for real one day, who will she tell first? Paul, who will want to race her to the sky? Mama, who will braid her hair tighter so the wind doesn’t take it? Or Father, who will look up and smile as though he knew she would all along?

Maybe she won’t tell anyone. Maybe she’ll fly straight out beyond the sea, and the garden, and the gate—and keep the secret all to herself.

(But then—what would the violets say, if she never came back?)

The light shifts—longer now, warmer, spilling across the walls. Evening creeping in (slow, golden, quiet). The garden begins to close itself, petals folding, bees sinking home. Even the gate seems to sigh, as if saying enough now, little one—go in, go in.

Alia drags her hand along the stone as she walks back, fingers catching moss, ivy, the roughness of lichen (each texture a word she doesn’t know yet). The air tastes salt-sweet from the sea.

She thinks about staying—hiding under the laurel, sleeping curled like a fox. But she knows Mama will call soon, voice carrying from the open hall windows, and it is better to go before she’s called. (Better to arrive as if she had always been coming.)

She runs her last run down the path—not to fly this time, but to carry the garden inside her. She decides she will bring the smell of violets and wet stone into the house, so when Mama brushes her hair, Mama will smell the garden in her and know.

And then she is pushing through the wide doors—curtains breathing, shadows long, the hush of supper not yet begun—toward Mother’s chair, where the silver brush waits.

The hall smells different from the garden—cooler, stone-heavy, dust in the curtains. The air doesn’t hum here. It waits. Holds its breath.

The curtains sway like tall ghosts. She presses her cheek to them, fabric scratchy, whispering against her skin. If she stands very still, she can almost disappear, swallowed into folds of red and gold. (She thinks the curtains know her best of all—they have hidden her sneezes, hidden her giggles, hidden whole afternoons when she wanted to vanish.)

The floor is polished dark, so smooth she can see shapes in it—her own reflection stretched thin, flickering candles melting into rivers of light. She crouches, tilts her head, wonders if maybe there is a whole other Caladan underneath this one. A world upside-down, where the violets hang from the sky and the garden gate opens into clouds.

Her shoes click when she runs, echoing loud, too loud. She pauses, worried someone will scold. (But no one comes. Only the echo scolds back, running faster than she did, chasing her down the corridor.)

Servants pass now and then—carrying folded cloths, trays polished bright. They smile at her (soft, indulgent smiles), but she doesn’t answer. She is already thinking of Mama’s chair, Mama’s lap, Mama’s brush. The brush with the silver back that catches every glimmer of light.

The brush waits, she is sure of it—waits like the garden gate, like the violets, like the wind.

And Alia knows (she knows without knowing how she knows): it is a kind of ceremony, this—one world giving her to another. The garden giving her to the hall. The hall giving her to Mother’s hands.

—

Mama is waiting in her chair, tall-backed, straight as a sword, though her eyes look softer now that the light is turning blue. The silver brush rests on the table beside her—curved, shining, as if it were not for hair at all but for magic.

Alia climbs into Mama’s lap without asking (she never asks—she belongs there). Her legs dangle, not yet long enough to reach the floor. Mama gathers her hair—dark, heavy—sweeps it forward over her shoulder, then begins.

The brush pulls—slow strokes, roots to ends, again and again. The sound is like wings opening, like the sea smoothing stones.

One stroke—two—three—
Alia starts to count, but loses her place. (She always loses her place, because counting feels smaller than the sound itself.)

Mother hums. Not a song Alia knows, but one that seems to come from far away, someplace before Caladan, before the garden. A low, lilting tune, as though the brush is singing through her. (That's how Alia knows she is happy enough.)

Alia tilts her head back, stares at Mama’s face in the mirror across from them. Mother looks—elsewhere. Far away. Eyes like the tide, pulling in, pulling out. Alia wonders what secret she is thinking, and whether the brush knows it too.

She whispers into her lap, very solemn: I will never cut my hair, not ever.

Mama’s mouth twitches. The faintest smile.
“We’ll see.”

The strokes keep going, slower now, softer, until Alia is half-dreaming, head heavy against Mama’s chest. She thinks her hair is growing longer with every pull. She thinks Mama is braiding the sea into her, the sky into her, the whole house into the threads.

She almost asks Mama to brush forever—but the brush stops. The silver back gleams, resting again on the table, as if it had done holy work.

Alia does not move from Mama’s lap. Not yet. (If she stays still enough, maybe Mother will forget to put her down.)

Mama sets the brush down, but her hands do not leave Alia. One lingers at her back, light as the sea-wind through reeds, the other smoothing a stray lock behind her ear. (Mama’s hands are cooler than Father’s, cooler than Paul’s—cool like polished stone, but steady, steady, steady.)

