[a/n: a short story inspired by 'a dark academia playlist to write to' from golden länni on youtube]

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"... and we walk after sunset or sunrise, usually. They're the best times, when the sun has just come up or gone down," Nathaniel was explaining excitedly to his mother. She smiled faintly at him as a knock came at the front door. "That is her, mother, we are leaving now. I will see you later." Nathaniel arose from his place at his mother's side, patting her arm with the faked calm assurance of someone so used to speaking to someone who does not speak back, but wishes the other person would every time.

Standing outside of his home was Amelia, his beautiful Amelia, in a white dress, her long, flowing red hair topped by a flower crown that was almost as beautiful as the girl wearing it - almost. Nothing was truly as beautiful as her, not in Nathaniel's eyes, at least.

He knew that loving someone was forbidden when it was not an approved relationship. His mother had fallen prey to that law, and had only just awoken from the long sleep she had been placed in. She was lucky she had woken up at all, even if it was without her sanity and without her lover.

"Are you ready to walk, my love?" Amelia asked in a low, melodic voice. He nodded, smiling, avoiding patches of grass and flowers dotted with dew and the morning's rain. "Can you smell that?" she added, fingers intertwining with his.

"Can I smell what, darling Amelia?"

She turned her nose to the sky, sniffing delicately. "It rained for the first time after such a long dry, I had begun to lose hope that it would ever rain again. But no, today I awoke to a world happy and refreshed with water. I speak of the scent of petrichor, my love."

Nathaniel nodded, even if he did not know of what she spoke. They walked over the paths, and as the sun descended to darkness, so did his thoughts. His thoughts turned from Amelia's beauty, and sunlight and hope, to his own incomparability, to shadows and despair.

"What will happen," he said quietly, "if we are discovered? Will you fall prey to the eternal slumber, like my mother? Like so many before us? Is this a mistake?" Nathaniel's grip tightened on Amelia's hand and she squeezed back reassuringly.

"Let me tell you a himitsu of mine, my love, a secret." She went onto her tiptoes to whisper in his ear and a shiver ran down Nathaniel's spine. "When I am awake, I think only of you. And even when I sleep, I dream only of you." She lowered herself back down, a pleased smile on her face as she tilted her face innocently at him. Nathaniel's face flushed and he looked away from his beloved Amelia, his forbidden Amelia.

They were approaching the Forest Grand. It was a great gathering of trees and plants and life, one you were not supposed to enter, but when they were already breaking a rule punishable by something worse than death, entering such a place no longer became impossible. In fact, it became very possible indeed.

Nathaniel sighed, staring at the sky, which was now full of inky blue-black and glimmering white stars. The colour of a bruise, overshadowed by brightness.

This creed they all lived by, it worried him. If it made him so happy to be with Amelia, why would someone else need to tell him if he was happy or not? He could already tell he was hopelessly in love. And she, too, hopefully. 

"I do not need a glass slipper on my foot to know I love you," she had proclaimed once, mentioning the old fairy tale of Cinderella, one of her favorites.

"Come, my love," she laughed, heading into the forest and letting go of his hands. Trying to let go of his fears and worries, at least for the moment, Nathaniel followed Amelia, the wind stroking its soft, cool fingers through his brown hair. He chased her deep in and they came upon what looked like a field full of wild roses.

Amelia tumbled forward and Nathaniel let out a brief cry, worried she had been injured. At last he leapt to action hurrying to her side and ignoring the long thorns scraping his skin and digging into his flesh.

Curiously, she was not bleeding except for a single spot on her index finger. She examined it curiously, and the long thorn on the tall rose that had hurt her. Nathaniel glared at the rose and helped her to her feet, allowing her to brush off her dress as he muttered, "Accursed thorn."

"Hush, my love, it is but a simple drop of blood." She smiled radiantly at the thorn, caressing its stem. "I do not know why thorns are condemned so. They are part of the flower. And are not the rose and the thorn equally as beautiful?"

Once more, Amelia's eloquent and poetic speech confused her lover, but he simply nodded, agreeing with what she said as always. He'd learned by now that Amelia was always right, whether or not he understood her words. She paused for a moment and then pulled the rose out of the ground easily, making sure to leave on all the thorns as she carefully wound it into her flower crown.

"You look beautiful, darling Amelia," he told her. It was unnecessary, for she surely had to know how wonderful she looked. She offered him that same radiant smile, and Nathaniel swore his heart skipped a beat and the world spun.

"Do I? I wasn't sure if the rose would make me look strange, or if I looked strange altogether."

"My love, even if you were wearing brown and gray on the most humdrum days, I would think you the most beautiful creature in the world, for not even a goddess could hope to compare." Amelia laughed, a sweet sound, angelic in nature to her beloved's ears, and quickly kissed him in thanks for the showering of compliments. He held out his hand to her and she gratefully took it. "Let us exit this field of roses and thorns, shall we?"

"All the same," Amelia reminded Nathaniel as they climbed out, with a higher measure of carefulness than as they had entered the field.

They continued on, speaking thoughtfully and speaking whimsically, laughing and kissing but not crying and not worrying over their predicament. Nathaniel's lips passed over Amelia's as they danced a waltz to imaginary music in a large clearing of vibrant grass, and her hand slipped perfectly into his as they walked on, the night passing by.

"It was a slow day today, was it not?" Amelia's eyes were closed as she smelled the air, still pleased by petrichor.

