A round wooden table sat at the center of the room, simple but sturdy, and around it, three chairs had been drawn close. Aelius moved with uncharacteristic ease, a ceramic pot in one hand, setting it down with a muted clink. Steam curled from its spout as he poured, the soft trickle of tea the only sound for a long stretch. He set cups before them—Erza, Levy, and one for himself—without flourish but with a precision that suggested practiced hands.
Erza regarded him in silence, her fingers tightening around the porcelain handle without raising it to her lips. Her brow furrowed slightly, the faintest crease betraying her unease. She waited until he'd sat opposite them before finally breaking the silence.
"What's wrong with you, Aelius?" she asked, her tone firm but edged with suspicion. "You don't do this."
He looked at her over the rim of his cup, the faintest quirk at the corner of his mouth as though the accusation amused him. After a slow sip, he set it down gently, fingertips brushing the rim before folding together on the table.
"Wrong with me?" His voice was calm, almost too calm. "Nothing. Unless pouring tea now counts as an affliction." His eyes flicked briefly to Levy, then back to Erza, as though daring her to press further. "I was a noble, technically speaking, back in the Labyrinth. Which means I know etiquette and manners better than most. Believe it or not, Scarlet, I actually find them quite useful."
There was no arrogance in the way he said it—just fact, delivered with that dry bite that made it sting more than if he'd boasted outright.
His gaze lingered on her a heartbeat longer, narrowing slightly. "But you—" he tilted his head just enough to be pointed "—being part of Fairy Tail, I doubt you know what those even are."
The words hung in the air like a gauntlet thrown at her feet, sharp enough to spark but not quite enough to break the veneer of civility he'd wrapped himself in.
Erza's fingers tightened slightly on the cup, the porcelain creaking faintly beneath her grip. Her eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in sharp focus—like she was trying to peel back whatever mask he'd draped over himself.
"You didn't do this before," she said flatly.
Aelius gave a low hum in response, tilting his head as if considering the remark. Then he leaned back in his chair, folding one leg over the other, his posture effortlessly relaxed. "Of course I didn't," he said, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "You've never been to my house before, for what could be graciously considered a social call." He gestured vaguely around the room, the faintest sweep of his hand. "Different setting, different rules."
He let the words hang for a moment before his gaze shifted deliberately toward Levy, the faintest glint in his eyes betraying how purposeful the motion was. "Ask her," he added. "She actually has."
Levy blinked, caught off guard by the sudden attention, color rising faintly in her cheeks as both Erza and Aelius looked at her. She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, then gave a small nod.
"It's true," she admitted. "He… does know his manners."
Aelius's eyes slipped back to Erza, steady and unblinking, as if daring her to challenge the point now that Levy had vouched for him. "So no, Scarlet," he said smoothly, reaching for his tea once more. "This isn't some strange new habit. It's simply not one you've had the… pleasure of seeing."
He took another sip, calm and unhurried, as though the matter were already closed.
Erza's gaze lingered on him as he drank, her brow furrowing deeper. She didn't move to sip from her own cup, though the rising steam caught the faintest flickers of light in her scarlet hair. Finally, she set the cup back down with a quiet click, leaning forward just slightly, as though narrowing the distance would press the truth out of him.
"No," she said, her tone clipped, the certainty in it leaving no room for misunderstanding. "You're less yourself. Less gloom and doom, less shadow brooding in the corner. Something's up with you." She straightened again, arms folding in that familiar habit of hers, the one that made every word land like a hammer. "It's almost like you're happy."
For a moment, Aelius didn't answer. He simply regarded her, fingers steepled beneath his chin, his expression neutral. Then—slowly—one corner of his mouth pulled up, not in a smile but in something that only resembled one if you weren't paying attention.
"Maybe," he said evenly, his voice smooth, quiet enough to make both women lean forward to catch it. He set his cup down with the same precision he had poured it, the faint ceramic clink unnaturally loud in the stillness. His gaze shifted between them, steady and unreadable. "But personally, Scarlet, I think you and Levy both need to stop worrying about others quite so much."
