To Theresia,

The sky was brighter, and bluer in colour than any other. It had been painted carefully in its beauty, but it was my own eyes that saw it to be so. Even as I walked amidst the quiet, slow-moving crowd, I  couldn't help but let out a sigh.

My footsteps resounded upon the quiet stone pathways of the station, intermingling with the eruptive harmony of the clicking railway.

Click, click, click.

It was deafening, like the simplicity of a grandfather clock. Amidst its loud-sounding chime, the lion’s roar of the steam engine was heard in the distance. The tracks I had been looking upon at that moment disappeared within an instant, and the mechanical beast took form in its place. It was not as if it had been the first time I had gazed upon the train that cut through the bronze city.

Yet still, my lungs sat breathless in the breathing presence of the steel beast.

I stepped onto the train without looking back, for I knew doing so would conjure grief within my heart.

The cold breeze of Aethine's morning gave way to a quiet atmosphere, and the sunshine faded away as the steel door shut loudly behind me.

With a softened sigh, I took my seat at the edge of the far wall, looking out of the upraised glass window with a quiet gaze. As I allowed my mind to flow into endless thoughts, I caught my mind’s attention on the endless ocean that sat in the distance. Where once steam had blanketed the entirety of its surface, now sat a glimmering ocean that spread across the horizon greedily. It shimmered underneath the gentle sunlight, which for once, chose not to bear down harshly upon the ground.

Still, amidst beauty and peace, I could not help the stirring in my heart.

“You look torn, my dear.” A soft, croaking voice spoke from ahead of me.

Sitting in the seat across from me was a woman of aged ochre skin, with eyes that gleamed like blindingly-bright emeralds.

It was the merchant, Elin.

“Elin… it’s nice to see you again.” I smiled softly.

I looked back out the window as I continued, knowing well my eyes held a longing I could not hide from anyone.

“To leave someone behind so that I may create a peaceful world for them… is that contradictory, if they love me in return?” I spoke quietly. “Even still, am I making the wrong choices…? Have I changed at all?”

“We make choices because we think they are the right ones, dear.” Elin spoke simply. “If you feel that the choice you have made is not the right one, then perhaps to you it was never the right choice at all.”

In her calloused and hard-worked hands, she held a basket of fruit. She pulled one out, and handed it gently to me. Taking it in kind, I could see that it resembled an orange in its bright-hues, a leathery texture on its peel the exact same.

In the face of a bright-orange sun I held within my palms, I couldn’t help but smile.

“You are the beauty of existence, so don’t treat yourself too harshly, Agreste.” Elin smiled kindly. “If there’s something you want to do over one thing, then you shouldn’t hesitate. To yourself, you are the world, before the world itself should be. You owe not a thing to anyone but yourself.”

Twirling the orange around gently in my hands, I could feel my gaze grow soft amidst my thoughts.

“I want to see her…”

—

In the quiet of the emerging morning, Theresia woke up with a loud yawn. Like bird-call, it echoed through the halls of her emptied home.

It was strange to her for it to be so, for the imprint of her lover's form still took shape upon her bed.

So, curiously she stepped out of her room into the hall, and made her way into the kitchen, where a single sheet of parchment had been laid flat upon the counter.

‘To Theresia,

The one whom I hold the entirety of my heart outwards for.

Enclosed is a singular ring, one of which I bear the twin of. I don’t wish to bind meaning to it through written word, so the next time we meet, I hope that I can give this simple gift purpose.

It’s too selfish of me, to expect you to wait idly in a world where no one had ever thought to stand still. Even so, I’ll let my heart hold expectation.

I know well that you enjoy sleeping through the morning. It’s been a pleasure I hold dear, to wake up earlier than you, just so I can stare at your slumbering beauty. By the time your hands grace the parchment of this letter, I may well have been long gone.

It’s exciting, isn’t it? Riding the steam train of Aethine is a wonder, although perhaps its simply because I had never witnessed such a thing previously.

You showed me that, as you have shown me many things.

When I came to stand underneath the harsh sun of Crelle, I though then that the name I had bound to myself - Agreste, meant something along the lines of ‘Callous, harsh’.

