Home of Hurt

Their love was a paradox. A fickle flame forced to life in the damp caves under the castle. Castor had worried, at first. That their flame had ignited because of the friction caused by their clashing persons. Or perhaps it was the situation they both found themselves in: neither accustomed to isolation and their only solution the tentative arms of one another. A love fostered from need, from a terrible greed for another beating heart; from that overwhelming fear of being utterly alone in a catacomb of silence with only their echoing footsteps as company. 

But when a few days had turned into a few weeks and a few weeks had turned into a little over a month, he realized how entirely wrong he was. Because the thing about Arabella was that she was everything he was taught to hate, everything that threatened his home, but she was a home in and of herself. A pretty light that sparkled like the stalactites they had grown accustomed to sleeping under. 

Castor had made plenty of mistakes in his life. But the most detrimental by far would be falling for Arabella. 

Arabella who he’s sure flowers bloomed for and dandelions smiled at. Who birds sang for and sunlight sought out. How could they not? Arabella who was just so good. So inexplicably good in all the ways Castor wasn’t. In all the ways he never could be, thus were the cruel distinctions fate had drawn between them. 

Their meeting, a fateful night now seemingly so long ago, had been entirely accidental. 

Castor had slipped into the underground tunnels when the siege on the castle had occurred: a mess of surprise and alarm that shuddered through the stone walls well past twilight. He had wanted to stay, to fight, to help. His home was being threatened, after all. 

His father had insisted, left no room for argument. Especially not after his older brother had managed to weasel his way into staying, using his position of general as incentive.  

You are our last hope, Castor, his mother had told him, before she’d pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. Castor wondered, then, how anyone could want to hurt someone so sweet.

He had been trailing his way to the exit of one of the caves, a path well worn into the memory of his feet, when he heard it. The clear sounds of mud giving way and rocks sliding against one another, falling on top of each other to form a solid wall. And that was when he’d seen her. She stood coughing before the wall of tightly packed rocks, her patchwork coat covered in a fine layer of dust, reddish-beige like the rock surrounding them. 

“Arabella!” someone called from the other end. Desperate, scared. 

“I’m here!” she called back. Her voice was scratchy. “I don’t think I can get through. These boulders are jammed too tightly.” 

“That’s alright.” It was a different voice this time. “We’ll find another way in.” 

“But–”

“Arabella, we won’t get a chance like this again! Go on, you must.”

She had turned, then, seeming to notice for the first time that the lamplight flickering around them was not solely hers. Her dark brown hair was tucked under the drape of a red scarf. Dark war paint curved under her eyes, brown and glinting with steely determination. 

You are our last hope, Arabella, a voice, maybe many voices, had shouted through the rocks, muffled, fading, irrelevant. 

“Prince Castor,” she had sneered. “Second heir to the throne.” 

“Arabella Lalix,” he had breathed. “Leader of the rebellion.”

She curtsied. It was mocking. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

They stared at one another, the anticipation before the first spark. 

Castor had turned tail and ran, not back the way he came, but down a separate tunnel. Arabella followed. 

It was the first of many times he would get lost when it came to Arabella.

It was a bit startling to think of how far they had come, the tentative truce having been drawn when it was apparent that neither of them were finding a way out of these caves anytime soon, lost as they were. It was tentative until the endless hours blended into one another and they began to talk; mundane things, nothing of depth lest either accidentally tear the white flag already stretched so taut between them. They never talked about their statuses, what led them to this moment; in here they were wrapped in a pretty little bubble of unrealistic hopes that had yet to be popped. 

Now they walked, side by side, knuckles brushing just barely. They had stumbled upon an underground bunker a little while ago stocked with enough supplies to tide them over for the time being, but even those extra reserves of oil for their lamps and water for their flasks were running low.

“We need to find an underground spring,” Arabella said, glaring holes at her compass. It had cracked in that first cave in from a month ago, unusable since; that didn’t stop her from tapping impatiently at the glass, accidentally snagging her finger against a sharp shard jutting out. She sighed, staring at the blood beading on her skin. 

“You should stop doing that,” Castor offered. 

She turned her glare on him. He held his hands up in surrender. 

“We can’t keep going like this. We need sustenance and we need a way out.” 

“I know,” Castor hummed, appeasing. “There are plenty of springs around here. We often use them as a water source for the castle.”. 

 “I know. They feed into a pool that leads out into a bay area down near the southern shore. If we find that pool, we find our way out. If my compass just worked it would make our lives so much easier.”

“Not necessarily. With all these cave-ins happening recently…”

She sighed, frustrated. “Still, a sense of direction would be better than nothing.” 

Castor simply hummed in response. They continued walking, quiet. 

“If you could do anything at all in the world,” Castor then said, if only to fill the silence, “what would you do? Doesn’t matter how unrealistic.” 

“Get out of these caves,” Arabella said immediately. 

Castor laughed, a small exhale. “Well, not being in here is a given.” 

