Teine sat on the edge of the couch, staring down at the cup of tea that had gone cold in her hands. Ryan’s sat untouched on the coffee table, and across from that he sat stiffly, awkwardly. He’d asked if they could “talk”, but now they’d been sitting in silence for almost fifteen minutes.

She knew that things had been rough lately. She’d been working more to support them after Ryan got laid off, but he was back on his feet now - she thought things were getting better. 

Then he said the words that shattered her world.

“I just…. I just don’t love you anymore.”

The cup slipped from her fingers, landing on the carpet with a dull thud. The tea spilling in a slow, widening stain. Teine barely noticed.

“What?” Her voice came out in a choked whisper, barely audible over the roaring in her ears.

“Come on, you must have noticed it too… things are just different now.”

Her stomach twisted with the betrayal - before he lost his job, they’d been talking about marriage. And now this?

She tried to find something, anything, to hold on to. “We can fix this,” she said desperately. “We can—”

“No, Teine.” His voice was firm, final. “I don’t want to fix it.”

And there it was. The words that turned her bones to glass and shattered her from the inside out.

Teine had given this man everything - even the parts of herself she didn’t share with anyone else. Her unconditional support during the hardest time of his life, depleting her own savings to keep them above water. They were supposed to have a life together, a love to last until the end.

But he didn’t love her anymore.

She felt small, fragile, as if the floor beneath her had cracked wide open, and she was free-falling into a place where nothing made sense.

“What did I do wrong?” she choked out.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

She shook her head, refusing to accept that answer. “Then why? Why are you giving up on us?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, and somehow, that made it worse. If there had been a reason, a mistake she had made, at least she could have fixed it. But this? This was just him slipping away, just her being powerless to stop it.

Ryan stared down at his cup, still untouched on the table, refusing to meet her eyes. “I think it might be best for me to go now - I can come gather my things this weekend, if that works for you.”

The finality of it crushed her.

Teine watched as he stood up, his achingly familiar frame moving toward the door. He hesitated, as if waiting for her to say something, but she had nothing left.

And then he was gone.

The apartment was silent except for the sound of her own breathing, ragged and uneven.

She sat there for a long time, staring at the stain on the carpet, unable to move.

2025-02-16 04:15:03 (Edited 2025-02-23 18:17:29)

Featuring my genekit Rolan: https://genekitsarpg.com/character/GK-0017

A flash. A deep boom. A pair of bright pink eyes shot open. Blankets flew off, cast off to the floor. The gentle sound of paws hitting the floor, followed by the clop of hooves, hurried, almost skittering, her bedroom door flung open, bashing against the frame haphazardly. 

She quickly reached the other door, knocking on it with vigour.

“Rolan!” Another knock. “Rolan wake up!” She yelled.

There was from behind the door, drowned out by another loud crash. Then a small thump, and finally the door opened slowly, revealing a disgruntled figure. 

“What is it kiddo?” The genekit in front of her rubbed his eyes. 

“It’s stormy!” 

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Please come and watch it with me?”

Rolan looked puzzled for a moment but upon seeing the excitement in Arabella’s eyes, he rolled his eyes affectionately and nodded.

“Alright…”

The two walked to the end of the hallway, sitting on the plush red cushion of the windowsill and staring out of the arched window just in time to see another vivid purple lightning bolt strike the ground outside. A small pair of white paws pressed against the window as the young genekit peered out, a quiet gasp leaving her mouth. The other kit watched her curiously for a few minutes, seeing her expression light up at every bolt that hit the ground. His brow furrowed as he leant into the window, glancing out of it, before opening his mouth and beginning to speak.

“Arabella… Why did you wake me up for this?” His tone wasn’t judgemental or harsh, simply curious.

A pause.

“A garden always looks more vibrant after a rainstorm, yes?” She started, her voice quiet. 

He thought of the bright patch of sunflowers in the garden, the vegetables in the raised beds and the peach tree down the bottom of the garden. The place had certainly brightened up since he had taken the girl in. He nodded.

“Well if you look at it after a thunderstorm, it’s even more vivid. The grass is lush, the greenery more verdant, the stems sturdier. The energy in the lightning breaks the nitrogen in the air down into nitrates that the plant can easily absorb from the rainwater. To a gardener, a thunderstorm is the best kind of weather.”

Rolen hadn’t heard this before, but his thumb was not remotely green.

“I’ll take your word for it.” He said.

“Whenever there was lightning, no matter what time or what was going on, my parents and I would stop what we were doing and watch it together. They told me it would make our plants the most beautiful they could be.” 

Rolan wrapped a paw around the young girl, as her voice fell to silence.

“I bet the garden will look perfect tomorrow.” 

So there they sat, side by side, watching the sky illuminate with the crackles of the storm.

(480 words)

2025-02-20 22:08:06 (Edited 2025-02-23 18:32:26)

Claim!!!

2025-02-08 21:18:13 (Edited 2025-02-08 21:22:25)

Entering <3

2025-02-10 14:04:54 (Edited 2025-02-23 17:41:02)