The harbor in Kugane was not Aveen’s favourite place of the city. It held strange memories. Painful memories of goodbyes, of promises and melancholy. And some, that once were happy ones, now had turned painful as well because they reminded him of the loss. The failure.
It didnt help that this ship, that will bring him out of this beautiful hingan city, departed from the same pier on which he had walked his very first steps into this city three long years ago. How excited he had been back then. And more important: how excited Tristan had been. Aveen remembered that it was the first time he had truly seen his professor smile. A phenomenon as rare as seeing a shootingstar. They had stood at the railing and Kugane had peeled itself out of the morning mist, its buildings, streets and harbors illuminated like a precious jewel. For Tristan it was almost home. It was a city that had been good to him, at a time as life had not decided yet to fully punch him in the soul. Aveen remembered this smile of his like all the few others he had seen and received from that Keeper of the Moon. It lived in his poems. It lived in his memories.
Aveen had come to love Kugane as if it was his new home. He would gladly have stayed here after finishing his studies. And for quite some time it had seemed that this dream might come true… next to some others… but no. His last semester here had been everything he never wanted. Lonely. Full of self doubts. Heartache.
And before this beautiful city would become a reflection of this pain to him, Aveen decided to leave it. So he could hold the brighter memories he had made here closer. The summer with Delan. The many visits to the magnificent botanical gardens. Countless days and evenings with Tristan. The poems he had written here. The knowledge about healingmagics he had gained. Aveen had reached one goal: Finishing his studies to be able to work in healing research, and seemed to have traided it for the other one: to have his love reflected back. How selfish that thought actually was. He had tried. Aveen had seen how hardly he had tried. But lastly, it takes more to mend a tortured soul and a broken heart than to just love it harder and harder.
The blue haired Miqo’te let himself be drifted with the other passengers of the big vessel towards the plank that allowed him to board it. He quickly stored his many bags in his bunk and then took the stairs to the deck to find a nice spot at the railings to wave Kugane goodbye. Soon he would tell his diary about this moment or at least write a short poem. But for now he just wanted to stand there in the late afternoon sun of this latesummer day on this ship surrounded by hundred of other people and try not to cry. That’s what he promised to himself. Don’t cry. Like Tristan, in his emotion-hating pragmatism had always said: Crying doesn’t change your situation.
The sailors at the docks got the vessel ready to leave the harbor as everyone was on board. Loud, excited chatter, the sounds of the city nearby, the first heavy breaths of the ship below him in synch with the oceanair surrounded Aveen. He really tried to look forward. He was excited for his small healthcare practical training that awaited him at the end of this journey. It was a small step towards trying to find a job in healing research. To keep his promise of finding a cure someday for patients with a thin-aethered immunesystem. Patients like Tristan.
His former Professor was right. Crying didn’t change his situation. But it let Aveen feel connected to it. His grief was valid. He was allowed to cry. That was what he knew deeply in his heart and he sometimes asked himself, if he had forgotten a little part of his true self over these last years, just to not be a burden for someone else. He had been mostly happy these last years, yes. He had grown. He had learned. But now he wanted to move on. Not away, but on. The ship slowly left the Pier and the hingan City behind. Aboard a young Miqo’te whose tears showed his hope that he will find good things at his destination: Gyr Abania.