The Turn of a Year — Hadrian & Alessa (Patreon)

The night is a cold one. You see your breath spread before you in the phantom form of a white mist. But as much as the inn at your back tempts you inside with its big hearth and warm wine and boisterous laughter, you don’t heed its call.

The night is a cold one. But never before have you seen such a beautiful sky. Dark and moonless but in its place, so shine the stars. Endless, innumerable, and so far away. So very close. Your breath is a white mist before you, and you can barely feel your hands.

But you cannot stop looking at the night sky. Here, at the end of a cycle.

“Have you heard the news?”

You recognize the voice instantly. Your lips turn, a slight smile at the cynicism you hear in her tone, but you don’t look away from the stars. “I have heard many,” you answer to the air as her shape comes into your peripheral vision. “Some more interesting than others.”

Alessa’s snort is a sharp one. She sits beside you, her knee brushing yours as she tucks it beneath one leg. You glance to the side and see she has followed your gaze to the night sky. “I would find it unlikely to hear any of significant interest.” She scoffs. “But the drunken fools inside insist this is to be the last eve of the year.”

You look back up. “So I’ve heard.”

Silence falls between you. Her knee rests against yours, the touch light but somehow managing to steal almost all of your focus. Almost all. The stars are too bright to ignore completely. “Do you feel any different?” you hear yourself asking.

Alessa takes a moment to think. “I do not.”

“Nor do I,” you admit. “Should we?”

She hums. “I know not,” Alessa says, her voice a murmur. “But I hope, in truth, that I shall not.”

You cock your head. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” Is all she says, and silence falls once more.

You smile, staring now at her profile. She has her face turned up, the stars reflecting back on the pools of her eyes. Not as blue as during the day, but deeper. Quieter. More at peace. “And why is that, my elusive Alessa?”

She is quiet for a moment, but then she finally looks back at you. And you cannot help it, your breath gets caught in your throat. She is beautiful, you think. Beautiful at the turn of the year.

“I rather like how I am feeling,” she says then, and now cold fingertips brush against your cheek. And her eyes. Never have her eyes seemed warmer. Never has her smile seemed more sincere. “I would not change it. Not even for the turn of a century.”

Her hand cups your cheek, and you care not for months and dates and beginnings or ends. You care for nothing else but the warmth of her lips.

- - -

You have to remind yourself it is night.

For as you look out into the distance, far out past meadows and sluggish curves of gentle hills, you can see the darkened blanket of the night sky. A moon looms somewhere above, shy and hardly shining, but you supposed its light is not needed. Not tonight. Not in the center of the once-quiet village.

Lanterns of each color of the rainbow hang from strings that crisscross every building and street. All lamps are lighted too, and torches are held by what looks to be a thousand hands. You smile, taking an offered tankard from a passing woman, and step aside to avoid a group of running children.

“This is madness!” You laugh as you come to a clearing where musicians play a lively tune. Women swirl in long dresses, men skip about them, and it is night. But the winter sun could not have hoped to shine even half as bright as the world does right now.

Hadrian ducks his head to speak next to your ear. “Have you never been to a year’s end celebration?” he half yells, his voice coming faintly against the loud drums.

You shake your head. “Not like this,” you admit. Your eyes are bouncing everywhere, trying to make sense of all the chaos.

You barely notice how Hadrian quiets, barely notice him approaching until suddenly, his fingers brush yours to take hold of your mug. “Then…” he begins, and now his face fills your whole vision. His eyes are as deep as a forest as he rests the mug on a nearby bench.

He takes half a step to the side, straightening his back and squaring his shoulders before he holds your gaze. Cheeks warm in the light of a dozen different lanterns. “Would you dance with me?” Hadrian asks. And his voice is confident, even as you see his hand clenched at his side.

You let out a light laugh. From disbelieve, mostly. “Really?” you ask him, standing uncertain. There are so many people, but you can’t look away from him.

Hadrian nods. “Finishing the year dancing with you?” he says then, the clenched hand lifting to grab hold of his cross. “I can think of no better end.”

It is night. But you do not feel any cold, not with the warmth that spreads in your chest. “And what of a beginning?” you say, taking a step closer. Closer to him.

Hadrian pauses and then smiles. Smiles so wide, his whole face seems to shine brighter than the lanterns above you. “Yes, I—” He takes your hand in his, warm and callous and like a beam in the middle of a storm. “A beginning sounds so much better.”

And you do not know when December turns to January. You lose track of time, for his arms are solid enough. Holding you as night slips into day.