MODERN
rainbow // ♪
cutest in the world // ♪
still here // ♪
next year, the year after, and... // ♪
for every call of your name, "i love you" // ♫
those who have never left // ♫
dreaming within a dream of a dream // ♫
with these precious memories in hand // ♫
a rabbit doll's observation log // ♫
gift from the tooth fairy // ♪
GODHEIM
come spring // ♪
fractured oaths // ♪
EDEN
calluses // ♪
Alkaid McGrath
MODERN
first loves // ♪
intertwined starlight // ♪
little imperfections // ♪
Lars Rorschach
MODERN
four a.m. // ♪
GODHEIM
promise // ♪
yellow tulips blooming // ♫
EMPIRE
stasis // ♪
Clarence Clayden
MODERN
departure // ♪
irrational // ♪
GODHEIM
winter // ♪
Cael Anselm
about painting // ♪
predict the future // ♪
ao3 account
note: to access the rest of my fics, you will need an ao3 account as i have locked all of my fics from public view.
You wake up to a heavy arm wrapped around your waist, and another under your head. Before you open your eyes, you hear his steady breathing accompanied by a rhythmic heartbeat— one, two, one, two…
It nearly lulls you right back to sleep. You snuggle closer to your boyfriend, your arms squeezing Ayn’s waist. Without much thought, you trace random shapes in the small of his back through his pajamas. This gets him to stir slightly.
You finally open your eyes, blinking blearily. Your sight eventually focuses. You’re met with a faceful of Ayn’s partially exposed collarbone— which you press a light, fluttering kiss on. As Ayn stirs further, you look up at him with a faint smile.
“Morning,” you whisper.
“Mmhmm…”
Still not fully awake. As expected.
You don’t know when exactly, but after a while, you started more or less living with Ayn in his secret base.
It started with occasional visits, starting from his first birthday, when he gave you the address. Bit by bit, your paths intertwined, and Ayn started extending invitations to his secret base— in his classic, roundabout style. On lonelier, quieter days threatening to swallow you whole, you found yourself wandering over to his secret base in search of him.
A few shared naps turned into overnight stays, some late-night gaming sessions resulted in you simply staying over instead of going home at 3 A.M…
Before you knew it, his shelves were neatly lined with your own painting supplies. He makes room for the things you like, inviting you in with a set of matching rabbit slippers.
You remember the first time he started buying matching couples items, many of which were rabbit-themed. He seems to be fond of the little animal, though he’s never stated it outright— and you’re sure he would deflect if you asked, perhaps commenting that it was all just a coincidence.
With a laugh smothered against Ayn’s chest, you press closer still to your dazed boyfriend and sigh contentedly.
“Mmh?”
Hearing his questioning hum, you reply with several more light kisses against his neck, against his collarbone. Above you, Ayn inhales, body trembling faintly.
“I have a very cute boyfriend.”
The arm around your waist pinches the flesh slightly exposed. Ayn leans down to nuzzle the side of your face as he replies drowsily: “No… you’re cuter.”
“We’re both the cutest in the world,” you conclude. Behind Ayn, you catch a glimpse of the clock (also rabbit-themed)— late afternoon. “Hungry?”
“Sleepy.”
In these moments, Ayn reminds you of a kneadable eraser. You can move him around easily, pinching and pushing. He responds to your every move in his sleepy haze, just one step away from melting into you.
“Okay. Sleep a little longer.”
“Mmm.”
Just as you’re about to fall back asleep, you hear a loud clang somewhere nearby. With hearing more sensitive than you, Ayn flinches in confusion. Your eyes open to meet a pair of misty, poppy-red eyes.
“What…”
“Oh!” you suddenly exclaim, trying to sit up— to no avail. You nudge Ayn’s arm on your waist a bit, and he reluctantly releases his hold on you.
“What is it?” Ayn asks, his speech slowly clearing up as his sleepiness fades.
Instead of replying, you reach under the pillow.
Unsurprisingly, it seems like the coin you left there has fallen off the bed. Probably when you and Ayn were shifting around just a few minutes ago.
Watching you for a few seconds, Ayn finally sits up. His lips curl into a grimace, and he makes a soft noise of annoyance, catching your attention.
“Are you okay?” you ask in concern.
“...”
Ayn inhales softly, his eyes closing.
“Ayn?”
“......My arm’s fallen asleep.”
“Oh.”
You try to respond neutrally, but you can’t help the curve of your lips. Noticing this, Ayn fixes you with a displeased stare as he tries to shake his arm awake.
“How many times does that make this?” you ask with faint amusement. “If you want, we can change the way we sleep…”
Ayn all but flops over onto you as he mumbles. “But I like this way.”
“Okay, okay,” you laugh, patting his back. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt trying out different positions, right?”
“Okay,” he acquiesces. “By the way, were you looking for something under the pillow?”
“Right!”
You coax Ayn off of you— he’s just as clingy as Beanie is whenever Beanie is trying to get extra food from you, if not more— and move the pillows aside. You try to peek through the gap between the mattress and bedframe, but the shadows are too dark for you to see much.
Perfectly on time, Ayn pulls up his phone and turns on the flashlight for you.
Surely enough, you catch the glint of gold at the bottom of the crevice.
Having dropped your phone in this gap more than you’d care to admit, you already know that you can’t reach it from here. You’ll have to try to grab it from the side.
Before you can get out of bed, Ayn has already set his phone aside and started reaching for the shiny object in the dark. “What is…”
As he grabs the object and holds it under the faint light trickling through the curtains, he pauses.
“A golden coin!” you exclaim happily. “Looks like the tooth fairy visited last night, hm?”
Ayn stares at the coin in a daze for a few moments before looking at you with a smile. You climb off the bed to stand next to him, pulling him down slightly to press a fleeting kiss to his cheek.
“And it looks like she’s customized it too, just for us.”
Under the sunlight, a chibi-head in the likeness of Ayn stares back. When he flips it over, it’s you looking back, your head also drawn in a similar style.
You know well that Ayn had never believed in the tales told to children. Still, you couldn’t ever forget the tenderness in his gaze when he recounted memories of his mother telling him about the tooth fairy, about Santa Claus, the Easter bunny…
But his childhood was cut short much too early.
Even if Ayn himself didn’t think his childhood was an unhappy one, you thought it wouldn’t hurt to indulge in some childhood fairytales.
“I didn’t put my tooth under the pillow,” Ayn arches a brow, gesturing to the drawer he’d left it in. When he moves to check, his tooth is still there.
You follow behind him, peering into the drawer. It’s full of the things he likes, many of which are objects you gifted to him on a whim, or even loose sketches you’ve done throughout the years of being with him.
“Well, maybe she made an exception,” you shrug with a lopsided grin.
“I should thank Miss Tooth Fairy, then,” Ayn muses, flipping the coin between his fingers. He lingers on the side with your face, his thumb running along the outline of your little hat.
“Well… I’ll take Miss Tooth Fairy’s thanks in her place,” you play along, tilting your head with a smile.
Ayn laughs, quiet, but bright. He carefully places the coin down in the drawer and closes it with a flick of his wrist. His arms slot around your waist, and your hands clasp together behind his neck.
He taps his forehead against yours, his eyes curving into the little crescents you love seeing.
“Thank you, Miss Tooth Fairy.”
...
...
...
No matter if those stories are true...
The person willing to make it happen for you,
They must love you so, so much.
based on ayn's "homebody" ending from house of destiny
When you’re 18, if you still like what you used to like when you were 8, does that mean the world hasn’t changed?
No. I don’t think so. That now grown-up boy can continue liking what he liked when he was 8 and still find that world of change that will pique his curiosity and desire to grow, that world of possibility waiting for him.
notes: childhood fic, some things made up since i didn't know like any details of ayn's childhood when i wrote this, ~8k
When you’re 18, if you still like what you used to like when you were 8, does that mean the world hasn’t changed?
No. I don’t think so. That now grown-up boy can continue liking what he liked when he was 8 and still find that world of change that will pique his curiosity and desire to grow, that world of possibility waiting for him.
I am a rabbit doll. The person I live with is a little boy with fluffy black hair, like the sheep dolls I sometimes see whenever the little boy takes me outside when he goes shopping with his mama, and he has red eyes just like the coloured half of my body.
I don’t know much about the outside world. My world is Ayn, the little boy who created me.
…Well, it would be more accurate to say that his mama made me. But Ayn is the one who carries me around everywhere so that I can experience the world as he experiences it.
I don’t know if it’s normal for dolls to have as many thoughts as I do. Maybe it’s because I was made to match the little boy I was given to, who seems to have many thoughts about the world.
Actually, Ayn has a bit of a bad temper. He gets huffy if the bodyguards don’t give him sweets when he asks for them. It’s what he’s doing right now.
One and a half years after my creation, Ayn is sitting at the kitchen table with me in his arms and puffed out cheeks.
“Young Master, we’re not supposed to…”
“It’s just cake.”
“Yes, but we’ve been told to keep an eye on your meals—”
The little boy turns his head away from the tall man clad in black, grumbling. As he twists his torso away, my line of sight also turns and I stare at the floor as my head flops down.
“It’s only one piece…”
“Your dentist instructed us not to let you eat as many sweets. It’s not good for your teeth.”
The voice of the tall man in black continues to be mostly measured, but I can catch a hint of helplessness in his voice. Out of all of the men dressed in fancy suits, this person is the only one that Ayn listens to.
Sometimes.
“But I want cake,” Ayn cries out, turning around to look fiercely at the tall man. While I think that the man with sunglasses is intimidating, the little boss-like child doesn’t seem to think so. Ayn doesn’t cower at anything and fights fiercely for what he wants.
Even if he’ll get cavities later.
If I could, I would shudder as memories of my first dentist trip come to me. I was brought along for the first time one year ago by Ayn. Even though Ayn refused to cry, and insisted that he wasn’t scared, I felt like he was going to squeeze the stuffing right out of me…
So, stop eating so many sweets, Ayn! I like having volume! I like having mass! And I like being squishy and having fluffy stuffing inside of me! So don’t eat any more sweets!!!
Alas, my cries go unheard.
I’m just a bunny…
The little man doesn’t like calling me a bunny because he thinks it’s too soft. I don’t mind it, but whatever makes him happy.
Luckily, this bodyguard who stays at Ayn’s side is also the only one who can withstand the sight of Ayn’s furrowed brows and little clenched fists. Additionally, this bodyguard is the only one Ayn will actively talk to, and he will remain silent and pout in front of others. He doesn’t like to talk very much with other people.
I’ve seen other bodyguards cave quickly to the little master’s demands. In all honesty, I can’t blame them. Ayn is a bit of a troublesome child.
The little boy holding me pauses when he realizes that he really won’t get what he wants. I stare unblinkingly at Ayn when he looks down at me.
What is he going to do?
My body is lifted and Ayn lifts my right paw slowly.
“What about Mr. Rabbit?” Ayn asks slowly. “Mr. Rabbit is hungry. And wants chocolate cake. You wouldn’t make Mr. Rabbit hungry.”
No!
I don’t want chocolate cake!
Help!!!
The last time chocolate melted on me, I had to be cleaned thoroughly! It was horrible, so please keep me away from chocolate!
Unfortunately, I’m powerless to do anything.
Truly, this is the pinnacle of helplessness. A mere rabbit doll who will have to dance to the whims of the puppeteer…
Save me, Mr. Bodyguard…
I see the bodyguard’s lip twitch almost imperceptibly. He tries to hide it behind a cough, but he doesn’t do it well enough because Ayn makes an annoyed grumble.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“Of course not, Young Master. I would not laugh at you.”
“Don’t lie to me! I don’t like it when you lie to me!”
“...Okay. I was laughing a little bit.”
“I’m going to fire you.”
“I told you the truth, just as you asked.”
“.........”
Eventually, the bodyguard sighs.
“I cannot allow you to eat cake right now, but perhaps you could ask Madam Quinn to take you out to a dessert shop. She will be free during the afternoon tomorrow.”
Almost immediately, the sulking boy lights up. In my mind, I nod sagely. This, too, is a way of dealing with difficult children: push the responsibility onto another adult.
I don’t mind, though. Ayn’s mama— Madam Quinn, they call her— takes Ayn outside to play a lot. Since I’m Ayn’s closest aid, he brings me along every time, so it’s one of those rare times when I get to experience the outside world freely.
“Okay,” Ayn replies, quick to surrender at the prospect of doing some of his favourite activities— eating cake and spending time with his mama. “Then, I’m done eating. I’m going to my room!”
Truly, a simple child.
…But that’s how Ayn is.
Ayn doesn’t talk to me a lot when we’re alone.
He doesn’t talk to me to begin with. Madam Quinn, a fully grown adult, talks to me more than her eight-year-old son. But that’s okay. I think I have a decent grasp of the little boy’s thoughts. Two years have passed since I’ve been made! And in stuffed rabbit years, that’s a lot of years.
For example, Ayn putting me down on the bed next to him as he opens the drawer of his nightstand to fish out a vinyl record means that we will be listening to music together.
“I found it while going through my old belongings,” Madam Quinn had said when she gave her old record player to Ayn on his birthday. “I don’t use it often anymore but it still works well. I think you’ll get a lot of mileage out of it, Ayn.”
And he did. Almost every evening, he sits down in his room with me to listen to some music. He really likes the sound it produces.
I like it a lot, too.
It’s another thing for me to look forward to, alongside the times Madam Quinn takes both of us outside. I watch as Ayn pulls out a vinyl record player. Compared to how modern everything else in the room looks, it really stands out.
But I think it’s nice. It’s warm and cozy. I like the look of it and Ayn seems to enjoy picking out a record to put into the player.
Ayn puts me on his lap after he climbs onto the bed, with the record player not too far from him on his nightstand. I don’t know if Ayn knows this himself, but he sways a little with the music and makes me sway with him.
Well, it’s not a bad thing.
The music washes over the large room, gentle and sweet. It’s almost like a lullaby, with a disarming melody that makes me feel at peace.
I wonder whose story this music carries.
Sometimes, when Ayn’s papa stares at me, I get a little unnerved. Ayn comments on it one day, at the dinner table, holding onto my arm tightly while staring at his papa.
“You can’t have Mr. Rabbit.”
“...Why would I want him?”
Madam Quinn stifles her giggles— poorly. Her husband narrows his eyes at her and she just smiles mischievously.
“Should I make you a matching rabbit doll? I can give it a neat little suit. I could make a mama rabbit doll, too— complete the full set. What do you think?”
A rabbit family… I think it would be nice.
“No!”
Two voices reply immediately in sync. The involved parties immediately look at each other, before looking away. This only fuels Madam Quinn’s amusement further.
“I think a rabbit doll made in your likeness would be very cute.”
“Cuter than me?”
When there’s no immediate response, Madam Quinn gasps, squinting at her husband.
“You were supposed to reply immediately, you know, and say I’m cuter.”
“Well, don’t you think little rabbits are rather adorable?” is her husband’s calm reply.
“Oh, look at you being all cheeky now, when you were so desperate to find a reason to talk to me back then…”
“ Ahem .”
Ayn looks down at me and lowers his head, annoyance in his voice as he talks to me. “Mama and papa are doing the thing again.”
“Pfft.”
“Quinn. Don’t laugh at that…”
“I can’t help it. Sorry.”
When the dinner ends, I’m left sitting on Ayn’s chair while he follows his mama to wash the dishes. Madam Quinn has always emphasized that even the most mundane things, like washing dishes, are important skills to learn in life.
While they’re gone, Ayn’s papa picks me up.
If I could sweat, I really, really would.
Why is he staring at me like that???
I didn’t do anything wrong!
I’m an innocent rabbit!
“Boss? About the matter from earlier…”
The hands holding me twitch. Calmly, Ayn’s papa puts me back exactly where I was.
“Yes, I will be there in a moment.”
Ayn’s papa is kind of scary.
Though, I feel like he has the same default expression as Ayn… maybe they’re similar. They both look cold but are just really awkward and childish.
Well, if it’s someone that Madam Quinn has fallen in love with, he can’t be that bad.
Today, Ayn left me behind. He rarely does so, but apparently he’s busy doing something very important with his papa. It’s okay, though, because Madam Quinn is here instead.
She’s on the phone right now, though. Normally, Madam Quinn talks formally to people outside of the family. But right now, she talks casually, like she’s talking to an old friend.
“I’m telling you, Forlorn,” she says with an unmistakable fondness in her voice. “His eyes light up whenever he hears the sound of the piano.”
I have to listen carefully to what the voice on the other end is saying. There’s faint music playing from a vinyl record— one that I hear often, is it Madam Quinn’s favourite?— which distracts me a little from the phone call.
“Are you sure, Quinn? I’m not saying I doubt you— I just worry that if it turns out that he hates the piano but feels like he absolutely needs to continue it for your sake…”
Madam Quinn shakes her head even though the other person can’t see her. “I wouldn’t. If he really does hate it, I’ll let him know that he doesn’t have to force anything. As much as I love art, and would love it if Ayn sincerely creates as I do, I wouldn’t ever force my son to do something that could potentially hurt his passion for art in the long run. I… just want to give him an opportunity.”
On the other end, the voice is silent for a few moments. There’s still some hesitation, which Madam Quinn catches onto.
With a softer voice, she continues. “I know you’ve had bad experiences with piano lessons in the past. And I know you’re worried that you’ll ruin piano for him just as your teacher almost did. But I truly believe you’re the only one I can go to. Even though your history with the piano has been a complicated one full of highs and lows, I’ve never seen anyone get as sincere as you when it comes to the piano. I truly think you could be a wonderful teacher. I think… this experience would do both you and him some good.”
Madam Quinn pauses for a moment, her voice taking on a more playful tone.
“Plus, my son is really, really cute. He’s got the chubbiest cheeks and the fluffiest hair. He acts like a little pouty kitten sometimes, too,” Madam Quinn says with pride. “He’s just like my husband. Whenever I say they’re alike, they both reply at the same time with ‘We are nothing alike!’— isn’t that just wonderful? They’re truly the best thing that could’ve happened to me in my life…”
Madam Quinn’s friend huffs out a bright laugh.
“Okay, okay. I don’t want to hear about you talking about your husband and your son for the millionth time. I’ll… I’ll give it a shot. I’ll teach him the basics, at least.”
“Really? Oh, thank you, truly. I can only really go to you because you know about my husband’s…”
A long pause falls between the two of them. The only thing that fills the silence is the quiet, soothing melody that lilts throughout the bedroom.
“How long will your son play the piano for?”
Madam Quinn’s eyes are downturned and a wistful smile tugs at her lips. It’s an expression I’m not used to seeing on her when she’s usually so elegant with an air of gentle confidence.
“I would like it,” she murmurs, gently patting my head. “...if my son could do what he truly loves and be free.”
For Ayn’s ninth birthday, Mr. Bodyguard was gifted a new name.
The little master’s birthday party is a really small one. He doesn’t like large crowds— at least, he doesn’t tend to enjoy them when they’re all focused on him. He seems to be fine with the crowds that gather around the buskers he listens to at Leighton Creek Plaza.
His birthday party this time consists of himself, his mother, his father, myself, and…
The Gavinator.
If I could, I would laugh so hard that the little party hat sitting atop my head would fall off. The only one who freely expressed their amusement was Madam Quinn, who has always been freer with her emotions around those she considers to be close to her.
I can see Ayn’s papa looking at The Gavinator from the corner of his eyes while holding back a smirk, though. The Gavinator himself seems to be at a lost, but ultimately…
He humbly drops to one knee and bows his head.
“Young Master! I’m honoured. I will wear this new name proudly.”
I always thought that the people in this family were odd. But amongst them, Mr. Bodyguard was rather normal and I always had the understanding that he was the only normal one in this family.
…But as I watch him accept his new name— “The Gavinator”— with frightening severity… I might need to re-evaluate my judgements of his character…
A note from my future self as I reflect on these past observations years later:
He still calls him “The Gavinator” to this day.
I often accompany Ayn to his piano lessons. We’re inseparable. I think Ayn sees me as an extension of himself, so he tries to bring me with him everywhere. I wonder if he’ll continue carrying me around everywhere even when he grows up.
…If he grows up, does that mean he’ll leave his childhood behind?
I’d like it if he still carried me with him.
…
For now, I’ll just enjoy being in the present.
Today, Madam Quinn is busy, so she’s asked The Gavinator— or, I mean, Gavin— to secretly bring Ayn to his piano lessons.
Carefully, Ayn puts me down on the middle seat before climbing in himself. He puts my seatbelt on and, shortly after, puts on his own seatbelt. I don’t know if he notices it himself, but his short legs are swinging back and forth as the sound of the car’s engine comes to life.
When I peek over at the rearview mirror, I see Mr. Bodyguard’s shades reflected. It’s a little hard to tell, but it seems like he’s a little perplexed.
It’s not until around ten minutes into the drive that he finally speaks during a red light.
“Pardon me, Young Master…”
He pauses, sneaking a glance back to see if Ayn is paying attention. Ayn doesn’t meet the bodyguard’s gaze, instead looking at the outside world through the car window. Gavin is about to continue his sentence when Ayn interrupts as he turns to look at the rearview mirror to meet Gavin’s eyes.
“I really like music. I want to do this.”
At that moment, the light turns green and the bodyguard’s attention shifts to the road. The bodyguard sniffles quietly, and Ayn’s expression quickly turns disgusted.
“...Why are you crying?”
“I was touched by the Young Master’s determination. I will support the Young Master for the rest of my life!”
Ayn snorts, turning to stare out the window once more. This time, however, his lips are curled up into the slightest smile. “Good. I’ll let you listen to my first recital.”
“I’m honoured.”
I understand well where the bodyguard is coming from. I was touched, too, when the baby of the family boldly declared his future plans.
Truthfully, very early on, the little boy who had a hand in creating me seemed a little aimless. I’ve always felt that he was born for something great, but he hadn’t found his calling yet. He spent a lot of time wandering around with Madam Quinn, eating sweets, and sitting around in his room periodically looking out the window. He followed along in the training and lessons given to him silently.
But now, he’s excited to leave and step into the world, just a little bit, even when Madam Quinn isn’t holding his hand.
(Not to say that he wasn’t displeased when he found out that Madam Quinn was busy. No, Ayn was huffy, though Madam Quinn had no trouble coaxing Ayn before she left.)
I hope the little boy I’ve accompanied for these past few years can forever be happy and continue liking the same things.
I didn’t think much of it.
I didn’t think about it at all, rather.
At that time, Ayn’s father found out about the secret piano lessons. I’m not sure why, I’ve never been sure as to why, but his father was furious. Not in a loud way— but in a very oppressive and cold silence, and evenly measured words, Ayn’s father reprimanded him for pursuing piano.
Of course, Ayn didn’t back down.
Even when he was locked up in his room, he escaped. Thankfully, he brought me with him— I was carefully placed inside a bag that he could sling over his shoulder before he climbed out of his bedroom window.
The late-night wind must’ve been cold against his cheeks. He didn’t seem to mind, though, with his resolve unshakable.
For a while, I didn’t know where he wanted to go. I could only do what I’ve done so far— that is, walk this path with him. At least he isn’t alone. I’m here, after all.
Eventually, the scenery became familiar.
We stayed here, in a familiar plaza, all the way until the sun started to set, painting the sky in orange and red hues reminiscent of Ayn’s eyes. We listened to all sorts of music from enthusiastic buskers, sitting on one of the benches off to the side. Ayn was shivering slightly, but he didn’t move and just hugged his legs as he gazed at the buskers with longing.
I wondered, will Ayn be able to stand in the middle of Leighton Creek Plaza sharing his music as freely as the musicians here today?
Then, Ayn’s eyes sharpened.
I soon find out why.
Ayn’s bodyguard, Gavin, had found him.
“I’m not going to give up. His efforts are meaningless,” Ayn stated firmly, looking up resolutely to meet his bodyguard’s gaze.
Truthfully, I don’t think Ayn’s bodyguard is a bad person.
In fact, I’ve overheard him talking with Madam Quinn before. He, too, wants to support Ayn in his desire to pursue music. But he has his worries, too.
And then, a call came.
Gavin’s expression fell, his brows furrowed.
Everything that followed is a frenzied blur.
Madam Quinn has fallen ill.
At first, it started with some innocent coughs that seemed to clear up after a glass of water. I thought it had just been part of the seasonal change— the world beyond has become chillier, after all.
I didn’t think much of it…
I ended up being distracted from her bouts of sickness by the conflict between Ayn and his father. I think Ayn, too, didn’t realize—
It’s the most frightened I’ve seen him.
Gavin took both Ayn and me back to the main house, where Madam Quinn was resting in a bed. From outside, the floor-to-ceiling windows at the corner of the second floor were covered up by heavy curtains.
By the time they arrive, an unfamiliar person— a doctor, I guess— is walking out from the master bedroom. Ayn’s father follows, his expression grim.
When Ayn meets his father’s eyes, the two of them come to a silent truce. When Ayn rushes into the bedroom—
It’s jarring.
I’ve always known Madam Quinn to be lively and even spunky. She maintains a gentle demeanour, but it’s impossible for her to ever fully hide the lively personality that she has. Wry grins, playful smirks, and an excessive amount of pinching and poking at not just Ayn, but her husband as well— she has always been mischievous, even if she typically carries with her a mature and gentle demeanour.
But the Madam Quinn I see is horrifyingly pale.
I realize Ayn’s breathing has stilled. I can’t see his expression from here.
I wish I could. Turn my head, hold his hand, anything.
Maybe not just for him, but also for my own sake.
The hand that usually pats my head is thin— when had it gotten so thin?
“Mama?”
With pale lips, Madam Quinn smiles elegantly, even with sunken eyes. She reaches out to pat Ayn’s shaking hands placed upon her bedside. She pauses, an eyebrow raised.
“Ayn. Your hands are so cold, were you outside?”
He just shakes his head. “Mama, you…”
Madam Quinn laughs softly, slowly rubbing her thumb across Ayn’s knuckles. “It’s nothing to worry about. I guess I’ve just caught a particularly nasty bug, but you know I’ll be up and about in no time.”
At that moment, she quickly turns away from Ayn and coughs several times. Immediately, Ayn’s father picks up the glass of water on the nightstand and carefully has her take a few sips.
“Quinn,” he says slowly. When he meets her gaze, he hesitates and glances at Ayn briefly. “Ayn, your mother needs to rest, now. Go to your room.”
“Oh, don’t be so harsh with him. I’m fine. Shall we have an arm-wrestling match? I feel like I could beat you,” Madam Quinn jokes, doing what she can to seem lively. She turns to Ayn and ruffles his hair slowly. “It is rather late now, though. It’s not good for you to stay up too late; you won’t grow any taller this way.”
Ayn silently sets me aside on the nightstand, laying his head in her lap. He pouts as he says muffedly, “I can skip one night…”
“Don’t be too stubborn now,” Madam Quinn says softly, carding her fingers through Ayn’s hair. “I’ll still be here tomorrow, you know.”
But what about the day after tomorrow? And the day after that?
“...I don’t want to be alone,” Ayn mumbles, unmoving.
The room falls silent.
I’m startled as I’m picked up from the nightstand. One of my paws taps against Ayn’s cheek and my voice becomes nasally and squeaky.
“But I’m here for you, Ayn!” I say. “You won’t be alone. No matter where you go, someone will be there for you!”
Ayn lifts his head, blinking dazedly at me. He turns to Madam Quinn and grumbles, “Mama, I’m not a kid anymore…”
Still, he takes me into his arms and hugs me tightly.
“Even when you grow up,” Madam Quinn starts, taking both of Ayn’s chubby cheeks into her hands. “—you will always be my lovely little boy. My little Aynie-poo. Bunbun. My sweet little baby. My—”
“Mama,” Ayn says, cheeks red with embarrassment, brows furrowed.
“Even when you grow up and become too embarrassed to let me call you by these things, you’ll still be my darling child.”
“...Okay,” Ayn whispers, holding onto Madam Quinn’s spindly fingers with his chubby ones. “Mama will always be my mama.”
“Good,” she grins, pulling her free hand away from Ayn to ruffle his hair some more. “I’m your first and last mama, right? And papa is your first and last papa.”
“I don’t care about him, though…”
Madam Quinn fails to hide her snort as she turns her head quickly. When she sees her husband’s pointed stare from her bedside, she smiles impishly. I watch as she mouths some words to Ayn’s papa without Ayn’s knowledge.
Better prove yourself to your kid soon, or he’s going to replace you.
In response, her husband huffs, pouting almost like a child as he mouths back—
He likes me, he’s just in a rebellious phase.
“Mama?”
Madam Quinn turns back and gently pries Ayn’s fingers off of hers. “I need to talk about something with your papa now, okay, Ayn? I’m sorry I can’t tuck you in tonight… can you tuck yourself in? Should I get Gavin to tuck you in?”
Ayn grimaces at the thought of Gavin tucking him in and shakes his head stubbornly as he repeats: “I’m not a kid anymore.”
I wonder if he’s trying to convince himself of that.
But Ayn, I can’t help but think sadly, you are still a kid.
I hope that Ayn won’t have to grow up too quickly.
Ayn often sneaks into Madam Quinn’s bedroom. He’ll always bring me along and keep me in his lap as he spends a few minutes talking to Madam Quinn.
“How were your piano lessons today?” Madam Quinn asks in a near whisper.
“...I was told to calm down.”
A faint surprise flickers across Madam Quinn’s face. “What happened?”
“I kept speeding up, he said,” Ayn shifts in the chair he’s pulled up to the bedside. After some hesitation, he adds: “I don’t like metronomes. Why should I follow a set tempo anyway? It’s so boring.”
Ayn’s lips purse and he looks down.
“I know I sound dumb.”
Madam Quinn smiles, covering Ayn’s hand with hers. “Hey, want to know a secret?”
“Um..?”
