Across Eternities

Twilight painted the heavens in strokes of violet and orange, a celestial dance that seemed almost too ethereal for Solenara's mortal eyes. She stood at the edge of the palace gardens, the air thick with the scent of blooming jasmine. Under her arm, a thick leather-bound sketchbook rested, a small tin of charcoal tucked into her hand.

Here, in the quiet outskirts of the palace, away from the prying gazes of courtiers and attendants, she could let her guard down.

Solenara crouched beneath a twisted oak tree, smoothing her skirts and flipping the book open. Her fingers hovered over the charcoal sticks, hesitating. It wasn't the trees she wished to capture, nor even the familiar blooms surrounding her.

It was the sky.

"Always out here, are you?" The voice startled her.

Solenara jumped, her hand jerking as the charcoal dragged a line across the clean parchment. Annoyed, she whipped around. "Who—"

Standing amidst her precious gardens, boot planted firmly on a cluster of violets, was a man who looked every bit as weathered as the stones lining the highland cliffs.

Broad-shouldered and draped in travel-worn leather armor, he smirked down at her with an ease that bordered on insolence.

"You—" she gestured toward his boot, her voice rising an octave. "The flowers! You're stomping on them!"

The man followed her pointing finger before lifting his boot. The crushed blossoms lay flat against the soil. He crouched and swept them into his palm, studying the damage with exaggerated seriousness.

"Ah, apologies. I suppose delicate things and I don't mix well." His grin widened, but there was no malice in it.

Solenara glared at him before returning to her sketchbook. "If you're done ruining my hard work, you might as well be on your way. Surely you've caused enough damage for one evening."

Instead of leaving, the stranger chuckled and plucked another violet from the edge of the path—intact, this time. "Do you always treat your visitors so warmly?"

Solenara gave him a sidelong glance, studying his rugged features. His face was shadowed by dusk, but she could see the subtle signs of exhaustion in the lines around his eyes and the faint dirt smudging his jaw.

He was no noble. That much was clear. A mercenary, perhaps? Or a warrior of some sort?

The man let the silence stretch before offering the violet toward her. "Here, a peace offering for the flowers I've wronged."

Solenara rolled her eyes, taking it reluctantly. "Well, at least you have some conscience."

---

Kaelen sat himself on the grassy incline a few paces away, seemingly unworried by her sharp tongue. Though his body craved rest after days of travel and battle, the sky had held him here, beneath the scattered stars that slowly blinked into view.

"What brings you out here, anyway?" he asked, pulling out a blade to carve aimlessly at a piece of bark. "Most royals I know are too busy with banquets and sycophants to bother with dirt beneath their nails."

Solenara bristled at his assumption. "It's twilight," she replied, gesturing toward the sky as though it should be obvious. "This is the only time when the world feels… still."

Her gaze softened as she traced the horizon. "Don't you feel it? Like the air itself holds its breath. Everything feels infinite for a brief moment—endless, like the heavens above."

Kaelen leaned back on his elbows, considering her words. "Not much use looking to the sky when the earth keeps you grounded."

"Spoken like a man who has never truly looked up," she countered, her voice soft but firm.

He arched a brow, intrigued. "And what do you see when you look up?"

"Possibility," she said after a moment. "Freedom."

"Freedom," he echoed, a flicker of understanding passing over his features. His eyes drifted toward the horizon, though he doubted he'd find freedom in either stars or soil.

---

Kaelen watched as she sketched, her hands quick and deliberate.

"You're good at that," he commented.

"I know," she replied simply, though her small smirk softened her self-assured words.

"You don't even pretend to be modest, do you?" he said with a laugh.

"You can't waste time pretending when you're busy achieving things," she quipped, not looking up.

He studied her for a moment, this young woman with flowers at her feet and stars in her eyes. She felt familiar somehow, though he knew they'd never met.

And then, unbidden, the memory of the golden light returned. It flashed faintly in his mind's eye, filling him with the same quiet ache he always tried to suppress.

Her fingers stilled, as though sensing the shift in his mood. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. Too quickly.

Solenara tilted her head, scrutinizing him before looking away. Whatever weight he carried, she chose not to pry.

Instead, she placed her sketchbook down and rose, wandering toward the far edge of the garden. Kaelen watched her, her figure illuminated faintly by the deepening twilight.

She crouched and plucked a bundle of small wildflowers. "If you're going to stomp my blooms, the least you can do is help me." She extended the flowers toward him.

"Help with what?"

"With these," she said, wiggling the stems in her hand.

Reluctantly, Kaelen stood, approaching her with a curious frown. "You're gathering flowers at this hour?"

"For my sketches," she replied, pointing toward her abandoned book. "Their details stand out better when drawn from life."

He rolled his eyes but complied, bending to pick a few blossoms of his own.

"This is quite a soft hobby for someone like you," he teased.

Solenara straightened and tossed him a pointed look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that it seems strange—an aristocrat so obsessed with nature."

"I could say the same about a warrior with dirt under his nails," she shot back, surprising him with her wit.

Kaelen laughed, and though it was a brief, low sound, it lifted something inside him. Her amusement was infectious, and he found himself smiling despite the restless edge that had plagued him for days.

---

They spoke little else, but the air between them felt lighter than it had when he first arrived. For Kaelen, silence was a companion he often shared grudgingly, yet it felt almost natural in her presence.

Solenara's lips curved faintly as she carried her bundle of flowers back to her sketchbook. She didn't look back, but she felt his gaze linger.

For a brief moment, it wasn't the sky she thought about, nor the stars that usually filled her dreams. It was his laugh—a low, fleeting sound that seemed impossibly familiar, though she'd only just heard it.

---

Kaelen stayed in the garden longer than he meant to, the ache in his bones fading as twilight gave way to full darkness. The stars peeked through the night's canvas, faint but steady.

Their glimmers reminded him of the warmth he always chased but could never quite touch—the golden light that felt just out of reach.

His hand clenched the wildflowers he'd gathered without thinking, their stems soft and fragile against his rough palms. The woman with starlight in her eyes stirred a quiet curiosity in him, but he shoved it down.

There wasn't time for such indulgences. Not for him.

And yet, as he departed into the shadows, her soft voice stayed with him, a whisper against the echoes of battles that usually haunted his mind.

---

The stars above shone brighter as both lingered in their own thoughts, unaware of how fate was weaving their threads tighter with every passing moment.

Though neither knew it, they both carried a fragment of something far greater—bound together by an unspoken history written in the light of those very stars.