The Apathetic Mage Loves Cats

Chapter 30: Letters

In this chapter, every paragraph in italics will emphasize the letter that Zing is writing to Alan. If it's not in italics, then it is happening to Zing outside of the letter. He isn't writing it, so Alan doesn't know it's happening. I just love Zing, so I want to include him more haha. I hope this isn't too confusing and if there is, don't be afraid to ask questions!

Several years ago.

Zing's POV

I had the first dream when I was 18 years old. Beneath the roof of my father's old cabin home, his snores shook the floorboards and rattled my brain as I tried desperately to fall into sleep. In the dream, my father and I were walking to do our work at the local mine. We had been workers there for years, and nothing bad had ever happened. So, I wasn't nervous as I watched my father put on his gear and make his way into the cave. I continued to do my tasks for the day outside the mine, which consisted of counting our stock and cleaning out barrels that would be wheeled back down once a miner came back up. However, not too long after our shift started, a rumbling shook throughout our bodies. And, before my eyes, the cave collapsed. The moment I saw that cave collapse, I was awoken by my father. His brows knitted in worry and his wrinkled forehead downturned. He had woken me up from the nightmare to get ready to go to work. Despite how uneasy I felt about the entire situation, I chalked it up to just being a strange dream, and my father and I went to work without any further problems.

However, just like the dream predicated, I watched the cave collapse before my eyes. Trapping my father beneath its surface forever.

Despite that strange incident occurring, I never thought I had prolific dreams. That was the only one I had for a long while. I got one every few months after that, all revealing different forms of disasters that would happen close to me. It would take about three of these dreams to come true before I started to believe that they were real. That they were showing me the future for some reason. I prayed to everything in my knowledge at the time to tell me why I was seeing these dreams. Why I was the one to suffer through these tragedies every time? What did they want me to know? At that point, I had always believed that they were bad. That they were only there to torment me due to something horrible I had done.

Until I met him.

"What are you doing?" a soft voice called out from in front of me. At the voice, I felt myself smiling, my grip loosening around the pen as I turned to look up at my lover. His platinum blond hair shone until the bright sunny afternoon, bringing out the color of his green eyes even more. As my gaze met his, the ears on his head turned downward in embarrassment. And a path starting from his neck and over to the edge of his cheeks, turning them a bright red. His gaze shifted from mine to stare at a space slightly beside my head and his arms crossed over his chest to shield himself.

"What is it?" Romand pouted. I shook my head softly.

"Nothing," I stated back, "I just think you look beautiful." He did indeed look stunning. He wore a shirt that I had on the previous day and a pair of loose-fitting pants. He stated that he only wore my clothes because he was too lazy to put back on his outfit, but after watching him relish in my attire over and over again, I knew that it was an excuse. Either way, it never bothered me. It felt nice seeing my lover in my outfits, especially after a night of passion. The loose-fitting material allowed me to see the markings I had created along his collarbone and dipped towards his chest. It made my heart flutter to know that he was hiding those from everyone but me, that I would be the only person to see them.

He warmed my heart.

"You didn't answer me," he mumbled again, clearing his throat and making his way to my left side. I was sitting outside my father's cabin, leaning against a tree, a couple of papers laying in my lap as I wrote a letter. Romand sat down next to me, and I shifted slightly so he could lean against the tree as well; his eyes drifting over to my paper. "A new code?" I nodded in response, letting him take the page still slightly running with ink in his hands so he could get a closer look at the letters written there. I knew they were English, but to him, it was probably a mountain of gibberish.