star children // {daeron - alyn} frankel

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

ALYN AGNES 

The stars shine brighter than the night before, in full lucidity, silver sequins yawning down at him on an expanse of indigo-midnight that stretches and stretches. The clouds still hide comet-tails, the skies still veil star-streaked patterns but it’s beautiful enough for him to leave the company of his bedroom and surreptitiously walk out the front door, leap over a threshold.

Outside is welcoming, an inchoate winter with soft snow.

He clings onto his bed-clothes, breathing out white fog as his feet tread leisurely on a similar cobbled path. Remnants of dinner gurgle from within his stomach—it was toasted bread with butter, Agnes’s least favorite set for a meal—but he suppresses it down, fixates on the road and the dim, yellow streetlights, picturing his face in the void of his mind.

These days, he’s been thinking too much, too far.

Meaningless thoughts swarming in the head over how the future’s going to be, over the adversities that are sure to come his way. And, this stage of contemplation transitions into a stage of fright, which further proceeds to a stage of darker considerations. Always been the over thinker, always been the false sage. It’s a vicious cycle that he sees no end to.

He and Daeron. Two names craved in a tree, framed by a heart drawn using a dagger. The personal sun for the petals of his heart. It's always been Agnes and Daeron until it is no more. He's never questioned their bond, never dares to and never plans to. Like puzzle pieces, they complete each other.

But, lately, the surfaces of their paradise has been bleak and riddled with grey clouds. No more sun, no more blue skies.

It began as empty threats, hollow ridicules, childish mockery and even though mother always teach him to not fall prey to these kinds of behaviors, it's difficult to resist the dark appetite to reciprocate, to retort. There's a snake on the branch of his tree body and it's telling him to indulge in those desires.

A sudden rush of cold wind hits like a drizzle of rain to his face, dragging him out of a state of stasis and he almost loses his footing over a stray rock. Hands desperately pulls at his shirt, veins tingling a plea for shelter. Somehow, his thoughts has made the night colder than it needs to be.

Yellow fluorescent light ahead signaled Daeron's house, spilling into view like dawn cracking out of the night's horizon. Alyn trails along a fuchsia-strewn path, trampling weeds and dried grass beneath his brown boots, breathing softly into the night, trying his best to not be spotted.

The side of the house brings Daeron's window to full view and his fingers reach down for the pebbles scattered near his feet. He fidgets with it for a split second, struck in a moment of consideration and indecisiveness, before flinging a small pebble at the windowpane.

“Daeron.” He cups his hands around his mouth, using it like a megaphone, softly calling in the dead of night.

[d1b portia maybach 🏆 frankel]

Fidgeting shadows block the light from seeping in from the hallway, into my room. Even the birds have put an end to the singing for the night but someone in my family is not willing to surrender to the darkness. There is never peace within these four walls. Every hour of every day, something is ticking by, just like my unsettled mind. No peace outside. No peace within, it is just my life now. Fifteen years old and I have accepted that my life is in tatters. A crumbled ruin, like the old factory store just two blocks away.

Ironic that the abandoned structure is my designated place of solitude, it is like I am attracted to things similar to me.

I am flat in my bed, cocooned by the ivory duvet that enslaves me to the bed. At least my body is in comfort while my mind tackles the blazing wildfire. A fight against whether I going to sleep or not tonight. Squeezing my eyes shut is an overused effort in switching off my mind. The darkness of my eyelids, a perfect plain background to project all the anxieties that are eager to get the show reel spinning.

For so long it was a solo battle, hiding in the shadows of my family’s weight. Gifted children from Damon to my youngest sibling, then there is just me. Hidden at the bottom of the pack, always overlooked whenever it shaken up.

My only efforts decorate this murky room, trinkets hidden from the mocking lips of my brothers. Downstairs the trophy cabinet is overflowing; even the kitchen surfaces are coated in the medallions and prizes. Not a single one has my name engraved onto it. Only this room is a signal of my existence. My own portrait is pushed to the back, behind the shadows of those far successful than me.

The harsh kiss of the winter’s air outside creeps into my room, penetrating through my bed covers and attacking my skin. I turn to the left, defending off the cold. What I would do for his warmth touch right now. Alyn’s arms wrapped around me, defending off the symptoms of my most hated season. His entrance into this house would certainly be refused. My only joy in life, blocked from entering my front door. There are no medals hanging from my neck, no weight to carry like Damon and so I am not allowed to even carry a smile on my face.

Tap.

My eyes fall to the door but the restless figure is not pacing up and down like before. The sound strikes my mind again but the audio ignites like something hitting glass. I pull away the duvet and stand by my window. One look down and it is as if my prayers have been answered…for once. ”Alyn!” I pull on the handle of the window, pushing it open as I hang my head out of it. ”What are you doing? It is cold out there!”

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

ALYN AGNES 

He turns a deaf ear to the inquiry because the answer is a riddle he can’t answer.

(He doesn't know what he's doing.)