"It was," Nathaniel agreed, playing with her hair around his fingers. "I did not accomplish much, except to speak to my mother and attempt to learn more of swordsmanship."

"My love, you have always been more of a scholar than a warrior," she laughed. Then her face turned suddenly serious as she looked at him. "And I love you, always." They sat beneath a birchwood tree, centuries old with wide, leafy branches. It always felt as if it were in limbo, between this world and another, half-asleep.

"We should be leaving soon," he said gently, reluctantly removing his hands from her hair to stand and give her his assistance in rising to her feet, always the gentleman. The two trekked back to the edge of the forest, to leave and go home until they could perhaps walk another day, in secret.

And they found not an empty field, an empty stretch of knee-high grass, but a group of white-suited officials. One of them stepped forward.

"Nathaniel Alderhallow and Amelia Goldscar," he said gravely, "I am Official Ravenwood. Please, come with me." The pair unlinked their hands immediately and Ravenwood blinked before smiling in what they were sure was supposed to be a a pleasant manner. "Unless, of course, you would like to be placed in immediate exile for breaking the rule of not entering the forest at the edge of all civilization."

"Our deepest apologies, sir," Amelia replied instantly, curtseying, her white dress fluttering about her knees and bare feet. Nathaniel followed suit, awkwardly inclining his head. "We would, of course, be willing to work in Community Service, in lieu of being banished from civilization." She reminded Nathaniel of the well-spoken princess in 'The Beggar and the Broker'.

"We have not spoken of all of your transgressions, however," Ravenwood said. "Yesterday, your mother was spoken to, and she finally responded, Mister Alderhallow." A condescending smile twitched his lips as he continued, "We were told she had already remembered how to speak but did not wish to do so for you because of the terrible mistakes you were making, breaking rules and laws. We asked what she meant by this, and through your mother, we have made a most grave discovery."

Nathaniel swallowed thickly, understanding what they were about to say. They had broken curfew, they had entered the forest, and now here they were, loving freely without permission. They were not allowed to love and so they would be punished. But first Official Ravenwood was laying out the exact details of their crime, as was his duty.

Their crime was being in love.

One day, when they were on a walk just after the sun rose on a day no work was needed, they ascended the tallest hill, which was akin to a small mountain, as far away as they had ever been from civilization. They looked over the forest, seeing the Lake Grand and the City Grand and the River Grand. The light shower of rain that had plagued them all day finally ended just as they crested that hill, although the gray clouds still hung low and heavy over the land.

Nathaniel had opened his mouth to speak, but Amelia had laid a cool finger against his lips, and he had shut them obediently.

"Be silent with me," she had whispered. And they had stood there for a good while, looking over all of what they could see, which stretched so far. There was the city, and the forest, and the lake, and the river, and there was the Cessura, a thick white stripe of blighted land that separated civilization from the rest of land.

And then the sun broke the low, heavy gray clouds, and Amelia had smiled so widely Nathaniel had the ridiculous thought of thinking her face might split in half. But she was smiling in such utter, free joy that those ridiculous thoughts were soon forgotten.

She had reached out a hand to touch the golden sunlight streaming from the sky.

"The top of this mountain we stand on," she had said softly to him, "looking at all we love" - and her eyes turned to him for the briefest moment, then over the forest - "and all we hate" - and her eyes turned to the city for the briefest moment, then that break of white land - "it feels like we are standing at the heart of the river of the sun... does it not?"

And it was then he realized she was his heart.

She was his, she was his, she was his.

And it was then he realized he was her heart.

He was hers, he was hers, he was hers.

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Nathaniel stood there, watching his beloved Amelia sleep, as he had for eight years. Such was the punishment for loving someone without approval. Her sleep would not be as long as his mother's, however, because Official Ravenwood had relented, gifting them with official approval.

He had not spoken to his mother for eight years, since that day.

Today was the day Amelia woke up. But she looked so peaceful as she slept, and as his mind wandered back to that fateful day, a strange thought crossed its gray planes - that she was sleeping like the birchwood.

He was remembering every moment they had had together, all at once, because he did not know if she would know him. That was the price of the eternal sleep.

"We are not out of the woods yet, my love," he murmured to himself. The machine's smooth glass door opened as her chest lifted in conscious exhale, and her eyes slowly fluttered open. They were a more striking shade of blue than Nathaniel had recalled, but it had been such a long time since he had truly seen her eyes.

She shot out of the sleeping machine, looking wildly distressed. Those eyes fell upon Nathaniel in shades of confusion, and he felt his heart fall in despair before it lifted on wings of relief when she threw herself into his arms. She sobbed into his chest, hands clutching his sleeves.

"I thought you might not have waited," she cried. "I did not know if you would have waited as long as it might take. How long has it been, for you?"

"Eight years," he told her gently. Her eyes went wide.

"Eight years," she repeated. "Was it not twenty, for your mother?"

"Official Ravenwood approved us," he told her. Those eyes lit up. "And he promised to speak to those above him about considering revising the laws and rules surrounding love. Apparently, he knew my mother rather well, once." He lifted his eyebrows meaningfully.

"Oh," she breathed, stepping back for a moment. "That is good. I... I am sorry for my reaction upon waking. I had a most terrible nightmare, and I have not had those in years. Not ever, I think, unless I did when I was very young. I had always dreamt of good things, like you."

Nathaniel's heart tightened in concern.

When I am awake, I think only of you. And even when I sleep, I dream only of you.

"What were you dreaming of, my love?"

She frowned, brow creasing in concentration.

"I... I... I forget."

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