Alia turns her face into the fabric of Mama’s dress. It smells faintly of lavender water and ink. She imagines Mother dipping her skirts in the inkwell by accident, carrying words around with her wherever she goes. Maybe that’s why she always knows things before anyone says them.

“Were you in the garden?” Mama asks, low, like it is not quite a question.

“Yes,” Alia says, muffled into the cloth.
“And what did the garden tell you?”

Alia thinks about this. About the gate’s sigh, the violets’ secrets, the sun nearly lifting her up. She wants to tell it all at once but the words tangle together. Finally, she whispers: It told me I almost flew.

Mama’s chest rises with a laugh she does not let out. Only her hand moves—stroking slow across Alia’s hair, smoothing, smoothing.
“Almost is the beginning,” Mama says.

Alia doesn’t know if that’s true—but she decides it must be, because Mother said it. She presses closer, small fists curling in the folds of the dress, and thinks that if she never lets go, Mama will have to keep saying true things forever.

—

When she slips from Mother’s lap, the house feels bigger again—ceilings high as the sky, doors like cliffs. But Paul is waiting (he is always waiting, it seems, as though he knows where she will turn before she turns).

He grins when he sees her. His teeth flash white, his hair falling into his eyes in that careless way she adores. To Alia, Paul is taller than the trees in the garden, stronger than the wind itself. She runs to him—she always runs—and he bends to lift her, one arm around her waist, as though she weighs no more than a feather.

“You smell like violets,” he says, scrunching his nose, pretending to sneeze.
“It’s because I live in the garden now,” she tells him, very serious.

Paul laughs, a real laugh—bright, sharp, alive. He tosses her higher than she expects, and for one half-breath she is flying. (She knows he did it on purpose, because Paul always knows what she wants most.) She lands against his shoulder, breathless, giggling, clinging to his collar like a bird clinging to a branch.

“Tell me a star-name,” she demands. It is their game—her favorite.

Paul points upward, though the ceiling hides the sky. “Alpheratz,” he says. He draws the shape in the air with his finger, a bright invisible line. “It lives at the corner of the Great Square.”

“Al—” She fumbles, tongue thick.
“Alpheratz,” he repeats, slower.

She tries again, lips working carefully. “Al-ph’ratz.”
“Good.” He kisses her temple, proud. “One day you’ll know more stars than me.”

She shakes her head at once. “Impossible. You know all of them.”

Paul only smiles, not disagreeing, not correcting—just holding her tighter as if she were his whole constellation.

Alia decides then—again—that she will marry Paul. She has already told Mother (who laughed), told Father (who lifted her up high, high, as if to show her the sky, and told her there are many kinds of love, little one), even told the violets (who promised not to laugh). She thinks about telling Paul right now, whispering it into his ear.

But instead she says, “Race me to the cliffs.”

And he says, “You’ll lose.”
And she says, “Not if I fly.”

Paul lets her down at the back doors, where the air spills in sharp and briny, carrying gull-cries and the long shiver of waves against stone. The cliffs are waiting—grey, sheer, alive with wind. She bolts ahead, small feet slapping the worn path, skirts tangling at her knees.

“Wait,” Paul calls—but she doesn’t. (If she waits, she’ll never fly.) She runs faster, arms outstretched, air pulling through her fingers. The sea opens wide beneath her, endless blue, endless roar.

At the edge, she stops, toes at the rim, chest heaving. For a heartbeat, the world tilts—sky pouring into sea, sea climbing into sky. She swears she feels herself lift, just a little, just enough.

Paul’s hand closes around her shoulder. Firm, steady, pulling her back. “Too close,” he says, voice tight—but then softer, with a half-smile: “You’d have beaten me, I think.”

She beams, triumphant. “I told you.”

They sit together on the grass, damp and salt-stained. Paul plucks a blade, splits it between his thumbs, blows a shrill whistle that makes her laugh so hard she falls back against the earth. She tries, fails, tries again. The grass only squeaks in protest.

“Here,” he says, guiding her hands, pressing his thumbs against hers, their fingers sticky with green. He leans close, patient, patient. And when the note finally comes—thin, wavering, real—she gasps as if she has summoned a star itself.

Paul grins, proud. “See? You can do anything.”

Alia tucks the blade of grass behind her ear, a treasure, proof. She decides the grass knows her now, just as the violets and the gate know her. She belongs to every corner of Caladan, because Paul is beside her, because the sea listens, because the sky hasn’t taken her yet.

