THE GOLDEN AGE, sejanus plinth

012. the weight of the world

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CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD
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SOMETIMES, AURORA DIDN'T get the concept of time. She just couldn't wrap her mind around it. Who determined how long a minute would last? A second? A day? A life?

Eternity could be the blink of an eye and nobody would know. Aurora breathed in and out and twenty years could have passed.

Pandora hadn't stopped crying, wailing even and it had turned Aurora's precious little haven into a nightmare. Theus kept pacing around the penthouse, angry lines on his forehead as he listened to his wife's cries. Not because he was angry at his wife, of course, but because he had lost his only daughter.

Achilles was nowhere to be found, Aurora didn't know when the last time had been that she had seen her cousin. Definitely before the arena bombing.

And so, she actually reconsidered her definition of a safe haven, a safe place, that rescued her when the world was getting too much all of a sudden.

It certainly wasn't the Academy. How could it be? She walked around the halls with the shadow of Arachne two steps behind her.

In moments like these, that could last forever (and she wouldn't know because what did forever even mean in the scheme of things), she felt helpless. Not because she couldn't do anything with her casted pinky finger, but because she could feel the weight of the world on her shoulders.

He found her outside of the Academy, sitting on one of the steps of the giant staircase, holding her face up to the sun. It was a coincidence, really, he had wanted to go home after another dreadful day with close minded people and saw her sitting there.

And he couldn't help but admire her, she was beautiful, even though her face was still struck with grief and the cuts on her face were just beginning to heal.

Maybe Aurora had heard someone coming or maybe she had felt his presence, whatever it had been that led her to open her eyes and turn her head around. She saw him standing a few feet away in the shadows and flashed him a smile.

"Sejanus, you're the person I was waiting for," she told him as she got up.

"Really?" He asked her, more surprised than confused.

"Of course. I need to escape home for the day, it's not... uh... great coming back there at the moment," she mumbled with her eyes looking at the ground. But the girl quickly lifted her head up again.

"And maybe we can work on that stupid assignment together?" Her eyes had a hopeful shimmer in them and for an unknown reason, she would feel extremely humiliated if he would decline.

Sejanus had no intention of declining, on the contrary actually.
"Sure." He beamed at her.
"You can come to my place, I bet Ma's baked again," he said as they were already walking down the stairs.

It was a hot day that invited to eat ice cream, but she couldn't say no to Mrs. Plinth's pies.

"Thank you, that sounds delightful." Actual relief washed over her and she could feel how her shoulders got lighter again.

She had let her driver know that she would come home later and instead spent the afternoon and early evening at a friend's house. She hadn't wanted to get too specific about what friend, though.