Instead, Alyn opens his arms out and flails, looking as if he is making a fiasco of an attempt at levitation. “Stay there! I’ll come up!” He shouts, voice resonating against the snow in the trees. It would be so effortless, to kiss the snow-covered earth good-bye and rise to Daeron’s window but gravity, weight and nature makes it impossible. Those fictions and lore do say love is not meant to be easy. Nevertheless, he can manage to reach Daeron’s windowsill—at least, he’s going to try to.

A quick, cursory survey of the house’s wall gives him the chance to register the ivied plants, rooted to the bricks, and mounts the roof as if they are some sort of emerald sentinels, watching down at the trespassers. In this case, glowering at Alyn. He makes a sharp intake of breath, gasping in the winter air and lets it send a shiver down his spine. The coldness is necessary to rouse the adrenaline within.

And the adrenaline does surge in, setting his body in motion like a strong current bringing back an inactive engine from its slumber. He charges at the vines. The very first attempt is met with total failure as he’s propelled back by the wall, hips crashing against the ground. After wincing and throwing and thrashing, several proceedings follow and all meets the same fate except one. This time, the left foot has caught ahold of one vine whilst his hands lingered scarcely, carrying the entirety of his body in those shuddering fingers.

He reaches out for another vine, it doesn’t slip away from his palm and the foo—THUMP, cries the vine holding his foot as it exceeds its elastic limit and snaps under the stress. Snow cushions the fall but the pain isn’t absent. “Shit—,” Teeth clashes with teeth, it seems like he’s broken a bone or two. Alyn lolls, sprawling himself over the ground ungracefully, a dead man’s position. “Okay … maybe, you should come down instead.”

[d1b portia maybach 🏆 frankel]

An unexpected visit of another that I always yearn to be with and my first words to him, asking why he has arrived. I blame the hour of the day; there is no thought process at this time. Winters kiss seeps into my room; the thin pyjamas are no shield for its invasion. My head dangles out of the window, hands supporting me as I look down to Alyn. “Stay there! I’ll come up!” His words rinse away the cold with a potion of worry. Vines have always decorated the exterior of my home since I can remember, there is no way the ancient plants can support him in his quest.

”Please, just be careful!” A plea seeps through my lips. Fingers grip to the windowsill as I witness Alyn’s effort to get up here. My attention sprints from my door to him, there are so many dangers that could foil his plan. A broken vine, to bring him down to the snow covered ground or worse, my siblings bursting through the door due to a foreign sound.

Thump. I catch myself before I try and plunge through the window too him, both of us broken is no help to the other. ”Oh you are an idiot! Wait there, I will creep downstairs.” I pull myself back from the window, shutting it behind me.

Scrambling through my room, I slip on some shoes and pull on a jacket, before slipping out of the door with a blanket in my hand. I am so well trained in the art of tiptoeing. So many nights sneaking away unnoticed, back in my bed before the sun has even greeted the world for another day. I could go hours without them noticing my disappearances, I don’t know if that is a good thing.

Out through the front door and the cold greets me again, I run around the house, to Alyn’s location. ”Are you hurt? Can you get up?” I drop the frantic questions onto him, along with the blanket for warmth. My hand grabs his, trying to pull him to his feet. ”You really are an idiot, I could have just let you in.”

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

ALYN AGNES

Agony blooms—and a reel of stars plunges his vision. Fingers clutch at the arm he’d fallen upon; those pain-staking routines for resilience are nowhere to be found as of right now.

He doesn’t have thicker skin, only a layer of dust, caked by worn cells. Maybe that’s why Daeron always have those diverse array of patterned, and vividly colored Band-Aids at hand—because he knows Alyn is not a fortress but a tree-house: rickety, prone to breakage as he’s always been.

“Fuck,” A numbed-out tongue hisses. “Almost certain I fractured it.” Gingerly, his free arm props itself up whilst a palm encompasses its flesh around the wounded. The action, however, is overly spontaneous and sparks a flare of anguish up—evoking another agony-laced moan as a consequence.

“Fuck, fuck.” He doesn’t care about disturbance and public riot now, only the damage done. This heart of his wears the guise of sturdiness, though its true form is composed by sheerness, delicacies, fragility. He’s miles of glass skin, fragmentized. Worse, Daeron could see him for who he truly is: a weak creature with a set of timber bones.

“Are you okay?”

“No. I just- I didn’t want you to get into more trouble although that plan severely backfired.”

It’s a matter of seconds before the Blackfyres are roused—they’re a household of vultures, waiting for dead meat to scavenge, with the exception of Daeron. And the walls are sheer; they broadcast. So, he takes the offered hand and rises to feet, slowly. Icy hands discover a warm sanctuary under the fabric Daeron wraps around him.

-

They wade as if they are ghosts, fleeting at the midnight hour. Alyn manages to trip over crates, a stool, and he only tastes relief again, a pang of a flavor, when they enter Daeron’s room.

Creaking bones lay themselves down upon a sea of ruffled sheets in ultimate surrender—the shivers in his teeth haven’t halted yet. The winter elements exacerbate everything.

“Sorry, I wanted to be cliché.” But, there remains adequate effort for rosy brims to break a grin at his doe-eyed lover. “Never really works—but at least I tried.” Alyn blooms a palm out towards him for the convalescence between two kindred hearts to commence.