How was it that this moment felt so much like the creator had both lost and gained… a son. His beautiful puppet had followed the path and recited the script so flawlessly. Once upon a time, Nemo knew what he’d say next. He could play his precious plaything like a fiddle. Everything was safe. And everything was perfect. For the first time in forever, the puppeteer couldn’t read Bela’s thoughts, he didn’t know his words, he couldn’t read between these lines because he didn’t write them. Though he lived on his knees, he couldn’t easily recall a time when he felt so powerless.
It was beautiful, in it’s own right. This was a surprise. More of a miracle, than a mistake… because what had happened required such effort and deliberation, not only on the human’s part, but on Bela’s as well. His puppet had to have been willing to change. Receptive to the unknown. Determined to break the mold. Admirable indeed. “Bela… Nemo…….” Focus, focus. Find your words, he thought. They danced on the tip of his tongue. “…Nemo always knew you’d be… a thorn in his side.~”
His thin nimble fingers drummed methodically on the outline of Bela’s jaw. “You were…..” He watched the puppet’s mouth, gazing at the small space between his parted lips. His teeth were pretty. “You were… different. You visited when nobody else did.~ You craved… for more. As though you were…. somehow…. incomplete,” but, he was incomplete. Father had created him that way for a reason. It kept him determined. It made him unique.
Where was he going with this? “Nemo knows, Bela~… Nemo knows you feel empty… but you are so full…” Again, his hands followed the curved of his puppet’s jaw, down his neck, onto his smooth shoulders. “The only thing you are missing…. is him. Prince…~ Sebastian….~ He is… pretty… isn’t he?” His fingers pinched the wrinkles in the King’s blouse, pulling them taut and defining them. “Not as pretty as you.”
The puppeteer focused on Bela’s lips again. What was it… that he’d been asked? His head lulled to the side as he searched for remnants of the words on the edges of his King’s mouth. Then again, loud in his ears, he was reminded of his own heart… because it was beating louder again. “Shh. Listen, Bela, listen…” he cooed as he brought the prince’s head down against his warm chest, pressing his ear where his heart was thrumming in his chest.
“It’s like yours,” he remarked, futilely attempting to make a point that could bring some comfort to his newly human puppet. “Without this… Nemo would never have made you. This… brought me here. Without this, there would be no Kingdom for you. You would’ve…. never…. seen the rain… or smelled those beautiful bluebells that remind me… of your eyes. You would have….” What did it feel like to be human? Nemo had nearly forgotten. He had forgotten what separated him from the dolls he tinkered with so frequently.
“Simpler… yes… but there is so much a heart can do… so much a heart can make.~ Nemo… could rip it from your ribcage, but you… will not be as you were before, my Bela…” Gently, he continued coddling his son close against his chest. “Things… change. As much as… Nemo… tries to halt it. We cannot… go back. Nemo wishes… but there is no way. Bela… you can change… forward. Not… backward.” He raked through those plush lilac curls. “What… will…. you do, Bela….?~ No matter… what you are…… N-Nemo….. I….” He tightened his grasp around a single tuft and pulled it tight. “I… don’t… want…. to…. lose……… you,” he strained to plead. “You… will always be… my…. Bela. I am…. not ready to lose you.”
A thorn in his side? An annoyance is what he understood those words to mean. The king frowned severely, turned his gaze slightly and muddled over those words. Why did he visit the puppet maker as often as he did? It always ended the same. He’d come expecting answers, demanded in his own way Nemo’s submission to his will. His recognition - but there was a power he could never change. Nemo was his creator - Nemo knew him and could say all the things he both wanted and hated to hear. He’d recite them like some disgusting poetry and all at once Belarius regained his focus with resolve to be better, to have more, to be stronger, to be all that was left. Leave no one, let there be no other choice… but him. Of course he was incomplete. He didn’t have it all.
The sensation against his skin felt almost foreign, though he remained still. Before he would have harshly turned away, denied that he was anything Nemo may freely lay his hands upon anymore. But now, he seemed focused on feeling that connection. Beneath that flesh was a pulse and now he and his creator were far more alike. It felt as different as things had become. His thoughts gathered quickly at that name. Sebastian. Pretty…was a very tame word. That prince was numerous things. A strange sort of glorious, like a beaming light shown brilliantly from behind a silhouette and yet in that overcasting darkness the deviousness peeked. Hidden in the shadows of the light, was his cruelty and selfishness. The sort that grew the longer he denied himself. The longer he lied. Was this what humans were? Splendid but blasphemous. Was this…what he was now? No….Nemo said he was…prettier. He was something…better? Is that what Nemo meant?
“Am I … - ” He was hushed quickly and brought towards Nemo’s chest to be told to listen. Sure enough there it was. That thumping, the beating. It made his own all the more apparent. This thing…this heart - this was what created him, the Queen, the late King, the knight and everyone came from the human that is Nemo, the heart that makes him so. The weight suddenly became crippling. It wasn’t just this he had gained. From the way Nemo spoke it was as if he had evolved rather than broke and there was no going back. It would be foolish to try. He had been given something of incredible burden and potential. “…What…I will do…?” His father held him with a purpose to comfort, this warmth - all of it was new yet oddly necessary for him to understand. No matter what he was…Nemo…wait.
He said…I? He…? Belarius flinched at the tug of his hair. But he said it again. “I…?” He didn’t want to lose Belarius. Not Nemo. He. Whomever he is behind that name, whoever he was and suddenly recognized again - that person didn’t want to lose Belarius. He…the Prince of Perish…the King was his. Not just Nemo’s anymore. Was it strange to take some sort of pride in that?
He reached to place a hand over Nemo’s that gripped at his lavender tresses and urged it away.
He always knew just what to say. Just what to do.
He could not lose. If he did…all he worked for would be wasted. Those days he considered welcoming an endless sleep, a never-ending dream of what he could have - it would never be real. But he could make it real. This humanity could only steal from him what he allowed it to, and give him everything if he knew how to use it. Placing the puppeteers hand back against his chest, he stood up and straightened his posture as best he could. “…It’s too loud…to lose…” Perhaps his gesture was the closest to a spoken ’thank you’ one could expect from Belarius. He had no other direction. No other words to heed, not even his own so he’d reach and hold on to any resonating voice he could find and knew to be real.
“No matter what I am, what I become...there really is no changing this. If that is truly how things are...then I choose to become unstoppable...indestructible. I want you to see... I’ll show you what I can make and where I can go...” Resolve slowly slipped through and gripped the King’s tone - but it wasn’t likened to before. Not precisely. This wasn’t the Prince of Perish, but Belarius all the same.