“I hated metronomes, too,” she confesses. Ayn looks up with wide eyes, curious, so she elaborates. “I stubbornly refused to practice with a metronome when I was starting out. When I played for my teachers, they sometimes asked if I was practicing with a metronome, which I hated.”
“Do you like it now?”
Madam Quinn hums thoughtfully. “I appreciate it, now. What does Forlorn tell you about the metronome?”
“He just keeps saying that it’s important,” Ayn grumbles, “That I should be practicing with one to develop my rhythm and time or whatever… it feels so restrictive. Mama, what about you?”
“Well, I was always rushing, too. We're both fast-paced people, it would seem. But somewhere along the road, I started to think of the metronome not as a restraint but more like a reminder to stop running blindly.”
“I don’t get it.”
Madam Quinn pats Ayn’s head with a fond smile. “It’s like that saying, what was it— ‘stop and smell the roses’. Ayn, if you’re not careful, you might miss a lot of important details. A metronome might help in reminding you to take a step back and sit a bit with the piece you’re playing with.”
“Stop and smell the roses,” Ayn mumbles to himself. “I think this saying matches mama well.”
“Oh? What makes you say that?”
Ayn turns to look at the slightly opened window allowing some cool air to flow in. Since the front door was often locked or guarded, he often snuck into his mama’s room by climbing through the window.
“Because you always show me lots of things in weird places.”
“...Weird?”
“The places you take me to sometimes are really hard to get to. There are so many turns.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
After a moment of thought, Ayn shakes his head. “I get to see a lot of interesting things. It’s not boring, so it’s good.”
Madam Quinn stifles a laugh at Ayn’s simple answer and pinches his cheek. “There are many interesting things in the world, Ayn. It’s always worth wandering around new places— you never know what you’ll find. People, places, things— there’ll always be something new for you to find.”
Ayn blinks owlishly at Madam Quinn. She tilts her head as Ayn stares at her quietly. Then, he speaks with a quiet spark in his eyes.
“One day, I want to bring mama to a place she’s never seen before.”
I see a flicker of loneliness, too quick for Ayn to catch. Or perhaps he does catch it but keeps a brave face as he makes this promise.
“Okay. I’m looking forward to it.”
I’m starting to understand why Ayn’s papa tries to keep Ayn out of Madam Quinn’s room.
Her condition has started to rapidly deteriorate, and even with her stubbornness, Madam Quinn struggles to hide it. She starts to speak less and less, only able to nod along and smile weakly as Ayn reports to her about his day.
Ayn has noticed, and I think that’s why he starts to talk more and more whenever he visits his mama. So she wouldn’t have to talk as much and strain herself.
One particular night, Madam Quinn was particularly lethargic.
Before Ayn left, he decided to leave me in her care.
“Mr. Rabbit will help you feel better,” he had said childishly.
…Talk about pressure.
I don’t think I have that kind of power.
(I wish I did.)
(Maybe I wouldn't feel so powerless if I did.)
The walls in this room are thinner than expected, and I end up hearing a lot of idle conversation between the bodyguards keeping watch. Daniel’s child has been doing well in school. It seems like the gang will be dissolved tomorrow. Ryan’s recently gotten into knitting. I think one of the servants who tend to the house fell in love with one of the bodyguards, though I couldn’t tell which.
This is probably part of how Madam Quinn keeps herself entertained.
Even though Ayn had left a long time ago, Madam Quinn hasn’t fallen asleep yet. She remains sitting, flipping through a thick photo album with me in her lap.
She explains each and every photo to me with a hoarse whisper.
“Ah, I remember this. This was before I came here to Leighton. I haven’t seen my family in a long time, actually. I never expected them to visit, though; I was always a problem child to them. I remember when I left to live with my aunt, they weren’t there to send me off. I was mostly just angry at that time, but I do wish I could’ve talked more with my parents back then.
And that, photos from high school. Forlorn was one of my first friends, actually— a bit unwilling, though. He was a rather introverted guy. Kind of a pushover. He was bullied a lot because of this— I got into a fight, one time, because of it. I was so energetic back then.
Oh… and these photos— they look bad, don’t they? Ha, my husband took them upon my request, but he’d never been the one taking a photo before. Knowing what I do now, I guess that tracks; he was always the one being photographed. He actually didn’t want me to include these photos here, but I slipped them in secretly.
…Oh, I’d almost forgotten about this. The first time I met his parents, I was really terrified. I put on a brave face in front of him, insisting that I would charm his parents with ease, but I didn’t get any sleep the night before because of how nervous I was. Honestly, there was nothing to worry about— for gangsters, they were actually really kind to me. I can see how he turned out the way he did, a bit gruff and intimidating on the outside, but with a kind soul inside. My husband’s exactly like his parents.
And Ayn— oh, this is one of my favourite sections. Ayn was so adorable as a baby… should I show these to him next time? Just to tease him a little…”
“Quinn.”
“Is my dear husband being overworked again?” Madam Quinn says, her voice strained as she tries to push through the pain burning her throat. “Want me to comfort you?”
Ayn’s papa has become increasingly gaunt, just like his wife. I realize I don’t see him often anymore. He has started to keep to himself more and more— a bit like Ayn, who doesn’t go out as much.
“Because I hate seeing mama wait for us in the corner of the second floor,” he had said once when Gavin tried to coax Ayn into going outside more. “I don’t want to make her lonely. If she’s going to be trapped inside this place, I’m going to trap myself here too. So she has company.”
I wonder if Ayn’s papa is the same, unwilling to leave Madam Quinn behind.
“Quinn,” he whispers again, exhaustion seeping through as he stands by the doorway. She smiles at him, opening her arms.
“Come here,” she croaks, her voice cracking, her voice slowly fading.
Ayn’s papa closes the door behind him and obediently walks to Madam Quinn. She wraps her thin arms around him, a bit awkwardly, with both the photo album and myself in between.
“You look like—” Madam Quinn pauses, unable to choke down her coughs, “—the world… is going to end tomorrow.”
“Don’t talk so much,” he mumbles with a frown, brows furrowed. “Your voice is…”
“So?” she retorts boldly, but I can feel how she shakes, and I think Ayn’s papa feels it as well. “If these, if these are my final moments, I’m— I’m going to… talk until the very end. We all know both our child and you are awful at keeping a conversation go..ing. Someone—”
The silence is filled with Madam Quinn’s series of coughs that follow shortly after— a punishment for her attempts to hold onto her life. A sign of the struggle and effort she makes to root herself in this world.
“Please,” a frail voice whispers. “You hate pain. Don’t hurt yourself like this.”
“I do,” Madam Quinn whispers, “—but I hate seeing my loved ones so sad, so lonely, even more.”
A pause.
“...Won’t you let Ayn continue piano?”
A dry laugh. “You’re going to talk about that now?”
“You know how— how important, important it is to him.”
“But is it more important than his life?”
“Can you really say, really say that he’s— living, if you force him down a path you pick for him…”
Ayn’s papa presses his forehead against Madam Quinn’s shoulder. Hot droplets fall onto me, almost burning me, and I realize that the cold, almost unflappable person is breaking.
“I’m scared,” he confesses. “I don’t want to lose Ayn or you, Quinn. I’ve become addicted to the happiness you’ve given me, and I can’t help but want to cling to this happiness for as long as possible. I want to preserve everything as much as I can—”
“Even if you’d be killing me, and him?”
His exhale is shaky, unable to respond.
When Madam Quinn gets no response, she starts humming. Brokenly, beautifully, sadly, happily, lovingly.
“...Quinn.”
“You like this song, don’t you?” she says with a faint, amused chuckle that quickly turns into a cough. “Both— Both you and Ayn love this lullaby. You two are really simi…lar.. so, get along properly when I’m gone, okay?”
“Don’t say that. Don’t—”
“This photo album,” Madam Quinn interrupts, poking at the cheek of the person clinging to her. “Let’s look through it together. Do you have anything important tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Liar,” Madam Quinn mumbles, to which her husband just looks away. “Sleep. We can chat another night.”
It’s obvious what he’s thinking at this moment; the wave of emotion is clear on his face. The endless what-ifs, the vague timer ticking down in the back of his mind, the all-consuming fear that stops him from being able to enjoy the time he has left with Madam Quinn.
…I can’t say I don’t understand.
“I’ll sleep here tonight.”
“You won’t sleep well here,” Madam Quinn points out, thrown into yet another coughing fit as though to prove her point.
“I won’t sleep well anyway,” he says stubbornly, “Unless I’m by your side.”
“Okay, you big baby,” she mumbles.
After a long silence, when the lamp has been turned off long ago, and when one of them is sleeping soundly, there’s a fond whisper. A little sad, yet happy.
“I love you both. Thank you two for the life you’ve given me.”
I am the only witness to the words uttered when nobody else can hear, words held back in fear of throwing others into a deeper sorrow.
“...I’ll miss you guys.”
Sometimes, I think about how scary it must be, knowing that death will one day come.
I’m unsure of what kind of “death” I’ll receive— and it’s a little scary to me.
But, what’s scarier, is the thought that I might never die, and be forced to part with everything I know, until the universe ends. That my consciousness will continue to float, with nothing to root me in place, with no form to show that I ever really existed.
The affectionate mother who created me for her son will soon depart. The little boy who carries me around with him everywhere will one day grow up and maybe even leave me behind. The family filled with many intimidating individuals who are all soft and kind towards their loved ones will eventually scatter.
Isn’t there anything in this world that is eternal?
Ayn has put me down on the bed next to him, opening one of the drawers on his nightstand and rummaging around a bit. Even though he knows where he stores the vinyl records very well, in the past, he has always immediately pulled the vinyl records out without a second glance.
He lingers by the nightstand, staring silently at the vinyl record slowly collecting dust.
“...Young Master. It’s time for the funeral.”
Gavin stands at the door, Although he looks like his expression has remained unchanging, I’ve spent enough time with the bodyguard to recognize the slightest hints of sombre eyes behind dark shades.
Ayn puts me down and in my heart, I cry for him to bring me along. But he can’t hear me. His usually clear eyes, the colour of a blazing flame ready to raze down everything in its path, ready to light the path for others to walk, have become muddied with heavy fog.
His eyes have become cloudy. I think it’s the kind of expression I see many adults wear, when they’re tired, or constantly stressed over innumerable matters.
Has he grown up?
Has his strong and kind heart been burned to ashes?
Don’t leave me behind.
Ayn nods mutely, glancing at me briefly before leaving the room without me.
Gavin lingers, looking at me with hesitation. He walks over to the bed and picks me up. He looks like he wants to say something to me, and I desperately want to hear what his thoughts are, but he ultimately remains silent. I’m returned to the bed and Gavin pats my head in an awkward and stiff motion. It’s nothing like Madam Quinn’s gentle, motherly affections nor is it like Ayn’s habitual motion of patting my head briskly.
The world seems grayer than before.
I don’t leave Ayn’s bedroom much, anymore.
Every day, I keep watch over his bedroom, protecting the things that he likes.
I wonder when I’ll get to listen to music with that awkward, but well-meaning little boy again.
He’ll come back.
I want to believe in this.
Today, the birds are singing a nice melody. It makes the loneliness a little easier to bear.
My world has turned dark. I lie on a pile of old toys unneeded by a boy leaving his childhood behind.
I’ve never noticed this before, but the dark is scary.
“You’re leaving today.”
“I am. Are you really blocking the door? You’re so childish, aren’t you an adult?”
“Ayn, St. Shelter Academia is—”
“I’m not changing my mind.”
A door clicks shut.
“...I know.”
The world has been really quiet lately.
Sometimes I hear footsteps outside of this room. They draw nearer, stop, and then gradually fade.
I really miss them. I miss the kind lady who would play with me, or even the man with a seemingly unchanging expression who intimidated me in the past. I miss the awkward bodyguard who awkwardly pats the head of a silly, unresponsive rabbit doll to comfort it even though it needs no comfort.
I miss the boy who I would explore the world with, side by side.
I hope he’s not too lonely wherever he has gone.
I don’t know if time is passing, or if it has frozen. Are the seasons changing? Or is it still stuck in the winter that permanently froze this household, when the chilling silence first settled over the household, with no more teasing, with no more lively music?
…
…
…
…
“Oh my god— are these your old toys?”
It’s a light, bouncy voice full of excitement. The world becomes bright, too bright, and I’m blinded by the sudden light that hits me after the seemingly endless darkness I lived in before. Colour drips into the dark void that had gradually become my world, and I’m reminded of an old memory.
The first time I saw the world together with that little boy, oh-so curious about what the seemingly endless world has to offer.
Who is the girl that has picked me up?
Then, I see him.
From behind, the little boy— now grown up— has come back. Recognition flickers through his eyes, and I notice that they’re not foggy anymore, but clear and bright.
I’ve missed you—
Welcome back.
The girl who holds me turns around, lifting my limbs to make me wave enthusiastically at Ayn.
“It’s so cute!”
A bit dazed, Ayn reaches out, his finger tapping against my outstretched hand. They’re less chubby, now. Thinner.
“Ayn?”
“My mother made this stuffed doll for me,” he murmurs, pinching my paw mindlessly. “I haven’t seen it in a long time.”
The girl is quiet for a long time. She captures Ayn’s finger between my two arms, squishing his finger clumsily.
“What should I do with it?”
The world pops and crackles, and I finally notice the music playing steadily in the background. It’s a new piece I haven’t heard before.
It sounds really nice.
“I’ll take him back with me,” Ayn decides, taking me from the girl. He doesn’t have to hold onto me with two hands, anymore— he could probably hold onto me with just one hand with how he has grown. He still carries me with both hands, like he used to.
The girl smiles brightly, reaching out to pat my head.
“Good. If you weren’t going to take him back, I would’ve stolen him for myself,” she jokes. “He looks like you.”
The boy holding me pouts, squeezing me a little as he narrows his eyes at the girl. “You’re comparing me to a small animal again?”
“I can’t help it! I swear the little guy looks exactly like you!”
I’m brought to eye level with the girl. Her eyes— a grayish purple— seem like they can reflect all sorts of colours. My nose bumps against hers, and I hear Ayn’s pouting voice from behind.
“I hope you aren’t going to replace me with a rabbit doll, Miss Painter.”
“...No, I would never!” the girl says quickly, reaching around me to hug Ayn tightly. I’m squashed in between the two, and Ayn’s arm is stuck awkwardly between, but he doesn’t comment.
“Hmmm.”
“Really!” the girl says— Miss Painter?— as she pulls back. She looks at me thoughtfully for a few seconds before adding, “Though, I’m sure this little fella has been lonely. Should I make some other rabbit dolls as friends?”
…Friends…
Would that be okay, I wonder?
Ayn’s lips quirk upward ever-so-slightly. “Will you make a painter rabbit?”
“Should I?” she muses. “With a cute little beret… oh, I want to try making one now. Ah, I’ll have to make a little pianist rabbit too.”
Ayn’s slight smirk falters.
“What, got a problem?” Miss Painter asks, grinning.
“...No. If you make a piano to go with the rabbit, call me. I’ll make sure it’s accurate.”
Miss Painter grimaces, as though recalling a past incident involving pianos and inaccuracies.
“What? What’s with that face?”
“Nothing. You should try making one, too!”
It’s Ayn’s turn to fall silent, to which Miss Painter points out.
“Hey, what’s with your face? Are you that bad at handicrafts?”
“I’m not particularly bad at it,” Ayn says. Only I hear the muttered "probably" he adds on under his breath. “This is just how my face always looks.”
“Hmm~ true,” Miss Painter smiles slyly. “And it’s a very handsome face.”
“...Okay.”
“You’re blushing—”
Ayn sets me down and pulls Miss Painter into his arms. I don’t think she can see much, with her face pressed into his chest. She laughs and continues to tease Ayn for his red ears, anyway.
The moment is interrupted by a crisp knock on the door.
“Young Master, dinner has been prepared.”
Ayn clicks his tongue, to which Miss Painter snorts as she pulls away from Ayn’s hug. She glances at me for a bit, reaching out to poke at my cheek. Ayn watches, a brow raised.
“...What is it?”
“He’s just so cute.”
Ayn stares at me for a long while. He doesn’t say anything, but he smiles and picks me up. With the girl’s hand in one, and me in the other, Ayn leaves and the world expands before me once more.
This joy that I thought I'd forgotten was always with me. These emotions that have given me life, the emotions I've felt, good, bad, everything in between, are eternal to me. I hope I can express and share these emotions with others one day.
Ayn still likes many of the same things. He continues to hoard sweets in the place he calls his secret base, and he continues to play games in his free time. He has never once given up on the piano that drove him in the past. In this way, he hasn’t changed at all.
Despite all this, he has grown.
The awkward little boy who had a hard time with being honest has become a bit more honest now, and his world has grown a lot. I think it’ll continue to grow. His world will continue to branch out, dipping into a world full of different possibilities.
But he never forgets the things he likes and continues to like them every day.
Today, I will accompany Ayn and Miss Painter as they explore the world in search of new inspiration.
end notes: i was working on another ayn fic involving his childhood and remembered i wrote this one and was like. maybe i will transfer this to tumblr after all since i did enjoy writing this and im fairly happy with how it turned out in the end. woe rabbit doll be upon ye
Lars gets summoned to the Imperial City. On the letter, there are only two words, unmistakably written by his cousin-turned-emperor: "Let's spar."
notes: no mc involved, no romance, pretty much just pondering lars and people around him, ayn and alkaid make an appearance, so do other npcs, ~4k
Lars receives a letter.
That, on its own, isn't anything worth mentioning. As Lars reaches out to various people to help in the reconstruction of Silversnow under a pen name, he often finds several letters waiting for him to respond to. No, one letter wouldn't normally catch his eye any more than any other.
However, as he stands speechless in front of a familiar face, he can't help but feel shocked.
The letter is stamped with the royal seal, one that he is all too familiar with. Furthermore, the one handing this over to him is his younger cousin's most trusted aide from when the inquisitors were active.
Anderson stands there dutifully, waiting for Lars to take the envelope.
"This isn't a letter full of… strong language, is it?" Lars eventually jokes in an attempt to recollect his wits. "I've been waiting for my dearest cousin to tear me apart. I thought he was taking his sweet time, though I suppose the affairs an emperor must attend to are quite demanding."
As stoic as ever, Anderson's expression remains unchanging.
"I am unaware of the contents. I was simply asked to deliver this letter to Lars Rorschach."
Okay, then. The unamused nature of his cousin's most trusted aide fits him perfectly. Anderson is a little harder to tease than his cousin, though. Much quieter and not as obvious with his emotions.
It reminds him of the previous Archmage. However, Lars feels that Ayn and Anderson's connection may be something more like allies who protect one another than a boss and his underling. A faint feeling of envy rises in his chest, one that he quickly stamps out.
There was a reason, after all, why Lars had always planned on giving up the throne to his cousin.
Ayn had a certain draw to him, a certain kindness that Lars lacked. Though naive, Ayn had all of the qualities of a leader who would truly connect with and care for his people. Lars' judgment, naturally, was correct. He still remembers Ayn's coronation— though barebones compared to previous coronations, the people still cheered loudly with broad smiles for their new king.
"Thank you for delivering the letter," Lars musters with a smile.
Anderson watches Lars for a little longer before nodding briefly.
Right as he's leaving, though, Anderson turns slightly.
"His Majesty is looking forward to seeing you."
Lars' eyes widen fractionally. For the second time that day, he stands there in the open, speechless.
“Oh dear, who was that..? He looked a little scary.”
One of the residents of Silversnow approached him, her age clearly having left its mark on her body in the form of wrinkles. Still, she approaches him with lively steps nonetheless.
“Good morning, Melanie.”
“Morning. Was that someone sent from the Imperial City?” Melanie asks, watching Anderson’s retreating back.
Lars hums in confirmation. “Yeah. He was just delivering something to me…”
“Right, as long as they’re not giving you a hard time,” Melanie says, holding out a basket that has been hanging on her arm. “Anyways, I came over to give you these. I baked these just this morning… remember to eat well, alright?”
Oh.
It’s just like Melanie to do this.
Around this time last year, Lars Rorschach of Silversnow died in place of Lars Rorschach the tyrant.
“Lars?”
In response to Melanie’s call, he quickly shakes his head and smiles. “Thanks for delivering this. I’ll savour the food well.”
“You better!” As Lars takes the basket, Melanie adds: “I’d also like to remind you—”
…The blanket covering the basket has tulips embroidered on it, Lars thinks. He looks up at Melanie, curious.
“—Be kind to yourself.”
———
Today truly is full of surprises.
On it are two neatly written words in a fancy cursive that only nobility would’ve had the time to learn—
Let’s spar.
Lars barks out a disbelieving laugh when he unfolds the letter. He had no idea what he was expecting from a letter sent by his cousin, but…
Well, it’s fitting of Ayn to send him something like this so brazenly.
He sits at his desk, humble and understated, much unlike his previous working station. There are countless documents that need reviewing, but seeing them piled high on his desk makes him feel whole, and he finds he doesn’t mind dedicating the time to these matters.
Lars turns the letter over, wondering if there was more, but it really was just the two letters printed in the middle of the letter.
I wonder what he’s trying to tell me.
Perhaps it’s an invitation to humiliate him. Or, maybe more likely, it is a disguised command telling Lars to come back and fill out the documents for his cousin. Indeed, knowing Ayn’s temperament, imagining the fierce man sitting quietly behind a pile of papers was quite odd.
Well, there’s only one way to find out.
———
A few months ago, he met the current Archmage. Though Lars seldom spoke with Alkaid, he remembers the gentle man well. He stood out amongst the unrestrained criminals that the previous Archmage fostered. Alkaid was almost like a mouse, Lars thinks, quiet and always observing from afar, only moving when there were no eyes on him. To some extent, Lars feels a bit of remorse towards the soft-spoken man.
The best he can describe Alkaid is like a star observing the events on the ground from a distance.
If there is anybody left in this world who knows the most about what happened to the previous Archmage, it’d likely be Alkaid.
“I would like to write a biography for you,” he had said to him, head slightly lowered. “So I’ve travelled to Silversnow in order to learn more about you.”
Lars thought it was a rather funny idea that anybody would want a written biography of him.
A far more sinister, bitter corner of his soul mocked him— he doesn’t deserve to be remembered. Why him? Why would he be remembered over the countless of lives turned into numbers, used like pawns?
“You have an interesting sense of humour,” he commented.
“Thank you for your kind words,” Alkaid had replied with a faint smile.
Lars humoured the current Archmage.
He was intrigued, anyway, about Alkaid’s recent forays into navigation. He’d wanted to ask more about it and the process; perhaps it would be useful information to know for rebuilding Silversnow.
Those days were particularly mundane. Lars had prepared himself to recall uncomfortable memories, to confess his crimes. Instead, Alkaid simply settled down in the only functioning inn within Silversnow and walked around the streets with Lars, explaining to him that there’s nothing better than Melanie’s cooking.
Not once did Alkaid ask about that bloody era full of hypocrisy and shame.
Instead, Alkaid asked about all sorts of seemingly meaningless things. He asked about Lars’ fondest childhood memories. He asked about the things that Lars likes. He asked about Lars’ plans for the future.
He asked Lars about the blooming field of tulips.
“The field of tulips is very lovely,” Alkaid comments. “Did you plant these?”
Lars shakes his head, a fond smile curving his lips into a radiant smile.
“No. In Silversnow, tulips bloom year after year after winter passes. In Silversnow, we had… have this saying: when you see a budding tulip, spring is not far behind.”
The memories come to him all in a flood: memories of running around in tulip fields with friends, collecting tulips into an unruly bouquet for his mother, his face eagerly pressed against the window as he watches for the first tulip sprouting as a sign that winter has ended.
Even from before the disaster, Silversnow’s winters were long and harsh. The people of Silversnow cherished the remaining seasons dearly— and Lars is no exception.
He’s glad he can see the tulips bloom once more.
“...So, why did you want to write about all this?”
When Lars had finally asked Alkaid about this, the current Archmage’s response was careful and thoughtful, as though it was something he’d been thinking about for a long time.
He wondered what went through the current Archmage’s head at that time, as one of the only individuals somewhat close to the ex-Archmage. As the one who was perhaps closest and most experienced with the sides of the magi tower that were hidden away.
“I just hope to show people that we were all human in the end. That’s all.”
———
Before Lars sets off for the Imperial City, he stops by the graveyard.
“This is nostalgic,” he chuckles, kneeling carefully in front of the tombstone he once faced many years ago. However, instead of the sheet of snow covering the stone, a handful of springtime petals carried by the wind rests on the curved top.
Although it has been many months now, it still feels surreal to him.
“I’m home,” he murmurs. “Sorry it took me so long to come back.”
A pause.
“I’m departing again, though,” he laughs faintly. “But I know I’ll come back this time.”
And maybe this time, he can come back with his head held high.
———
The last time Lars had been in the Imperial City was for his cousin’s coronation. It was a simple ceremony, stripped down to its most basic elements. That didn’t diminish the people’s excitement any, though.
It was the liveliest he’d ever seen the Imperial City.
Of course, he watched from the shadows and kept away from the crowd.
A part of him worried about returning to the Imperial City. After all, he was the tyrant who tormented and neglected them throughout the disaster. No matter his reasons, the death and losses caused by his actions remain a cold, hard fact.
He wonders if it would be conceited of him to think that his death would resolve this lingering guilt.
It’s a little funny.
He almost misses the relentless winters. At least then, there was an excuse he could console himself with. Something to hide away the stabbing guilt threatening to drown and consume him until there is nothing left of him.
The ground beneath him is neatly paved cobble, his heels clicking crisply rhythmically as he walks through the shadows. For the most part, most of the citizens were preoccupied with their own things.
Those in the Imperial City are still in the process of rebuilding their entire livelihoods.
As he observes the various stalls and booths set up outside, someone runs into Lars.
Surprised, he looks down and steadies the kid who had carelessly charged into him without looking. There is a wreath strewn with flowers that is clutched tightly in their hand as they slowly look up with wide eyes.
“I’m sorry!” the little girl gasps. “I’m sorry for bumping into you, mister! Are you hurt?”
“It’s alright, I’m not hurt at all,” Lars smiles reassuringly. “Be sure to watch where you’re going next time, okay?”
The girl hesitates for a bit, looking between Lars and the wreath in her hands. Finally, she extends the wreath out in an offer. “Umm, mommy said that I should always be sincere when saying sorry. You can have this!”
“Ah? What is the wreath for?”
With undisguised surprise in her eyes, the girl starts rambling. “You don’t know? It’s for the spring festival next week! Umm, we offer wreaths and decorate the central plaza together in remembrance of everybody who went somewhere far away! Somewhere where they can all meet in a field of flowers…”
Lars crouches down and gently pushes the wreath back to the girl. “Thanks for telling me that. You can keep your wreath; this reminder is good enough to show your sincerity.”
“Oh… okay! Have a good day, mister!”
Lars stands upright once more, watching the clouds drift by.
It’s already approaching that time again already, huh.
He hopes that his parents, too, are laughing joyfully somewhere in the universe in a field of colourful tulips.
———
“Greetings, Your Majesty.”
Lars feels a little awkward, standing before his cousin with his head slightly bowed. Ayn watches him like a hawk from the throne, his expression unreadable.
“Raise your head,” Ayn says. “We’re going to the training grounds.”
As Ayn walks past him, Lars raises his head and follows suit. A handful of guards try to follow, but Ayn waves them all away rather callously.
“Not that I’m anything other than ecstatic that my cousin has extended his hand to me, but is sparring all you’ve called me here for?”
His cousin, much shorter and much lighter in physique, snorts coldly and glances at him briefly. The two of them walk through familiar hallways, neither guiding the other. They both know the palace inside and out, like the back of their hand.
The training grounds are empty and quiet without a single servant in sight. He figures that Ayn must’ve sent them all away in advance.
Ayn steps over to the rack full of various wooden swords. He takes one from the rack, turning it over in his hand. The wooden blade rests against his palm as he inspects it, his cousin clearly comfortable with the weapon.
“You received the letter, didn’t you? Everything that needed to be said was said there. Pick one of the swords.”
You only wrote two words, Lars thinks helplessly. It does match the style of his cousin quite well, though— Ayn has never been one to say much.
“How long are we sparring for?” Lars asks, blissfully unaware.
Lars catches a sharp gleam in Ayn’s narrowed eyes.
“Until death.”
“…Figurative, yes?”
Ayn gives no warning when he strikes.
Lars hasn’t properly fought with a sword in a very, very long time. The last time he picked up a wooden sword, its rough handle clenched tightly in his palms, was when he was still a child. He remembers having a lot of fun, back then, sparring with Emerson— in fact, he likes to think that he was rather good at it.
After becoming the new lord of the north, Lars started taking lessons once more in swordfighting. Many beasts were prowling the cold lands further up north, and Lars had no interest in being a sitting duck as he watched the others fight.
He works with a combination of muscle memory and recent experience, only barely able to parry Ayn’s decisive strikes.
He falls countless times.
Ayn exploits every weakness in Lars’ form, giving the blonde little leeway.
A bitterness surges in his chest, a quagmire of self-loathing, humiliation, gratification, and derision.
Of course, he never expected to outperform his cousin in swordsmanship. No, Lars put his sword down, left it all behind, while Ayn never parted with his.
That’s how his cousin is.
Ayn had been his blade, after all; the tool with which he used to eliminate lives.
The young boy, forced to grow up prematurely like the rest, draws a beautiful arc in the sky. Ayn moves swiftly, similar to a noble wolf hunting, and Lars feels clumsy and overgrown in comparison. It’s almost like a dance, Lars thinks, but it is a dance whose steps Lars has long since forgotten.
The sand beneath their feet is unsettled as Ayn continuously pushes Lars back with each and every thrust of his wooden sword. His blows are not heavy, no, Ayn’s physique has always been on the lighter side, but they force Lars into uncomfortable positions as he blocks and parries, which strain his muscles.
