For the first time in his life, Ceallach thought the tower was going to fall. The floor shook, the bookshelves rattled, wind roared through the air vents, and the walls, which had always seemed invincible, groaned as if they were about to collapse.

His heart pounded under the sheets, and he would have covered his head with his sheets if he wasn't so afraid of shifting around - even the slightest of movements could bring everything crashing down upon him. He had always wanted to escape the tower, but he didn't want to leave it if it meant having to go through something like this.

The rumbling lasted for what seemed like hours, and he eventually scrounged the courage to sit up. It was still dark, and would not be day for some time yet, but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. "Aisling?" he called out.

It took a moment, but the response was soft. "I'm here, Ceallach."

"Do you think we'll be safe here?"

Aisling turned towards him. "...I don't know. I'm frightened, but I'm so tired. I don't feel very well..."

"Do you want me to get you some water?"

"Please stay."

Ceallach carefully stepped out of his bed and sat at the side of hers. Aisling placed her hand on top of her sheets, which he took in his own.

The tower continued to shake.

"I'm scared too," he admitted, his fingers flexing nervously. "I just want whatever's going on to end."

Aisling's expression was gentle and sleepy. "Maybe a song will help it pass. Sing with me?"

Ceallach nodded. She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb.

"Alone in the sky, a wandering sun cast upon the earth a sweet light..."

Even though she was sleepy, her voice was clear, and the music in it strong and soothing.

Something fell off a shelf and landed with a dull crash. Terror gnawed at his chest, but he focused on her voice. He didn't have a singing voice like hers, but they always loved singing together. "And to a cold and dying bird brought back life and a reason for flight..."

"Sky-friend, light-friend, won't you dance with me?"

"My time is short but at least I will be free."

Ceallach rested his head on the side of her bed. Aisling seemed to have trouble keeping her eyes open, but she kept holding onto his hand.

"Let's rest, Ceallach."

"Alright. Good night, Aisling."

Aisling smiled. The tower continued to rumble.

----

Ceallach's hair made red trails through the tower as he ran through it. It crossed on itself, matting and knotting in the paths he had retraced.

"Aisling," he said over and over, to the girl, to the air around them, to the stones of the tower, anything that might listen. "Wake up. Please wake up."

Aisling remained asleep.

It had been hours since the sun had risen and the tower had quieted, but she was still and silent, chest rising and falling in the unburdened fashion of sleep. Nothing he had tried worked – not leaping on the bed, not turning up the lamps, not any manner of noise, not the bucket of water. She had coughed after he had thrown it on her, but otherwise did not move. He dried her as gently as he could and moved her to his bed as a means of apologizing for such a ruckus.

Surely, when she woke up she would wonder about the state of the room, the little bucket, and why she was in the wrong bed. Surely.

She did not wake.

The sun set.

At mealtimes, only a single plate appeared on the table. Ceallach waited for the second, but it never came, whether it was morning or evening. He searched for something to scrape together a meal for her, but could find nothing other than what he had been given.

He set aside pieces of his bread for her so she would have something to eat when she woke up. They would laugh and joke about it being bird food, fit for her, a person with the appetite of a bird.

Aisling slept on.

Ceallach felt helpless, and he knew wrath would soon follow if he did not act. He looked through the books, all three floors of them, to see if there was something about such a long sleep. Nothing. But he did find some that had diagrams of boats, and that gave him an idea. If the tower could not give him answers, he could look for them elsewhere.

There were tables and chairs on the floors with books, much too many for two people to ever use for their intended purpose. Once, they'd used them as playthings. Now they were the beginnings of a ship, one he'd hope would sail him through the air and out to the ocean, where he...well, he didn't know what he'd find, other than help. Somehow. Progress was slow because he always needed to check on her, to find more wood or nails, to test the integrity of the ship, to read more about crafting such a thing - an infinite amount of distractions on a very important task. His hands felt nervous and fiddly, but confident at the same time, as if his body had been waiting for him to begin this project.

As he gathered books for research, he found some of her favorite storybooks and nearly cried, already missing the sound of her voice and the times she would read to him.

The halls were vacant without her presence or her songs. She would be looking out the window, laying curled and pondering, or traveling from room to room perhaps, and music would come out of her. There were songs of lands they had never seen, songs about the might of heroes and heroines, and songs with words that neither of them understood. Whenever he heard her singing, he would stop what he was doing and be still and quiet to listen, if only for a little while.

He sang too, along with her or by himself, though he was not as skilled as she was in carrying melodies. His songs had their core in rhythm, for they were songs to walk and run with. They were something to keep up with when he would jog up and down the many stairs of the tower or make laps around the bottom floor.

He sang some of his favorite songs of hers, waiting for her to cut in and correct his notes as he worked. His voice resounded throughout the tower.

Cold and loneliness crept in like mist.

——

"The ocean is so blue today, Aisling, and there's not a cloud in the sky. There were so many birds by the window. They were waiting for you to feed them."

She slept, as before.

His braid was slowly falling apart, and he did not know how to salvage it. His hair was so long that it was unreasonable to expect it to stay tidy, even if he stood still - which he was afraid of doing, since it reminded him of Aisling's unnatural slumber. When she was awake, they'd braided it to keep it neat and to make it easier to carry. It was something they had to do together - after he had washed his hair and body and started to work at any knots that had formed, Aisling would re-braid it, working behind his progress until both of them reached the end. This was a demanding task that required them to be close together for a great length of time, and during this activity the two of them could convey a great deal about their mood or state of being.

Braided or not, his hair was very tough, but soft at the same time. He could walk in circles for a while to let his hair pool at his feet, then lie down on it to rest on a comfortable mattress. There was enough of it to make bigger loops and allow her to curl up next to him as well.

Now his hair was loose and getting itself into all sorts of trouble. His head ached and stung if he moved too quickly, distant tangles protesting his movement, and he had to make sure that any stray strands were far away from splintering wood.

Everything reminded him of her. The books, the board games they used to challenge each other with, the birds she loved, the hairbrush, the little metalcrafts they had made together scattered throughout the tower. The view outside the window nearly captured her face – the ocean was the blue of her hair, but her eyes were grey with flecks of blue, like seeing cracks of the sky on a cloudy day. He resented the clear weather for depriving him of the tiny memory, as much as he knew it would sadden him.

He stared at one of the walls, the one he would always strike when he was fed up with being in the tower and the little island and the ocean, and not even Aisling could calm him. The rock was a little smoother here, just barely, but it had held despite his repeated attempts to escape.

Ceallach looked back at Aisling's sleeping form, and drew a line on the wall with a bit of chalk. Every day at sundown, he would add another mark next to it.