Arabella didn’t reply. He chanced a sideways glance at her; she was frowning at her lamp. 

“Everything ok?” 

A laugh. Bitter. “Everything is the furthest from ok that it could possibly be.” 

He pulled his hand away slightly, just enough that their knuckles would no longer have the occasional brush. “I’m sorry,” he said, unsure. 

“I have an answer,” she said quietly. 

“To my question?”

“Yes.” 

She didn’t offer further explanation. Castor debated whether he should ask. Turns out, he didn’t need to. 

“I would take my little brother to this cliff, closer to the base of the mountains. It overlooks the kingdom.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It’s the prettiest view I’ve ever seen. I always wanted him to see the good in this place.” 

“You should show him. Once we get out.” 

He could see Arabella looking at him from the corner of his eye. He went to meet her gaze, but as soon as he turned his head, she looked away. “I can’t. He was killed by the palace guard.” 

Castor flinched. “What?” 

“Yes. They caught him on his way home late one night.” 

“Why?” 

Arabella scoffed. “Why does the throne do anything? They eat the innocent lives they’ve taken for breakfast and bathe in the tears of the grieving.” 

 Castor stepped in front of her, making her bump right into him. He gripped her forearms to steady her. She pulled away, immediately shifting into a defensive stance. As if Castor was going to hurt her. As if he could. He stepped back, putting some distance between them.

“I sincerely apologize for the pain my family has brought yours,” he told her. And he meant it. He had been there when the order had been decreed by his father: take what the leader of the rebellion cherished, perhaps it would deter her. At the time, he hadn’t realized it would be her brother. He wasn’t sorry that his father had taken what measures he deemed necessary to protect them, but he was sorry that Arabella had been pained because of it.  

He thinks Arabella could detect his sincerity. She looked conflicted as she stared at him. He raised his hand, slow, careful. Arabella stared at it, but didn’t move. It hovered in the air between them for a moment before he reached forward, gently easing the angry furrow between her brows with his thumb. She let him. 

It was later, after the lamp had been turned off and they lay on the hard ground, using their backpacks as pillows, when Arabella brought it up again. 

“You never told me what you’d do,” she said. “If you could do anything.” 

“I would bring your brother back.”

Neither of them said anything after that.

Keeping track of time had grown to be more difficult, and Castor estimates about two or three days passed before they finally heard it. 

Castor was in the middle of a story about his first venture into equestrianism when Arabella abruptly held up a hand, shushing him.

“What?” he asked.

“Do you hear that?”

They stood for a moment, quiet, ears straining, before he finally picked up on it. The faintest sound, easily missable.

Running water. 

Arabella clasped his shirt sleeve before pulling him in the direction of the sound. It took multiple turns, and several moments where they had to backtrack,  before they finally saw it. The stream itself wasn’t too wide, but the current was strong. 

“Finally,” she breathed, relief pulling her lips into a small smile. 

The lamp she was holding suddenly gave a weak sputter. Both their eyes immediately snapped towards it. The smile disappeared. 

“It’s ok,” Castor tried to reassure. “We still have mine.” 

She nodded, but Castor could see the tense set of her shoulders. “I don’t have any more oil. Our food reserves are also dangerously low.” 

“Let’s not worry about that right now,” he told her, gesturing to the stream. “We have our way out. We’ll be alright.” 

Following the stream was a relatively simple task, though sleeping was quite the inconvenience. The ground close to the stream was damp, emanating a chill that pervaded into their bones. Castor shivered more than he slept. They couldn’t risk trying to find drier ground, couldn’t risk keeping their lamps on for longer than necessary. So they made do. It hadn’t taken long for Arabella’s lamp to give out completely, and now they were left with only Castor’s. It made them both tense, the idea of losing their only source of light.

The longer they walked, the closer they got to their destination, the more Castor’s thoughts began to wander into dangerous territory. Specifically about what was in store for them once they inevitably got out; escape was no longer something intangible, distant, unrealistic. 

He admired Arabella, truly. She was strong, resilient. Perhaps they could mend this feud, this civil unrest. Perhaps he could make her understand that his family wasn’t bad, unlike what she seemed so adamant on believing. He could talk his family into pardoning her. She could live with them, see with her own eyes that her beliefs were misguided. 

They could be together. He wanted that. He was sure she did too. She had to, didn’t she?   

It wasn’t until they only had half a can of dried tomatoes left, and Castor’s lamp had started giving signs of weakening, that they finally arrived at their destination. Arabella pointed it out first: the sounds of not only one, but multiple different streams coalescing into one pool. They couldn’t see them, not yet, but they weren’t far. The stream they were following tapered into a tunnel in front of them, before disappearing into darkness, where the feeble light of Castor’s lamp didn’t reach. 

“That’s probably where the pool is,” Arabella said, sounding tired. 