Lars finally falls. The blade that nearly connects with his neck moves at a speed he cannot register.
“Get up.”
Ayn’s voice leaves no room for pity or mercy.
His cousin becomes a monster when given a sword.
No, that isn’t right.
Ayn is the noblest when he wields a blade, his stance never wavering. He strikes with surgical precision learned only from reaping countless lives.
Every single strike Ayn lands hits vital parts of his body that would’ve immediately killed him had that wooden blade been one of cold metal.
Despite this, Lars continues to stand up. Stubbornly, he rises from the dust, unwilling to admit defeat. He knows he has no chance of winning against Ayn when it’s an honest duel without tricks. His body aches, his knees likely bruised from how many times his cousin has ruthlessly brought him to his knees, but he stands up time and time again regardless.
Then, when he manages to block one of Ayn’s attacks for longer than a millisecond, he says quietly:
“I’m sorry.”
In this moment, Ayn slips away and Lars falls once more.
A blade points at him cruelly, its wielder silent for a few passing moments.
“My hands are far from clean, just as yours are,” Ayn retorts coldly, finally breaking the silence. “I have killed countless in pursuit of my goals… and I have killed you millions of times in my dreams.”
Condescendingly, Ayn stares down at Lars, who remains fallen. The gravel digs into his knees, the dust staining his clothes.
“Get up,” Ayn says abruptly. He doesn’t offer a hand, but his eyes no longer hold the contempt Lars remembers seeing in the past. “You and I are not so different.”
The wooden sword presses against his throat, making him tremble.
The training grounds fall silent.
“The tyrant has died,” Ayn declares suddenly, as though there is a crowd before them. The training grounds are without a single sign of life, emptied at the emperor’s command.
The only witnesses to Lars’ loss here today are the two of them.
“The tyrant has died and met his fate,” Ayn repeats himself, voice becoming louder as though the rest of Godheim would hear him that way. “The throne has been reclaimed by its rightful heir, and the tyrannical emperor is no more.”
Then, the wooden sword is taken away from his neck, plunged into the ground.
“Stand up, Lars Rorschach, Lord of the North.”
Ayn still doesn’t hold his hand out to him, but he looks at him with a glint of expectation.
Lars’ eyes widen, unable to come up with any clever responses.
Ayn snorts proudly, nodding towards the palace.
“How about you come and do some paperwork for me?”
———
Lars refuses to do any more paperwork meant for the emperor. Despite his staunch refusal, Ayn invites him to the royal study anyway.
“I don’t miss this place,” Lars muses, casually browsing through the bookshelves of the emperor’s study.
“Really? A pity. I was thinking of giving this space to you,” Ayn drawls, patting the looming stack of documents.
“Ha! It’s your problem now.”
Lars was about to continue poking fun at his cousin when his eyes paused on a familiar bundle of letters on the desk.
“You found the letters.”
“I did. Seems you already knew about them.”
He does. Lars delivered one of those letters to Ayn’s father personally at his own father’s request. He remembers tidying up the study and reorganizing everything when he found a stack of letters in a desk drawer.
It’s a series of letters between his father and Ayn’s, dating back rather far. At the top of the pile are countless letters unsent by Ayn’s father.
He thinks—
“My father, though kind to me, was an ill-suited ruler.”
Lars blinks, looking up to Ayn, who spoke placidly.
Slowly, Lars replies, idly tracing the royal seal with his eyes. “He was a fine enough ruler during peaceful times, but when Godheim needed a ruler most, he refused to act.”
He resented Ayn’s father as a child. A part of him still does. If only that emperor had acted when warned…
If only, if only, if only.
It’s all in the past now.
But he still wonders, sometimes.
“What do you think of the letters?”
Ayn shakes his head. “I haven’t read them.”
Lars pauses at this, his hand paused on the stack of letters bundled tightly together. “Do you intend to read them?”
“I have little interest in the correspondence between our fathers,” Ayn admits. “I was simply cleaning out the study when I came across them.”
Azure eyes focus on the worn edges of the letters, Lars mulling over the next words he wants to say.
It isn’t Lars who speaks in response, but rather Ayn who continues.
“Have you?”
“I have,” Lars admits.
He’d wanted to know, so desperately back then— why did his father make the decisions he did? Why wouldn’t the emperor of the kingdom take action? Why was Silversnow left abandoned, to rot?
In the end, he never found any answers. The letters turned out to be simple, mundane correspondence between two brothers updating the other on how their lives have been going. The frequency of the letters slowly declined, as did their familial bond.
“Hmm.”
Ayn hums noncommittally. It doesn’t seem like he’s interested in pursuing this topic any further.
“You know, a man approached me during my coronation. His name was Emerson, I believe.”
Lars pauses at this, looking up.
“He asked me to spare you despite your crimes,” Ayn says with faint amusement. “Impudent, don’t you think? Approaching me on the day of my coronation, not to congratulate me, but to spare the tyrant who had taken the crown from me in the past.”
“That idiot,” Lars mutters under his breath.
“Seems you still have people who care deeply about your wellbeing, cousin.”
Lars blinks owlishly.
Then, he laughs quietly, his gaze softening imperceptibly.
“Yeah.”
———
In the end, nothing fills his heart with happiness more than seeing Silversnow gradually grow from the horizon.
As lively as the Imperial City is in its rejuvenated form, Lars misses the comfort of Silversnow. His heart, after all, had never been with the Imperial City.
This is where home is, where his heart lies.
In the distance, he sees two figures waving. The nearer he draws, the more people he sees.
They’d been waiting for him.
Melanie is quick to walk up to him, Emerson hot on her heels and even overtaking the older woman. With a casual arm slung around Lars’ shoulder, just like the old days, Emerson chatters away.
“You came back in one piece! This calls for celebration.”
Lars rolls his eyes fondly, lightly punching Emerson’s arm. “Did you think that the emperor called me over to execute me on the spot?”
“Well… he doesn’t seem very friendly towards you.”
“You know, during my brief stay at the Imperial City, I overheard from someone somewhere that you went up to the emperor and begged for my safety…”
“I did not beg!”
Lars grins triumphantly, having caught Emerson. “Aha! But you did make a request, it seems?”
“Ugh…”
Melanie laughs behind her hand, wrinkled eyes curving with amusement. “Emerson was just worried about you.”
“Yeah, well…” Emerson points at Lars, his tone accusing but with some exasperation. “You’re always going around acting like you alone bear the weight of the world’s sins on your back, and sometimes you have this stupid look on your face...”
Melanie clears her throat, clarifying for Emerson: “What he means to say is that you feel a bit distant at times.”
Emerson turns around, facing Silversnow. Lars follows his gaze, taking in all of the infrastructure that they’d been working on in the past year.
Silversnow has gone a long way since the disaster. Rebuilding was a slow process, coming with many difficulties and setbacks, but they’ve still managed to replace what was once icy ruins with a lively community.
“I don’t know what kind of choices you had to make, but I know you protected Melanie and me in the Imperial City. I know your heart never once left Silversnow— you were practically tripping over your own feet to start rebuilding this place as soon as you stepped down from the throne,” Emerson continues on, smiling faintly.
He turns to fact Lars, gesturing loosely at the entirety of Silversnow. Behind him, the sun hangs high in the sky. Buildings stand tall, having recently been constructed from scratch.
“Anyways. Point is— don’t be a stranger.”
Melanie nods in approval, adding on. “Silversnow is back, and so are its people. We’re here to welcome you home— our Lord of the North.”
Endless fields of tulips sway in the wind, vivacious and stubborn just like the heart of Silversnow.
Lars breaks out into a wide grin as he takes a step forward, away from the past and into the future.
“I’m home.”
———
Lars wonders—
…Does he deserve to be loved?
He kneels before his parents’ gravestones, his head lowered in thought.
“I ended up doing a lot of things under the name of tyranny,” Lars confesses. “It would be dishonest for me to insist that everything was purely for the sake of putting on an act. That I never mixed any of my personal emotions into it, that I was being completely rational.”
Because as attuned as Lars thinks he is to the people in this world, and to his own emotions, he isn’t infallible.
At one point, he even wondered if he’d completely turned into a monster, no better than the supernatural phenomenon he was fighting against.
The guilt hangs over him like a cloud, a reminder of all the sins he’d committed, regardless of what it was for. He still took lives, turned away the unfortunate, repeating the mantra that “the end justifies the means” in his mind.
It’s not so easy for him to put such a past behind him, to act like none of it happened and that it was okay simply because the outcome turned out to be good.
“I’d wondered, at one point: what right do I have to be loved? When I wanted everyone to fear me, when I acted callously and disregarded others, I still… yearned for it. The love that I would dream about as a child.”
Is it okay for him to be loved, to want to be loved still?
But then—
“I just hope to show people that we were all human in the end. That’s all.”
“Stand up, Lars Rorschach, Lord of the North.”
“We’re here to welcome you home— our Lord of the North.”
He doesn't know the answer. He doesn't know if he'll ever come to one.
But when he remembers those around him, he knows this much: the snow left over in his heart melts and springtime starts to blossom.
He thinks he can learn how to love and be loved once more.
spoilers for content up to [until the end of time], highly recommend reading ayn's ssr card story [world of regret] though you should be fine even without
Thank you for these memories you've created with me, for the warmth of life you've granted me.
notes:
written as part of a lbc anniversary fanwork relay on twitter! you can find it at the tag: #LBC2ndAnnivFanworkRelay
written in 2nd pov, assumes lbc mc's setting, ~11k
Every moment with you is a reminder of the fact that I exist, and every time I see you, I remember that there is still at least one person left who remembers my existence.
This is the world we have lost, but maybe— just maybe, we can keep our spirits alive in remembrance.
At the end of the world, let us witness the rise of a new civilization together, hand in hand.
I will remember who you once were, and you will remember who I once was.
ENTERING…
<MEMORY 1.>
Your vision is temporarily blurred as the world assembles itself before you. Everything comes together like pieces of a puzzle, slowly falling into place to create a scene you’ve long forgotten.
When was the last time you set foot in here?
Tonight, you find yourself in Ayn’s secret base. There’s that rabbit-shaped chair in front of his desk, his bass not too far from his desk, littered with various records and games. He’s on a comfortable chair, only large enough for one person— wasn’t this supposed to be a couch fit for two?
And in his hands…
A small cake with a rabbit cutely propped on top, one ear missing.
You’re in Ayn’s secret base; you’d guessed this much correctly.
But, upon closer inspection—
The shelves don’t hold your paints, carefully organized by Ayn himself, and the slippers on your feet are plain, generic slippers he’d gotten in haste after inviting you over. The secret base only houses one resident.
Why… dream about this day?
The rush of nostalgia is almost too much, making your head spin.
Not too long ago, you left behind your physical form in favour of one more fitting in battle. Without the constraints of a human body, you’re freer than you’ve ever been before— there is nothing at all that can contain you. You’re free to enter the minds of the unsuspecting and unwilling, and there is nothing that can harm or kill you.
You will become Planet Flame’s secret weapon, striking down every opposing entity in this universe.
For the sake of Planet Flame. For the sake of your home.
This is what you fight for.
“Are you still half asleep?”
You blink owlishly, his voice snapping you out of your stupor. The warmth radiating from his cheek is juxtaposed by the cool cream I’ve smeared onto his face— something he could’ve dodged, but didn’t.
Ayn looks up at you with bright eyes, unhurried, unlike the world around him. As far as he’s concerned, this is the only world he is in at the moment— a secret base squirrelled away some distance from the academy, with only two people inside. He’d swallowed the rabbit ear, leaving behind a handful of crumbs at the corner of his mouth.
You want to kiss him.
And you nearly do.
As you lean closer subconsciously, Ayn’s eyes widen a fraction, and his cheeks almost instantly become rosy. The sweet fragrance of the cream surrounding him is intoxicating.
In your palms, a delicate rose blooms just for you.
You miss him so much.
Ayn’s breathing has become shallow, bewildered. It takes you a moment to recollect yourself when you see your reflection in his startled gaze.
What had you said at this time?
It’s his first birthday, and you’d told him to make a wish.
Wishes…
“If you really want to tell me, then tell me secretly.”
Now that you think about it, he never told you about the wish he’d made on his 19th birthday.
“Okay... close your eyes first.”
You pause, hand still resting on his cheek. He’s so close, close enough that you could easily bump your head against his. Greedily, you take in every inch of his appearance. From the dark head of hair that was always fluffier than you’d expected, to his unfairly soft cheeks comparable to a baby’s, to his eyelashes longer than yours, to his eyes oh-so crystal clear as he meets the world honestly.
“What if I don’t want to?” you murmur.
It’s not how this interaction goes— you know. Will the dream go awry if you don’t follow in the steps of your past self?
Maybe it’s silly of you to think so much.
But even if dreams cannot change the past, they can impact the dreamer. They’re volatile and can be a lethal weapon when wielded by the right user— you know this well, as your battlefield has shifted from war-torn fields to the illusory dreams serving as people’s last bastion of comfort and safety.
It’s too late to regret the changes you’ve made.
The cup overflows, emotions spilling over.
When was the last time you’d seen him?
With a heart, thrumming low and steady, with the warmth of life painting his cheeks in a rosy glow.
You don’t want to let go of him.
Is he here, together with you?
It’d be too cruel of you if you were reliving such a sweet memory all alone.
After the silence has stretched on for long enough, you smile faintly and pinch his cheeks slightly. “I’m messing with you…”
“That’s fine, too.”
“Ah?”
Ayn lowers his head slightly, his lips pursed as though deep in thought. Then, he meets your gaze with a rare earnestness that he reserves just for you.
Then, he leans closer, startling you.
“Actually, I have a wish about you.”
“Oh…”
You stand there dumbly, watching in a daze as Ayn pulls out two packaged dessert spoons.
When you think about it now, he’d given you his heart early.
But he isn’t the only one.
The afternoon sun is warm and cozy, making you want to curl up on a sofa fit for two. You want to fall asleep comfortably in the arms of your lover, who will hum random melodies floating around his head to ease your insomnia. You want to wake up, only to realize that the two of you had way overslept. Then, he’d pull you back into his hold, grumbling about sleeping in for just five more minutes.
It’s a hazy state between dream and reality shared by the two of you.
The boy who wasn’t all that fond of noisy crowds, the boy who preferred to carefully curate his world to his tastes…
It’s he who invited you in, and you graciously took such an invitation.
“You are Miss Painter. The one and only Miss Painter in the entire world.”
“Ayn…”
He looks up, some of the cake already stuffed in his mouth. You hold back your laughter, suddenly recalling the appearance of a chipmunk caught dead in the middle of its operations to steal some snacks.
Did your wish ever come true?
You carefully savour this quiet moment, one uncommon and distant for the you of today.
Was it his dream that you’ve entered? Or your own?
It’s hard to say.
You break off a piece of the rabbit cake. It’s sweet and melts in your mouth, making you giddy.
“Ayn—
I hope all of your wishes come true.”
ENTERING…
<MEMORY 2.>
The spring sun greets you this time, tempered and kind. When your gaze focuses this time, you stand in stunned silence.
Before you is a tree standing tall, branches stretching out in all directions. Light filters in through parted leaves of verdant green, broken sunlight dancing along gently swaying grass. The field you stand in ripples with every gust of wind that gently nudges you forward towards the humming crowd before you.
Most breathtaking are the ribbons and plaques of crimson red dancing along to the joyful chatter of those eagerly hanging up their wishes.
…His dreams are always so beautiful.
You’d forgotten this, too— you seem to be forgetting many things these days— but as you see it now, you remember.
On May 20th, the first of what would later be many that you’d spend with Ayn, the two of you visited a carnival. Still naive and a little shy, but eager to be together nonetheless, you went around from attraction to attraction, trying out all sorts of things with Ayn.
Amongst them was a wishing tree.
You quickly start searching for Ayn, unwilling to approach the tree until you’ve got him by your side.
However, unlike the last dream you visited, he was nowhere to be seen.
Well, it’s Ayn’s dream, so he can’t be too far from what you can only assume is the core of this dream.
He isn’t anywhere to be seen in this large patch of grass, so he must be somewhere within the carnival.
Without a second thought, you leave for the carnival, eager to reunite with your lover.
The carnival is awash with colour, countless couples milling about. There are families, too, with children running around excitedly, holding brightly coloured balloons in the shape of various animals.
You can’t help the smile that spreads across your face as you watch the children laugh and play, as couples take part in the activities that the vendors have laid out for them.
You’d missed this.
What a vivid world full of joy.
Nearby, you spot a cotton candy vendor selling sticks of fluffy bliss in the shapes of cute animal heads. From here, you can see one shaped just like a cat, with a bunny next to it.
“Ayn—”
You turn around, wanting to tease your lover.
As you turn your head, your smile freezes on your face.
…Right.
First, you need to find him. Then, you can take him to that cotton candy stall, and then go to that wishing tree with him. Maybe the two of you can even make a few stops at the booths along the way— it would be a nice opportunity to relax, just like the past…
Where has Ayn gone?
You hope you can find him soon.
The couples pass by you, each and every one of them deep in their own little worlds. Their hands are linked together, inseparable, as they share the joy of life with each other.
Suddenly, you’re not as thrilled by the bustling crowd that surrounds you and even feel a little suffocated.
…It’s so cold.
“Hello there, miss. You look like you’re in need of a fixer-upper!”
You don’t know when, but the cotton candy vendor had approached you with a broad smile on his face.
“Need any help? Today isn’t a day where people should be standing all alone in the crowd with their head hung low.”
“Oh…”
Though initially bewildered, you let down your guard easily enough. There isn’t anything here that can hurt you, after all, especially not in his dream.
“I’m looking for someone.”
You pause, a realization suddenly occurring to you.
“Hey, is there any way I could make an announcement over the PA system? Like a missing child announcement…”
The vendor shakes his head apologetically. “No, there’s nothing of the sort here.”
“...Oh.”
Before your spirits are fully dampened, a sweet aroma suddenly wafts over you. As you look up, you see two fluffy pink creatures in front of you.
“But!” the vendor interjects jovially, with an unexplained confidence. “Maybe the person you’re looking for will show up after long enough. Try enjoying what the carnival has to offer first, starting with some cotton candy!”
“Um..?”
Logically, you don’t see how that would guide you to Ayn. But…
It’s his dream, isn’t it? Dreams often seem unexplainable and absurd, with no rhyme or reason, but everything is always representative of something.
So, perhaps, this is Ayn’s subconscious guiding you to him.
Looking at it this way, the key to finding Ayn, then, is… to have fun?
After a moment of deliberation, you take the two sticks of cotton candy. Belatedly, you realize that it’s the cotton candy cat and bunny you’d been eyeing just a moment ago.
“Thank you— huh?”
The vendor is gone. The cotton candy stall seemed to have been moved, too.
…Well, it’s probably because of dream shenanigans.
Without any other ideas of what to do to progress this dream, you follow the vendor’s advice.
Initially, you’d been a bit hesitant, but you started getting into the flow of things as soon as you hit the minigame stalls. You’d only watched from a distance at first, but then found a coin purse in your pocket.
A few games later, you’re standing off to the side with a plethora of plushies in your arms, with some falling to the ground. Your hands are too preoccupied with holding onto the cotton candy to pick up the trail of stuffed animals you leave in your wake.
You swear the stalls are normally rigged. You remember you and Ayn would see couples trying and failing to win prizes at countless stalls. The two of you ended up just focusing on the games that seemed most likely to give the players prizes.
Anything really is possible in a dream.
How nice.
Before you’ve realized it, the sun has already started to set.
You’ve made several loops around the carnival, repeatedly encountering the trails of stuffed plushies you left behind like a breadcrumb trail.
The cotton candy has already shrunk to a point beyond recognition.
Ayn is still nowhere to be seen…
Was that vendor just messing with you? Where is Ayn in this dream?
“Miss?”
A young girl’s voice draws your attention away from the sad state of your cotton candy. A name comes to you, much to your surprise— “Bella!”
Her eyes curve, seemingly happy that you remembered her. She gently tugs on your skirt, eyes wide with curiosity.
“Are you lost? You’ve been standing there for a loooong time now.”
Are you lost?
…You don’t know for sure. You’d assumed that you needed to find Ayn, that he was lost somewhere, but perhaps you were the one who’d gone missing.
“...Maybe.”
“Oh no! Where do you need to go? I know this place super duper well!” Bella proclaims, one hand placed proudly on her chest. “I was the one guiding my mommy and daddy around everywhere!”
“Is that so?” you muse, crouching down to meet the enthusiastic girl at eye-level. “Then, could you take me to the mister I was with? The one who played piano very well…”
“Oh! Your good friend,” Bella nods sagely. “Maybe you should go back to the beginning! Mommy said that if I ever got lost, I shouldn’t run around and should just stay put. So, maybe if you go back to where you were, the mister will find you,”
“Back to… the beginning?”
You fall silent for a few moments before smiling faintly.
“Thank you for the advice, Bella. I’ll try that.”
“You’re welcome!! I hope the mister finds you soon!”
Just as suddenly she arrived, Bella runs off into the crowds. She runs into the arms of the person you assume is her mother, your heart softening at the sight.
…Even if it’s just a dream.
Without anywhere else to go, you decide to follow the girl’s advice and go back to the beginning.
That is, the wishing tree in the field.
By the time you get there, the sky has gotten dark. You’re stunned to find that, in place of glittering sunlight, there are countless lights strewn along the branches. Even in the dark, the red tags holding everybody’s wishes remain illuminated, swaying harmoniously along with the faint breeze.
“Miss Painter.”
Your heart stops when you hear his voice.
Without a second thought, you drop the cotton candy sticks you’d held onto for the entire day and turn to run straight for him.
Ayn.
Ayn.
Ayn.
You chant his name like a mantra in your heart, desperate to find him in the dark.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Your voice comes out muffled when you throw yourself into his embrace, missing his warmth.
“What a coincidence,” Ayn replies, the faint hint of laughter in his voice, squeezing you tightly. “I’ve been looking for you as well.”
The two of you stand in the grassy field, hidden by the shadows of the night. Though the night is much colder than the day, this is the warmest you’ve felt since the start of the dream.
“The fireworks are going to start soon. Do you want to watch them?”
You shake your head, tugging on his hand.
“Let’s make a wish first.”
You pull him towards the tree with some desperation, as though something would be lost if you couldn’t make a wish before the dream ends.
As you take a plaque and some string, you turn to look at Ayn. His face is illuminated by the faint glow from above, highlighting his sharp, boyish features in the night.
“What do you want to wish for?”
“Nothing.”
You pause, this conversation just as familiar to you as the one from the last dream.
This time, too, you decide to change the script a little.
“Okay. Then, I’ll make a wish for you.”
“Miss Painter doesn’t have any wishes of her own?”
You shake your head stubbornly, writing down your wishes on the plaque the best you can with limited visibility.
“No. I only want to make a wish for you.”
It doesn’t take long for you to finish as Ayn falls silent, already having a specific wish in mind.
Unexpectedly, Ayn takes a plaque as well.
“Ayn?”
“Then, I’ll make a wish for you, Miss Painter.”
A thought suddenly occurs to you— a distant memory, some words he’d said once long ago.
“You don’t think it’s cowardly to wish?”
Ayn hums faintly, not answering.
There is something inexplicably lonely about the smile that you can just barely make out in the dim light. You want to reach out, but he’s already moved to write something down on his plaque by the time your hand stretches out.
Very quietly, he whispers:
“Well, maybe I’ve become a coward.”
Your hand falls.
It’s only now that you recall something— most people don’t remember their dreams when they wake up.
Does Ayn remember what happens in these dreams?
Does he… remember all of these moments between the two of you, from the mundane days of a bygone era?
You don’t know, as he’s never brought up these dreams with you.
After a long pause, you say resolutely: “Let’s hang our plaques together.”
Ayn tilts his head, nodding in agreement.
As soon as the two of you hang the plaques on a lower branch, the sound of fireworks go off like a drumbeat in the distance.
“Oh, the view of the fireworks is actually really good from here!” you exclaim, watching as the fireworks bloom in the sky like iridescent flowers.
You almost miss Ayn’s flinch amidst the loud fireworks exploding overhead.
Curiously, you turn to look at him, but he doesn’t say anything.
You can’t tell what he’s thinking.
He seeks out your hand, wrapping his fingers around yours. You shift and slide your fingers between his, leaving two callused hands interlaced.
“Let’s come again next time,” Ayn says, almost inaudible behind the sound of the fireworks exploding in the sky.
But you hear him.
You have always heard him and his voice.
“Okay,” you say simply.
Even if you know all too well that this is a dream, you continue to hope nonetheless.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
“Let’s come again next time.”
Two plaques sway together, side by side, red threads intertwining.
The girl’s plaque flips over, its text clearly illuminated by the eternal lights hanging on the branches—
I wish that he always has someone by his side who understands him.
I wish that his inspiration, his muse, never deserts him.
I wish that neither of us ever changes.
Direct contact with Ayn is rare.
In exchange for a better chance at surviving this damned war, you surrendered even your physical form. Your skill at hiding traces of your spirit has only increased— the days of clumsily bumbling around the plane between worlds seem so distant now.
…Truthfully, it’s not like there isn’t a way for you to talk to Ayn.
Though your spirit form is without a body and voice, you can take advantage of empty vessels to gain a physical form temporarily.
But you don’t like it.
Every time you enter a body that doesn’t belong to you, it feels as though maggots are slowly devouring you from the inside out.
You claim bodies on the verge of death— it’s an invasion of the soul, and you consume theirs and use the remaining energy to puppet the body. By the time you’ve completed your missions, you’ve consumed the scant life force in the body, leaving them with no chance of coming back alive.
It’s not that you’re scared that Ayn will hate you.
No, he’s the last person who would feel malice towards you for your actions… as your accomplice.
But you can’t help but feel like you’ve taken something from Ayn every time you murmur his name with a voice that is not yours.
Even still, he looks at you earnestly, with some sort of misplaced hope.
You hate the dim smile that forms on his face when you say his name in a voice that has a different colour, quality, than your original voice.
He’s always been sensitive to sound and its variations.
You wonder how his hearing has been these days— you recall that when you’d abandoned him, he had to focus to properly make out your voice.
…He shouldn’t have to go out into the fray, surrounded by cannonfire and gunshots.
The planet you’re on trembles, and that’s how you know it’s time for you to go. Soon, it will be absorbed into Planet Flame for sustenance, and the cycle will repeat once more.
Your spirit returns to the place you’d desperately called “home”. For now, there are no other planets you can access, not without compromising the safety of your spirit anyways. You’ll have to wait for further intel and specific coordinates.
In this rare moment when you don’t have another planet to immediately visit and devour, you quietly watch over Ayn.
Most days, he’s confined to the countless floating screens— it wouldn’t be an overexaggeration to claim that he has become Planet Flame’s heart. Streams of data flow endlessly, giving him few opportunities for breaks.
You frown as you watch his fingers tap away rapidly, expanding and contracting. The azure light emitted from the screens is reflected in his eyes, sharp as he systemically responds to every inquiry and commands the warriors of Planet Flame.
Carefully, you reach out, wrapping your arms around his body from behind.
You cannot see your own hand, only relying on feeling for where your form is. He sees even less, feels even less, and doesn’t hear your reminder.
“It’s about time for a break… will you work through this break today as well?”
His fingers pause, and he looks up.
“...Ayn?”
For a moment, you wonder if he could feel you, if he could hear you—
A delusion.
Ayn lets out an almost imperceptible sigh, eyes dimming as a light flashes. A list appears, countless floating screens combining to accommodate the sheer length of the list of… names.
You watch alongside him as countless names flicker by. Some are familiar to you, while many more are unfamiliar.
This sort of report is all too familiar to you— even from before your “death”.
A list of casualties from the latest battle fought and won.
Your name had been on one of these reports, and Ayn had watched as your name scrolled by, just another droplet in a sea of names.
“Haa…”
As the screen reaches the end of the list, Ayn presses a hand to his forehead. The flickering screens of soft light break apart into countless smaller screens monitoring each area of Planet Flame.
“Ayn…”
Your whisper goes unheard, just as it had the other hundreds of times you’d whispered his name soundlessly in this form.
After a moment of silence, Ayn reaches out and disconnects himself from the system.
At least he’s taking a break now, you think grimly, though you feel complicated about the reason why.
He’s done this at least twenty-four other occasions that you’ve seen. There is no physical evidence of exhaustion, not on the body manufactured to be perfect and require minimal maintenance. But his emotions remain in that metallic shell, and they fluctuate from time to time.
So, he’ll disconnect himself from all the systems when he feels unsteady to avoid creating problems.
I’m here, you desperately want to say. You don’t have to… carry this burden alone.
But you can’t.
You were the one who left him, running away to a battlefield beyond his reach.
The entirety of Planet Flame only has him left to rely on; their previous miracle-maker is dead. He carries the burden you had carried as a symbol of hope, but without the support you had.
You cling to his slumped-over body desperately, sharing with him an illusory warmth only felt by yourself.
ENTERING…
<MEMORY 3.>
There’s sand everywhere.
Is he dreaming of… Planet Flame?
You stand dazedly for a moment, the dunes shifting restlessly beneath your feet. The scene before you overlaps with the appearance of Planet Flame when you first discovered it.
At that time, your voice had been hoarse from disuse, your skin sunken, and your body heavy from malnutrition. But your heart, which had been so unbearably heavy before, felt the lightest it's ever been since the fusion of worlds started.
The desolate sand-sea was the most beautiful scenery you’d seen since the start of this new era.
He stood next to you then, the shape of his name the only thing you could form with your lips.
You start to walk aimlessly, hoping to find Ayn once more.
It's been a while since you last entered one of his dreams. He remains conscious for longer and longer, taking fewer breaks as planets fall one by one. The first ones to fall are the weaker ones, which means the stronger planets remain— and those are the biggest headaches, leading to longer and longer wars, thus demanding more and more of Ayn’s attention.