The wind shoves at them, wild, tangling her hair across her face. She spits strands from her mouth, and Paul laughs so hard he nearly tips over the cliff. She shrieks, clings to him, then laughs too—two voices carried out into the salt air, stitched into the tide forever.

𑣲₊ ⊹

When Father comes home, the castle changes shape. The shadows seem smaller, the lamps burn steadier, the halls stand taller—as though Caladan itself remembers who it belongs to.

Alia is always first to meet him, darting down corridors, hair flying, skirts catching on her knees. She collides with him at the threshold, small body against tall boots, and he gathers her up before she can stumble.

She is lifted into the air—higher than Paul can lift her, higher than anyone—until the rafters tilt and she feels herself brushing the sky-beams, and she gasps as though the sky itself has tilted to meet her. She shrieks, delighted, clings to his shoulders, presses her nose into his collar: cedar. Always cedar. She wonders if he sleeps in a forest at night when no one is watching.

“Have you flown yet?” he asks, smiling, though his eyes search her face as if she might answer yes.
“Almost,” she says.
He nods as if this is the only answer that matters, as if almost is already a triumph.

His gloves fall to the table, but his hands never let go of hers. They are vast, weather-lined, calloused. She presses her palm against one, tracing lines like rivers, trying to map them all before he pulls away. He does not. He kneels, face level with hers, and she sees the tiredness at his eyes, the heaviness there. She touches the crease with her fingertip.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, serious.
“No,” he says. “Not when you are here.”

She presses closer, believing him. (She always believes him.)

Sometimes he folds her hands together between his own, a ceremony she does not fully understand. “Strong hands,” he tells her, as if he is willing strength into her bones by touch alone. She squeezes back, fiercely, wanting to show him she is worthy of his cedar-scent, his solemn eyes, his gentleness.

When he kisses her hair, she closes her eyes and imagines she is a tree too—rooted deep, branches high, never to be moved.

𑣲₊ ⊹

At supper, the table gleams with polished silver, bowls steaming. Mama sits straight, Paul at Father’s side. Alia swings her legs beneath her chair—they do not touch the floor, not yet, but she pretends she is already tall as Paul, already steady as Mother.

She stirs her soup in circles, watching the ripples spin out like tiny storms. Paul teases her, flicks a crumb in her direction, and she squeals. Father clears his throat—stern, but his mouth hides a smile. Mama’s glance is sharp, then soft.

The room is full of warmth—voices overlapping, spoons clinking, the fire muttering in its stone bed. Alia feels as though she is sitting inside a story she will remember always, though she doesn’t know how to name it yet.

—

When her eyelids grow too heavy, Father notices first. He wipes her cheek with his thumb where a drop of broth has left a mark, then scoops her up from the bench as if she weighs nothing at all.

She rests her head on his shoulder, cheek against the cedar-smell, lulled by the steady rise and fall of his breathing. The halls blur past, torchlight flickering in long strokes.

“Bed,” he murmurs, though she is already half-asleep. She thinks she nods, but maybe she only dreams it.

His stride is slow, deliberate—each step a lullaby. She clutches at his tunic with one hand, the other curled between their bodies like a secret.

When he lays her down, the mattress sighs beneath her. He tucks the blanket close, brushes her forehead with his lips.

Alia blinks once—twice—then lets the darkness take her, sure that if she opens her eyes again, he will still be there, holding up the whole house with cedar-strong hands.

—

Sleep comes crookedly—she is not ready at first, fidgeting beneath the blanket, whispering to herself about violets and flying. She thinks if she closes her eyes too tightly, she might miss something—the gate sighing, the sea calling, Paul teaching another star-name without her.

Her lids grow heavy anyway. Thoughts slip sideways, tangle into one another. If the violets bloom at night, who will hear their secrets? If the gate creaks in the dark, does it wake the bees? If she almost flew today—maybe tonight she will fly for real, in her dream.

There is movement—Mama’s voice low, Father’s answering hum. Arms lift her again, the blanket still wrapped around her like a shell. She doesn’t open her eyes (if she pretends to sleep, they will not send her away).

The bed is wider now—softer, warmer. Mama’s body on one side, steady, lavender-scented. Father’s on the other, broad, cedar-sure. She wriggles between them until she fits just so, knees tucked, fists unclenched.

Mother smooths a stray lock from her face. Father tucks the quilt close. Neither says a word.

Alia drifts, dream-heavy, pressed in by heartbeats—one quick, one slow—wrapped in the hush of sea-breath and garden-echo. She thinks (barely thinking, already dreaming): I am the gate itself. I open. I let the world through.

And then—nothing. Only sleep.
Safe, held, violet-dreaming, cedar-dreaming—between them, always.