The words slid out like steel, and though his tone hadn't risen, they cut just the same.
Levy flinched—subtle, but enough. Her shoulders tensed, her hand hovering uncertainly over her cup as though debating whether to withdraw it entirely. She opened her mouth but found no words, lips parting before pressing tight again.
Aelius didn't notice. Or if he did, he gave not the faintest sign of it. He didn't stop, didn't soften, didn't even glance at her. His eyes remained on Erza, unwavering, as though the entire remark had been meant for her alone.
"Happy," he said at last, tasting the word like something alien, rolling it on his tongue as though mocking it. "No, Scarlet. I'm not happy." His voice dropped slightly, the calmness in it now carrying an edge, a quiet violence lurking beneath. "I'm absolutely furious."
He leaned back in his chair, one hand resting against the arm, the other curling faintly on the tabletop as though the force of his own restraint was coiling beneath his skin. "But I have a better grip on my emotions than I've had in a very long time. That's all. I know where to place the weight, and I know how to carry it." His eyes darkened, catching the light in a way that made them almost gleam, sharp and unyielding.
The silence after those words was heavy, pressing down on the room like a second ceiling. Erza did not speak, and Levy's hand trembled faintly where it hovered above her cup, but neither dared to break the stillness.
Then—slowly, as if he'd considered and dismissed half a dozen harsher answers—Aelius allowed that faint, sharp curve to return to his lips. "Well," he said at last, the edge in his tone easing back into something almost conversational. "I suppose I could be happy, in a way. Because of that. Because I'm back to the way I'm supposed to be."
He lifted his tea once more, calm, steady, measured, and drank in silence, as though that single statement was enough explanation for all of it.
And though neither Erza nor Levy said it, both of them could feel the truth beneath his words—the coiled fury sitting just under the surface, smoothed into civility not because it was gone, but because he'd mastered how to hide the flames beneath polished glass.
Aelius set his cup down once again, the movement slow, deliberate, his fingers resting on the porcelain rim for a moment longer than needed. His eyes flicked from the faint steam curling upward to the two women seated across from him. He leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, and when he finally spoke, his voice carried that same steady edge—a blade dulled at the surface but still sharp enough to cut if pressed.
"So then," he began, tone measured and cool, "did the two of you have some grand reason for breaking and entering my home? Or"—his gaze narrowed just slightly, that sliver of sharpness revealing itself—"was this simply out of some self-righteous concern for my well-being?" He gestured faintly with one hand, the motion more dismissal than emphasis. "Because if that's all it was… I have things I'd much rather be doing."
The words hung in the air, heavy as stone.
Erza met his eyes, unflinching, but for once she did not answer immediately. Her lips pressed into a thin line, as though weighing whether to lash back or to temper herself. The silence stretched long enough that it was Levy—normally the quieter of the two—who finally broke it.
"That's unfair," she said, her voice quiet but steady, though her hands betrayed her, fingers tightening around her teacup as though clinging to something solid. "You know why we came. Of course, we were worried—you vanish from the guild, you leave the moment your legs heal, and then you bury yourself down here in this cellar like… like you're hiding." She exhaled sharply, shaking her head, her blue hair shifting with the movement. "What else were we supposed to think?"
Aelius tilted his head at her, studying her expression with the same impassive scrutiny one might give a piece of machinery—taking in the details, cataloguing them, but never truly moved. He let her words echo in the space between them. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, something shifting in the silence. For the faintest of moments, his gaze softened—not much, but enough to betray a crack in the armor.
"I suppose…" he began at last, his voice quieter, less cutting, "my control over my emotions isn't as sharp as it used to be." His eyes dropped to the surface of his tea, the dark liquid still rippling faintly from his earlier movement. "I… apologise." The word came out slow, deliberate, as though pried loose against his own will.
Levy blinked, taken aback, her mouth parting as though to speak, but no words immediately followed. Erza's eyes narrowed slightly, not in suspicion, but in scrutiny—as though weighing whether this was truth or another deflection.