Standing alongside you, doing everything I could think to do hand-in-hand with you, I have come to realise that my name means so much more than the meaning I had bound to it. My Agreste has grown to mean ‘one who has fallen in love’.

I have to go. As the Baron of Lilacs, I made a promise to heal hearts, and I have come to realise that ‘Agreste’ and ‘The Baron of Lilacs’ cannot exist in two places at once.

They are one and the same, and they are both me.

You have too much to bind yourself to Aethine, so I couldn’t have simply asked you to come with me.

Despite that, I couldn’t bear to say goodbye face-to-face, because I never would have been able to leave otherwise.

I wish you many nights under the stars, Theresia.

With my heart,

Agreste Hayes.’

Her hands shook gently as she held the fettered parchment between her fingers, smearing the blackened ink slightly upon her skin.

“Why?” She spoke out softly. “Why wait until you’re gone… to use my name…?”

A quieted clatter resounded through the room, a silvered object falling at her feet amidst her pondering. Theresia’s ocean gaze quickly dropped towards it, and she picked it up in turn.

It was simple in its craft, a silver ring that had been woven with embellishment upon its surface, holding a small emerald cut clean within its socket.

“You fool… is this some sort of consolation?” Theresia mumbled, her gaze down-turned. “Why would I want to marry you, if I can’t be alongside you…?”

Quickly, she swung her way through the oaken-doorway, and past the plastered flooring which led to concrete. Adamantly she sprinted through the hallway of copper pipework, and through the bathing of the illumination of lamplight, and into the gentle brightness of the morning sun.

Under the blue sky, Theresia ran as far and fast as she could, despite her lungs which had run dry of air. Her chest hurt, and it felt as if tears had pooled like waterfalls upon her eyelids.

In the distance she could hear its roar. Like a thousand whistles in unison, it rang out against the steel-plating of the buildings that carried large copper automatons.

Her feet felt like mud, slowly dripping to fall against the ground as she stood before the giant beast that bellowed constant steam, made up of green steel-plating and whirring copper gears. It seemed to stretch a kilometer-wide in length, and its face in the distance seemed regal in demeanor.

In its multitude of windows, one sat open to the cold morning air, giving a framed image of a man with midnight hair, and quiet grey eyes that seemed to carry a sense of longing.

Her heart seemed to beat faster in that moment, like the rhythm of the train that would soon take off running.

So she did the same, and stepped forth as she called out to the man in the window.

“You fool! Didn’t you think I would come with you!?” She shouted out from the stone platform.

I turned towards the voice that warmed my ears, and met a face I had longed to see once more. I could feel my expression brighten, and I knew well that I was smiling without conscious effort.

“You have a life here!” I shouted out as I turned towards her. “Your plays, your people... how can I ask you to abandon all of that for my sake!?”

“You are my life, idiot!” She smiled. “Wherever we go, I can live there peacefully with my passions! We could live together... and even start a family! So don’t hesitate to ask me that question, because my answer has always been a resolved ‘yes’!”

My face grew red-hot against the chill of the breeze, and my mind grew fuzzy and muddled. Still, I composed myself, and spoke out to her with softened gaze.

“Then Theresia...” I spoke amidst the gentle hum of the train’s creaking engine. “Will you accompany me, wherever my words take me?”

“Yes!”

I could feel the ache of familiar euphoria build up in my chest. I almost couldn’t bear to sit with it.

“Wherever we go, wherever we end up...’ I spoke softly. “I will marry you, Theresia Hayes. So, until our bodies are nothing but dust against charred soil, will you stay with me?”

I reached out my hand, for the very first time, for I had grown to love.

And she took it in turn, because for her it was the same.

“Yes!”

I then leaned out the window, for I could not stand the aching in my chest. As I placed a softened hand upon her cheek, too did I embrace her lips with mine.

She fell gentle against my touch, as if there was no greater reason to continue to stand up straight in my arms.

“Agreste.” She spoke gently towards me as she pulled away.

“Yes, my Dearest?”

“Did you know, you’ve given my heart, which had only one barreling path forward, purpose and meaning?”

And in turn I smiled bright, and laughed a hearty laugh that made my ribs ache.

Theresia was someone I had grown to adore.