Even rarer is the overlap between your free time and his break time.
Although it’s just a dream…
If you can see him, even if your heart inexplicably twists and beats dully in your chest, it’ll be enough.
As long as he is…
“Miss Painter?”
…by your side, someway, somehow.
You don’t know when he appeared, but he now stands next to you. Seeing him, you realize that you must not be on Planet Flame— he wears a white, sleeveless top with a pink bunny design on it.
This… how long ago was this?
Soon, the two of you see a crescent-shaped lake in the distance.
Dunhuang.
“Mm…” you snap out of your daze, offering a smile to Ayn under the sun far gentler than the one at home. “Let’s keep going to the Mogao Caves.”
Ayn frowns slightly, taking your hand in his. “If you’re tired, let me know. We can take a short break before we continue. Do you want some water?”
You squeeze his hand idly. His fingers are slender and nimble, but steady and strong with a sense of rhythm that few can disrupt. You’d always obsess over such hands in the past, even going as far as to think about buying a model of Ayn’s hands.
He always looks the best when he’s at the piano, his gaze sharpened. His eyes glimmer with the excitement unique to a creative, focused on the stream of melodies created by each callused fingertip. His silhouette at the piano had always inspired you most.
“I’m fine,” you murmur.
When was the last time he played piano?
When was the last time you painted?
…You don’t remember.
“Let’s keep walking,” you say decisively, leading him forward.
The dream warps in a way unique only to dreams; reality shifts, and space distorts, but nothing feels out of the ordinary. Neither you nor Ayn questions the faceless crowd that walks past the two of you, and the dream directly brings you to the next focused destination.
There’s only one path forward.
You step into the caves alongside Ayn, the crowd thinning as only the two of you are left. The walls are covered in murals from top to bottom, sculptures carved of stone gazing at you.
“There were once tens of thousands of ancient records here.”
Ayn stares at you silently as you continue to speak.
“...However, eventually, they were ravaged. Books torn, scriptures lost, murals vandalized…”
When you blink, the cave has transformed into a twisting amalgamation of countless civilizations.
This is the history of the planets you’ve plundered and destroyed.
You’d once felt melancholy for this past, standing next to Ayn as you quietly vowed to keep their history alive in your memory.
Now, all you feel is a sobering emptiness.
How many planets has it been?
How many civilizations have you felled?
Of course, it wasn’t easy at first. You often grit your teeth through various missions, repeatedly reminding yourself about why you were doing all of this.
For Planet Flame.
For… our home.
Like a mantra, you would justify the bloodshed with claims of necessity. If you didn’t strike first, it would’ve left your world vulnerable just like the first time. You couldn’t afford to make the same mistake, you mustn’t.
It got easier.
You don’t think as much in the moment, coming to easy conclusions that the corpse right in front of you would’ve killed you had you not killed it first. That, had you not destroyed this planet first, it would’ve destroyed you instead.
But.
You’ll remember the glimpses of history you were privy to when wandering enemy planets.
And how easily, how suddenly, it collapsed.
“Ayn…”
A muted despair crawls up from your throat, choking your words, your expression.
“Is this really what civilization was in the end?”
How much has this universe already forgotten?
Ayn takes a step forth, gently placing his palm against a mural that has been pieced together with jagged rocks of all sorts of colours. The ever-shifting caves cause the floor to be unsteady, the walls groaning in pain. The colourful rocks of red, green, and blue tremble and scratch Ayn’s delicate hands.
“...Ayn!”
You immediately run to Ayn, stumbling as you do. The floor is hardly solid beneath your feet. Regardless, you stubbornly continue onwards to him.
Blood trickles down from his fingertips, causing your lips to purse into a frown.
“You need these hands to play piano,” you whisper helplessly.
As you hold his hand in yours, his blood drips down bit by bit, scalding your hands.
Suddenly, Ayn pulls you into him. His arms wrap around you, his hands holding onto you like a lifeline. His breath shudders as he croaks like a man drowned.
“It can’t be.”
“Ayn..?”
“There’s more to civilization, isn’t there?” he murmurs. Then his erratic breaths steady, his voice low and resolute: “You can protect anything you wish to protect as long as you have enough power.”
The cave crumbles around the two figures locked together, paving way for sunlight. Waves rock at the gradually forming shore, seeping into the soles of your shoes.
“Wait for me.”
Ayn’s breath fans across your cheeks, his callused fingertips rubbing lightly against your neck. He leans in and presses fluttering kisses to your eyelid, to the tip of your nose, to your cheek…
“Wait for me,” he repeats, tone hardened with determination. “I’ll find a way.”
You reach out, just barely grazing his trembling eyelashes.
It’s Ayn.
You press your forehead against his and whisper your promise in response:
“Okay—
I will wait for you… until the end of time.”
Nobody, none at all, should demand anything of eternity.
Even travellers, who roam beyond time and space, eventually meet their ends. Perhaps they could play a few tricks with time and space, but there is nothing that is truly eternal.
So, humans shouldn’t even dare dream of attaining eternity.
And yet, he went beyond dreaming and gave up everything to make it a reality.
Of course. He is Ayn, after all. There is little that will stop him once he puts his mind to it, working endlessly to achieve the results he wants.
He hadn’t wanted to leave you alone, so he took a gamble and surrendered his mortality.
…It’s hard for you to say whether you’re happy or angry about this.
Ayn wasn’t wrong in his guess.
The reality was simple: you need him, and he needs you. The two of you have vowed to plunge deep into the gazing abyss together. With all other ties cut away by time, there is little left in this world for you aside from…
Ayn.
Ayn.
Ayn.
You repeat his name fervently in your heart.
Today should be his birthday.
There is no reason to keep track of dates anymore, especially not birth dates. Still, you meticulously counted the days like a madman.
You don’t know if Ayn’s kept track since your death.
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, or maybe he really does count the days just as you do. Either way, he does the same thing every single time his birthday arrives.
You wonder if he makes a wish, too.
What was it, exactly, that you wished for all those birthdays ago?
Today, Ayn sits in front of the countless floating screens just as he does any other day. The only difference here is that he’s pushed most other screens to the back. At the forefront, a faintly flickering screen lists out various memory segments.
There are periods where Ayn becomes obsessed with reliving these memories. They were becoming less and less frequent, so you hadn’t seen him in this unconscious state in a long time.
…It’s one of the rare times when he is truly relaxed.
As for when exactly he set up all of these memory modules, you’re not sure. The first time you saw him access these memories, there had already been countless lines of code listing out each memory and the number of times they’d been replayed.
He’s watched most memories over a thousand times, as though going through the rest of his life over and over again from the very beginning.
When?
When did he stop tapping habitually against the table in various rhythmic patterns?
When did he stop taking breaks?
When did he stop looking around for traces of you in the room?
Even though this spiritual form allows you a degree of freedom you couldn’t have had before, you still can’t be by his side all the time.
You reach out, desperate to feel anything at all.
However, these days, your senses have been acting up.
Sometimes, you’re overwhelmed— the world becomes too bright, the noises too loud, the touches too sensitive. Other times, you feel frighteningly numb, as though you were truly dead.
…You can only hope that this passes quickly.
ENTERING…
<MEMORY 4.>
Pitch black.
Inky darkness that consumes you whole, leaving you both weightless and heavy. You don’t know how long it is before your feet reach solid ground, but even then, you still can’t see or hear anything.
Tentatively, you call out:
“Ayn?”
From above, an intercom crackles to life. The voice is distorted, sounding more mechanical than human.
“Welcome to the Darkness Simulation Center.”
A hand finds yours in the darkness, rough fingerpads rubbing against the back of your hand.
Ayn.
You can hear faint, steady breathing next to you. Immediately, you relax and lean closer to the person next to you.
“There are several exhibits prepared for today’s experience. Various noises will be played, and visitors are encouraged to think about what the source of the noise could be.”
A single light flickers to life overhead. Instinctively, you turn your head shortly after, where Ayn is standing, tracing over every detail that gets illuminated by the faint light.
“...Ayn?”
He stares directly ahead, his gaze unfocused. He doesn’t immediately respond to your call, as still as a statue as though he couldn’t hear you.
Worriedly, you squeeze his hand.
Finally, he stirs, as though awakening. He turns his head.
There’s none of the usual sharp clarity in his gaze, now replaced by a haziness. As your silhouette comes into view, Ayn’s lips form an uneasy frown, his brows creasing.
“Miss… Painter?” he murmurs, squeezing your hand back in questioning.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
Belatedly, you realize his hands are clammy with sweat. Ayn is tightly wound up, as though preparing for an enemy breach through the frontlines at any moment. Wordlessly, you reach up, smoothing out the creases in his forehead.
In an attempt to lighten the mood, you tease him lightly: “Are you scared of the dark, Ayn?”
“...No,” he mutters, pursing his lips. He does relax a little, leaning into your touch. “But it’s hard to see when it’s dark. So, you have to be careful when you walk.”
“Okay. If you trip over anything, I’ll be sure to catch you.”
“I won’t trip,” Ayn huffs, pinching your hand. “I’m not so clumsy.”
“Okay, okay~”
The two of you walk forward into the darkness, hand-in-hand. You don’t know what lies beyond, but if Ayn is here with you, you’re sure things will be okay.
The two of you have always endured. Patiently enduring, until the next time you can fall into the cozy couch in Ayn’s secret base, where you would cuddle with Ayn to unwind after a long day.
For a few minutes, all you hear are your footsteps tangled together with Ayn’s.
Once more, the intercom crackles to life.
“We will now play the first exhibit…”
The first noise starts with a distant pop. Sparks scatter in the sky, and you hear a faint whistle. Your heart tightens first, body instinctively trembling.
An explosion.
Your heart speeds up nonetheless, your own hands growing clammy with sweat as you start to bounce your leg in agitation. Next to you, without warning, Ayn pulls at you.
“Get down!”
Together, the two of you fall to the ground harshly. The pace of your heart sounds normal when compared to Ayn’s. Instead of the steady, reliable heartbeat you always loved to listen to, it beats frantically with raw panic. His breaths come out in short puffs as he curls up, trembling violently.
Then, countless explosions follow.
The dark room is illuminated, drawing your gaze upwards.
Colourful flowers bloom overhead, sparks glittering against the night sky. The walls of the dark box that confined the two of you collapse, leaving both of you outside in a meadow at the dead of night.
But you can’t find it in yourself to be awestruck.
Ayn’s heaving gasps draws your attention back.
“Ayn,” you call desperately.
Your cries fall on deaf ears, however, and he curls in further in on himself. You wince as his hold on your hand tightens, nearly crushing your bones.
“Ayn.”
You don’t know why you continue to call his name.
An inexplicable guilt stifles your voice, each whimper of his name coming out strangled.
What can you say in this situation? What can you do?
You shuffle closer to him, letting him lean against you. He grabs you, his dull fingernails digging deep into your arms. Despite the pain that shoots up your arms, the bruises that form, you continue to draw nearer.
He looks up at you.
“...Ayn,” you murmur, voice drowned by the deafening explosions illuminating the night sky.
His cheeks are sunken, his eyes haunted by countless memories that you don’t share with him. He parts his lips, but can’t make any noise.
“Ayn, it’ll be okay,” you say, an attempt at comfort— for him or for yourself, you don’t know.
“... … …”
I can’t hear you.
He repeats these four words over and over and over again, fear illuminating his eyes. He’s heavy in your arms, unable to scream or cry out his anguish. He can only desperately hold onto you as his lifeline, the only thing left that grounds him to this world.
How many wars have you fought?
How many times did you return with dull red clinging to your skin?
How many people looked to you for guidance, placing all of their hopes and ideals onto you?
How many days did you spend locked away in that control room, unable to go anywhere?
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
The apology gets stuck in your throat.
What have you been doing? What has he been doing?
Where did things fall apart? When? How?
His tears fall silently, scorching as you wipe them away desperately.
You must be so tired.
“... … …”
He looks at you with the gaze of an empty husk. You have to lean in closer just to hear his hoarse whisper:
“Where have you gone..?
Don’t abandon me, please…
I just want to be by your side.”
Planet Snow is nothing like Planet Flame.
…The final planet, the final mission.
It’s only been a few weeks since your arrival, since you replaced the pope’s adoptive daughter.
Life here is much quieter than you thought it would be.
He keeps “Laila” well protected in the church, and “Laila” only goes out to places where gruelling violence had already long since ended.
The snowflakes that fall are cold as they land on your eyelashes, but this body had long grown accustomed to this climate. You perfectly enact the role of “Laila”, guiding each and every fallen warrior from Planet Snow you come across while you gather intel.
Today, as you do your usual rounds, you happen across a warrior from Planet Flame.
You hesitate for a moment.
After some deliberation, you approach the fallen warrior, snow gradually accumulating on his stiffened body. The metallic limbs characteristic of your planet’s warriors are even colder in the winter; the gears inside the warrior’s body no longer function.
Like you’d done so for dozens of other warriors in the past few weeks, you channel this body’s energy and draw out the warrior’s lingering spirit.
You wonder— what is it that you hope to accomplish?
Would this planet’s methods even work on the warriors from Planet Flame?
Much to your surprise, a translucent light coalesces around the mechanical corpse, flickering as though just barely hanging on. With some more energy, the flecks of light gradually form the blurry silhouette of the fallen warrior’s spirit. The spirit is faint, blending in with the snowscape behind it. You have to squint to make out its shape, and when you do—
You see a smile.
“A nun of Planet Snow?” the warrior muses, his head tilted slightly. However, even after identifying you as a member of the enemy planet, he holds no hostility towards you.
Instead, he bows slightly.
“I guess it was you who gave me a vessel to voice my last words… thank you.”
Your throat goes dry, and you can’t find any words to respond with. All you can manage is a brief hum.
When the warrior’s spirit starts to fracture, you finally find your voice and eke out meekly: “I will hear out your final regrets and guide your spirit, as a nun of Planet Snow’s church.”
The warrior just barely manages to solidify his form once more, the broken light trembling a little in lieu of laughter.
“Hahaha! Are you allowed to do that? I’m from Planet Flame, you know.”
“...Regardless of where one hails from, everybody has regrets. Everybody deserves to have their final wishes heard.”
The warrior falls silent.
Eventually, he speaks, his tone jovial but not enough to mask the underlying fatigue that accompanies it.
“You know, life on Planet Flame is terrible anyways.”
You suck in a sharp breath and lower your head.
“It looks like you guys still have all your fleshy bits, so you probably won’t get it. But all of us, for the sake of our home planet, we gave up our humanity for the sake of protecting a mere symbol of what once was. As you can see, all that’s left of me are metal bits.”
“I… didn’t think I would be able to draw out your spirit,” you mumble.
The warrior laughs good-naturedly. “I mean, even if our original bodies are gone, our spirits are still here, no? Our minds are preserved and implanted into an upgraded, sturdier vessel much better fit for war on an extraterrestrial level… we’re still ourselves. We just… look different.”
You raise your head at this, hesitant in your next words: “You don’t… regret it?”
The spirit of the warrior floats over to you, leaving behind tiny particles of light as he does so. He floats around you, leisurely, as he replies.
“You’ll have to be more specific than that, missy. There are lots of different things I regret.”
The warrior pauses before adding deliberately:
“But believe me, I am still one of the most loyal warriors, still willing to give my all for my homeland, for a leader… to die in battle.”
What are you fighting for?
…I can’t ask that.
“I see,” you reply blandly. “Is there really nothing that comes to mind? You don’t have any wishes or… or… I’ll also hear out any curses you have towards any party.”
The spirit bursts out into raucous laughter, though you fail to see the humour in your words.
“What an odd nun. You’re actively asking me if I want to curse people out?”
Once his laughter settles, he speaks in a much more measured tone.
“I don’t have any wishes.”
“...Not even a single one?” you ask tentatively.
“Nope. Is that strange to you?”
When met with your bewildered gaze, the spirit continues wryly.
“Well, here’s my confession to you: I’d been thinking of ending it all for a while now.”
You fall silent for a long time, stomach churning uncomfortably.
Finally, you ask as the snow blankets over the two of you: “Why?”
“Hmm… well, long story short, my loved ones decided to die with their original bodies. Our leader, see, didn’t force us to ascend mechanically. He gave us the option to keep our mortality or to join him and become immortal for the sake of this war.”
You know this well.
While most people decided to join you and Ayn, fighting for their home planet, a handful of others rejected this and chose to be left behind. Even if the tiniest bit helped, you and Ayn still decided to never force the decision of mechanical ascension onto anyone.
But neither of you warned people of the consequences it would bring either.
“But, y’know… such a prolonged life isn’t actually all that great. All I do is get shut down and get put to pseudo-sleep, wake up to be sent off to battle, return to make a report to our leader, and then the cycle repeats. Over, and over, and over, and over again.”
As the spirit speaks, there isn’t a single hint of malice in his voice. He speaks as though he’s telling another person’s story, completely detached, with no lingering resentments.
This warrior from Planet Flame had been thinking about ending it all for a while. What was it that kept him alive, then, up until this point?
“I don’t think anybody in this entire universe could endure something like that. And if there’s such a person, I’d like to meet them.”
Your energy finally wanes, and with it, the fluttering spirit before you.
“Missy, you seemed confused over why I had no wishes. Well, here’s why—”
The light scatters into the snow, becoming one with the serene landscape. The warrior’s voice echoes around you as it murmurs its farewell.
“—Eternity strips away everything from humanity. Time has become meaningless, and I even doubt the importance of the relationships that tie me to this world. It has stripped me of almost everything, leaving behind only a desire for true death.”
Hastily, you ask: “Has it even taken away your hopes and dreams?”
The voice is broken as it replies, only partially audible as its voice gets disrupted by the divide between life and death. Even so, you hear his response.
“I haven’t dreamt in a long, long time.”
The light has fully dissipated, leaving behind your tiny silhouette against a vast expanse of snow littered with corpses, both mechanical and organic.
You remain kneeling by the robotic body that is now barely visible through piles of snow.
Numbly, you clasp your hands together and lower your head in prayer.
“May your soul rest in peace.”
…
…
…
You finish your routine report to Ayn in a hidden cave.
The cave had been used as shelter by someone. Judging by the items left behind and their clothing, they couldn’t have been a warrior, but…
A painter.
Suddenly, you remember the murals you saw in the Mogao Caves alongside Ayn. You recall all of the murals you chanced upon on other planets, each and every one just as breathtaking as the last, full of that planet’s history.
You stare at the murals in a daze.
They’re far from polished, but you can feel the care in every stroke nonetheless.
Is it the deceased’s family?
The drawings are of mundane life. A family gathered around a dinner table, two children playing in the snow, one parent doing some woodwork as a child watches, the family out strolling through a forest…
As the murals stretch on in this limited space, the drawings become increasingly crooked, as though the artist was on the final breaths but desperate to finish what they started.
This person died whilst surrounding themselves with their fondest memories.
How nice.
The owner’s body is alone in this cave, with no signs of any other skeletons.
Their family must’ve died earlier and elsewhere.
You walk to the end of the mural, pausing.
…Oh.
At the end of the world, two smudged figures are locked together in an intimate embrace as snow slowly piles up onto them.
Your fingertips hover over the stone, coming just short of making direct contact with the uneven surface.
You turn on your heel without another glance, fastening your cloak around your body as you step out of the cave.
The snow glittering under the sun draws your attention up, towards the horizon. There, you lock eyes with—
Him.
Though he is a fair distance away, you can see that his head is lowered, perhaps mourning the corpse in front of him. He had always been gentle, always willing to dedicate a moment of his turbulent life to the deceased. He remembers their deaths and wonders about the delicate balance between the living and the dead. He never lets them truly die, always remembering their names…
He looks up at you, lips parted slightly in momentary surprise, before settling on a smile of comfort.
You suddenly think of that mural on the wall, of the two blurred figures taking shelter within the other in the midst of the wintery storm. The thin layer of fog from the snow blurs your sight, and for a moment, you imagine that it is the silhouette of a young, immature, and inexperienced couple holding onto each other tightly at the end of the world.
Lips curving into a faint arc, you greet the person on the other side of the cliff.
There is a distant memory that comes up at this moment, from when you and he were still trying to navigate the transition between adolescence and adulthood.
Sometimes, he's like snow under the sun, but I know that the moment he hears me say—
“I want to go with you.”
He will smile like the spring.
You have guided over a hundred spirits at this point.
It’s so that you can find where the container is, to find where the pope stores the flow of life. Once this has been discovered, you can take care of it and finally eliminate the pope for good. From here, it’s yet another guaranteed victory for Planet Flame.
In the fusion of worlds, the pope has to die, no matter how kind, no matter how merciful, the pope is.
This is how it’s always been. Every planet you visit, every counterpart of your beloved Ayn you meet, it is your hands that strangle the last vestiges of life from their bodies. This way, you can still ensure the safety of your Ayn, who is waiting for you back at home.
It will be the same here, too.
So there’s no reason for you to ask pointless questions or start meaningless conversations that contribute nothing to your cause.
None at all.
“Did you once… play an instrument?”
You sit in your— Laila’s— bedroom, hands carefully folded on your lap as you watch the pope leave the bedroom. Your question gives him pause, and he turns slightly.
A little nervous, you quickly backtrack. “Sorry. I know you must be incredibly busy with the war. Please, pay me no mind.”
However, instead of humming quietly in response and leaving, he turns around fully and steps back into the room.
“Why do you ask, Laila?”
As always, the pope speaks in a soft cadence, measured and patient. Always patient with you, always ready to hear you out— even when you’re just rambling on about some nonsense.
“I… was just wondering,” you explain slowly, quickly coming up with a made-up excuse. “Recently, I guided the spirit of an artist. Before they joined the war, they enjoyed playing instruments, like the lyre.”
A flimsy and nonsensical explanation, but one the pope doesn’t question nonetheless.
An inexplicable flicker of emotion crosses the pope’s serene expression. Instead of responding to you, he asks you: “Are you interested in… things like art?”
Laila isn’t, but you…
“A little,” you whisper. Truth starts to mix in as you tell the pope about what you’ve seen. “I recall coming across some murals in a cave once, and thought them to be… breathtaking.”
An odd silence falls between the two of you, one you can’t explain.
“...If I can find something for you to paint with… would you like that?”
Your lips part in silent surprise.
He specifically talked about painting.
Something is thumping loudly in your eardrums; it distracts you as it repeats, thud, thud, thud. Belatedly, you realize it’s your own heartbeat.
Your folded hands clench, wrinkling the fabric of your skirt.
“No… it’s not necessary.”
The pope seems to suck in a sharp breath. He disguises this with a cough shortly after, humming noncommittally.
Was it just your imagination?
That flicker of bitterness, was it just your wishful thinking?
What were you expecting, anyway?
The pope turns to leave, not letting you see his expression alongside his response.
“Yeah,” he says distantly.
…What a lonely figure.
“You’re right. It’s not necessary, after all.”
Your reports to Ayn have been much more frequent than ever before.
It’s your own selfishness, really; you know all too well that your days are numbered, and that the end is drawing ever closer. So, you extend your reports to him, rambling about all sorts of unrelated topics.
As you expected, he listens to you, hanging onto every word articulated by a stolen corpse.
“...and a few days ago, the pope visited me again.”
Ayn shifts slightly, his every movement catching your eye, no matter how minor. “What did the two of you talk about?”
You freeze, the words catching in your throat.
Neither you nor Ayn ever brought up what the two of you have given up. He hasn’t laid hands on a piano since the fusion of worlds, nor have you picked up a paintbrush since.
Right as Ayn is about to move on after seeing your silence, you blurt out: “I asked him if he’s played an instrument before.”
Ayn’s eyes widen fractionally, as though not having expected you to actually answer. His fingers tap idly against the arm of his chair as he asks a follow-up question.
“Has he?”
“...He never answered me. And I didn’t push the topic any further, since it was just a meaningless conversation anyway.”
Ayn is the first to break the silence that befalls the two of you.
“Should I find some art supplies and… send it over to you?”
You freeze on the spot, looking at Ayn like a deer in headlights. You wonder if maybe he’s joking, if he’s just talking nonsense…
But deep down, you know he’s not.
He has always taken art seriously, no matter the form it takes.
This is just how he is.
…It seems like some parts of him have remained unchanged, even after ten thousand years.
“It’s not necessary,” you reply unconvincingly.
His pupils constrict slightly, and Ayn hesitates before he utters a hushed confession.
“But I would like to see your paintings again one day.”
At that moment, the words come tumbling forth before you can stop them.
“I’d like to hear you play piano again one day, too.”
At that, he smiles.
You immediately wish you could take it back.
But it’s unbearably lonely. The curve of his lips is thin, resigned and weary, speaking to an endless sorrow that you understand well.
In that moment, your self-hatred grows.
He has always been your biggest regret. You don’t regret giving him your support over the years, acting as his anchor, and you don’t regret making him smile and showing him what the world has to offer. You don’t regret all of those light and heavy touches, indirect and direct, nor do you regret those long nights accompanied by muffled chatter through calls under the moonlight. You don’t regret painting his music, nor do you regret the countless hours you spent with him in his piano room, each of you working on your respective assignments. You don’t regret being there with him, calling his name fervently time and time again to remind him that he exists in this world, and so do you.
You don’t regret meeting him— not at all.
You would do it all over again, without fail, even if it would be selfish of you.
But what you do regret is—
That you abandoned him first.
ENTERING…
<MEMORY 5.>
You haven’t been visiting Ayn’s dreams as frequently. He no longer dreams as much, nor do you have enough courage to visit him in his dreams after the last instance. Fragmented shards of the memories haunting him had flown at you like shrapnel on the battlefield, scratching at you and plunging you into a deep abyss of despair every time you so much as grazed a corner.
Tonight, you’re left in the midst of a bustling arts market full of artists sharing their pieces with the passersby. But that isn’t what draws your attention— not the finely crafted pottery with colourful patterns, not the hand-knitted scarves, hats, or mittens, nor is it the glassware shimmering under the warm light.
No, it’s the two teenage figures standing in two different crowds that you pay attention to.
A boy, seventeen years in age, wanders around the market with a permanent crease in his forehead from his frown. Not too far behind, bodyguards trail after him frantically, doing their best not to lose their young master in the lively crowd.
On the other end, there is a girl who walks around dazedly like a lost rabbit. She goes from stall to stall, curiously observing the pieces set out, but too shy to engage in further conversation with the lively strangers after shutting herself indoors for so long.
Neither you nor Ayn had remembered this, not at first. It wasn’t until the first New Years you spent with him that you were sent back in time temporarily. Later, you told him about the chance meeting between the younger versions of yourself and Ayn. Together, the two of you mused over it for a bit, thinking it to be a little funny.
Although you’ve been standing in a daze for an indeterminate amount of time, the crowd around you doesn’t react. The phase through you, as though you don’t exist— and you suppose you really don’t. Not here. Not in this form.
“...The rule is simple. You take a look around and find a new friend to exchange gifts with so that everyone can enjoy a little surprise during the New Year.”
You stir when you hear an announcer’s voice.
It was around this time when you—
“Ah!”
You stumble a bit, someone bumping into your shoulder. When you look up, your breath hitches, his name slipping out easily like second nature.
“Ayn.”
It isn’t the Ayn of a distant past. It’s your Ayn— it’s the Ayn who had weathered ten thousand years of sin alongside you, for you, because of you.
“Miss Painter.”
Subconsciously, you shrink back when he murmurs this nickname. Amongst the excited chatter of the pairs exchanging gifts, his voice is the clearest to you.
He hasn’t called you this in a very, very long time.
Neither of you has anything to gift the other. You’ve already given him everything that belongs to you a long time ago, and so has he.
Instead, you step closer to him, carefully cradling his cheek. You hold him as though you are holding the entire universe in your palm, and he tilts his head slightly. The ends of his hair tickle the back of your palm, his eyelashes fluttering against your fingertips.
Still, no matter how tenderly he looks at you, how lovingly he holds you, he can’t conceal the fatigue that dulls his once beautifully vibrant eyes.
“Thank you for showing up in my dreams still,” he says, finally, his hand covering your hand on his cheek.
All at once, the already fragile walls surrounding your heart shatter into countless, tiny pieces.
“Why can’t you resent me?” you ask desperately, wanting to pull back and run into his arms all at once.
Your free hand curls into a loose fist as you hit his chest weakly, forehead falling onto his shoulder.
“Why can’t you scorn me? Blame me? Hate me? Call me out for being a coward, for being a hypocrite— for, for… for running away in the end, for— abandoning you…”
Your nose feels sore, your heart trembling with every childish complaint you throw at him.
Ayn exhales shakily, his arm wrapping itself around your waist tightly to steady you.
“I can’t do any of those things… just as you won’t blame me for the lives I’ve taken.”
Your fist falls, then curls around the fabric of Ayn’s uniform.
“I miss you so much,” you confess. “But I’m so tired of existing in this world at constant odds with itself. I don’t know if I can keep going anymore, if I would even want to— I think I was even relieved, a little, when I found out that my time left was limited.”
Ayn’s breathing grows unsteady, but he resolutely doesn’t let go of you.
“Yeah.”
“I even thought of leaving you behind.”
“Yeah.”
“...Aren’t you mad?”
His hair tickles your neck as he buries his face in your shoulder. Ayn’s voice comes out muffled against your skin, but rings loud and clear nonetheless.
“I will follow you to the end, no matter the decision you make. Whether you choose to live or to die, I will not leave you.”
He speaks with a faint tremor, and you realize that he’s just as scared as you are.
“I’m sorry,” you sob helplessly.
A distance away, a boy drops his red-and-white rabbit keychain. A girl pauses in her steps and crouches down to pick up the cute accessory.
Where the story begins somewhere, another story comes to its finale.
“I—” you choke out, hugging Ayn desperately, belatedly realizing that he is so, so, so cold.
You try to transmit your warmth to him, but you can’t even realize that you’ve long since lost your own warmth.