"I'm fine. Truly," Aelius continued, lifting his gaze back to them. He spoke with a calm certainty now, as though every syllable was carefully placed to stave off further questions. "For any sense of the word you decide to choose. I'm not broken, I'm not unraveling, I'm not about to collapse under the weight of it all. I'm simply… angry. That's all."
His lips curved, not into a smile, but into something grimly self-assured. He tapped one finger lightly against the cup before setting it down altogether.
"Just angry," he repeated, his tone level, "and plotting my next move. Nothing more, nothing less."
The words sat heavy in the air, but there was no venom in them this time—only a frankness, a stark declaration. He leaned back in his chair, shoulders easing into the wood as though he had just revealed something intimate in the plainest way possible.
"Anger, after all," he added, almost conversationally, "is far easier to live with than despair. And plans are easier to hold onto than feelings."
His eyes lingered on the two of them again, calmer now, yet still sharp with that peculiar glint that made it hard to tell whether his composure was a mask—or simply the truest form of himself.
Aelius's fingers drummed once against the arm of his chair before stilling, his gaze sweeping from Erza to Levy and back again. The moment hung just long enough to suggest that he'd already given them more of himself than he intended, and now he was ready to reclaim that ground. His tone, when it came, was calm, almost polite—but edged with that unshakable finality of someone already drawing the conversation to a close.
"…Is that all?" he asked, his head tilting ever so slightly, as though the question was a simple courtesy rather than dismissal. Yet the weight behind it was unmistakable. "Because I did have things I wanted to do today." His voice held no venom, no bark of irritation—it was worse than that. It was steady, measured, and colored by the faintest trace of weariness, as if their intrusion had merely delayed an inevitable return to his own work.
Levy shifted uncomfortably in her chair, fingers tightening around the rim of her cup. She opened her mouth, then shut it, the urge to protest battling with the knowledge that pressing too hard might only push him further away.
Erza's eyes hardened. "You're brushing us aside again."
"Not brushing aside," Aelius replied evenly, folding his arms. "Prioritizing. There's a difference. I've humored the concern, I've offered honesty, and now… I'd like to reclaim what's left of my evening." He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the table, and though his voice never rose above that low, unshakable register, the words carried the same weight as a blade being drawn an inch from its sheath.
"You think my silence means weakness. It doesn't. You think me calm because I've nothing to fear. That's not true either. You think me changed because I sit here and pour tea instead of brooding in shadow. Wrong again. None of this means I've lost myself—it only means I've chosen to exercise control. And control, Erza, Levy, is what kept me alive all those years away."
His gaze sharpened, not cruel but firm, a cutting steel edge behind his tone. "So I ask again—is that all? Or will you continue to gnaw at me until you've stripped me down to something even you don't recognize? Because I assure you, the things I have to do… matter. To me, and whether you like it or not, very likely to you as well."
Levy swallowed, her thumb tracing the rim of her cup, clearly shaken by the deliberate precision of his words. Erza's jaw tightened, her hand flexing against the table's edge, but even she seemed to hesitate under the weight of his calm, unflinching stare.
The silence stretched, filled only by the faint ticking of a clock on the far wall. Aelius let it linger, let it breathe, because silence itself was a weapon—one he wielded with the same ease as his blade.
Finally, he leaned back, lifting his cup once more and letting the steam curl lazily into the air. "I'll take your quiet as agreement," he said softly. "So unless you've something vital to add, I'll be returning to my plans."
The silence dragged, heavy and unyielding. Erza's eyes never left him, sharp and unwavering, but for once she found no opening in his armor. He wasn't being evasive. He wasn't hiding behind half-truths or cruelty. He had simply closed the door on her insistence, drawn a line she could not cross without shattering the fragile peace that still lingered between them.
Her chair scraped against the floor as she stood. The sound cut through the quiet like a blade. "Fine," she said at last, her voice clipped but steady. "If you're so determined to wall yourself off, I won't waste more time trying to climb the walls." She glanced at Levy, the weight of command flickering across her expression, but her voice softened—not enough to conceal the edge, but enough to mark the distinction. "Don't stay too long."