“We’re gonna have to swim,” Castor said when they got closer. There was nowhere for them to walk. “Should we leave our packs behind?” 

Arabella frowned. “But what if I’m wrong? We could end up on the other side without our supplies and still more to go.” 

“Not like we have much left anyways,” Castor told her. 

“We should split up,” Arabella suggested suddenly. “I can go up ahead to check, and you can stay back here with the supplies. That way we don’t get them wet if I really am wrong.”

Castor nodded, a little cautious. He couldn’t help it. “Ok. Be careful.” 

Arabella smiled at him, small, but genuine. The lingering suspicion melted. “I will,” she promised. 

Then she dropped her pack and her patchwork coat, opting to keep the red scarf (now tied around her wrist), before stepping into the stream, the current helping her along. Castor stood at the edge of the tunnel, nervous, apprehensive, watching her fade away. He tried holding the lamp out over the stream, but it did little to help him see more. 

He counted silently in his head, reaching 211 before the distinct sound of falling rock, followed by a faint shout, startled him. The shock didn’t last long, and he didn’t hesitate before discarding his own supplies and jumping into the water with a frantic urgency. 

The water was far choppier, far colder, than what he was used to, but the current helped him along. Soon enough, he was scrambling onto a damp shore, the stream to his left. He faintly registered the light pooling in from an opening in the rock hundreds of feet above them (a dormant volcano, he thinks), just enough for him to see where Arabella’s left leg was pinned under a relatively large boulder. 

“Arabella!” He didn’t think twice before rushing to her side, pushing at the boulder with his shoulder, trying to pull it up as much as he could with his hands. Her hands joined his, calloused fingers beside his soft ones, pushing, tugging. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. They made just enough room for her to quickly pull her leg out, her shoe getting dislodged and trapped in the process. 

Castor knelt beside her, eyes scanning her injury as much as they could in the dim lighting. A large cut spanned from her lower thigh to the middle of her calf, not particularly deep, but bleeding far too much for comfort. Scratches dotted her skin here and there. But her ankle. Her ankle was twisted in the entirely wrong direction, definitely broken.

Arabella stared at it for a moment, before punching the ground beside her and screaming, loud, frustrated, distraught. 

Castor startled violently. “It’s ok!” He rushed to say, to soothe. “I’ll get you out of here, and then they can fix you up at the castle!” 

“It’s not ok,” she said, shoulders slumping. “This is going to take weeks to heal. I’ve already been gone for so long, and now I won’t be able to stand in the front lines. I’m the leader! I need to be right there in the fight with everyone else!”

Castor frowned. “What do you mean? You’re going back to the rebellion?” 

Arabella stared at him, eyes wide. “Of course I am.” 

“I–” the words died in his throat. All at once, Castor understood why his family always warned him of his own naivety. “I thought you…” 

He trailed off, but Arabella seemed to understand. “What? You thought I’d leave everything I’ve fought so hard for? All because I made the mistake of falling in love with the enemy?”

“I’m not the enemy,” Castor whispered, eyes stinging, unable to meet Arabella’s bitter gaze. 

“I know you’re not. That’s what I don’t understand, Castor.” She sounded beyond frustrated. “I don’t get you! You’re so good but you keep defending your family, despite all the horrible things they’ve done!” 

“Everything they do is to protect the kingdom,” Castor said, looking up, voice pleading, begging her to understand. 

He was surprised to find the glint of tears in her own eyes. “No, they control us. The only thing they protect is their throne. Do you really not see how tyrannical your father is?” she demanded. 

“No, you don’t understand,” he insisted. “Please come with me. You’ll see what I mean. You’ll understand.” 

Arabella slumped, seeming to lose her energy, falling back until her wet hair was splayed around her in a pretty halo. “Castor, I thought you’d come with me. I thought you’d understand.” She sounded resigned. 

Castor blinked, disbelieving. “I could never do that to my family.”

Arabella looked up at him, her smile bittersweet. “And I could never do that to mine. Your family ruined mine, Castor.”

Castor swallowed. “And you ruined me.” 

Arabella’s lower lip wobbled. He pressed his forehead against hers. 

“This is goodbye, isn’t it?” he breathed.

“I suppose so.” A small pause. “Are you going to leave me here? Swim out on your own?” 

“Arabella, I could never do that to you. I love you too.” 

Her tears fell, cutting streaks across the dirt on her face. He closed his eyes against his own. 

When they eventually parted, they didn’t say anything to one another. They were silent when Castor swam out of the pool and into the bay with Arabella on his back, when he helped her to the rebellion’s nearest safe base. When she wrapped her arms around him and he pressed his forehead into her shoulder. When she walked away and the door closed shut, popping their bubble, extinguishing their flame. 

It was months later when he saw the achingly familiar dark war paint under determined brown eyes across a battlefield. When he felt the little spark in his chest. When he realized that embers couldn’t burn themselves out in the presence of the very flame they sought. When he realized the very thing he loved could kill him.