“I’m glad to have met you,” Ayn whispers.
You exhale shakily, your arms slackening as you let go of him.
As the dream crumbles apart, you whisper your sincere response to him from the bottom of your heart.
“Me too.
Thank you for all of these memories you’ve given me,
For all of the wonderful things you’ve shown me,
For the life you’ve shared with me.”
At the end of the world, he gazes down at you in a body that does not belong to him. You reach out shakily, leaning against him tiredly in a body that you cannot call yours.
But you see him.
Ayn.
Your love, the one who has been with you for the past ten thousand years, doing everything he can to keep your spirit alive.
It’s too late for the two of you— any possible routes available to the two of you are irreversibly intertwined, and you know that no matter what outcome you choose, he will follow you without hesitation.
He is what links you to this world and life, your biggest regret.
The exhaustion in his eyes breaks your heart. The last reserves of energy left in this body flicker, and you wordlessly channel it into the pope— into Ayn.
If you can ease his pain, even if just superficially, if you can do anything at all...
You do your best to surround him with the remaining warmth in this world. In response, his spirit gradually appears, enveloping the two of you in a cocoon.
In this bleak world, he continues to fill your world with colour. Vibrant reds, hazy blues, and rich greens all mix together in a kaleidoscope of colour. It is his soul, shining bright as this story comes to an end.
What a beautiful soul, you think, smiling blissfully.
You waited for him, for as long as you possibly could— until the end of time, the end of your life as a traveller.
In the desolate universe, he races towards you and meets you there.
He whispers your name without any judgement, waiting for your final decision.
Ayn asks you softly:
“Do you want to live?”
“I…”
…
…
…
You have given me everything you own, and I have given you everything I own in turn. You have kept the memory of my spirit alive, as I have with yours.
Ayn... my love. My muse. My world.
I do not regret meeting you. I will never regret meeting you.
Let’s welcome a new era together, hand in hand.
<...>
<...>
<???>
The fusion of worlds is now over.
It was a long, gruelling battle fought by countless planets in the universe. In a universe that was once populated with an seemingly infinite amount of civilizations, only one was left to remember all the losses and gains incurred.
You stand up on the cliff overlooking the village being reconstructed. As you do so, you tug at the person who had been sitting next to you, his legs dangling over the ledge.
“Come on, Ayn.”
With a quiet grunt, Ayn hauls himself up and pats off the dirt clinging to his pants. His head tilts slightly, eyes bright as he looks at you curiously. The ends of his hairs, grown out a touch longer— he’d been too lazy to get a haircut— curl slightly against his shoulder.
There are no more expectations left for you to carry, nor are there any for him.
At the end of the world, the two of you wake up with bleary eyes, a distant witness to the rebirth of a new era.
“Where to, Miss Painter?”
You smile brightly, pulling him with you as you run into the field of snow.
“To witness the birth of a new world.”
end notes: what a doozy. if you're curious about what specific lbc stories i was directly referencing, i talk about it in the ending notes on the ao3 fic
spoilers for patriarch's [the decameron] story as well as his ssr card story [sink in dasein]
After meeting Miss Traveller, he dreams within a dream.
His memories are fragmented, his mind scattered— which is reality, and which is a dream?
Who is "Ayn"?
Quietly, he yearns.
notes: told in 2nd pov, some descriptions of the little painter, not fully linear, ~6k
PART I · his dream
He is sinking, sinking, sinking deeper still;
The world crumbles at his feet, consumed by writhing shadows staring right at him.
The arms of the bone sword hold onto your wrist tightly, almost possessively. A myriad of emotions flicker through your eyes— confusion, sorrow, anger, regret…
He simply smiles, eyes curving as he holds the blade in his hand.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, gentle, loving, cruel.
The marble pillars disintegrate and crumble, falling snow that melts within the void at his feet.
“None of this is real, after all.”
At the end of the dream, he sees you.
…
…
…
The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is you.
His Cardinal, dutifully standing by the steps leading to the sword-crossed throne he rests upon, head slightly lowered. He looks around dazedly. The next things he sees are tall, marble pillars blurring into one blank canvas, his vision foggy and blurred. He falls back on his throne, staring listlessly at the hazy sunlight encasing him within a dreamy glow.
Memories burst forth, not unlike a flood breaking through a dam. It leaves him disoriented, his head aching.
In a few mere seconds, the feeling subsides. His mind calms. Quiets.
He reaches for his armrest.
“Your Holiness,” you call softly, his fingertips just millimetres from grazing the metronome at his side.
“Hmm.”
He sits upright in his throne as the fog gradually clears. Other fragmented memories continue to piece themselves back together, his soul like a jigsaw frantically trying to gather to form the current Patriarch.
His lips curl.
Hah.
“...Your Holiness?” you repeat, brows furrowed ever-so-slightly in concern when you see his odd expression.
“No, it’s nothing…” he murmurs, sighing as he regains control over himself. “Are you here to report your recent results from the training grounds?”
“Yes, though… you probably already know about it…”
He does. In the few months following your very first defeat at the Empire’s training grounds, you haven’t lost a single match since. You’ve been working tirelessly hard to rebuild your temporarily stricken reputation— this time, more fearsome than before and with a newfound determination.
A gloved hand habitually touches the corner of his upturned lips in a poor attempt to conceal his emotions.
He’d told you that you didn’t need to win every battle. That isn’t a burden you need to carry, after all. Nonetheless, he feels pride in seeing your confidence.
“Well, I’ve heard about the results. But I would like to hear the finer details from you.”
Your back straightens, arms folded behind you as though you were about to give him a detailed report about one of your patrols.
You haven’t yet mastered a calm demeanour, unable to hide your excitement, no matter how thinly you press your lips. You speak in an orderly manner, but he catches a hint of breathlessness as you rapidly detail every move you take in all of your battles, your thought processes…
His heart twists into knots, an uncomfortable clash of happiness and regret settling deep within him.
Everything you explain to him is something he’s intimately familiar with.
These are all things I would do, after all.
His gaze softens, and he beckons you forth.
“Come to me.”
You step forth, steps confident and graceful. You’ve grown quickly in just a few, short years— even faster than he had.
“Your Holiness?”
He rests a hand atop your head, lightly messing up your hair with the action.
“You’ve done well.”
Your eyes shine, unable to help the broad smile that forms on your face.
“Thank you, Your Holiness!”
It’s then that something catches the corner of his eye. He raises an eyebrow, lowering his hand to point at something, much to your confusion.
You glance down. Your expression quickly shifts from one of joy to a sheepish one as you instinctively hide your hands behind your back.
“I’ve already seen the bandages,” Patriarch murmurs in a tone used to coax children. “I’m not mad at you; don’t worry.”
You hesitate for a long time, looking around the large palace, at everything but him. From this reaction, he guesses that it’s something you think is embarrassing— maybe a wound from a careless mistake that the perfect soldier shouldn’t have made.
But you don’t need to be the perfect soldier.
He waits patiently for you to explain what the small bandages wrapped around your fingers are. What weapons do the students at the Empire’s bases wield? Which weapons would cause wounds so small? A feather-light graze from a dagger, perhaps?
Finally, you give your answer:
“It’s… It’s a secret..!”
Patriarch’s eyes widen fractionally in unconcealed surprise.
This is a first.
Since he found you, shivering, trembling, in the dark closet with shadows pulling at your clothes, you’d kept no secrets from him.
You were wary of him, at first— of course, you were. After all, the shadow of death clung to your shoulders, the scent stuck to your clothes no matter how many times you changed, and you were wary of the entire world.
Since he gave you a new stuffed toy to hold onto at night— an odd, red-and-white rabbit doll that he had made on a whim to quell your fears— you hadn’t kept a single secret from him. You shared with him your joy, your sorrow, your concerns, all of it. You followed all of his words perfectly, properly communicating to him when you disagreed with something or otherwise.
…So, this is a first.
Patriarch sits on his throne dazedly. What would make you keep a secret from him? Did you kill someone? He wouldn’t exactly encourage it, for that path is not one he wants you to tread down, but he wouldn’t be mad. It’s quite commonplace in the Infinite Empire, and very few would bat an eye at another corpse found in the halls or elsewhere.
Well, you’ll probably tell him once you’re ready.
He meets your nervous, shifty gaze with a warm smile as he leans back on his throne.
“Very well. I won’t pry any further, then.”
You blink owlishly at him, as though you’d expected a different reaction.
“What?” he continues, with some humour. “Am I that frightening to you?”
“No!” you quickly shake your head, somewhat embarrassed. “Um… I promise it’s not a bad secret!”
Oftentimes, you remind Patriarch of himself. Other times, he feels a startling cold overcome him as he realizes that you aren’t really him.
You’re still naive, starry-eyed, and a little timid. You have learned from him all sorts of combat strategies, but you maintain the innocence of youth.
His mind drifts to old, old memories.
You will not go down the same path as he did.
…He’ll make sure of it.
“I know,” Patriarch replies simply. He knows you’re not plotting against him, because—
Your heart is pure and without a hint of malice towards him.
———
Patriarch blinks, bleary-eyed, as his surroundings come into focus. Immediately, out of habit, he reaches for Dasein.
Tick, tick, tick, tick…
…
The soft, mechanical clicking is lost to silence and stops after a few long seconds.
He rolls his neck, tapping his temple with an odd, inexplicable smile on his face. Memories of reality come flooding in, with some new ones taken from the dream mixed in.
“Hello… Traveler on the run.”
He whispers to himself, then laughs— almost manic.
A very fruitful dream.
After hundreds of attempts to find someone who could carry out the role of the martyr in the script, he’s finally found the perfect match. There’d always been that itch in the back of his mind, a whisper; a whisper he couldn’t make out, a whisper he couldn’t quite quash.
He remembers.
That fragmented memory, lost beneath the thousands of clamouring souls grasping at his mind— he’s located it.
So that’s how it was.
He can’t say he feels much. After all, it has been an unspeakably long, long time since he was “Ayn” in that cycle of servitude. Nonetheless, that’s at least one less voice nagging at him.
He’s looking forward to when he can see you next.
It's been a long time since he’s remembered that feeling of hatred, that feeling of despair. The righteous attitude you showed him, your unwavering stubbornness in carrying out your idea of justice.
The foolishness of the boy who’d long since become one with the dust of that world lost in history.
The memories are fragmented, but it’s enough to remind him that he’d been a human once.
It’s just a pity that “Ayn” is no longer anywhere to be seen.
He can’t help but mull over your confused, torn expression, as though he had betrayed you, somehow. He can’t help but think of the words you had spat out, full of malice.
“I actually once believed you were different from them.”
…How foolish.
But…
Very good, he thinks, with an almost perverted sense of humour.
Everything was almost perfect, down to the boiling hatred. Almost everything. Everything but the very end.
He squints his eyes at seemingly nothing. Then, he flexes his fingers, and millions of threads come to life before him. They all connect in an intricate web, and he is at the centre of it all.
A fly stuck in a spider’s web, maybe.
With a single twitch of his fingers, countless souls shift, restless. Along the threads crawls all sorts of emotions— emotions he couldn’t care less about.
He doesn’t mind having all of the darkest parts of the human heart directed towards him.
It allows him to entertain the notion that he still exists, as something more than a strung puppet perched atop a gilded throne.
So, he thinks, lips curling, Despise me with all you’ve got.
———
You’ve been quite skittish around him recently. He’s had a hard time finding a reason behind your little mannerisms in the past few days— for instance, he has no idea why you seem particularly taken with his military hat.
Patriarch silently escorts you back to the palace located far away on top of a long-abandoned civilization, waiting as he always does.
You follow about two to three steps behind, outside of his view, but he can hear your nervousness.
…Your anxiety is starting to make him anxious.
The last time you were this anxious was several months back when you’d lost your first match, terrified of being scolded, of losing his approval.
He can more or less guess that your unease is related to whatever secret you’ve been trying to keep from him the past few weeks.
How should he handle this?
There aren’t exactly lessons for this in the Empire, after all. Patriarch doesn’t even bother to compare himself to the Empire’s methods of raising children… the bar would be in hell.
He’d like to wait for you to approach him first, but it would be troublesome if the secret was something that would put you in danger.
“How was your time at the Empire’s bases?”
He glances behind him, squinting his eyes slightly when he sees that your hands are hidden behind your back. He knows your walking habits well, and you usually like to keep your hands free at your side, prepared to attack at any given time if need be.
“Huh? Um, I learned a lot…”
He frowns.
It’s the same type of wound, small bandages wrapped around your fingers.
You seldom make the same mistake twice. You’re a remarkably quick learner, studious and hardworking. He guesses that it wasn’t a misstep in the training grounds after all.
So…
What, then?
He narrows his eyes.
“You aren’t being mistreated by the others at the training grounds, are you?”
Your eyebrows fly up, shock evident on your face. “What? No!”
Then, you follow it up with an indignant tone, brows furrowed.
“I wouldn’t let myself get beaten up by those people. You were the one who taught me how to escape any situation and to never bow my head.”
Patriarch raises an eyebrow, nodding in approval.
“Indeed… so where do your injuries come from?”
Immediately, you clam up.
Patriarch sighs, speaking in a softer voice.
“I don’t mind if you keep secrets from me… but I hope you can tell me if something has been hurting you. I want you to know that I’m here for you and I will support you in whatever way possible.”
His gaze lingers on your face, almost wishing he could read your thoughts.
Your figure overlaps with a distant ghost. One of a young child stained with mud, huddled in a dark corner, gritting his teeth with all his might to endure the endless pain in silence. Alone.
“I told you, right? I always win every battle I fight. So, if you tell me who’s hurting you, I can help you.”
Guilt flickers across your expression, fleeting, quickly replaced by determination.
“I know. I will always go to you first, Your Holiness,” you say resolutely. “I promise, nothing bad is happening. I’ve just been… trying new things, and it’s taking some time for me to get used to it.”
He carefully watches your expression, your body language, but you simply look at him straight-on with honest and pure eyes.
Finally, he relaxes.
“Very well. A new hobby? Have you been trying a new technique for your drawings?”
Your eyes curve as you smile excitedly, a single finger held up against your lips.
“It’s a secret!”
———
He’s quick to sort through the memories— through the memories that belong to “Patriarch”, through the memories that belong to the “shadows”.
Patriarch sighs wearily, watching as golden lights come into focus once again.
In these moments, he feels as though he’s floating. He has no anchor, no root, no existence— he is but another shadow amongst millions, shifting endlessly in agonizing misery as they yearn to be whole.
He reaches out to his armrest, the metal of Dasein cold even through his gloves.
Tick, tick, tick…
…
It stopped.
He’s long since stopped being as active in the Empire, now keeping to himself on top of worlds forgotten. The instincts still crawl beneath his skin, clamouring for something— they have never left, and they never will.
It’s just that he’s been too exhausted recently and can’t bring himself to do what he once did.
Patriarch laughs at himself, sneering.
Not for the first time, he thinks of what might end him and this farce.
Your skirt flutters in the corner of his vision, causing him to turn his head.
His lips part, temporarily at a loss.
Then, he chuckles.
…From the dream, he reminds himself. Not from reality.
Recently, he’s been dreaming of you. Since the first encounter, since the dream following that, your ghost seems to have been haunting his soul on a frequent basis.
None of them has been truly you, but rather a phantom conjured by his personal wishes and memories. If it were truly your spirit there, he guesses that the first thing you’d want to do is thrust the bone sword through his chest.
…His Cardinal.
Patriarch covers his eyes with an arm, blocking out the light and temporarily taking sight from himself.
The inky darkness is not so different from the thin boundary separating reality and dreams. It’s not so dissimilar from the void he stands in when he’s about to awaken from a dream, dark mist spilling from him uncontrollably when he plunges the blade through his chest, neck, or even head.
His finger twitches, itching for something.
The phantom pain tends to linger for a few seconds every time he wakes from another dream. It does nothing to ease the sensory overload he experiences whenever he needs to reorient himself, when he returns to true existence.
He reaches for the bone sword propped against his throne, thin and odd. It feels warm to the touch, as though coated in a thin layer of fresh, warm blood.
Your figure overlaps with another, and the line between dreams and reality blurs.
…
This is why I hate dreaming.
———
You weren’t always so confident.
He remembers when he’d first taken you under his wing, Ricky staring at you with great curiosity. Though he never said anything, Patriarch can easily see the astonishment on the Deacon’s expression.
“You will watch over her today, while I’m gone.”
He didn’t want to leave you alone this early on, but the Empire has been nagging him incessantly for the next energy transfer, amongst other things. He guesses he’s being summoned to be reminded of where he stands in the Empire’s hierarchy— and as much as he doesn’t want to go, it’s a summons he cannot ignore.
Or, maybe, they’ve already found out about…
The little girl, standing behind his throne, who shakes violently as she curls up into a little ball.
“Yes, My Lord,” Ricky bows his head, not daring to say anything in front of the Patriarch.
Patriarch only glances back once as he leaves his palace for the Empire, watching as Ricky tries to make himself as small and non-threatening as possible. You shuffle back with wide eyes, squeezing the worn teddy bear in your arms so fiercely that the head might pop off at any second.
…It’s better he get this done and over with sooner rather than later.
Ayn doesn’t often interact with the Empire’s main base, nor the center. He has long stepped back from the front lines, preferring to keep to himself. The Empire is callous, cold, which isn’t bad. It’s almost beneficial to the present-day him, really, with how little they care for their discarded soldiers. He can usually continue existing quietly with the bare minimum energy transfers.
That’s how he’s been living for a long time, in any case, before today’s summons.
The Empire’s base is far, leaving Patriarch with plenty of time to mull over the events that have transpired in the past few days.
Prefect Crimson’s daughter…
The universe continues, the passage of time far crueller than anything the Empire could do. He’d heard whispers of a Prefect betraying the Empire, but he’d waved it off for the most part. It’s somewhat uncommon that Prefects would betray the Empire, but not unheard of.
And Patriarch wants as little to do with the Empire as possible.
Taking you in might’ve been more trouble than you’re worth. It would seem that, by taking you in, he’s disrupted his usual routine.
…But, that look in your eyes, the brief flicker of fury so fleeting that he almost thought he imagined it—
He’s been looking for that spark.
It’s an opportunity he simply can’t ignore.
So, into the room full of everything and nothing, a room where flickering dots of light converge into eyes ever watching.
His eyes smile insincerely as he watches the string of text formed by the Center. He laughs lowly— he figured as much.
Though he’s maintained a neutral relationship with the Empire the last several decades, in the end…
There is nothing he hates more than the Infinite Empire.
The lights flicker, blinking aggressively, as though trying to ward off a predator mere steps away from tearing out their throat.
He simply tilts his head, arms crossed leisurely.”
“I see…”
The text on the system message is bright, reflected in his pupils.
“So, that’s how it is.”
…
…
…
As soon as Patriarch returns, he’s met with Ricky’s poorly concealed anxiety.
He raises an eyebrow— were you that much of a handful?
“My deepest apologies, My Lord. It would seem that the girl has gone missing.”
“...Oh?”
Amusing.
Ricky’s face pales when he sees the smile playing at Patriarch’s lips. He lowers his head further still, tensed.
“It seems she’s good enough to escape the eyes of my men?”
Patriarch strolls past Ricky, waving a hand carelessly.
“You may return to your usual duties. I will find her.”
“...Yes, My Lord.”
It’s not hard to find you.
It’s so easy that he wonders if he needs to start personally training those who serve him— it seems they’ve gone soft from so many years of inactivity.
This palace is his, and there is no one more intimate with its layout than he.
The scene before him overlaps with his first encounter with you. Trembling, curled up against the corner of the dark closet, looking up at him with the eyes of a cornered animal just one step away from lashing out.
How familiar.
This time, though, you don’t have that big bear of yours.
“Are you fond of closets?”
“...”
“Or, is it the small space that reassures you, knowing you can see every potential location an enemy may attack?”
“...”
Unsurprisingly, you’re just as silent as the first day he met you.
No— he thinks your silence has grown worse, more anxious. He glances at your arms, desperately hugging your knees to fill in the gap left behind by the bear that had accompanied you previously.
“Where did your doll go?”
“...”
Hmm.
You’re stubborn about not saying anything.
Then, perhaps he should do something similar to what he did the first time he saw you curled up in the corner of a dark closet.
Patriarch takes a step back, leaving the closet temporarily. It’s easy enough for him to gather various odd materials lying around, previously dormant red threads tensing and searching. Stitches fall neatly into place, and he creates a new doll in a matter of minutes. He knows his way well around a needle and thread; creating a doll is child’s play to him.
It’s a red-and-white rabbit doll. He made it instinctively, without any particular reason— it was the first design that came to mind. It reminded him a bit of you.
The entire time, he doesn’t hear a single peep from the closet’s shadows.
But he does hear your breath hitch ever-so-slightly when he approaches the closet, his muffled footsteps startlingly loud in the silent bedroom.
The heavy moonlight marks out a clean, thin shape against the polished wood through the closet’s door. He stands with his back to the closed half of the closet, invisible threads attaching to the doll in his hand.
After confirming once, twice, thrice, that nobody is within 500 metres of this room, the rabbit doll peeks around the corner of the closet door.
“Hello?”
Patriarch speaks in a nasally voice, crooking his finger to make the rabbit doll’s head peek around the dark closet.
The rabbit doll stumbles around blindly, flailing around awkwardly. He figures the doll will be less intimidating if it’s unable to walk properly and flopping around everywhere.
And flop it did.
He hears the quiet thump of a soft doll tripping and falling on its face.
The silence is particularly deafening.
…Should I say ‘Ow’ here?
…
“Ow.”
“Pfft.”
Patriarch falls silent for a bit when he hears your muffled laugh, a bit confused, a bit amused. He gathers himself and continues.
“Help me?”
The rabbit doll stretches out its arms, as though asking for a hug or to be lifted up. The threads connected to the doll tighten as the doll is pulled deeper into the closet, then slacken as Patriarch releases the doll from his control.
The bedroom falls silent once more.
He sees the red-and-white rabbit doll peek out from within the closet, a little hand wrapped around its waving paw.
He hears a meek voice from the shadows: “Thank you.”
When he sees you peeking out from the closet alongside the doll, Patriarch crouches down with a slight smile to even out the height difference.
“I have taken you under my wing, and you are now in my domain. In this place, nobody will dare hurt you as I am the most powerful person here.”
You blink up at him with watery eyes, hugging the rabbit doll close to your chest.
Then, you clamber out of the closet and stand as tall as you can.
“How can I be a powerful person like you?”
Your eyes sharpen. It’s a glint of determination familiar to him.
“That way… I can save the people I like. I want to do something about the bad things in the world.”
He’s caught off guard by how quickly you rise to your feet, driven by an invisible courage he doesn’t remember the feeling of.
Patriarch nods seriously, carefully listening to your declaration.
“You want to become a powerful person? Then, the first step to that is…”
You lean forward with wide eyes, rabbit doll in hand.
He gestures towards the large bed in the room.
“...To rest up properly.”
Confusion flickers across your face before you nod determinedly, running over to the big bed and crawling under the sheets. Patriarch holds back an amused huff, standing up and properly closing the closet door.
He draws the curtains, plunging the room into a serene darkness.
“We will talk about where you’ll go from here tomorrow. If you’re looking to become a powerful individual, I will assist in any way I can.”
“Okay…”
He hears the blanket rustle as you try to get more comfortable in the large bed.
Patriarch’s glove rests on the doorknob, about to take his leave, when he hears you call out softly.
“Wait.”
“What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t get a response immediately. You hesitate for a long time, watching him timidly. Then, you pull the covers over your head, and he hears your muffled response:
“Nevermind…”
He raises an eyebrow, standing by the door for a few more seconds before he pulls a chair up to your bedside.
Patriarch makes a guess, speaking gently: “You have something on your mind?”
When you don’t reply, he continues.
“It’s okay to tell me. I’ll listen to you.”
You peek out from the covers again, the red-and-white rabbit doll resurfacing alongside you. Patriarch turns on the night lamp on the nightstand, creating a little pocket of gentle, golden light within the dark room.
“I’ve been having scary dreams,” you confess in a mumble.
Ah, he thinks. Patriarch should’ve figured as much.
He was the same in the first weeks he spent at the Empire.
…His dreams have only gotten worse since, but they don’t affect him anymore. He’s learned how to quell the innate fears of his heart, learned to rein in his desires and learned to keep a rational head in the most absurd of dreams.
“I told you, didn’t I?” Patriarch murmurs, reaching out to tap your forehead.
From a distant place, threads lift, and previously set backdrops change scene.
“You are in my domain. Nobody will hurt you, not even dreams, for I am more powerful than all of them.”
Your eyes glitter, with tears, with light, maybe with hope— and you finally let the fatigue rest, eyes drooping in drowsiness.
As you slip into the tangled world of dreams, Patriarch whispers his promise.
“You will never have a bad dream for as long as I am by your side.”
———
You instinctively shield your eyes when you open them to a grand palace, sunlight spilling in through countless windows stretched unreasonably tall.
You feel a sinking sensation, an odd disconnect between your soul and body.
You recognize this place.
From a dream dreamt countless dreams ago.
You look up and finally notice the figure on the throne at the centre of the empty hall. The only items accompanying him are an intricately crafted metronome shaped like a musical instrument, and… a red and white rabbit doll.
Patriarch looks up, blinking slowly, lazily. There’s that fatigue in his expression, body, that you had caught a glimpse of. The weariness that had left an impression in the back of your mind since first seeing it.
Your finger twitches, and you belatedly feel the heavy weight in your hand. It’s the intricate sword of bone he had given you in your first encounter with him. You relax your hand, trying to drop the sword, but to no avail. The claws dig into the soft flesh of your wrist, causing you to wince. The tip of the blade trembles, pointed straight at—
Him.
“...Cardinal?”
You have no time to react before the exhaustion on Patriarch’s face dissipates like smoke.
“Ah, I’m mistaken,” he muses. His eyes narrow playfully, a hint of self-mockery flickering within deep red eyes.
The man before you seems to laugh at himself. He covers the corner of his curled lips with a gloved hand, surveying you with great intrigue.
“...I see.”
You see the endless void in dull, crimson eyes.
You see—
Vibrant strings take control of your limbs, throwing you out through the gilded gate behind you.
“Let us meet in the next dream, hmm?”
—A profound yearning.
…
…
…
You gasp, eyes flying open.
You sit up in your bed unsteadily, blanket crumpled by your fingers. Carefully, you pore over every detail of your room, desperately trying to confirm something. Trying to ease the confusion muddying your mind.
…This is real. It is four in the morning, and you've awoken from a dream. This is your reality, on Earth, in your room filled with countless sketches, with an unfinished project on the display of your tablet.
You can't help but recall those distant eyes watching you as the doors closed.
Then, you think, what about him?
You steady yourself with a long sigh, the headache eventually clearing. You look out the window at the sky, the murky darkness pierced through by distant stars seemingly watching over your dreams.
Who is the him of reality, and who is the him of dreams?
———
Patriarch is speechless.
For the first time in a very long time, he doesn’t know what to say.
There are moments where he is momentarily stunned, but he has always been quick about gathering his wits and coming up with an adequate response.
This, however…
“Sorry. It might be a bit too ugly, after all…”
You kneel before him, hands outstretched as though presenting an offering to a deity.
…A bit over the top, he thinks, when the object in question is a small red-and-white rabbit doll.
When he sees the rabbit doll before him with visible stitches of an amateur, all of the hints suddenly connect in a laughably simple conclusion.
There’s just one mystery remaining—
Why?
He combs through all of his memories, as fragmented as they are, for any hints as to why you would be presenting him with a gift. He surmises it to be a holiday from that blue planet you’d been born from, as you’d always been particularly stubborn about celebrating your home’s holidays. Christmas, Halloween, Easter… you’d even asked him once about his birthday.
Which holiday is today?
In the end, it’s best to ask you directly.
“My Cardinal, please stand,” he starts, watching as you rise to your feet while keeping your head bowed. It’s less out of reverence towards him, but more to hide your embarrassment. He steps down from his throne, taking the small rabbit doll from your hands.
It’s very close to the one he’d given you several years ago, from before he started teaching you how to wield a sword. But upon closer inspection, there are all sorts of imperfections— a telltale sign of an amateur working blindly without any guidance. The black, beady eyes, for one, are crooked.
That said, the small hat between its ears is detailed and matches the hat of his uniform remarkably well.
“Is… today a special day?”
“Oh… right!”
You straighten your posture, looking at him sheepishly. “I never explained it to you, but… today is Father’s Day.”
Patriarch raises his eyebrows, stunned into silence for a second time within the span of a few minutes.
“I… I was a little too embarrassed to bring it up to you before, but… I did want to do something eventually. It’s not very good, though, because I don’t have much experience with needles.”
“If you so wished, I wouldn’t have minded helping you with sewing. I’m quite good at it.”
“I know— the dresses you made for me were really fancy… but that’s not the point! It was supposed to be a surprise.”
You pause, as though catching your breath.
“Do… you, um…”
Patriarch smiles, eyes curving into little pleased crescents as he gently pats your head. He turns around and returns to his throne, resting the red-and-white rabbit doll on the armrest. He sits back down, lightly patting the hat of the rabbit doll.
“I’m very happy. Thank you.”
Your eyes light up, and the smile on your face is giddy. Your excitement is almost contagious, and all Patriarch can do is poorly conceal his fondness with a gloved hand.
Father’s Day, he muses. I see.
The large palace he’s created for himself doesn’t feel so empty anymore.
What a peaceful existence.
...
But in the end, this was just another form of “fallenness”.
———
“...”
Wordlessly, Patriarch reaches for his armrest, touching Dasein. The pendulum swings back and forth in a steady and constant rhythm once, twice, thrice—
Tick, tick, tick…
Then, it stops.
His hand lightly touches his chest, his heart.