Without waiting for acknowledgment, Erza turned on her heel, armor whispering faintly with the movement. She strode to the door, her presence withdrawing like the shadow of a storm cloud, leaving only the faintest echo of her footsteps trailing down the hall. The door shut behind her with a quiet finality, no slam, no show of anger—just the firm punctuation of someone who knew pressing further would only fracture things beyond repair.
Aelius didn't watch her go. He didn't so much as glance at the door. He simply lifted his cup again and took a slow, measured sip, as if her departure had been inevitable from the moment she sat down.
Levy remained. She hadn't moved an inch. Her hands were still wrapped around her teacup, but her grip had softened, her knuckles no longer white. She stared down into the swirling amber liquid as though it might hold the words she needed, then let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
The quiet was different now. Less tense, less combative. Almost fragile.
"…You could've handled that better," she said softly, not quite meeting his eyes. "Not that I'm surprised you didn't."
Aelius tilted his head slightly, the faintest trace of amusement—mocking or genuine, it was impossible to say—ghosting at the corner of his mouth. "She left, didn't she? I call that efficient."
Levy shook her head, strands of her hair falling loose. "Efficient isn't the same as kind."
For the first time, Aelius actually looked at her—really looked. His gaze softened by a fraction, though the exhaustion behind it was clear, as if even this conversation was taxing a reservoir he didn't want to admit was low. He didn't respond immediately, and that pause alone was answer enough for Levy.
She set her cup down gently, then rested her hands in her lap. "I'll stay. Just for a little while. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. But you don't get to be alone, either."
The words lingered in the air between them, fragile and stubborn all at once.
Aelius exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh but not quite, and leaned back in his chair. "Persistent little scholar," he murmured, but this time the edge was gone. No venom. No dismissal. Just a low, tired acknowledgment.
The silence that followed wasn't sharp or suffocating. It was something else entirely—something almost resembling peace.
Aelius let the quiet stretch, his eyes fixed on the steam curling up from the forgotten cup beside him. When he finally spoke, his voice carried none of the sharp edges he so often wielded—it was low, even, almost careful.
"I wasn't trying to be rude," he said, the words dropping into the stillness like stones into water. "But nothing I said was wrong." His gaze shifted, not piercing this time but steady, softened in a way that suggested he was, for once, not hiding behind barbs or distance.
Levy didn't look away, though she felt the weight of his words pressing against her chest. His tone wasn't defensive, nor was it cold—it was… genuine. Stripped bare of the theater he so often cloaked himself in.
"I only meant…" His hand flexed once against the arm of the chair, as though he were searching for a phrase that wouldn't collapse under its own weight. "That I wasn't… dismissing you. Not entirely. Only stating things as they are."
He breathed out slowly through his nose, then leaned back, letting his posture ease just slightly, though his eyes never lost that intent stillness. For a long moment, he simply watched her, as though weighing whether to say more, before letting the corner of his mouth twitch in something that might have been resignation.
"…But I suppose my plans can wait a little longer, since you're so set on staying."
This time, the words carried no edge, no mocking undertone. It was simply an acknowledgment—an opening he rarely offered.
Levy's shoulders loosened, her fingers brushing against the rim of her cup before she dared another sip. She didn't smile, not fully, but there was a flicker of warmth in her eyes as she nodded once, more to herself than to him.
The quiet between them shifted, no longer heavy with suspicion or unspoken challenge, but balanced—fragile, perhaps, yet genuine in its own way. Aelius leaned back further in his chair, his gaze drifting to the table as though already turning over thoughts he hadn't voiced, but he didn't chase her out. He didn't retreat into silence as a wall. He simply… allowed the moment to stand.
Levy's fingers tightened faintly around the porcelain cup, knuckles paling against its smooth surface. The steam had already thinned, cooling in the quiet that lingered between them, but she kept her eyes fixed on it—as though staring too long at Aelius might break whatever fragile honesty had settled in the room. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than the crackle of the small lamp in the corner.
