“Can you not be here, right now?” Meena asked, wishing she could take away some of the stress he carried. She instinctively stepped closer to him, wanting to reach out to him. To hug him. To be present with him.
Sol looked around the room, confused. “I am here,” he protested, pointing to the ground at his feet..
“You are here,” Meena said, keeping her voice light with jest. She poked his shoulder, feeling that it was the safest way to reach him physically. “But your mind is certainly somewhere else.” She tapped the side of his head.
“We did waste an entire day. Doing nothing,” Sol responded. His face still looked grumpy, but he did not lean away from her touch.
“It was not nothing. We learned the major layout of the city, and we observed the shape of the fortress walls and I saw the way you looked at the soldiers and noticed the rotation of the guards and the control of passage through the main gate.”
Sol sighed. “It’s so little.”
“I’m sorry I failed you this morning,” Meena repeated.
“You did not fail me,” Sol said, lifting his eyes back to her. “This is my burden to carry.”
“But who is going to carry the weight of you?”
“No one,” Sol replied. “I have no weight to carry, no ties binding me down.”
“I am here,” Meena spoke quietly. She had already offered her help, multiple times. She couldn’t force her way into a place he wanted to hide from her.
Meena’s eyesstared up at him in the dim candlelight. They were open and earnest and bright.
Sol swallowed. He wanted to lose himself in those beautiful brown eyes. She kept offering to help him, but the longing in her eyes seemed to offer something more.
Sol blinked, tearing his eyes away from hers. She was a Quotidian princess. He needed to run before he fell under her spell.
She had asked him a question.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, retreating into himself.
“Is it always a burden to lay down ties?” she asked. She leaned backward, ever so slightly away from him, as though she could sense his reticence.
Sol turned away. He couldn’t make her sad. He hardly knew her, yet his heart broke at the sight of her disappointment.
He did not want to examine the question she was asking.
He desperately wanted a moment to set aside his burden, to forget the injustice of the world and just enjoy being with a person who made him laugh. Her. Enjoy being with her.
She was a distraction.
“I don’t have a choice,” he finally said, his voice intentionally rough. “I cannot set aside the pain of my people while they still live in it.” Sol closed his eyes, hoping she would end the discussion and let him be.
Thankfully, she was silent.
“I am going back out.” He walked into the room, throwing open the window on the far wall. The cool breeze of the evening air calmed his heated skin.
“Tonight?” she asked. “Again?” She followed him across the room.
He looked out into the darkness below. They were on an upper floor of the building, but the stone buttresses outside would be easy to navigate. “I cannot sleep until I have made progress.”
“Shall I come with you?” She ran back into the room, stooping down to pick up her shoes.
“No,” Sol responded. His chest loosened. Perhaps it was the selfless offer to go out once again on her aching feet, or perhaps it was the knowledge he would soon be alone and free to move about as he pleased in the darkness. “One of us needs to be well rested for tomorrow.”
The princess walked back to the window, stifling a yawn with the same hand that held her shoes. “I’ll leave the candle burning so you can see which room to come back to.”
Sol swung both legs over the window frame and started to lower his body down the other side. “Don’t bother,” he whispered. “It might alert someone it shouldn’t. I’ll find my way back to you.”