The memories come flooding back as the reality before his eyes comes into focus in the most familiar manner. The blurred lights become clearer, the fuzzy outlines of his hands become sharper, and the bone sword at his side is sharp and dutifully waiting for him to wield it once more.
There is no rabbit doll sitting atop his armrest.
“Ahh…”
Patriarch dreamt of his Cardinal killing him.
He did think you felt vaguely familiar, reminding him of his old teacher—
Crimson… when did she die?
The flow of time has long become muddied, his own memories disordered and confused. A consequence of his power— a price he must pay for his control over souls.
You seem to have had a stronger impact on him than he initially thought. This being the first dream he has right after meeting you in that layered dream…
It seems that even he isn’t immune to “fallenness”, no matter how many dreams he’s dreamt, no matter how many dreams he’s had of a dream within a dream.
With every dream, he learns a little more about himself.
How interesting.
And…
Frightening— but thrilling.
What kinds of dreams will you bring to me the next time we meet?
Until the next dream we dream…
Miss Traveller.
PART II · a dream lost
Tick, tick, tick…
Patriarch, are you… lonely?
“Oh? What makes you say that, Miss Traveller?”
...You know, you never answered me.
“I feel as though I’ve answered plenty, though.”
The Ayn of that world—
It was you, wasn’t it?
“…”
“Miss Traveller, it seems to me that you have already come to your own conclusion.”
“Don’t you find it silly to ask questions that you’ve already answered in your heart?”
“I told you once before, a divine such as myself can get impatient when asked too many questions.”
I want to hear it from you.
Patriarch, who are you?
“…”
You seem confused about yourself, dazed. Tired of something.
Tell me, what happened to you?
“Well, you saw it for yourself, did you not?”
“A poor, foolish horned boy believed in justice and persisted in upholding this even when his friends turned on him, even though nobody on either side of the war could understand him.”
…Tell me about what happened to you after.
“I’m not quite sure myself.”
“Who am I? I wouldn’t mind telling you straightforwardly if I knew the answer myself.”
“I have abandoned my former self. The horns upon my head have been carved into nothingness, and I have integrated with the Empire.”
“I have consumed tens of thousands of souls.”
“I have seen the dreams of countless unique existences scattered across this impossibly vast universe.”
“My memories are fragmented, jumbled, and I do not know where the end begins, nor do I know where the beginning ends.”
…Patriarch.
“I unconsciously seek out remnants of that “Ayn”, looking to calm the constantly raging tides deep beneath the patchwork souls I’ve used to continue my existence.”
“But when I do find these remnants, I’m left dazed in the end.”
“Is it truly me?”
“Or am I a different person from that “Ayn”? I find myself unable to answer this.”
…Ayn.
“..!”
“It’s… been a long time since I’ve last been called this.”
end notes: i'm never doing fics for holidays. this was so stressful (completely my fault) (person who only thought of this fic the night before father's day. person who was occupied for the majority of father's day. it is june 15th 11:49 at night as i upload this fic. IM TECHNICALLY NOT LATE. IT'S STILL FATHER'S DAY FOR ME.)
They’re much smaller, much softer than his. Everything about you is novel to him, all of your softness, in a world where the vast majority of its population have grown up wielding knives and guns. It makes sense— you come from a world far more peaceful than Eden.
He hopes that one day, no child will have to be forced into learning how to wield a knife or gun.
Another thing he likes about holding your hand—
Your thumb will almost always gently rub one of the scars on the back of his hand. He used to hate the scars marring his body, never wanting to show you anything from his unsightly past. These are his scars to bear, and his alone…
…is what he used to think. You don’t let him hide them away, instead coming even closer to him whenever you see his scars.
Over time, he’s become comfortable with having his scars revealed.
Because whenever you see his scars, you rub against him and hug him endlessly. You pepper him with kisses, one for every scar on his body.
A fuzzy warmth fills his chest as he sneaks a peek at your side profile. His gaze drifts down to his hand intertwined with yours, bright red flame marks pressed intimately together. He subconsciously squeezes your hand, drawing your attention away from the wandering stray cats. You smile at him, lips curving in a gentle arc that has his ears flushing pink.
“Ayn?”
His heart flutters wildly with a single word. He lowers his head, fiddling with your hand.
“Your hands are soft,” he mumbles, bringing your hand up to his lips to carefully kiss your fingertips.
He turns your hand over, brushing his callused fingertips against your similarly callused fingertips.
“Your fingertips are so rough, just like mine.”
“Ah, yeah… you can thank hours upon hours of painting for that.”
Sometimes he struggles with the fact that you chose to stay in this world— in this world where his fingertips are callused not because of something as beautiful as practicing hard in art, but because he was forced to use all sorts of makeshift weapons growing up. There isn’t anything gentle or soft about him; every change his body has undergone were for the sake of survival.
As he’s fiddling with your fingers, you suddenly hold his hand in place, your fingers slipping in between his.
“In this regard, we’re the same.”
You grin at him, holding up your hand that’s holding onto his hand.
“I like your calluses,” you hum, shifting your hand so that your fingertips are pressed against his. “I like everything about you.”
His lips part, not a single word coming out. His ears burn even redder, and he lowers his head shyly.
“I like your calluses… everything about you, too.”
You stare at him with rapt interest. After a prolonged silence, he finally looks up and sees the mischievous glint in your eyes.
“Ah…?”
Abruptly, you step towards him, the two shadows cast on the ground by the sunset fully merging together. You hold his cheeks in your hands.
He recognizes this look in your eyes. Obediently, he lowers his head for you to reach.
Your lips find his, playfully biting at his bottom lip, your hands on his cheeks pulling him closer still.
Dazedly, as he feels the rough skin of your fingertips rub against his skin—
He remembers everything about you. All of your mannerisms, preferences, moments of foolishness— he remembers it all.
Today, in particular, as the snowflakes indistinguishable from his hair melt and fade into obscurity, he remembers a question you once asked him.
“Cael,” you had whispered, voice hoarse from crying through the night. Your eyes track him, unblinking, watching his retreating back from your bedroom door— like he'll disappear without a trace if you missed even one milisecond.
When he paused to look at you, he saw your fist holding onto the doorframe in a knuckle-white grip.
“In the future, will you still be by my side?”
To that, he responded smoothly without missing a beat:
“For as long as you need me.”
But he will never get directly involved in your life. He is simply there to ease you back into the world you grew up in. It’s what he promised his predecessor. No matter how nonsensical her final actions appeared to him, he promised her that he would watch over you nonetheless and help you lead a normal life.
What sort of role should he play in your future?
The correct answer to that should be: None— none at all. He will fade from your memory once you are ready to return to the world beyond. Once you can stand on your own and face him, that is when he should take his leave. You will have been fully integrated into this world once more, and you will have no need for his comfort any longer.
Yet, inexplicably, in every future he sees—
He is still there, by your side, unwavering.
Time and time again, he is always there. Sometimes, he is walking you down an aisle filled with gorgeous flowers, your future groom at the end of it. Other times, he becomes but an old friend you only periodically contact, but contact nonetheless. He is always by your side in one way or another, always watching— only ever watching.
In one possible future, he attends an exhibit of yours, face-to-face with a portrait of himself beneath falling ginkgo leaves.
In that timeline, he never once reaches out to you, but you never once leave his side. You grow old, skin wrinkling, movements becoming sluggish, as time takes its toll.
He stays with you until death, and you do not leave him even in your dying moments.
“You’re still so beautiful,” the future you would say to him, voice quiet and teasing. “I feel ashamed being next to you like this, all wrinkled and shrivelled up.”
To that, he would respond: “You’re still beautiful, if you were to ask me.”
“Just beautiful? That’s it?” you ask with a playful smile.
In this future, you look at him with pure eyes, unaware of everything he had hidden from you. He conceals everything without flaw in this timeline, and you live a regular life as a regular person. You do not bear any scars on your body, and all traces of grief and sorrow in your heart seem to have faded with time.
You smile at him helplessly. You still smile at him, because you don’t know of anything he’s done, of his past.
You smile blissfully, drowned in lies.
It’s the last time he tries to deduce your future.
In the end, you choose your own future.
He watches as you curl up alone on cold stone tiles, as you fade into the pure white backdrop, as you shed tear after tear. He watches you stumble as you learn to fight, watches as you meet him head-on with narrowed eyes as you challenge the Silver Knight.
You are breathtakingly beautiful. The vigour in your eyes draws him to you time and time again, like a moth to flame.
He watches as you twirl a ginkgo leaf between your callused fingertips— a result of your hard work in the past year. You’re smiling at him despite knowing everything he’s done. Despite knowing what sort of person he truly is.
“Cael, are you in any of the futures you’ve deduced for me?”
“I’m not sure,” he admits. “I stopped deducing your future a long time ago.”
But I would like to be a part of your future.
“Really? Well, that’s fine. Since I can deduce my own future.”
Cael raises an eyebrow, watching as you slowly approach him with a sparkle in your eye. He subconsciously reaches out, brushing away stray hairs that have flown into your face, easing the scrunched-up expression on your face.
“I wasn’t aware you had such an ability?”
You squint at him with a grin, offering him the ginkgo leaf between your fingers.
“A certain somebody told me that I can choose my own future. And if I can choose my future, that means I can effectively control what my future will be, right?”
That isn’t quite how it works, he thinks, but somehow—
If it’s you, unreasonably stubborn every day of the year, he’s sure you can get anything you want against all odds.
“Then, am I in the future you’ve deduced?”
You chuckle, pressing the ginkgo leaf into his hands.
“What do you think, Cael?”
He twirls the ginkgo leaf in between his fingertips just as you had a few moments ago. It’s thin and fragile— if he so wished, he could easily crush it without a second thought.
Gingerly, he cradles the ginkgo leaf close to his heart, meeting your earnest gaze.
He’d once been envious of all of the vivid emotions he would see flitting across your face at the slightest provocation. You have always shown him every side of you unabashedly, let yourself be vulnerable around him. You don’t try to hide anything even now, bright-eyed as you stand by his side under the ginkgo trees.
takes place during ayn maudlin dream, floating steam event
When a person dies, where do they go?
Their memories linger, leaving a deep impression and scars on the hearts of those they have separated from. The regrets, the bitterness, the sorrow, the longing— all of it, it might never go away. But, those still living have the chance to grow around these wounds and turn these painful memories into something comforting.
notes: told in 2nd pov, but assumes the setting of "miss painter" (female, her past is brought up), ~7k
When a person dies, where do they go?
You don’t think you could ever reach the dead— no, that is impossible. Even throughout your journeys through time and space, there has always been one constant. Once someone died, that was the end of that person’s life in that timeline. You would no longer be able to interact with that person. If you were to rewind time, you wouldn’t be speaking with that person who died, but rather, another version of them that had yet to experience death and the strife immediately preceding it.
Still, even though you know this, you think about it from time to time.
If you could talk with those who have died…
…Even if you could see your parents again, just one more time, what would you say to them?
You asked Ayn this, once, just once, a few days before the new year.
“Ayn,” you whisper into your phone, turning over in your bed. On the other end, your boyfriend hums in response to let you know he’s listening. “If you were able to see your mom again… what would you say to her?”
A long silence follows. Long enough that, had you not known any better, you would’ve thought that Ayn had fallen asleep right there and then.
“I wouldn’t say anything,” he replied as your eyelids droop. “I would play the piano for her.”
As he says that, you turn around once more in your bed. In the dim moonlight filtering in through your windows, you see all of the loose papers scattered across your desk with all sorts of sketches. All of your past paintings and sketches come to mind at that instance.
The bundle of sketchbooks home to countless of clumsily drawn lines, stiff and uncertain. The canvases with clumpy and muddy colours from when you were first learning to paint. Papers that had been previously crumpled up into balls and then unwrinkled in an attempt to salvage them.
The next bundle of sketchbooks and canvases, tidier and less messily kept. Several instruction books are stashed away in boxes, with some papers in between pages from you trying to follow along with the lessons.
And, on your desk, the art you created today. Various random sketches of the birds you’d seen on your window sill earlier in the day, some loose sketches of your boyfriend practicing the piano he loved so dearly, countless silly doodles of Beanie lounging about in various styles. In your tablet, the partially finished assignment you’ve been agonizing over for the past week.
A lot has changed.
The corners of your eyes sting, so you bury your face into your pillow with a muffled, hoarse laugh.
What a lonely room. What a warm room.
Sometimes, you feel like your room is too big yet too small.
“Miss Painter, what about you?”
After hours of chatting late into the night— far later than you should’ve, really— you finally start to feel drowsy.
If I could see mom and dad again…
If I could see them one more time—
“Yeah,” you whisper sleepily, “Me too.”
Something ticklish brushes against your ankles, snapping you out of your daze. You hadn’t made any progress on your painting in the last few minutes— and the piano that had previously been filling the room has quietly filtered out.
Then, a weight drapes itself against your back as you pick up Beanie and plop him on your lap.
“Let’s take a break,” Ayn mumbles hoarsely into your ear. “Nap?”
You stroke Beanie’s furry back leisurely, basking in the feeling of having two cuddly cats clinging to you.
“Isn’t dinner soon?” you muse, leaning back a little so you can press a light kiss against Ayn’s cheek. “If we try to take a nap now, it’d only be for a few minutes.”
Ever since you arrived at Ayn’s home in Leighton, the two of you have been practically inseparable. Everywhere you go, Ayn would follow you around and cling to you like a kitten. Sometimes, he’d show you around and delight in your impressed reactions. Secretly, you think it’s the cutest thing ever— not that you would ever say it out loud. You fear that if you do, Ayn would start pouting, and then you’d really pass away from your boyfriend being too cute.
“Mmmmh….”
“If you’re that sleepy, we can skip dinner,” you say with a hint of a laugh in your voice. In your lap, Beanie meows in protest and stares up at you.
Similarly, the black cat behind you shakes his head, tickling your neck. “You should eat. You haven’t been eating well ever since you got here, thanks to that old man.”
“Actually, this is probably the healthiest I’ve eaten in years…” you muse, packing up your paints. “It’s too healthy. I miss the sugar and fat.”
Ayn grumbles in agreement. “Dad’s been like that my entire life.”
“Maybe that’s why you don’t ever seem to gain weight despite how awful your diet is,” you muse. “All the vegetables you had growing up far outweigh all the sweets you have now.”
“My diet isn’t that bad.”
Wordlessly, you raise an eyebrow at him. “At that supermarket during Christmas last year, I recall—”
“I put those instant noodles away,” Ayn interrupts. Then, his eyes narrow at me as he pinches my cheek. “And anyways, it’s not like you don’t often join me in eating instant noodles. You’re an accomplice, Miss Painter.”
“...Let’s eat healthily and not touch instant noodles this year.”
“Sure,” Ayn agrees easily. Confidently, he adds: “There’s still takeout and cakes and cola, anyway.”
Then he pauses, as though he just thought of something.
“You wouldn’t keep me from cola, would you?”
You blink at Ayn slowly, your lips curling up into a grin. You can’t not take this opportunity.
“Well… Ayn, between cola, and me… which would you pick?”
When your boyfriend falls silent, you turn to look him right in the eye. The longer he remains quiet, the more your eyes narrow.
“Ayn…”
“I’m kidding,” Ayn says eventually, with the ghost of a smile on his lips. He picks up Beanie from your lap (who protests fiercely) to set Beanie down and then wraps you up in a tight hug. “Of course, I’d choose Miss Painter over cola.”
“Would you be okay without it? It’s basically your blood at this point,” you joke.
“It’s okay,” Ayn says resolutely. “It can be replaced.”
“Really?” you ask with some surprise. You lean forward with a teasing glint in your eyes, close enough that the tip of your nose brushes against his. “Does this mean you wouldn’t be mad if I replaced all of your bottles of cola with water?”
“.......”
“I’m kidding, of course—”
Your words are promptly cut off by Ayn’s lips on yours. As he kisses you, he rubs against you like he’s trying to melt into you. In the already warm room, Ayn’s hot body temperature makes you overheat.
Idly, you think: He’s gotten better at kissing, compared to the first few times.
Then, Ayn pulls back, looking at you seriously.
“As long as you kiss me whenever I want to drink cola, it’s manageable.”
Speechless, you stare at Ayn with your lips parted. Then, you reach up and pinch his cheeks helplessly.
“Ayn, what happened to your sense of shame?”
“It’s your fault,” he replies, his forehead falling against your shoulder.
As you recall the past year, full of relentlessly teasing Ayn until he was as ripe as a tomato, you guess he’s right.
If it’s like that, though—
“Theoretically, if I started to limit your sweets intake as well…”
Ayn is quick to interrupt. “Miss Painter. Be nice to me, okay?”
“Okay, okay,” you reply, patting Ayn’s back with laughter behind your words. “But really, you’re going to get a nasty cavity sooner or later with just how much sugar you have daily.”
“Well, I’ve gone this long without one, haven’t I?”
“Careful there. You’re asking for it just by saying that.”
Ayn shifts, tightening his hold on you as he prepares his retort. However, Beanie meows loudly in an attempt to grab your attention. You guess he finally got fed up with how Ayn has been clinging to you.
Silently, Ayn glares at Beanie. Unsurprisingly, Beanie glares back with its nastiest glare.
“Okay, break it up you two,” you say, unable to control the growing smile on your face.
“I didn’t do anything,” Ayn huffs.
Before tensions can start rising between Ayn and Beanie, there’s a knock at the door.
“Dinner has been prepared.”
“We’ll be down soon,” you call out.
As the footsteps outside the door fade, Ayn looks at you sincerely.
“Besides, you wouldn’t deprive me of dessert once we return, right? When we’ve barely had any dessert for the past few days…”
You snort, lightly patting Ayn’s cheek. “I miss having cakes and candy, too. Later, let’s secretly order takeout.”
A flicker of surprise crosses his features at your words. Before you can comment on it, he replies.
“Okay. Let’s do that,” he nods. Then, Ayn points at Beanie, who is pawing at the closed door. “Also, your cat seems hungry.”
“I’m sure he is,” you grumble, walking over to open the door. The moment the gap is wide enough, Beanie slips through and bounds down the stairs without a single care in the world. “Everybody here keeps spoiling him, so he gets to eat like a king.”
“Give it a few days,” Ayn replies wryly. “Dad will probably start trying to take Beanie out on walks or even jogs.”
As you walk down the stairs with Ayn, you think of all the times you’re unable to play with Beanie. Of all the times Beanie had to walk around in an empty house, or the times when you had to send Beanie to a pet daycare while you left for days at a time.
When I go back to Harp Island, I’ll make sure to spend even more time with Beanie.
Your response comes late, laughing half-heartedly. “I support that. The image of your dad walking Beanie with a few bodyguards in tow is really… something.”
Ayn notices your brief moment of silence, his hand squeezing yours slightly. He doesn’t say anything, however, and just chuckles lowly.
“I’ve seen dad doing weirder things that don’t suit his image.”
You blink owlishly at Ayn as his warmth transfers to your body through your interlocked hands.
The two of your hands are clasped together tightly. You lightly squeeze his hand in return.
If you become stronger soon…
You hope those waiting for you at home won’t have to wait as long anymore.
———
You see a lot of your past self in Ayn.
Maybe that was part of why you’d been so drawn to the seemingly aloof prince-like idol in the first few months you knew him.
When Ayn told you that he had wanted to introduce you to his father, you’d been surprised— pleasantly so. You don’t think Ayn has realized it himself, but he would sometimes bring up his father during conversations and off-handedly mention some related memories.
Each time, his words were harsh, his tone exasperated. But with Ayn, as you’ve learned, the most important thing to observe is his expression and his body language.
Despite it all, it seems like Ayn cherishes his family.
So, you were ecstatic. You wanted to meet his father.
You were a little scared, though. Or, more accurately a moderate amount of scared. Okay, you were scared stiff. The brief run-in you had with Ayn’s father during his birthday had your imagination going wild, more so than usual.
If Ayn’s father really did demand you leave Ayn alone…
Of course, you wouldn’t give up just like that. No, you would run to Ayn just as you had during White Day, ready to whisk him away. When you told Ayn about the cliché plot you had thought of, he had teased you for your overactive imagination.
Still, he replied sincerely afterwards: “If that really happened, I’ll meet you halfway. I’m not going to sit around in some room because of my dad.”
Thankfully, no such threats were made. If anything, it almost felt like Mr. Alwyn was eager to meet you and ecstatic that you were dating his son.
With that in mind, you’ve mustered up the courage to stand before Mr. Alwyn’s study with your hand positioned to knock.
Ayn has always been on the clingier side. After the initial awkwardness of a new relationship, he stuck to you like glue and often liked to hug you whenever possible. Even in public, he often made up reasons to hold your hand.
Ever since arriving at Ayn’s home in Leighton, however, his clinginess has increased tenfold. He holds you like you’ll disappear at any moment. He hovers by your side like something will go horribly wrong if he looks away for even a second.
It’s easy to guess why.
The little glances towards the door on the second floor, his quickened footsteps as he ascends the stairs while tugging you along, the dazed expression he occasionally has as he stares out the window…
Ayn’s childhood is etched into the walls of this place, for better or for worse. All of the joyful memories, all of the sorrowful ones, they’re all here in one space.
He rarely talks about his mother, so you very clearly remember every single time he has mentioned her specifically. He speaks about her with a tentative expression; his voice grows quieter, and his eyes lower a little more.
Ayn is decisive and is like a well-sharpened blade. He knows his goals and is always working diligently towards them no matter what the others say. Some people might see him as too stubborn, too difficult to work with— a girl told you once that many music majors actually dislike Ayn. He stands on a pedestal held up by countless students, praised as an idol of St. Shelter.
But you know about all of his little thoughts, his subtle behaviours, everything he doesn’t like to show others.
Ayn has a sensitive heart. He loves more intensely than one would think. He doesn’t see the world as his playground, as a place he dominates, but something full of possibilities waiting to be explored. He tries to communicate all of the thoughts he can’t express well in conventional ways through his music.
He’ll listen to the grievances of little kids, learns how to appease them and plays along. He’ll suddenly move into an old attic to take care of a stray plant he’d encountered. He’ll dedicate a performance to those he’s grown to understand. He’ll try to find a way to remember the melodies that everybody else has forgotten, not wanting them to fade into obscurity.
Ayn is gentle. He’s clumsy, and he struggles with many things, but he loves sincerely and kindly. But because of this sort of affection he has in his heart, he’ll also linger on the past longer than most, and he’ll become a bit scared.
You hope he can find the world beyond and discover all of the colours waiting for him.
The few knocks against the door are particularly disruptive in the near-silent corridor.
“Come in.”
Ayn’s father looks up from his desk. Surprisingly, he nods at you briefly in acknowledgement, his expression unreadable.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” you comment quietly.
“Well, if Ayn needed me for anything, he’d send a rather blunt text. My bodyguards and I have a certain way of communicating through knocks. Here— please take a seat.”
You nod timidly, sitting in the armchair placed in the centre of the room. You peek at Mr. Alwyn, unsure of how to start.
“Like… a secret code?” you ask slowly.
A playful twinkle dances in his age-worn eyes. “Indeed. Although they look stern, they often entertain me and my whims. They were eager to help come up with a unique code for communication.”
You recall Ayn’s birthday last year. The bodyguards intimidated you at first— like they would pull you away if you so much as harmed a hair on the rich young master. However, when you remember all of the tall, burly men in black gathering together to sing happy birthday to Ayn, you can’t help but laugh a little.
“They seem to love Ayn a lot.”
Mr. Alwyn hums, leaning forward on his desk. His fingers are clasped together as he watches you almost like a hawk.
“Do you think the bodyguards and I are overzealous?”
There’s no discernible emotion in his voice that you can pick up. His expression doesn’t give anything away. You force yourself to remain relaxed, resisting the urge to start tugging at your sleeves.
You answer him truthfully, meeting his stare head-on.
“I do.”
Regarding Ayn’s family situation, you still don’t know a lot. Ayn himself rarely talks about it in detail— you’re sure he probably sees a lot of strange things in his life as normal, having grown up in a mafia family. But you know that, at least, those waiting for him at home do care for him.
“I see,” Mr. Alwyn murmurs, leaning back slightly. “How do you think he’s doing now?”
Really, like father, like son. They can both be incredibly direct but then they’ll go and do things in a roundabout manner.
“I believe that’s something you should ask him yourself.”
Mr. Alwyn seems to take your blunt reply well, chuckling to himself as his gaze drifts off. “I suppose you’re right. Apologies for making you entertain my musings for so long. Did you need something from me?”
“Do you have the key to the room at the end of the hallway on the second floor?”
Mr. Alwyn doesn’t ask any further questions. He pulls out a drawer and rummages around, producing a simple and ordinary key. He stands up, walking over to the armchairs in the middle of the room, and places the key on the table in front of you.
Your eyes widen a little in shock, lips parted as you try to find a response. You’d prepared yourself to convince him to give up the key as you stood in front of the study for a long time.
“Um, is it okay for you to just give me the key like this?”
“Did Ayn tell you about that room?”
“No,” you admit, carefully picking up the key. “But I know his mother isn’t around anymore. With how Ayn wears his heart on his sleeve, it wasn’t hard to put together.”
Mr. Alwyn chuckles, returning to his desk. “Seeing how carefully you watch over my son, I’m sure everything will turn out fine. I was done testing you a long time ago.”
“I still can’t believe you kidnapped your own son,” you mutter, recalling the sheer panic that you felt when Ayn disappeared suddenly before your first White Day together.
“Life has many unexpected challenges, after all,” Mr. Alwyn says. At that moment, it’s particularly clear just how the vicissitudes of life have engraved themselves within his tired eyes and the wrinkles across his brows. “It was important to ensure that the two of you aren’t going into this half-heartedly.”
He pauses briefly.
“Well, that, and I was a bit hesitant to let my son go. You’ll have to forgive this silly, selfish old man.”
“...Ayn’s grown up now,” you reply softly.
Mr. Alwyn’s eyes reflect a mixture of sorrow and joy, as he replies with his head slightly lowered.
“Yes,” he murmurs, “He has grown into a rather fine, young man.”
———
During Ayn’s birthday last year, he told you a little bit about his mother.
Leighton Creek Plaza was covered in a cool shade, the passing winter breeze causing the young couple sharing a scarf to draw nearer still to each other. Despite the cold, it was the warmest you’d ever felt.
Well, it was also thanks to Ayn’s naturally high body temperature.
It was too early for anybody to be awake, so the entire plaza was empty. Even the two of you, at that time, were stumbling around like fools with the poorly knitted scarf scratching at your cheeks, forcing the two of you to occasionally bump into each other’s shoulders. You still remember the gleeful giggles that filled the silence, both you and Ayn teasing each other about both nothing and everything.
It’s a precious place in Ayn’s memory, so it’s a precious place to you, too.
He didn’t get to properly show you around the place he spent his childhood in last time, so the two of you decided to dedicate some time on your trip to walking around Leighton.
The sun is slowly sinking, painting the entire sky a warm orange that softens the chill of February’s lingering winter. Faced with the traces of snow covering the pavement, you think: The snow back home will have melted by the time Ayn and I return.
Holding your hand, Ayn stands next to you as he watches the sunset.
His eyelashes flutter as a soft breeze passes by, the blazing yet gentle sun reflected in his eyes. Under the hazy light, his fierceness is transformed into an innocent softness that makes you think of what Ayn might’ve looked like when he visited this place for the first time as a child.
“Looks like we made it just in time for the last busker’s song,” he murmured, his callused fingers squeezing your hand. “Let’s sit down somewhere.”
When you hear his voice, softer than usual, you recall some words he’d said during his second birthday—
Some places have seen many changes, but there are things that haven’t changed at all.
The good, the bad, it all melds together in a bundle of complicated emotions. Sweetness, bitterness, joy, sorrow— all of these conflicting emotions that lead to hesitation and shyness, you wonder what’s stirring in Ayn’s heart at this moment as he guides you to one of the bleachers. Ayn pauses, taking off his coat and putting it down on the bleacher.
“It’s cold,” he says curtly, looking at you expectantly.
Not one to be outdone, you smile cheekily at him and take your own coat off and lay it on the bleacher right next to his. You relish in Ayn’s baffled expression, mimicking his gesture towards the coat you’ve just laid out.
“You’re right. It’s cold, so it’ll be a bit uncomfortable sitting on the bleachers.”
“Your coat…”
You plop down on the coat he laid out for you, shivering a little as you pat your coat on the bleacher— an invitation for him to sit next to you.
“Come here, won’t my boyfriend cuddle with me? It’s cold,” you say shamelessly, eager to take this opportunity to tease Ayn.
He smiles helplessly, finally sitting down next to you and pulling you into his arms. He’s delightfully warm and you already feel the shivers leaving your body as you rub your cheek against him.
“Like a cat,” he comments quietly.
“I heard that,” you purse your lips, pinching the one of the arms wrapped around you, eliciting a quiet hiss from Ayn. “Between the two of us, you’re the cat.”
Before Ayn is able to make remarks of his own, the final busker walks up to the two of you, maybe because the two of you were the only ones left lingering this late.
“May I sing a song for this young couple here?”
Your eyes light up in recognition. “Oh, you’re the street performer from last time!”
The street performer bows his head humbly with a friendly smile playing at his lips as he glances in Ayn’s direction. “Will I be seeing the two lovely gentlemen in suits shortly?”
“...I’m not a little boy anymore,” Ayn replies, but there isn’t much bite to his words and there’s even a faint smile on his face. “I see you’ve never stopped singing.”
“Why, of course; I haven’t grown sick of music in the past years, but rather, I find myself drawn more to its liveliness,” the street performer chuckles. “But I have grown a bit weary of the cold biting at my fingertips, so I am on the hunt for one last song to perform before I retire for the day.”
Ayn plays with your fingers, looking at you with his head slightly tilted.
“Is there a song you want to hear?”
You look into Ayn’s eyes for a few seconds before looking at the street performer to make your request, “How about that song you sang for that little boy years ago?”