"You scared me," she said, the words barely audible at first, as if dragged out of her chest rather than willingly given.
Aelius turned his head slightly, the faintest narrowing of his eyes betraying his attention. He didn't interrupt. He just watched.
"When Erza and Natsu brought you in…" she hesitated, her throat tightening as the memory rose like a shadow. "…most of your body was gone. Blood everywhere. You weren't breathing right. You looked—" she cut herself off, pressing her lips together until the tremor in them steadied. "—you looked like you were already dead."
Her voice cracked at the edges, though she did her best to smooth it out, to keep it calm, as though saying the words too forcefully might bring the image crashing back in full. "I'd never seen someone torn apart like that. Not someone I knew. Not someone who was supposed to come back."
The admission hung heavy between them, raw and unadorned. Levy lowered her gaze to the surface of her tea, but her shoulders were drawn in, small, like she was bracing herself for the weight of her own words to come down on her.
"It terrified me," she whispered, this time not hiding the truth of it. "I thought we were too late. I thought…" She bit down gently on her lip, hard enough to sting, "…I thought you wouldn't open your eyes again. That you'd just… stay like that."
Her hands trembled slightly, enough that the cup gave a small clink against the saucer. She set it down before she dropped it outright, fingers curling back into her lap. Still, she didn't look up at him. Not yet. The words themselves seemed to cost her something, dredged up from a place in her she usually kept locked away.
Across from her, Aelius remained silent, his posture still and deliberate. There was no trace of mockery on his face, none of the acerbic wit he often wielded to deflect sincerity. He simply watched, eyes dark and unreadable, but intent in a way that told her he had heard every syllable.
The silence stretched, but not in a suffocating way—it was a silence that invited response, though whether Aelius would offer one or let her words stand alone remained to be seen.
For a long while, there was nothing.
She sat there, her heart hammering in her chest as the weight of what she'd confessed pressed down harder with every second of silence. The room felt too still, too sharp around the edges, the kind of silence that made every breath sound loud, every shift in posture feel like an intrusion. Aelius didn't move. Didn't blink. He just sat, eyes fixed on her with that detached, unreadable expression he always wore when the world expected too much from him.
The longer it went on, the more the edges of doubt began to creep in. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything. Maybe she'd overstepped again, cracked open something he had no intention of showing. She felt her shoulders curl inward, gaze sinking to her lap as the seconds dragged into what felt like minutes. The silence was deafening now, echoing in her head louder than her own words had been.
She opened her mouth, half-ready to fill the gap with some fumbling apology, to take it all back—
"I don't know how to respond to that."
His voice cut through the air, quiet, but with a weight that landed heavily enough to still her tongue. She looked up, startled, meeting his gaze at last. He hadn't shifted much at all, but the difference was in his tone—stripped of the sharp edges, of the dry, dismissive armor he usually kept in place. It wasn't soft, not really, but it was… human. Honest, even.
He sat back slightly in his chair, eyes narrowing not out of irritation, but thought. "I don't… know what you expect me to say. Gratitude? An apology? A promise it won't happen again?" He let the questions hang in the air, rhetorical in nature, his voice steady but low.
For a moment, his gaze softened—just enough for her to see the flicker of something beneath it, like a crack in the steel plating he always carried. "The truth is, Levy… I don't have the words. I wasn't thinking of what you'd feel when it happened. I wasn't thinking of anyone but myself and what needed to be done. And then, when I woke again, I still wasn't thinking of it."
His eyes flickered away briefly, as if he couldn't quite hold hers for that one confession, before snapping back with deliberate control. "So no. I don't know how to respond to that. Not properly."
He leaned back into his chair, almost as if retreating into the posture, trying to anchor himself back into familiar ground. His fingers tapped once, absently, against the porcelain of his cup, the only sign that something in him had shifted at all.
