Flashback Forget Me, Siyana

[Ronan]

"Forget Me, Siyana" Timestamp: 18th Day of Summer, 501 AV It was a hot summer. A boiling hot summer. Ronan had only his trousers on as he sat atop the hill outside camp. Siyana was next to him, hands clasped and staring into the azure, blue sky. "Are you thinking about them, Ronan?" she suddenly asked. He looked at her, blinking into the light. She was a beautiful Drykas. Her hair was long and made of gentle waves. Her skin was copper, and her eyes a dark, deep brown. "I can't stand it when you sit here looking hurt... open up to me." He shook his head, sweat forming on his arms, his chest, his back. She laid a hand on his windmarked arm, gripping him tightly as if she'd never let go. "It doesn't matter what I was thinking, Siyana. I'm here, now, with you. That's all that matters isn't it?" She sighed, letting go of him with a sudden sharpness like she'd been burnt. She folded her arms and turned away, sunlight blazing on the back of her hair. "You're a nightmare... a dark cloud in a blue, summer sky. You know those annoying ones? They look like they're going to bring rain, but they never do." He let out a small, dark laugh. "What on Mizahar are you going on about?" he grabbed her softly, and began to kiss her neck. Butterfly kisses, prancing up and down. She giggled, coming out of her sullen temper with him. And then she kissed him back, firmly on the lips. Her scent put pulses of passionate heat through his body. Lemon, and flowers. The sweet aroma of summer that the wind often carried into Endrykas. There's happiness in my pain... I don't want this summer to end. For seven nights he had read the stars like his mother had used to. Every time, the message had been the same. Deep in his heart, Ronan knew that this relationship was destined to end. He could only try and forget, and live a little while longer under the Cyphrus sun...

[Ronan]

Days passed between the two of them, and as time progressed, it seemed he saw Siyana less and less. Their love dwindled. It was a while yet before he noticed the changes. Her skin began to grow redder, her moods darkened, and one fateful day, as she tried to walk away from him, he noticed her swelling belly. Ronan's heart dropped like a stone, all the liquid in his throat drying under the parched sun. "You're pregnant," he said simply. She turned to him, staring into his eyes. For a moment, he thought she would deny it, but she didn't, "And you're never there," she replied shakily, "and when you are, you're so distant you might as well not be." An anger began to consume Ronan - bitter, dark flames, rising from his gullet. He and Siyana had never consummated their relationship - they had promised to wait. "So you slept with another man...?" Tears began to form in her eyes, and she half turned away from him. "You betrayed me - at least have the tenacity to face me when you talk!" he snapped, positively growling. "He was there for me Ronan. You weren't. It's as simple as that." And still she couldn't look him in the face. Because betrayal was never simple. "Go, Siyana. Leave. I don't ever want to see you again." "Ronan..." "Leave!" The air crackled with rage and tension, Ronan shouting at the top of his lungs. She stared at him, measuring, and then she nodded, turning to go. And that's how much I was worth... turn and walk away with no remorse. "Forget me, Siyana," he cried as she walked away. "Erase the memories you have of me!" It will only bring you pain...

[Ronan]

Ronan hated himself, for he put the cause of the entire situation on his shoulders. The summer had come to a sudden and abrupt end, the fated stars speaking their dark fates. He had driven her into the arms of another man, through his own foolishness. He was always distant. Always lost. A remnant of the Pavilion he had once laughed and played in. He remembered the stories, and the words of his wise-woman mother. Mysticism and creativity - the central tenets of the Windsongs. Several days and nights passed, and he had heard nothing of Siyana. Clearly she would not come to him again - but it was not that. No one in Endrykas knew where she was. Her family thought she had been with Ronan, and his visit to them only fuelled their worries. It was a cool morning, one of the first of Fall. That was when the rider came thundering into the Stalk Meet. Ronan knew from the moment he saw him coming... he knew that the rider brought bad tidings. Siyana had been found - dead. Baby and all. They had drowned in a shallow river, possibly through the night's cold snap. It seemed she had taken her own life. Ronan felt immediately responsible. He had told her to forget him - and it seemed this is what she thought he had meant. The only way to erase and forget. Extinguishing ones own life, by taking the power of the Gods. His hands went to his head, gripping it as tears and guilt began to consume him. He was bound for oblivion, his vision shadowing at the edges. He had lost everything. Truly and bitterly, everything around him had been cast into the flames. He ran blindly from the tents and the people, the horses and the hay. He stumbled into the grasses, his final sanctuary from the oncoming storm of chaos. There he crumpled, falling down in pain. "No..." he whispered, before repeating. Each time he said the word, it grew in volume, until he shouted openly. "NO!" He was not a Drykas anymore, no more than he was a Windsong. He was nothing. Everything that tied him to Endrykas was gone and buried, dead and returned to the cycle. Everything he touched turned to dust.