“You like that song a lot. Luckily for you, I think that song is real fun to perform— say no more, miss.”
As the street performer sings his last song for the day, you feel Ayn’s gaze flickering from the street performer to you. Back when you had travelled to Leighton for Ayn’s birthday, you had told him about the street performer you encountered while the bodyguards took you around the city. You don’t know what, exactly, this song means to Ayn, but you hope it’s something he remembers with fondness.
The fingers wrapped around yours tighten slightly as music from the past fills the air. When you hear this melody, you see your figure walking alongside Ayn. During your brief detour to this plaza before the two of you left to return home to Harp Island, you’d tried to sing this song for him despite your lack of experience with singing.
He listened to you with rapture, staying silent until the very end, even when you stumbled over some lines and unfamiliar notes that you’d learned somewhat hastily.
What about him— what is it that he sees, what does he remember, when he sits here in this plaza filled with childhood memories?
The song ends, and the street performer bows exaggeratedly to the two of you before taking his leave. The plaza is then filled with a serene silence, the sky growing darker bit by bit.
You lean against Ayn, letting him feel your weight, as the two of you watch the sky together.
Then, Ayn starts to talk:
“My mom often took me here to play when I was younger.”
As he speaks, you listen carefully.
Ayn has avoided talking about her with you ever since coming to Leighton. If you had to wager a guess, he might not want to show you a gloomier side of himself during the Valentine’s season. Still, no matter how he tries to hide it, Ayn has always been someone who wears his heart on his sleeve.
“The first time she took me here, there was a music festival going on. There were tons of street performers playing music together— there were a lot of different people with different styles coming together to spread their love for music.”
As he recalls old memories, Ayn stands up from the bleachers and walks towards the centre of the open plaza.
“From what I remember, the stage was from here— to here,” Ayn explains, walking from one end of the centre to the other. He pauses for a moment, looking over the empty plaza. “During the festival, there would be colourful, triangular flags, balloons, and streamers everywhere.”
You stand up as well, picking up and lightly shaking any loose snow off of both coats from the bleachers. Calling out tentatively to him, you step closer to Ayn and drape his coat around his shoulders.
“Ayn?”
“Now that I stand here, this place feels a lot smaller than the place in my memory.”
“You’ve grown a lot since then, after all.”
Ayn takes your coat hanging precariously from your arms— you’d been too distracted watching him— and drapes your coat around the shoulders just as you did to him. The two of you face each other, holding onto the other’s coats to prevent it from falling. At this distance, you can feel Ayn’s warmth and smell the faint sweetness that always accompanies him.
“A lot has changed, too.”
His words ring clearly in your ears as he leans in to press his forehead against yours.
“Like what?”
Even though you know the answer, you still want to hear him say it.
“You’re here.”
You smile, leaning forward and tilting your head slightly to press a lingering kiss to his lips. Your eyes squint with satisfaction when you see the faint shyness mixed with adoration in the eyes you’ve become obsessed with.
“Yeah. I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Aym hums quietly, nuzzling your cheek with his as he pulls you closer with your coat. His hair, soft and scented the same as yours, tickles you.
Like a cat.
———
Ayn feels a little weird standing here in this room. Everything that he once thought was big feels so much smaller now. He guesses his father must feel the same, with how painfully awkward the silence currently is.
Fed up with the silence, Ayn speaks first.
“You still clean her room.”
“Well, it’s still a part of this house, after all. It wouldn’t be good to let dust accumulate.”
The office is filled with an unbearable silence.
Ayn’s eyes narrow. This is what he hates the most, the roundabout deflections that avoid the core. He refuses to admit it out loud, but he sometimes finds himself doing similar things. He likes to think that he’s better than his father, though.
…If there is something they really do have in common though—
It would seem that neither of them can move on from her death, though. His mother’s death has loomed over his head like a cloud, sometimes gentle and kind, other times dark and gloomy. The sweet memories from his past leave a faintly bitter taste in his mouth, a constant reminder of his helplessness and ignorance.
His father is the first to break this silence, speaking stiffly. “Well… how have you been these past few years? Any new friends at school?”
But Ayn is going to move on.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush, unlike you. I want you to tell me what you’ve been hiding from me.”
“Are you sure you fully understand the severity of the situation, as well as the dangers that come with staying by her side?” his father asks sternly, all of the weariness from the past decade seeping through— like a long extinguished flame.
Ayn recalls his father from his childhood, sitting at his mother’s bedside, jaw clenched tightly and quiet fury soothed only by his mother’s spindly hand.
“Have you heard of the story of Orpheus and…”
“We aren’t anything like Orpheus and Eurydice.”
In the quiet study, Ayn’s voice sounds disproportionately loud, especially when compared to his father’s more tempered steadiness. Still, he continues to speak clearly, confidently.
“I won’t be like you,” Ayn declares. “I won’t repeat the mistakes you’ve made. So, I want you to tell me exactly what you’ve been keeping from me this entire time— I know this concerns her somehow. I’m getting involved. If you won’t tell me, I’ll just find another way.”
He’s no longer that child feigning indifference. He’s grown since, from that child that put his guard up around those he should’ve felt the most comfort in— a feeble attempt to protect his heart. He’s different, now, from that clumsy child who had turned feigned apathy into a shield, fearful of rejection.
Ayn won’t bring his regrets back to Harp Island anymore.
Right as the tense thread between them feels as though it’s about to snap, his father suddenly sags in his seat.
“Alright,” he says helplessly, “I’ll tell you what I know, starting next month.”
“This better not be you running from all of this.”
His father shakes his head. “No, it’s just…”
“Just?”
“...You should really be asleep at this moment. Staying up late isn’t good for you.”
“Ha?” Ayn laughs incredulously. His father pauses, seemingly hesitating. Ayn narrows his eyes, crossing his arms. “What?”
“Like your mother said, you won’t grow any taller if you keep staying up so late…”
Ayn looks at his father, his eyebrows raised in disbelief.
“You’re still 179 centimetres, aren’t you? That missing centimetre probably comes from you staying up all the time—”
“Since when were you such a naggy old man?” Ayn interrupts with annoyance. “Besides, you’ve been staying up to work, haven’t you? Surely you can put the paperwork down for one night. You don’t get to nag me about my sleep schedule when you stay up late for most days of the week. At least I don’t have eyebags.”
His father appears bewildered by his outburst, not that Ayn really cares.
“Did you ask Gavin about how I’ve been doing?”
“He just ended up talking about you a lot when I mentioned staying in Leighton for a bit,” Ayn retorts. After a brief second, he adds, “You should start sleeping earlier. Gavinator looks like he’s stressed out of his mind about your growing eyebags.”
“Is that so? Are there others aside from the Gavinator?”
Ayn shrugs callously. “I’m sure the other bodyguards are all thinking about how their boss is becoming a panda.”
“...I see.”
“Well, that’s all I wanted to say. I’m leaving now.”
As Ayn is about to leave, his father’s voice stalls him. “Hold on.”
“Don’t tell me that you’re about to tell me to eat more vegetables.”
The corner of his father’s eyes crinkle, the action highlighting the traces of time left on him by life.
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to eat more healthily. And make sure you’re stretching your legs properly every day. You shouldn’t spend too much time on your devices—”
“I’m leaving if this is all you wanted to say.”
“No, here. I wanted to give this to you.”
Much to Ayn’s surprise, his father pulls out a vinyl record. Ayn carefully takes the vinyl record offered to him.
“Thank you for playing the piano for me,” his father says, stunning Ayn into complete silence. “It’s true that I mostly just wanted to hear you play, but… I thought it would also be nice if your mother could hear how you’ve improved over the years.”
Something catches in Ayn’s throat, making him unable to reply beyond a hoarse, “Oh.”
“This vinyl record is one of your mother’s favourites. I must admit, it hasn’t seen much use in my hands, but perhaps you can better appreciate its music.”
Ayn holds the record a little closer to his chest when he hears this. Quietly, he responds, “Thank you.”
“I won’t keep you any longer. Go sleep now.”
Ayn’s father only speaks again when Ayn has turned the door handle, his voice so quiet that Ayn would’ve missed it if it weren’t for his more sensitive hearing—
“Ayn, you’ve grown well.”
The little boy looks up from the cold, metallic door handle in his hand. He turns his head, seeing his father’s warm smile.
“I’m proud of you.”
For a moment, Ayn is frozen in place. His heart surges with all sorts of emotions— bitterness, curiosity, bewilderment, hope. But above all—
He’s happy.
“Save those words for when I’ve become a world-famous musician,” Ayn snorts, lifting his chin.
His father chuckles. “Remember to invite me to your first performance as a world-famous musician.”
Ayn lowers his head, his voice quieter this time.
“Goodnight, dad.”
“Goodnight, Ayn.”
After a moment of hesitation, Ayn adds—
"And, to answer your very first question..."
He allows a fond smile to slip through when he thinks of your silhouette under the light, of your voice as you call his name, of the smile you greet him with.
"I've been doing well. The world, as it turns out, is a truly colourful place."
The door clicks shut behind Ayn quietly, as though not to disturb the slumbering night.
In the past, the long trek from his father’s office back to his room often filled his heart with a bitterness he desperately ignored. Today, however, his chest feels light and he walks through the warmly lit corridor with a renewed vigor.
He really wants to see you.
———
In the time you’ve spent staying here in the place Ayn grew up in, you found yourself recalling various memories of your own childhood.
And, with it, came the bittersweetness associated with the memories of your mother. Even the most mundane, the silliest and most inconsequential memories, are followed by feelings of sorrow.
Since the first time after Godheim, you’ve returned to your childhood home a handful of times. Each time, you visited with the excuse of searching for more potential clues relating to your mother, for clues about your past. It was a weak excuse, as you had already thoroughly combed through every photo album, every memo, the first time you visited.
The times following that were driven by that small part of you who still didn’t want to let go of the past.
You hadn’t known anything back then. Even if you had known, you wonder if there was anything at all that you could’ve done while trembling violently in that dark void with your only comfort from the deafening noise beyond being the age-worn stuffed bear in your arms.
Sometimes, when you find yourself unable to sleep, you spend long hours sitting in front of your easel with a paintbrush in hand.
Even now, the night before you’re supposed to leave for Harp Island with Ayn, you are painting.
Don’t bring the regret back to Harp Island anymore.
You’ve changed in many ways, staying the same in some other aspects. You’ve stopped keeping your head down, instead stubbornly keeping your head held high to take in all of the dizzying sights the world has to offer. The death of your mother no longer confines you to your bed, instead becoming the driving force between every line drawn, both the more amateurish lines and the more refined lines.
Sometimes, you paint almost as though you are in a frenzy, eager to experience the vast world in your mother’s stead.
The regret still lingers— it never left, no matter how faint it becomes. No matter how distant it feels on the best of days. Your powerlessness in that moment lingers, almost unbearable on certain dates. You often fall into a more somber mood on dates such as Mother’s Day. You often feel a whole slew of mixed emotions regarding the holiday. Recently, though, it’s not as unbearable as before.
It’s all thanks to Ayn.
In truth, you had ended up crying like a baby in front of him. You had tried to keep the tears back as you recounted random stories about your mother to Ayn, but you quickly devolved into a snivelling mess. At that time, he simply brought you more tissues and some water.
After you finally left your room to explore the world, you never cried on Mother’s Day until last year. You never wanted to worry your mother, wanting to be more independent.
But he was there, standing awkwardly at your front door without a single excuse prepared for why he was visiting on that day.
“Just passing by,” he’d said.
At the memory, you laugh softly.
When you see the awkward boy working his hardest to live well, working his hardest to pursue the things he loves most, you can’t help but feel like you need to do your best as well.
One day, you hope you can capture your mother’s kind smile looking back at you through a field filled with blue hyacinths. You’d like to show her just how much she meant to you and all of the joy she helped you discover in your childhood. One day, you hope you can grow around the bitterness that accompanies the memories of your mother so that you can show her the purest happiness she’s given you.
With a broad stroke of your brush, the melodies fill the air with all sorts of hazy colours. In the middle of the plaza, decorated with colourful, triangular flags, balloons, and streamers, a boy stands behind a keyboard with a carefree smile on his face.
Reflected in his clear eyes— the everburning flame of a passionate love towards the world and all of its possibilities.
You nod to yourself in satisfaction.
It’s done.
This painting’s lines aren’t as distinct as most of your other paintings. The colours almost bleed into one another as the melodic notes spread hazy hues across the entire canvas. Through it all, though, the boy in the middle stands like a beacon through the vivid colours. This boy, dressed in black and white just like the keys he’s intimately familiar with, creates a world full of dizzyingly beautiful colours.
A few days ago, when you were returning to the mansion from Leighton Creek Plaza, Ayn had told you that the music festival he once adored as a child was no longer being hosted. He didn’t know the exact details, but he had roughly gathered that there simply hadn’t been enough interest in the small festival as the years passed by.
Together with Ayn, you’d like to come back to that lonely plaza in the future and host a music festival full of joy and excitement.
You will never forget the way Ayn’s face lit up the same way a child’s would when receiving a brand new toy when you mentioned this to Ayn on the way back.
“I’ll hold you to it,” he’d said, hooking your pinky with his.
You’re sure the road ahead will be a thorny one, with countless dangers, but you’re sure you can reach a peaceful future. When you walk alongside Ayn, your arm periodically brushing against his, you feel like there isn’t a single thing you can’t conquer.
…First things first, though. You should be worrying about the present.
Your eyes have started to droop, your mouth opening wide in a big yawn. You’ll need to wake up early tomorrow, so you really should get to sleep, lest you start mistaking the paint water for your drinking water.
Speaking of, you’ve grown thirsty.
I’ll get some water before I sleep.
You clean up your workstation, not wanting to leave a mess in a house that doesn’t belong to you, and blearily make your way to the door.
You’re mid-yawn when you open the door to Ayn staring at you with surprise, his hand hanging awkwardly in the air mid-knock.
Ayn reacts first, reaching out to smear something on your cheek. “You have some paint on your face.”
“Oh,” you react slowly. Then, you reach up and pinch his hand with narrowed eyes. “Hey!”
“We’re waking up early tomorrow, you know,” Ayn says leisurely, his eyebrows raised. “Will you be okay staying up so late?”
“Pot calling kettle black,” you pout. “What are you doing up this late? I’m fairly decent with waking up early, but what about you? Mr. Two P.M. Mornings.”
“I’m on my way to sleep right now. But what about you, Miss Five-More-Minutes?”
You pinch his hand again, though he doesn’t react much to this. “I was on my way to get some water before heading to bed. And to clean up the residual paint on me.”
“Do you know where everything is?” Ayn asks.
You hold back a cheeky grin, replying asnonchalantly as possible. “Yeah, don’t worry about me. You go ahead and get some sleep.”
“...Miss Painter,” Ayn says, gently pinching your cheek. “I want to come with you.”
“Sure,” you laugh fondly, taking his hand that has been continuously poking and pinching your cheek into yours. “Let’s go together.”
———
It’s great to be back on Harp Island. Ayn’s home in Leighton was by no means lacklustre, but there’s nothing that can beat cuddling with Ayn in the shared secret base. A blanket with a paw-print pattern bundles the two of you together.
Ayn fiddles around a bit with the record player as you stare at him.
Right before the two of you left Leighton for Harp Island, Ayn had a talk with his father. He didn’t provide too many details about what he had talked about with his father, but you figure the two of them were able to take a step in the right direction.
It seems that Mr. Alwyn left his son with something to bring back to Harp Island. All you know is that it’s an old record of sorts, but Ayn seems to be excited about it. The moment the two of you returned to the secret base, he was eager to pull out his record player.
Then, after the faint sound of vinyl scratching, music begins to play.
You have a certain memory from the first New Year you spent with him. You had found him in a record shop, surrounded by countless vinyl records, a warm hue softening his usually sharp eyes. Though his words can be blunt, his actions were unspeakably gentle as he handled the various records in that shop.
“It’s just a record that I often heard at home when I was little,” he’d explained to you.
You spent the better part of your day going through that record shop with Ayn. Even though the two of you were unable to find the vinyl record he was talking about, you were able to learn a lot about the things that Ayn likes.
Before the two of you left the mansion in Leighton, Ayn found a vinyl record in a deep drawer within his mother’s bedroom.
“This is it,” Ayn says, leaning against you, his body lightly trembling with hints of laughter. “The record I was searching for.”
Oh, you realize, watching Ayn as he smiles with unrestrained happiness. You see all of the warmth and kindness he’d received from his childhood, from his mother— you see the childish spark of excitement and curiosity in his usually subdued expression.
When a person dies, where do they go?
Maybe—
They don’t go anywhere at all. Instead, they remain by our sides, watching quietly as their loved ones grow.
end notes: kind of connected to "next year, the year after, and..." (don't need to read this to know what's going on in this fic though)
for every call of your name, "i love you" (modern ayn)
post-deimortem era ayn route fic
The feelings of love that grow stronger with every passing day, the feelings of love that spread like wildfire threatening to consume the entirety of this material world. In this frenzy, the timelines feel like they blur together and confuse your heart and mind.
But in this timeline at least, with him, you think you'll be just fine.
notes: told in 2nd pov, but assumes the setting of "miss painter" (female, her childhood is mentioned, and lowkey more mc centric than ayn), ~3k
There’s always so much to think about.
When you see Ayn, slumped over in a horrible shrimp-like posture on the loveseat (something he bought shortly after the two of you started dating— his old chair was only enough for one person), you’re simultaneously filled with the most complicated and simplest emotions in the world. Sometimes he catches you looking at him with a faint crease in your brows immediately, and other times it takes him a little longer for him to drag his gaze away from the switch in his hands.
But every single time, he will notice your gaze on him, and reach out to smooth out the crease in your brows quietly.
Ayn doesn’t ask about his counterparts often.
In fact, anytime his other selves are brought up, it’s because of you. Be it the theoretical you once asked him before telling him everything, about what he’d do if he could clone himself, or the few times you ran to him to bury your face in his shoulder without explanation.
Each time, he doesn’t try to pry but rather waits.
You don’t know if it’s because he’s secretly scared of what confessions you might make, or if he simply doesn’t care, or what— but he’s always unusually hard to read in those moments. He doesn’t let you see his face but just holds you tightly to him so you can listen to his accelerated heartbeat.
He’s so cute, you think distractedly. He’s gotten better at controlling his blushing, but he can’t ever hide his rapid heartbeat from me.
When you look at your Ayn, your Ayn , the wounds left behind in your heart from other worlds sting a little. It’s dull, and you’ve learned to ignore it most of the time. But sometimes it comes back full force, making you want to almost rip your heart out of your chest to avoid the painful throbbing.
In truth, ever since the Spirit World, your mind has been in disarray. You were never someone amazing to begin with, but just a girl who had lost her family, and a girl who just wanted to be loved by someone. You just wanted to help people, perhaps in order to help the past you.
Of course, nothing is ever simple. The timelines and endless possibilities are always in the back of your mind. All of the tragedies that the lucky you have avoided, the different paths taken, the timelines with a hopeful future, or the ones meeting a grimmer end…
Something you haven’t told Ayn yet is that you sometimes see flashes of these alternate timelines when you fall into a deep slumber. You’ve often struggled with sleeping peacefully, but it’s gotten worse since then. On those many sleepless nights, Ayn quietly hums for you despite his usual aversion to singing. It’s only then that you can sleep peacefully, at least until the next night.
The many “you”s that you’ve seen are all very different. Sometimes you never ended up with Ayn at all, and instead were with another person whose figure you could never make out. The silhouette sometimes changes, but it’s never really clear to you exactly what happens in the other timelines. They all merge together, overlapping with the Ayn you know, and you often grow irritated.
Whenever you have these sorts of dreams, you’re always trying to find out what happened to the Ayn of that timeline. Or, maybe, you just miss him and want to see him and want to return to the reality you’re familiar with.
Very simply, you love Ayn.
It’s this love that drives you almost insane, unreasonably so. You often make fun of Ayn for being whipped, always going along with even your more outrageous whims even if he kicks up a bit of a fuss in the beginning. But truthfully, you think you’re just as crazy as he is.
Right as he finally lifts his head from the screen of his switch, feeling your steady stare on him, you whisper his name.
In turn, he replies with yours.
When you walk closer to the little living area, Ayn straightens his posture and sets the switch down. You raise an eyebrow and crouch down to pick up an empty can of cola from the floor.
“If only you could turn into a Roomba,” you joke wryly, dangling the bright red can in front of him. “Then, maybe your place would be cleaner— or, actually, maybe not. You might end up getting stuck on all of the things lying around instead…"
Immediately, Ayn’s expression sours. “Stop making fun of me.”
His fingertips brush yours as he takes the can from your hand, setting it aside on the small table next to him. He tugs on your wrist and you let him, easily falling into his lap. His mistake. You pinch and pull at his cheeks with a grin, eyes curving. “Making fun of you? Why, I would never.”
Ayn knocks his forehead against yours lightly, pinching your waist with his fingers. “Miss Painter, it’s not good to play dumb.”
A pause.
“...I’ll tidy up the secret base tomorrow. But it’s not like you don’t have a few things that you’ve left lying around. Some of your clothes are mixed in with mine. And you have some painting supplies that you’ve forgotten here.”
To avoid his scrutinizing gaze, you bury your face in his neck.
“Well,” you say muffledly, “I guess it isn’t too bad. As long as you aren’t getting cockroaches in here…”
“My places are not that dirty.”
“So you’ve never found a cockroach once in here?”
“...I think they’ll find a way into any place ever. It doesn’t matter what kind of place it is.”
You pull away from him slightly to look at him with some worry. “That’s not a ‘no’...”
As you start looking around the open base vigilantly, Ayn pinches your cheek and stops your rapid movements. “There aren’t any. You don’t need to be so scared.”
“Really?”
“...Probably?”
“Okay. Tomorrow, we’ll do a deep clean. I’ll take back my paints and brushes, my clothes too… I don’t want to bother a certain Mr. Pianist, after all…”
“No.”
“No?” you echo teasingly.
“You can keep them here,” Ayn says quietly, resting his forehead on your shoulder. You take this opportunity to thread your fingers through his hair, fluffy and soft. You’re pleased that the shampoo you gave him is working well. “Leave whatever you want here. It’s your secret base, too.”
“That’s sweet. But we should probably do some cleaning tomorrow. I never thought much about it before, but I don’t want to wake up to a cockroach crawling on me one day.”
Ayn exhales slowly, his breath tickling your neck. “...Do you want me to get a Roomba?”
“If you do, I’m giving it mechanical wolf ears.”
“Don’t do that.”
You can’t help but laugh a little as Ayn’s hold on you tightens, his voice full of complaint. “Why not? It’ll be cute.”
“Won’t it stop the Roomba from getting into tight spaces.”
“...Damn.”
After a second, though, you realize it’s fine, because—
“Miss Painter,” Ayn says in warning, pulling away from you as he instinctively senses something.
“Then, you’ll just have to wear the ears for it!”
“No, I refuse.”
“You’re so cute with wolf ears, though,” you muse as Ayn falls silent. “I mean, it’s not like I’m asking you to wear a catmaid headband or anything… unless you would prefer that instead?”
Unexpectedly, instead of denial, Ayn stares at you silently for a long time.
“Ayn?” you question.
“Would I be better that way?” he asks quietly.
The words are like a punch to your gut. Immediately, you backtrack in your mind and belatedly realize what you’ve said. Ayn seems to do the same and blinks quickly, lips parting slightly, unsure of what to do with the words that had seemingly slipped out by accident.
The two of you never really spoke about it.
Before then, it was easy to ignore it— the muddled stinging in your heart, the different versions of him that you’ve encountered. There was a clear line between Earth, your home, and the worlds beyond.
But the further the two of you venture onto this path with no return, the more Ayn will be exposed to the other world alongside you.
Here’s the thing you know about Ayn—
Many see him as the cold but handsome prince of the music department. Ayn conducts himself in a very distant way, appearing arrogant to many. He no longer leaves immediately after every performance, instead occasionally staying behind for just a few seconds to give a few words to the crowd, but he still mostly retains his cold prince character.
But this clingy, cat-like person is really just mushy inside and a bit of a romantic, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it.
Ayn will stick to you even during the height of summer, forcing you to push at his cheek so you aren’t dying of heat. He’ll pout and cause a fuss over it. He’ll sulk. He’ll show you the things he’s accomplished, looking for praise. He’ll often tell you about random things throughout the day. And if you’re busy working on something, he’ll sit down somewhere near you and work on his own things in the same room.
Admittedly, you do the same things. You’ll drop by his practice room in the music department at every opportunity you get, and you’re always buying cakes to share with him. Your sketchbook is filled with more loose drawings of him than you can count, and you like to often hug him from behind to see what he’s up to.
If you were to explain it to someone, you guess you’d just say it’s your guys’ way of making sure the other is still there.
You think about it sometimes— the level of attachment you feel towards Ayn. In truth, although you’re able to smile again, a part of your heart has been permanently torn out from your childhood and you can only try and grow around it with Ayn’s help. You think of the first time you spent a night at Ayn’s family home in Leighton, of the way he clung to you, of the way he often spaced out, and you think he’s probably doing something similar.
So, you really want to…
“Ayn.”
“Mm?”
“Ayn.”
“...Are you upset?”
“ Ayn .”
With some struggle, you get him to face you, and carefully hold his cheeks in your hands. Then, you smush them together.
“I don’t care if you’re not as capable as the Lord of the Night, or that you can’t do the things he can. I don’t care if you don’t have the same qualities as some other version of you in another universe. The one I choose to be with, the one I am spending time with right now, the one I hold in my hands, is you .”
You don’t know why you’re starting to feel a lump form in your throat, or why you want to cry— maybe because you haven’t slept well lately, so you’re currently more sleep-deprived than usual.
No, you know why.
You think of all of the other counterparts of your lover that you’ve seen, of their own tragedies. You think of your most recent brush with a counterpart of his, and your inability to do more for that Ayn beyond sitting at the shore quietly by his side, providing him a quiet companionship right before being the one to drive the blade into his heart.
It magnifies the fear you feel towards losing the Ayn you love, the one before you now. You think of the Ark World, of the blade you saw yourself driving into Ayn’s chest. You don’t know how you can handle it once, twice, and however many more times the world might make you kill the people you love, for whatever cruel reasons.
Childishly, you feel it’s unfair. Why can’t you just live peacefully with the boy you like? Why can’t you just live normally and well, with most of your worries being looming deadlines?
Why did your father die, why did your mother have to be taken away from you?
Why doesn’t it really feel like you can save anybody at all?
…Why is it only now that you’re breaking?
You thought you were able to tuck most of these thoughts away in a hidden place that you’d never touch. You know lingering on these things would shatter your heart into little pieces, difficult to retrieve and piece back together. You know that once you get started in this kind of thought process, it’s hard to break out of— the endless cycle of self-blame is only full of misery.
Maybe you were a bit naive for thinking you would be able to keep it all together. You thought you were used to handling all of this.
But, well, you aren’t really keeping yourself together right now.
Ayn covers your hands with his, gently lowering them so he can lean over and kiss the tears on your face.
“Oh…” you utter hoarsely, unsure of what to say.
He whispers your name with the tenderness that made you fall in love with him in the first place, his brows lightly creasing as he pushes your hair out of your face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” you say fiercely, scrunching up your nose through the tears. You grab a hold of his shirt— a stupid shirt you’d bought for him on a whim with some random mascot character, for some reason he started to wear it around more as loungewear— and pull him closer to you. There’s a hint of anger in your voice. “Don’t you ever apologize. It’s not your fault, it’s—”
“But it’s not yours either, is it?”
Your grip on his shirt slackens, a bit dazed. The brilliantly blooming eyes look at you clearly, reflecting your entire world. You wonder how he can look at you like this, seemingly with no worries.
Oh, but that’s not right. His hold on you periodically tightens, then loosens, and his hands on your back are restless as they tap in a vaguely familiar rhythm.
He’s uneasy, too, you realize.
But, well, it’d be stranger if he wasn’t, as someone in a very bizarre situation.
He’s just him, and you’re just you— two normal university students who are trying to get through some residual grief of the past.
Ayn reaches over behind you, taking some tissues, and he starts to wipe your tears.
“I sometimes dream about different timelines and not just worlds,” you confess quietly, loosely tapping on his chest in the same rhythm he had been using on your back just a few minutes prior.
Something for you to distract yourself with. Now that you tap it out, you realize it follows the same rhythm as that piece you titled for him— World of Possibility.
“A lot of the time, the one I’m with isn’t you, but someone else.”
The hand cradling your face tenses briefly, the hand with the tissue stuttering. Then, he carries on with a quiet hum.
“I don’t like fate,” Ayn says suddenly. “It annoys me.”
He puts the tear-stained tissue down and wraps you in a tight hug, pressing his cheek against yours. The warmth spreads from his body to yours, drawing you closer to him. It’s a little funny, you think— it wasn’t that long ago that you were the one comforting him like this, supporting his body in the ruins that he’d created.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I… don’t like the idea that there is a world where we never meet, or we never end up like this, but that also makes this reality all the more special to me. Miss Painter, in this timeline, you chose to stay with me. That’s the most important thing, isn’t it?
I am the me of this world, and you are the you of this world. I am the me of this timeline, and you are the you of this timeline. The choices we’ve made aren’t from some sort of pre-set fate where we will always meet each other no matter the timeline, but a unique outcome created by our own hands.”
After a long silence, Ayn clears his throat, following his spiel with a mumble.
“That’s what I think. What about you, Miss Painter?”
Oh , you realize slowly. It’s more like, with every unique counterpart of Ayn I meet, the more I grow to love the Ayn I met in this world I consider home.
“I could leave, one day.”
You meet Ayn’s eyes, and you realize he’s just as scared as you are, just as confused, just as worried. He’s not once let go of you throughout all of this, and despite his words, you can tell he’s still anxious.
