I should have felt thankful.
A stranger owes me nothing, and yet he accepted the handkerchief in silence, bowing his head in gratitude as though it held some hidden meaning.
And still, my heart could not find peace.

That gentleness—so quiet, unadorned, and free of pretense—unsettled me.
It stirred an old feeling, like a familiar melody playing in a foreign city.
My heart sank, not because his thanks were beautiful, but because they carried the shadow of someone I thought I had folded away carefully in a drawer of memory.
Caelum.

I looked at the soldier before me—red-haired, solemn-eyed—nothing like him.
He bore no trace of nobility, none of that calm, steady voice that fell like low music whenever Caelum spoke my name.
And yet...
Why did I see echoes of him in every small bow, in the way this man received a gift so lightly, as though afraid to injure the sincerity behind it?

I began to wonder: was I simply too fragile?
Or had the days beside Caelum carved into me a certain shape of tenderness—one quiet, distant, and cloaked in restraint, as though affection were a thing best left to be guessed?

Perhaps it was not the soldier who resembled Caelum.
Perhaps it was I—still unable to see the world without seeing him within it.

I turned away, burying a breath deep in my chest, as though to refuse the memory that had quietly returned.
But memories, as I've learned, never knock before entering.

Leaving the soldier behind, sitting alone by the waning firelight, I bowed my head in silent farewell and stepped toward the wooden stairs leading to my room.
Each footfall felt like a passage over old memories—quiet and unbearably heavy.

I did not wish to look back.
But just as my hand touched the stair rail, his voice rose behind me—soft, almost a breeze at the nape of my neck:

"My lady, you should close your window. There will be rain tonight."

I faltered.
Such a simple sentence, so practical, so easy to dismiss—and yet, my heart gave way.
Still that same quiet care, asking nothing in return.
I could not see his eyes, but I could imagine them—not soft, not warm, but steady enough to be remembered.

I said nothing.
Only tightened the hand resting on the rail and climbed the stairs.

Inside my mind, questions fell like rain in the night:

"Why do the smallest gestures move me so deeply? Is it because Caelum once said something similar on a rainy night long ago... or is it simply because it has been so long since anyone thought to care for me at all?"

The door to my room closed behind me—light as a breath swallowed by the dark.
Below, the sound of a pen scratched faintly against paper, as though nothing had ever happened at all.

That night, the sky broke open.
Rain fell with a fury, wild and heavy, as if it meant to wash away every lingering memory.
It drummed against the roof, slipped through the cracks of the shuttered windows, and chilled my skin to the bone.

I lay on my side, eyes wide in the dark.
The pillow beneath my head had gone damp—I could no longer tell if from the rain, or the tears I had not wiped away.
No strength remained to care.
All I knew was that whatever warmth I'd once held inside me had dissolved into the rain.

I brought my hands together, fingers laced against my heart, like a silent prayer.
No words, only longing—carried into the unseen beyond:

"Please, let me forget Caelum Duclair.
Forget the embraces beneath the lavender trees.
Forget the sunlit afternoons with tea and silence.
Forget those eyes, that voice, that rare and tender smile...
Forget the man I once loved as though he were the last truth in this world."

The wind howled beyond the windowpane.
Rain kept falling, wave after wave, relentless.
As if the night sky wept for me—or sought to drown my past in cold water.

And I thought, perhaps if morning came with clear skies,
My heart, too, would stop aching for a name.

I wished—when morning arrived—I might forget him.

Or, if I could not,
Then let me die within that final dream—

Where he remains the Caelum I once knew.

Where I wear the pale beige dress he once said suited me.

Where I don the little hat I bought at the fair the day he secretly followed me, only to pretend we'd met by chance.

Where my hand rests lightly upon his, perfectly fitted, warm—meant to be.

Where we laugh together without shame, without fear.

And where, for one fleeting moment, his eyes are no longer those of a prince bound by duty,
But of a man—capable of love.

If I do not wake tomorrow, do not mourn me.

For I will be living still, in that dream.
A world with no farewells, no thrones, no parting letters.

Only me.
Only him.
And a silent spring in the land where we once lived.

If I must die in a memory—
Let it be the most beautiful one.

And if I cannot live in truth,
Then at least—
Let me exist in that dream,
Where his hand still holds mine.

Where I am still the only one he sees.
Even if only in sleep.