Levy sat in silence, her throat tight. The admission wasn't much, but the fact that he'd given it—that he hadn't dismissed her, hadn't brushed it off with cold words or sharp edges—meant more than she expected.
Aelius's hand lingered on the rim of his cup, unmoving now, his gaze turned down toward the untouched tea as though searching for something in its still surface. When he finally spoke again, his voice was calm, but carried that deliberate weight he used when choosing each word carefully, as though he were laying down bricks for a wall.
"I won't apologize."
The words landed like stone between them. Levy's lips parted slightly, some reflexive protest on the edge of spilling out—but she held it back, sensing he wasn't finished. His gaze lifted from the cup, fixing on her with quiet intensity, and the silence stretched again before he continued.
"Not out of cruelty. Not because I don't understand what you felt when you saw me like that. I won't apologize because that would mean regret." His tone hardened, not cold but resolute, every syllable ironclad. "And I don't regret what I did. Not for one moment. Not for the pain, not for the cost. The only thing I regret… is that I lost."
The words settled like ash in the air, heavy, almost suffocating. There was no boast in his tone, no pride. Only an unshakable certainty, the kind that left no room for doubt.
He leaned back slowly, the chair creaking under the motion, his expression unreadable again, but his eyes sharper than before. "I made my choice. I would make it again. Even if it broke me. Even if it frightened you. Even if it killed me outright." He let out a quiet exhale—something too controlled to be a sigh, but just close enough to betray that something in him twisted beneath the words. "That is who I am, Levy. It always will be."
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the faint crackle of wood from the fireplace, a reminder of life moving forward around them, uncaring of the gravity that pressed between their chairs.
Levy's hands curled together on the table, her thumbs worrying over the edge of her sleeve. Her voice, when it came, was fragile—softer than even she intended—but it filled the room all the same.
"You scared me, Aelius," she said, almost in a whisper. "When Erza and Natsu brought you back—when I saw you like that…" Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes falling to her lap for a moment. "Most of your body was gone. You weren't just hurt. You looked… ruined. Like someone had tried to tear you apart and almost succeeded."
She shook her head quickly, pressing on before her voice could break. "I'd never seen you like that before. You've always been so… controlled. Untouchable. Even when you bled, you made it seem like it was nothing. But this wasn't nothing. This was different. And for the first time since you came back, I thought I thought you were going to die."
Her fists tightened, knuckles paling as her words tumbled out faster, sharper, driven by the memory she'd tried so hard to suppress. "Do you understand what that did to me? To all of us? It wasn't just your life hanging in the balance—it was everything we thought you were. That strength, that certainty… it was all just gone. And I couldn't stop thinking, 'What if that's it? What if we've lost him, and we'll never get him back?'"
Her gaze lifted then, locking with his. She looked at him as though she were trying to force her way past the iron walls he kept around himself. "You say you don't regret it—that you'd make the same choice again. Maybe you would. But don't you see? It's not just about you. It's about the people who care about you, who can't just brush it off the way you do. Seeing you like that—it left something in me I can't shake. Fear. Dread. That the next time might not end with you walking back at all."
Her voice wavered, but she refused to look away. "So maybe you don't regret it. But I regret having to see it. I regret realizing how fragile you actually are, when I thought you were unbreakable. And I'm terrified, Aelius… because I don't know how to protect myself from the thought of losing you again."
The silence after her words was suffocating. Levy's shoulders trembled faintly, her hands gripping one another tighter as though anchoring herself. But her eyes stayed on him, unflinching, waiting for whatever came next.
Aelius finally stirred, his eyes fixed somewhere on the table rather than on her face. His tone, when it came, was steady—not cold, not cruel, simply stripped of any warmth.
"Think of it this way," he said evenly. "Someone had ripped me apart—left me with just a head and a fraction of a torso—and I still lived. Most would not have. I did. That is what matters."
Levy's chair scraped suddenly against the floor as she half-rose, her voice breaking through with heat. "No, that's not what matters!" she snapped. "Erza told me—she said if she hadn't gotten there right that second, you would have been dead. You can dress it up however you like, but you weren't surviving. You were slipping away. Another minute, another heartbeat, and you wouldn't be sitting here at all."