“I will not stop you,” he replies eventually. “You are your own person and not someone I can keep tied to me forever. But I— I will probably seek you out and ask for a reason. As long as I can hear it directly from you, and not some puppet, or some other person, I think I could accept it with time.”
He pulls your hand to his cheek, pressing his face into the palm of your hand.
“You’ve already given me enough happiness to last me a lifetime. These memories I have now are enough.”
The hand Ayn has pulled to cup his cheek suddenly starts pinching and stretching it.
“Ow—”
“What do you want? Ayn.”
Ayn purses his lips but meets your eyes honestly.
“I want to share a future with you. I love you so much that it scares me. I don’t want it to turn into the sort of love that binds and strangles. I don’t want to become like my dad, obsessing over safety and danger only, but sometimes I can understand him because whenever you disappear, I’m scared I'll be powerless to help. But I also want you to love me, only me; that sort of possessiveness... but I also don't want to take your freedom from you.”
Ayn falls silent for a long time, but not out of hesitance. He quietly basks in your presence here with him, and holds you in his arms in the present the two of you live in, for a few minutes.
You bury your face into his shoulder, holding onto Ayn frighteningly tight. Because it's not like you don't feel a similar paranoia. Fear. Your mind had been sent into a frenzy during the first white day the two of you spent together, when Ayn suddenly stopped replying and never showed up. And when Ayn had called you, only for you to hear the soft thud of someone falling and nothing else, you felt as though you had been plunged into an icy abyss and had to immediately find him to pull yourself out.
“I want to be someone who can stand by your side. I want to be a part of your story.”
“Ayn.”
“Yeah?”
“Ayn.”
“I’m here, Miss Painter.”
“Ayn.”
The clumsy boy in front of you smiles, normally sharp eyes softening at the corners in a way only you can see in this very moment.
He responds to your confessions of love in kind, murmuring your name.
“I think… for every world I visit, for each unique Ayn I see, I’m reminded of you and fall deeper in love with the you in front of me now. Even though it’s dangerous, and I’m terrified I’ll lose you because of my mistakes, I… also want you to come with me on my adventures because there have been so many wonderful experiences and sights that I hope to share with you.”
The countless figures blurred together in your dreams start to become clearer. Through the focusing lens, you see his silhouette as clear as day— as clear as the notes that had charmed you the very first day you walked into the music building, as clear as the world before you whenever you pick up a paintbrush.
It’s only in this unique world that these specific possibilities were grasped by the two of you. Who you are, and who he is, no matter what happened somewhere else in the universe— this is what has happened and is happening here and now.
“Ayn,” you say softly. “It’s a heavy burden, even when split between two people. It’ll hurt a lot.”
“It sounds like you’ve experienced a lot of pain,” Ayn replies simply. “So let me share it with you. At least we can complain about it together if it gets particularly annoying.”
You don’t really know about the other infinite amount of timelines, but you know in this one—
In this one, you’ve chosen Ayn and he’s chosen you.
end notes: this can kind of be taken as an indirect sequel of "still here" or at least i wrote it with this specific fic in mind
spoilers: references cael's spirit world route & the long way ahead event
There isn’t one second that goes by where he doesn’t think about it.
The glory of his previous home, of those in it. Of the grandiose structures carefully constructed in attempts to mimic those that his people had worshipped— of the laurels, gold, and wine they all indulged in, obsessively so, just so that they could become just like the god-like entities they bowed to.
And the transience of it all.
The sorrow, the utter despair— it twists into derisive laughter as he thinks back to the fool that he had been back then.
Really, what god was there to worship?
What a joke.
There are several bases dedicated to containing and converting now-fallen travellers to the Infinite Empire’s cause.
However, not once has he visited these bases.
He finds that all of it is simply—
Boring.
The high of victory has long worn down and all that is left is dissatisfaction.
There is nothing but dullness where there should be joy at triumphing over his enemies. Not even the fall of the White City, the most coveted of their conquers, soothes the dull ache in his chest spreading throughout his body and drowning him mutely.
He won’t be satisfied until fate itself is grovelling at his feet.
As he watches the millionth simulation play out, he chuckles to himself with unsmiling eyes.
How adorable, he thinks. The little figures running around, the past silhouette resembling his own, running themselves into the ground for the sake of the very thing that will destroy them.
For a while, such shadows haunted him without any apparent end.
He still remembers each and every face of those he worked with in those bygone days, but any affection he once held for them has dissipated into thin air. He sees their reflections in the shiny goblets of gold he drinks aged wines from, but he has stopped feeling anything in particular for them.
Still, he immerses himself in endless simulations of the same over, and over, and over again.
Why is that?
Perhaps he revels in his own despair. A man who has lost his mind, continuously choosing to drink poison and letting it burn his throat until he cannot speak anymore. It’s somewhat endearing just how foolishly over-eager he once was.
What an adorable fool, that little man running around under the sun.
He’d like to wrap his fingers around his throat and plunge him into a deep, frosty darkness with water filling his body. In that deep, boundless sea, countless memories play back like simulations, engulfing him in an ever-still blue.
Plunge deeper, deeper, and deeper still into the abyss, where perhaps only more darkness awaits.
And there it goes again, with his captain dying a heroic death for their home.
He doesn’t lean back, or stretch; he has no particular interest in taking a break. Instead, he continues to stare at the screen flickering in front of him reporting the data of the most recent simulation.
The morning after Ayn’s birthday, a few hours before the two of you would return to Harp Island, Ayn sneaks you out of the mansion. The sun has yet to rise, with the entire world still plunged into a deep slumber.
In a way, it almost feels like this world belongs to just you and Ayn, with nobody else in sight.
“Did you wake up early, or did you stay up all night?”
You’re swinging Ayn’s hand back and forth as he guides you somewhere, voice a bit muffled by the scarf you’ve worn to combat the chill of the approaching winter. When you stare at the side of his face, Ayn looks away as he responds vaguely.
“I mean…”
“Well?”
“It’s easier to stay up late than to wake up early,” Ayn explains. When he sees you about to respond, he adds: “You’re not allowed to say anything. You’re always texting me at two. Your sleep schedule isn’t any better than mine.”
Your opened mouth promptly closes. Instead, you pinch the hand you’re holding in retaliation, unable to refute his words.
“Ow,” Ayn deadpans, turning his head to stare at you with the hint of a smile playing at his lips. “That hurt.”
“And?”
“Kiss it better?” he whispers.
You look at Ayn with exasperation, “You’ve become so shameless.”
Nonetheless, you lift his fingers to your lips to kiss them with exaggerated movements and make the silliest kissing noise you can.
“Better?”
“......Enough.”
“What, you don’t like my kisses?” you grin, pulling Ayn closer to you to plant a big kiss on his cheek, making sure to accompany it with a drawn-out, “Mmmmwah!”
“You’re really so…”
“What? Have something to say, dearest boyfriend?”
“I like your kisses,” Ayn mutters. When he sees your broad smile, he pinches your cheek and pulls at it with cold fingers, making you retreat further into your scarf for warmth. He narrows his eyes, moving to press his entire palm against your cheek. “Are you running from me?”
“Your hands are cold,” you complain. “And my scarf is warm.”
Wordlessly, Ayn starts to unwrap the grey plaid scarf around his neck. He wraps half of the scarf around you this time. The amateurish stitches itch at you, a reminder of your inexperience. But it’s this specific scarf that he’s chosen to wear, instead of any other scarf he has at his disposal.
Your cold cheek is now smushed against Ayn’s as he hunches over a bit awkwardly. You snicker, lifting a hand to adjust the scarf wrapped around the two of you.
“I realize that you wearing this scarf and those earmuffs outside comes with a condition, but don’t you think this kind of uncomfortable?”
“No. This is the most comfortable I’ve been.”
Alright, you liar.
“Okay, okay. How are we going to walk, though? You wanted to bring me somewhere, right?”
Ayn replies stubbornly as he takes a step forward, pulling you along with him. “Like this.”
Both of you stumble forward awkwardly, but Ayn is unwilling to part from you. The scarf you gave to Ayn sits awkwardly on top of your own. The cat-shaped earmuffs you made for him press into you uncomfortably and its beady eyes stare at you. Ayn’s probably more uncomfortable, though, as he hunches his back awkwardly to match your height.
“We probably look so stupid.”
“Who cares,” Ayn snorts. “Nobody’s around. Even if they were, it doesn’t matter what they think.”
“Are we really going to walk all the way to our destination like this?”
Ayn leans against you, stopping suddenly.
“We’re already at our destination.”
At some point, the two of you had stopped at—
“Leighton Creek Plaza,” you murmur.
Ayn nods a little, pulling the scarf with him. When he realizes the scarf is scratching at you, he stills.
“I liked to play around this area a lot when I was a kid. There are a lot of interesting musicians who busk here, though nobody’s here right now since it’s too early.”
You catch a trace of disappointment in his voice. Not long from now, the two of you will have to return to Harp Island to catch up on schoolwork now that Ayn’s finished his business in Leighton.
“How about I sing for you?”
Ayn looks at you eagerly, his response almost instantaneous.
“Yes— No, wait, hold on.” With his free hand, Ayn fumbles around a bit and pulls out his phone. “I need to record this.”
“No! No recordings! This is an exclusive concert, no recordings are allowed.”
Ayn looks at you with a frown, pouting slightly. “I know you save those voice clips. Of me singing.”
“...I’ll sing for you again later when I’ve practiced more,” you insist, embarrassed. “You can record me later. Here, let’s take a picture instead, okay?”
He hums reluctantly, holding his phone out as he takes a few pictures of the two of you huddled close together with noses and ears flushed red from the cold, tied together by a clumsily sewn scarf.
“Send me those later.”
“M’kay.”
As Ayn pockets his phone, you clear your throat a bit nervously. You recall the street performer you met yesterday, in this very spot, and the song he sang for you.
The song he sang for that little boy many years ago.
You know you’re definitely missing a few notes, with some off-beat, and your confidence shrinks. As your voice starts to die down, Ayn squeezes your hand in his, and you see the joy in his eyes as he recognizes the song you sing. With that, you continue.
The world falls silent once you finish.
Then, through the silence, your name is whispered, and the cold biting at you fades as two arms wrap around you tightly.
Ayn doesn’t need to say it for you hear the words in his heart.
I love you too, you think, reaching out to return his hug.
The sun begins to rise, bathing this world belonging to just you and Ayn in a sweet, rosy hue. As you both turn to watch the sunrise, you quietly hook his pinky finger with yours.
“Let’s come back here next time,” you whisper. “Next year, let’s listen to the buskers from your childhood together. And the year after that. And the year after that, and…”
“Until the end of our days?”
The overwhelming happiness you feel tickles your heart as you lean contentedly against Ayn. The earmuffs are ticklish as they press against you, and the scarf scratches against your cheeks, a reminder of both your imperfection and his. But, with him by your side, you’ve never felt cozier.
You hum in affirmation as you make your promise to this boy, who once travelled this world alone.
You don’t wonder what time it is now, or think about the assignments you might have due, or about the people on campus who glance your way as you run out of your home blindly.
The campus all around you blurs as your feet hit the ground in a frenzied panic. There’s only one name repeating over and over in your mind—
Ayn.
Countless melodies are mixing in the hallway of the music building. Sounds of the french horn, violins, flutes, tubas, clarinets…
Piano.
But they’re not his piano.
Your heart drops inexplicably when you draw nearer to Ayn’s piano room and don’t hear him.
But he’s there.
Once you're closer, you see him through the window, pencil in hand as he writes something on his sheet music. You open the door without a second thought.
Ayn looks up when he hears the door opening and he—
He smiles when he sees you, smiles gently, fondly, carrying all of the affection the world has to offer just for you. His eyes curve slightly, and he murmurs your name.
“Ayn.”
Ayn’s smile immediately falls and he hurriedly gets up. He crosses the piano room to get to you and he reaches out to hold your shaking hand. He repeats your name, worriedly, as he closes the door behind you and pulls you further into the room.
It’s warm.
It’s warm, unlike the hand that had pressed your fingertips back down onto that blade forged from his spirit. In that moment, you see him again, and you can feel the warmth of the blood beneath your palms. You remember the feeling of the mist lightly brushing the palm of your hand before it coalesces into a red flower in his palm, reminiscent of an inextinguishable flame.
Your eyes sting, your throat grows tight, and you take Ayn’s hand holding yours and hold it tightly. When you see Ayn flinch a little, you loosen your grip and chew your bottom lip.
“Sorry,” you whisper.
In the next second, you’re embraced by the same warmth you had desperately tried to hold onto.
You really thought you’d exhausted all of your tears already.
But they fall, one after the other. You let yourself cry, your tears staining the shoulder that muffles your sobs. Everything comes rushing up again; the sorrow, the regret, the longing, the anger, the helplessness—
You cry, not just for him, but all of those who came before him.
The people you couldn’t save, both in the present and in the past. From Godheim, from Eden, and from your world.
“I’m tired,” you confess to him shakily, unable to steady your hands. You hold onto the fabric of his shirt, the only anchor you have in this very moment. “I— Am I— the people I’ve met, I… Ayn, Ayn, please…”
What do you want to say?
You’re not sure.
The words get all tangled up in your head, even though what you really want to say is a simple sentence.
“I’m here.”
Ayn’s voice is quiet and steady. The piano room is muted, and the only thing you can hear is Ayn’s strong, rhythmic heartbeat.
“Ayn.”
“Yeah.”
“Ayn.”
He hugs you tighter, his hair tickling you as he presses his cheek to yours. You can hear his hum right next to your ear.
“Ayn. Ayn, Ayn, Ayn…”
Don’t go.
Don’t leave, don’t try and protect those around you, don’t try to change the world, just stay here, don’t change—
You can’t utter any of those words.
It’s your own, selfish wish. A hypocritical request, when you know you’ve left Ayn suddenly in the past without any explanation.
Privately, you sometimes wonder what would’ve happened had you run away from it all.
If you hadn’t gone to that movie theatre with him. If you had decided to live a quiet, peaceful life and continue cuddling with Ayn that afternoon in the secret base.
But then you remember his smile. The flower blooming in his hand, the gift from you to the past him—
Had you decided to never continue down this path, you would’ve never had those experiences. The good, the bad, everything in between. You wouldn’t have laughed, cried, screamed— wouldn’t have felt the ticklish sensation of that Ayn nuzzling you in that bygone era.
But you also wouldn’t have felt the fear that drowns you, that suffocates you.
In that moment, as you watched that Ayn disappear, you couldn’t help but think about your Ayn.
Diligently practicing piano every day, napping and playing games when not. Pouting whenever you tease him, gently hooking your pinky finger with his in the lulls of life within the secret base shared between the two of you. The tangled limbs as a result of the two of you taking a nap together.
What would you do, if that were to all disappear one day?
With every world you visit, you think you’re starting to understand why your mother did what she did for you more and more.
This feeling of love choking you until your breaths come out as a stutter— you don’t mind it, don’t mind the pain you’ll have to endure as long as Ayn is safe. You wouldn't mind exchanging your life for his, if you could.
…But you can’t do that.
The two of you promised each other to share the burden.
You don’t want him to be in the dark, you want to tell him about yourself in exchange for what he’s told you about himself. You made that decision, during White Day, to tell him everything.
And—
You can't do that to him.
Not when he's lost his own mother. Not when he, too, is lonely just like you had been back when you were overcome with grief. Sometimes, in his secret base, you'll catch Ayn staring dazedly at the vinyl record player on one of his many shelves. In those moments, you always remember the conversation you had with him during the first new years you spent with him— you see Ayn searching through records as he tries to recover something he's forgotten from the distant past.
In many ways, he's still grieving for the loved one he's lost.
The grief never leaves, not fully. You would know.
You can't leave him, you can't, because that would be too cruel, too unfair to him. You don't know if you want to inflict onto him what that Ayn in that distant world inflicted onto you.
Conflicting feelings tangle in your chest.
“Ayn,” you murmur after a long period of silence. Your voice has grown hoarse from crying, and his shoulder has been soaked with your tears, but you can’t find it in yourself to pull away and recollect yourself. All you can do is repeat his name, like a broken record, whispering your affections to him in the form of the name you’ve grown to love saying.
In the earliest hours of day, or perhaps the latest hours of night, his eyes slowly open.
It takes a second for the world to come into focus. His screensaver, a picture of the very first painting he bought from you, has long since been replaced by a sea of inky darkness. The cold white light of his office forces him to squint his eyes a little as he surveys the room.
With one hand idly running through already messy blonde locks, Lars moves the mouse to his desktop and blinks slowly at the time displayed in the corner.
4:51 A.M.
An odd hour. Not concretely night, nor is it concretely morning.
…He must’ve fallen asleep right after finalizing everything for tomorrow.
Lars supposes that it’s already tomorrow.
Quietly, in that lonely office elevated high above the streets that everybody walks, the CEO laughs to himself. He leans back in his chair, wincing when his limbs protest in the form of a dull ache. He stares blankly at the ceiling, not yet fully awake.
When was the last time he fell asleep like this?
Usually, he would’ve managed to at least move to the couch in the office. Lars thought he had the strength to fight off the ever-pervading sense of exhaustion, but perhaps he thought wrong.
Or…
Maybe not.
He’s pulled his fair share of all-nighters in the past. If he had to make a guess, the thing that was different was…
Well, after being reminded to take frequent rests by a certain someone, Lars has started to remember what it was like to feel exhaustion as any other regular human would. He lets out another groan, as a faint headache pokes and prods at him. No doubt, it was the lack of sleep he’d been getting during this busier season.
In this large room— a room he spent more time in than his own bedroom— Lars lets himself massage his forehead in an attempt to ease the headache. Nobody’s around for him to entertain, so he freely lets his lips purse into a vaguely annoyed and tired frown.
He really should sleep sometime.
Truthfully, it wasn’t only you that reminded him to get more rest. Mrs. Lane, the housekeeper, occasionally hinted to him her concern over the eyebags he tries to hide. His grandmother, when he calls her— something that tends to be rarer nowadays due to his hectic schedule— often checks up on him when she picks up on the slightest sleepy drag of his words.
Even his driver sometimes looked back at him, from the front mirror, and Lars could see the concern in Mr. Bond’s gaze through that reflection.
Maybe he’s losing a bit of his touch. There are far too many people who have been trying to subtly hint at Lars that he needs more sleep.
…What can he do? With much of his day dedicated to discussing with various business partners, or tending to commitments that had been scheduled weeks earlier, the night has to be dedicated towards preparing for the next hectic day.
But when he imagines your puffed-out cheeks, furrowed brows, and eyes peeking at him with blatant concern, he lets out a resigned sigh.
Lars is stubborn, but he is no fool. He’s aware that he’s pushing the limits of his body, and that it would be wise for him to spend more time— at the very least— napping rather than staring at documents.
After meeting you, he’s been able to dedicate a little more time to relaxation. Not much. Yet it’s just enough that, once Lars has hit the busiest month of the year, he’s filled with an indescribable heaviness. He’d love to crawl into a warm, fluffy bed right about now.
Honestly, he’s not sure how to feel. Should he laugh? Or cry? It would seem that meeting you had made him more prone to noticing his own exhaustion. He fears he might not be as tolerant of all-nighters anymore.
Well, no point in sitting around to think about it. He still feels exhausted, and he can afford a short nap before he’ll have to continue on with the day.
Might as well get in those final hours of sleep somewhere more comfortable than his desk.
Lars stands up, dragging himself over to the couch in his office. The tired shadow that covers his usually brilliant eyes lightens up a little when he spots the blanket carefully folded on one of the couch cushions.
It’s a faintly yellow blanket with a simple, cartoonish lion stitched onto one corner. Beneath it is a plain pillow that stands out amongst the fancier pillows decorating the couch. On it is a sunflower, stitched on in a similar manner as the lion.
He feels warm. And, as he wraps himself up in the blanket, with his head resting on top of the pillow, it’s as though he’s engulfed in a kind and sincere hug.
Some days are harder to get through than others. But, when he remembers all of those who continue to care for him through their own schedules, through their respective hardships…
Well, he thinks he can keep on going for many days to come.
It feels like the first time he’s picking up a paintbrush.
It is, by no means, the actual first time he has picked up a paintbrush. No— it’s a motion he’s gone through countless times before to recreate this or that scene from his memory on a canvas. With one of his many identities being a famous painter, he has to be familiar with the paintbrush.
But, in many ways, he’s realized that he might’ve not had any familiarity with it at all. The reason for wanting to paint now is no longer the same as before.
He… wants to paint you.
But first, he intends to practice.
Painting people, he thinks, is rather difficult. After meeting you, the world has tilted ever-so-slightly, and everything that was once perfectly in place has become newly unfamiliar to him. Those who walk the earth are less like vague, blurry faces, and have become faces he carefully notes down because these are the people that you are trying to protect.
The more time he spends with you, the more he realizes that humans, too, have a certain fleeting beauty to them that he’d failed to notice previously.
The volatile nature of humanity is difficult to capture.
Cael frowns slightly, lowering the paintbrush he has picked up for the first time, as he stares thoughtfully at the painting before him. A rather standard painting of a stranger in a coffee shop that he’d seen for one second many years ago.
Everything is perfect.
And that is the problem.
Noiselessly, without a single sigh, Cael sets aside the painting and replaces it with a new, blank canvas.
He picks up a pencil.
Should he try to paint you this time? Starting with a sketch.
He doesn’t think he can properly paint you. Not yet. Does he even have the right to paint you? The you, with bright eyes that reflect the world and a boundless love for it, the you with a bizarrely affectionate smile aimed towards him for…
For…
Well, he doesn’t entirely understand the reasons behind it. But something about it makes him feel oddly soft with a fondness blooming in his chest. And it’s a feeling he can’t help but focus on, regardless of whether he wants to or not.
In that way, you’ve left a deep impression on him.
Whether you stay with him or leave him to live out your life… he probably wouldn’t ever be able to fully forget the way you’ve subtly changed his heart. Through you, he’s seen too many new things that confuse his mind, his soul.
What would you think, seeing the great painter Emerald, struggling to paint? If you were like any other person he’s typically acquainted with, he would’ve imagined you with a disappointed expression on your face. But you’re not.
You don't jeer at him like his old classmates had. You don't gaze down on him like the teachers in the Infinite Empire. You don't respond to him with the coldness of the voice issuing to him his missions.
He thinks, maybe, you would smile.
Then, he would end up commenting on it, and you would reply with a view unique to you and you alone. Probably, he would struggle to fully understand this. He’s sure he could deduce the reason, rationally, but on a more emotional level…
Perhaps that is why the smile he’s painting looks a little off.
It’s not… you. It’s a carefully, perfectly curved arc drawn by a hand that’s accustomed to painting copies of scenes from his perfect memory.
The tangled knot he feels in his chest is probably— if he were to guess…
Frustration.
A perfect student of the Infinite Empire, yet he cannot do something as simple as painting you. Cael is certain that his colleagues would laugh and mock him for this.
He sets the paintbrush down once again. For a long time, he stares at the newly started sketch of you. Outside, the clouds drift by, birds occasionally peek in through the window while perched on tree branches, and the sun goes from standing tall in the sky to slowly rolling down…
And he randomly recalls an old memory. Several, actually.
The petulant expression you show him when he brings up the memory of you pouring dish soap into the washing machine. The wrinkled smile that you gave him when you made your request to him during that snow-ridden adventure. You, and the contentedness on your face, as you sketch amongst a sea of sunflowers reaching towards the sky.
Cael smiles faintly at your faint, sketched outline. Then, he places the pencil down with one elegant motion.
He’s overthinking things.
Perhaps he should just go for it.
Indeed, he has never been able to fully understand you with his deductions alone. You do not fit a clean mould, nor do you obediently follow the trajectory of fate and the future often becomes unclear when you get involved.
So, perhaps, the solution to all of this is to… follow his heart. Just as you follow yours.
He’s yet to figure out what his “heart” even is, or what it is comprised of. But… he thinks he can learn. Bit by bit.
You lift your head, smiling when Alkaid approaches you curiously. He sits down on the couch that the two of you had bought together, comfortably finding his place next to you.
A quiet action that only naturally came to the anxiety-ridden man many years later. Up close, despite all of the wrinkles of time littered across his face, he still looks as handsome as the day you first saw him. Easily, you melt into his side and hold out your left hand.
“I was looking at my wedding ring.”
Alkaid tilts his head slightly, blonde hair tickling your cheeks. His own left hand extends and his hand is placed next to yours.
There’s the faintest hint of embarrassment in his voice as he speaks. “Are you remembering the time I proposed to you?”
“Naturally. It was just so memorable.”
“It was a disaster,” he says, with a mixture of embarrassment and fondness.
“It really was. You were shaking so badly. You even dropped the ring box.”
“I caught it though,” Alkaid defends himself, meeting your gaze. “I didn’t let it fall.”
“I’ll give you that,” you reply with a wry smile. “You have great reflexes.”
Alkaid coughs lightly, turning his eyes back to the two wedding rings reflecting the light of the falling sun.
“Great reflexes won’t help me when my voice ends up cracking.”
The corners of your lips twitch. You withdraw your outstretched hand to pat Alkaid’s thigh pressed against your own consolingly.
“It was endearing because it wasn’t perfect.”
You pause, the numerous little scratches and nicks in your wedding ring catching your eye. You bring your hand closer to you, closer to your heart, and smile softly as you silently count the wear and tear your ring has gone through despite painstakingly meticulous care.
“Y’know, kind of like this ring,” you muse.
No matter how carefully something is maintained, imperfections will crop up eventually. Little nicks in the heart are impossible to avoid in life.
You’re glad you were able to go through this sort of life with Alkaid at your side. You’re glad you were able to be with Alkaid throughout some of the rougher times in his life.
“Even though there are all of these little scratches on my ring when I look at it closely, I wouldn’t ever want to remove them. They all lend themselves to the experiences I’ve had with you and I want to cherish each and every one of them,” you ramble. “So I wouldn’t ever want to try and erase these little scratches of ours.”
You can feel Alkaid’s lingering gaze on you, so you meet his eyes. Even though countless years have passed since the two of you got married, he still occasionally looks at you with intense longing, as though the two of you aren’t a married couple who have already vowed to remain together through life and death.
You think Alkaid has come a long way. But sometimes the ghosts of the past are particularly persistent and nobody can ever fully erase their past experiences from their mind.
“Alkaid?”
Slowly, his fingertips touch yours.
“I’m glad,” is all he whispers.
His eyes lower, fixated on both the scratches in your ring and his own.
Neither of you are perfect. The path of life is very rarely a smooth one. Full of conflict, big and small, full of grievances and grudges, full of the struggles that come with living...
But, when you get to walk along that path with Alkaid— well, it's not so bad.
You feel a little silly with your arms spread out while doing the good old jazz hands motion. Still, Alkaid doesn't miss a beat and applauds you enthusiastically.
You turn your gaze to the mirror, holding a reflection of both you and Alkaid. Little star and comet-shaped hair clips decorate Alkaid's hair, scattered about in an artistic chaos. You're in no better condition, with similarly themed hair clips in your own hair.
"We look silly, don't we?" you muse, laughing a little at how absurd the two of you look in the mirror.
"I think we look great," Alkaid replies sincerely with a bright smile. "These hairclips you made look amazing."
"Yours look great too, Alkaid. They're so detailed," you hum, reaching up to lightly touch one of the many hair clips in your hair. It shimmers and gleams under the warm, golden glow of the ceiling light above. "You really have an eye for detail."
"I like your designs more," he says, turning around slightly so he could look at you directly. "Your style of making things is my favourite."
"Happy to please!" you grin, leaning over to press a light kiss to the forehead of the seated Alkaid. "Oh, also! Hold on, stay there, let me just..."
A few steps across the room and a flick of a switch later, the room is quickly plunged into darkness. You hear your name being called out amidst the darkness, confusion clear in Alkaid’s voice.
“What…”
His question dies on his lips as his attention is caught by brightly shining lights in the mirror. Alkaid’s reflection is illuminated by countless stars of different colours, all coming together to form a little galaxy of his own. Giddily, you make your way over back to Alkaid, happy that the hair clips have worked as intended.
“I made the clips so that they would glow in the dark!”
Pausing, you remember a list you once sent Alkaid— one full of cheesy pickup lines.
“...Because you light up my world," you add.
Alkaid blinks owlishly at your reflection for a few moments before laughing softly. His eyes crinkle happily as he turns around to face you.
“May you come closer?” he asks.
“Of course,” you reply in a heartbeat.
As you lean towards him, curious, you watch as he unclips one of the many star-shaped hair clips from his hair. His fingers gently graze the side of your face as he pins the hair clip to your hair.
“There we go,” he murmurs. “My lovely little star. Though there’s nothing in this world that can compare to your brilliance, this will have to do for the time being.”
From the corner of your eyes, you catch sight of your reflection standing along with Alkaid’s. Two stars standing close to each other, basking in each other’s light.
You stare at him, flabbergasted, for a few moments before you laugh in defeat with warmed cheeks. “You sap,” you reply affectionately, leaning over to lightly bump your forehead against his. “It’s your birthday today, this is supposed to be about you, not me.”
“Is it?” he says with a hint of mischief. “What if I want to make it about you, though?”
His hand finds yours in the dark, fingers shyly brushing up against yours. With a grin, you securely intertwine your fingers with his.
“I’ll turn it around, then. I can talk about you all day.”
“Is that a challenge?” he asks cheekily.
“You’re on,” you laugh, squeezing his hand lightly.
The two of you lapse into a momentary silence, taking the time to listen to each other’s steady breathing.
“Happy birthday, Alkaid,” you whisper. “I’m glad I met you on that mountain that day.”
Alkaid hums quietly, his hold on your hand tightening ever so slightly. “Me too,” he replies quietly.
It takes a few moments for him to break the silence that follows. Alkaid’s voice is almost fragile yet resolute as he says sincerely—