Sanasia, the Lady of Healing, paced the mist‑laced greenhouse that served as both temple and prison.
Unsettled.
The only feeling that kept Sanasia occupied.
Leaf‑shadow brushed her gown, and the fountains whispered the same question she had asked herself a thousand times. "If I defy, would the Fates unmake me?"
She no longer had the thought of being the selected agent. Instead, she was only thinking of another as her heart had chosen. Or so it was.
Not a while, the door‑sigil flared. Somebody did show up, he who was quite particular for her. Doubtless, she answered and granted him, as the door chamber opened its way to invite the one who was on the way.
"I thought you were away somewhere," she greeted in a way as if she had a feeling of familiarity.
"Where would you expect me to be?" he greeted back as he answered while walking inside.
"Away... I suppose," she answered without looking, leading the way. "Not that I must know."
The fog invited him as it parted the way for him to walk in, and he could hear the flowing water already. The Maiden Spring was where he would mostly spend his time. The smell was always new, but he remembered the same tone of lily and cinnamon. The alluring scent that always reminded him of the place, or her.
He walked closer to her, despite her constant unwelcoming reaction.
"I believe you are bothered still."
He then sat on the bedwood without asking, like a regular guest would do.
"How long has it been?" he gently asked her with a smile on his face.
A smile that was worn with confidence, a soothing one that was bright enough to send her back to the old days.
"What are you in need of?" she asked directly, changing the course.
"Does it have to be something of need?" He leaned on the bed, looking at her smilingly before getting up again. "Can I not pay only for a social visit?"
"A visit before the Fates' summoning has to be particular," she replied with a slight tone of accusation.
He lowered his voice. "I thought we had passed from that phase."
"Then why are you here?"
A slow tension cracked through each word.
He got up, facing the window, staring at the garden through it, and voiced what she dreaded to hear.
"What I do need... is your luck, Sanasia."
As she heard him out, she had the assorted feelings once again.
She walked towards him and asked with a tone of wariness, "To which favour?"
"Mine,"
She tilted her head, voice sharpened. "You are here to speak of the great mission, do you not?"
A pause. And silence followed.
Concerns filled the room with reluctance, keeping away the eye of comfort.
"...Oh, Aldrich."
She then turned away, but not too far; she knew they both had it coming. Aldrich Jyester... was the particular one for her, and both of them had spent uneasy days preparing to confront the matter.
"We've agreed, Sanasia." His voice was calm. "To walk away from the past."
"We can never avoid the day."
Sanasia stumbled.
She knew but never prepared for how else to face it.
He asked a storming question. Tearing her gut. "Was it the mission that bothers you, or was it of... us?"
Which raised questions of wonder.
Was it from the wounds?
Was it a shame?
Or was it more specific, such as love?
But one thing was likely something between Aldrich and Sanasia that was still unfinished. The Fates and the great mission had bothered everyone in the House, but for both of them, it was certainly something much deeper. Something that could be an obstacle.
Sanasia tried to calm the unpleasant situation. "In that case, what makes you so certain that either of us would be chosen, Aldrich?"
"Probably the same reason why you chose me,"
"And the same reason why I chose you," he added.
She hid her smile on her face, but her blush was way too prone to react.
"Their judgments exceed mine," she replied.
She said it with a tone of refusal. Reluctance.
"And yet, I would still favour yours, Sanasia," he responded.
He responded to her statement gently, with a smile on his face again.
"And to which judgement of mine had you favoured?" she asked him as she then felt the thirst of clarification.
"That you see me the same as always. You do not define me by my past, and you always define and redefine me," he answered.
The way he answered and from what he answered had eventually roused the spark within her.
"And I hope they define me like you do, Sanasia," he added.
A setback, a nostalgia, or a reunion. Both of them were many things, as her sigil would act that the water would always nurture, she had accepted him to flow around. The water would always purify itself.
Like an unwasted soul, she smiled at him for what he said to her. "I hope they do," she replied.
They went to the discourse again, that something of chemistry that had not yet gone.
"I have always despised that Code..." she said to Aldrich.
He met her eyes, rubbing her temple. "Well, you can always despise me instead."
"What we had is wrong, Aldrich," she insisted. Somehow denied.
"Then we make it right, Sanasia," his gentle voice echoed in her ears. And smiled again. "Do we not?"
"If it were that easy," Sanasia said, her eyes looked away.
The two spent a moment of silence, throwing both stares away in the atmosphere of reluctance.
She murmured, "Just leave, Aldrich."
But Aldrich did not immediately go; his right hand gently held her chin, his eyes staring deeper.
She did not refuse.
She stared him back as if she did not mean of the things she just said to him.
He whispered. "What if I want to stay?"
He lowered his hands to her arms, gently pushing her body backward.
She did not push back.
The two invited themselves, lying on the cashmere bed chamber of green.
"What are you doing?" Sanasia lowly whispered.
But her mind was already elsewhere.
She pulled his body, making herself under him, and she did it intentionally.
His eyes glowed in gold; he leaned deeper on her.
"How long has it been?"
"A hundred years..." she whispered louder.
She went to his neck, smelling his scent. Her hands crawled around his arms, patiently loosening his armour.
She did it like she used to.
His armour lay on the ground, so as her gown. He gently untied her hair.
"...Sanasia," he whispered.
She whispered back, rubbing his blushing cheek as she saw his brighter smile.
"I see you... I feel you... Aldrich Leiron-Jyester."
***
The Code, as it was addressed, the Order of Reality had written, that in which Primordials are not allowed to mate. For some greater entity such as them, the powers of their embodiments shall not be shared in the embrace, descended through their nature. If not for an incursion.
***