Aelius's gaze lifted at last, calm but unwavering, like stone under pressure. "Then she arrived in time. That is all there is to say about it."
"That's not all there is!" Levy's hands slammed against the table, trembling, though her voice carried sharpness. "You nearly died, Aelius! And you're standing here trying to act like it's nothing—like the fact that you're breathing right now proves your point. But what if she hadn't? What if she had hesitated? What if she was a single step too slow? You think that wouldn't matter?"
His reply was immediate, the cadence as flat and unshaken as before. "No. Because if I had died, then that would have been the truth of it. That is the risk I accepted. My choice."
Levy stared at him, wide-eyed, fury and fear knotted together. "How can you just say that? How can you look at me—at all of us—and shrug like your life doesn't carry weight beyond yourself?"
"Because I will not pretend otherwise to spare your feelings." His words cut, but there was no venom in them—only iron honesty. "I survived what was meant to end me. That is not tragedy, Levy. It is proof. Proof of what I am, of what I endure. I will not let you make it into something else."
Her breath came quicker, chest tight as though she'd been running. "You're not listening," she hissed. "You're alive, yes, but you're missing the point. It's not about whether you proved yourself. It's about what it did to the people who care about you. You think you're sparing us by being honest? All you're doing is showing us that you don't care what it costs us to watch you throw yourself away!"
Aelius tilted his head slightly, as though studying her like a problem that had no neat solution. His voice, though quiet, filled the room with its steadiness. "You are wrong. I care. I simply will not let that dictate my choices."
Levy's lips parted, but her breath faltered, fury colliding with the ache in her chest. She wanted to scream at him, to shake him, to force him to understand. But all she managed was a sharp, trembling whisper. "Then you'll keep scaring us. Again and again. And one day… one day we'll be too late. And you'll call it 'truth,' and we'll call it loss. And neither of us will be wrong."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to choke. Aelius didn't immediately argue, didn't move. He sat, unmoving as stone, his expression unreadable, while Levy's words lingered in the stale air between them.
Levy's jaw clenched, her eyes shining though no tears spilled. She stood abruptly, the legs of her chair scraping loudly against the floor.
"Fine," she said curtly, her voice clipped—barely above a whisper, but cutting all the same. "If that's the truth you want to live by, then you can keep it. Just don't expect me to sit here and listen to it anymore."
She didn't wait for him to respond. Her footsteps were quick, almost too quick, carrying her to the door before she could falter. Her hand gripped the frame, knuckles white for half a second as though she might turn back, say something else, anything else—but she didn't.
The door shut behind her, firm but not slammed, leaving only silence in her wake.
The silence lingered. It was heavy, not oppressive, but deliberate—an afterimage of everything that had just passed. Aelius drew in a breath, slow and steady, and let it out through his nose, as though weighing whether to speak at all. For a time, he didn't.
Then, at last, his voice slipped into the empty room, low, measured, and almost detached.
"If I get stronger…" His words drifted, then settled into form, each syllable sharp against the quiet. "If I sharpen my will, my craft, my grip on the things that matter… then I won't lose."
He leaned back slightly, head tilting toward the ceiling, as if his gaze had wandered beyond the confines of the room, beyond even the walls of the world. His tone didn't rise, didn't soften, but carried a strange stillness, almost reflective.
"And if I don't lose," he continued, "then it won't scare her again. For whatever that means to her."
The words hung there—less a promise, more a statement carved out of iron. He didn't smile, didn't frown, didn't shift an inch after they were spoken. They existed, and that was enough.
Silence crept back in, folding itself over his shoulders like a cloak. The teapot on the table still steamed faintly, forgotten. The chairs around him sat empty. And Aelius remained unmoving at the heart of it all, staring ahead into nothing, as though he could already see the path he'd set for himself—and the price it would demand.
The room dimmed with the weight of his words, until only the quiet persisted.