How long has it been?

An In-Character Blog.

[space-onthecrownarg]

It was habit now, uprooting flowers in the woods and bringing them back to his Flowerbed. A reminder, he guessed, of the grave. Of his explorations. Of the mansion’s garden he so hazily remembered. Of the family that he used to love.

Sometimes he took more than the allotted day on his turns. He always traded off, made it even.

What would he do if they retreated back into the mindscape? Probably end up like them, if he was honest. Or maybe, without the Flowerbed to return to, he would leave.

He was kidding himself, of course. He was always drawn back. Some days he would think of going home, rapping on the door. Tell them that he was home, and that he was sorry, that it was all his fault, that he missed them. But he wouldn't. He had committed, and he needed to see. When would they come for him? It had been two years.

He had grown. He didn't know he could do that. His hair a little longer, his steps a little longer. He had grown past the need for the home where he belonged. His flowerbed comfortably held his shape now, when he laid down. The want to return to his life still stayed. Not yet, too soon, never again.

Warden, it had been two years.

Two years of spite and hurt. Two years of emptiness, of tears. Two years of nights spent comforted by a person more ghost than man, more memories than ghost.

He was only Three. Four, if you considered the year he spent dead. He didn't. He tried not to.

Maybe he could hazard a visit to the Mineshaft soon. Donti would probably appreciate the update. They'd both been avoiding it for too long.

Who was left?

[space-onthecrownarg]

Donti had told him other things, as well.

Bandit, back at the mineshaft. Their promise with Raeva, likely broken. The hours they had shared with Ren, sneaking him snacks. Nights spent at the library, how kind Crown had been. Sitting with Grimm, chatting about their day. Fights with Somni over inconsequential things. Observer, scolding them when they would find themselves lost in the bowels of the mindshaft. The compass, the closet. Grimms house in the woods. Hours spent in the camera’s blind spots with Jay. Nights and days spent awake, shared with friends. Fondness dripped off of their thoughts. Paralytic wondered why they wouldn't return. It was complicated, they said.

They told him of their friendship with Duke and Duchess, long before he had come to be. How Duke had killed them, sabotaging their belongings and leading the pillagers to the forest. (They were told of this in the afterlife. They had been shocked, betrayed, then. But it didn't matter now, did it? They were alive.)

[space-onthecrownarg]

Donti had told them that he didn't have to keep the promise they had made. He didn't have to give them the day, they barely cared. Let the mindscape be pretty, if you could. Interesting, at the least. Snow and rivers, with plenty to see.

He had refused. Those were their days, for Donti to share with him if they pleased. And if they had no more stories to entertain him, he would start sharing his own. They were all they had left, he reasoned. Only each other, and no one else.

[space-onthecrownarg]

He didn't know what he wanted anymore. He wanted to go home, but he couldn't. Home was two years ago in a mansion that had burnt down. Home was a dead man and a family that he had thought was perfect. It was the garden and it was a kitchen that he still dreamed of cooking in at night.

He wondered what he would do if they apologized. Would he forgive them? Give them another chance? Would they waste it?

He didn't think he had it in him to let the ball of spite go. He loved them, he missed them. He despised them in equal measures.

His family was gone, he concluded. They had blown away in the ashes of that mansion, and all they had left were the scraps they had salvaged when that night was done. Tatters for each member of court. And none for him.

[space-onthecrownarg]

He wondered Who he would Be, when he bloomed.

Not court, never court. He refused. He would not name himself a ruler, a position, a role to fulfill. He would not grant them the solace of his name slotted next to theirs. 

He wondered who he was, without them.

[space-onthecrownarg]

He wondered if he would lose himself, if his laurel bloomed. Donti had told him of Empress and Judge, once Somni and Chorus. 

He wondered if he would forgive them for not looking for him. Maybe they would pretend nothing happened. Maybe he wouldn't care, if we was different. Maybe he would be better. And the next time they wouldn't forget. 

He would remember, though. He just wouldn't be himself. Maybe his bloomed self would remember his pain. He hoped so. He didn't want all of his tears, his spite, gone like pollen in the wind.

[space-onthecrownarg]

New growths appeared at his temples and along the crown of his skull, in reds and yellows and whites and purples. He paid them no mind. Maybe these would fall out again. Maybe these ones would never let him leave. Maybe these would remind them that he was here, outside, just out of reach. Maybe these, this time, were wholly his. Nothing that Jester had given him and forgotten about.

He dug up the flowers around his grave. It's not like he needed them. He had long lost the innocence the mock oranges had afforded him, and the forget-me-nots had lost their meaning.

They would serve Donti better back in their grass patch. Maybe they would appreciate the flowers. Surely they had gotten bored of looking at the sky?

[space-onthecrownarg]

He visited his old grave often. 

Fresh flowers once planted by a family friend had spread, covering the area. Mock oranges and forget-me-nots. The little flowers dotted the grave, white and pale blue. How much thought had been put into commemorating him? Had they liked him better dead? How often did they think of him, when he was gone?

Vague memories of whisping around the old house fluttered in his mind. They didn't seem to think of him now. 

He kicked at the grave. Only once.

That him was long dead.

[space-onthecrownarg]

“What do… did you like to do?”

They liked mushrooms, he learnt. They used to live on one of those rare mushroom islands, after they had left the ruins of their old home. They had a fondness for those weird mycelium cows, and raised them for food. (Along with the mushrooms, of course, but those needed less effort.)

They liked to work, to have a purpose, to have something to do. Farming, mining, building tracks, they would pick up odd jobs wherever they went. They loved to explore, as if they were looking for something. (They used to search for something important far and wide, but had long forgotten what it was.

They liked to sketch out houses, blocky things with plenty of room. They were no good at drawing anything else. They pushed a picture at him, and he told them it looked great. (It didn’t. It was honestly a little ugly. To each their own, he guessed.)

[space-onthecrownarg]

"How old are you?", he asked one day. 

I don't know, was the answer, they had lived day by day, and lost count forever ago. Question after question, with the answers coming from an indifferent source. They had long since gotten bored of the clouds and the stars. 

They had died before, when they were younger. They had been stupid and young, friends with other young and stupid people. Careless, no worries at all. They had found a way of eternal life. They had been happy, for a while. 

Things could never stay that way, though. 

Petty arguments grew, suspicions raised, and eventually they had begun slaughtering each other, first out of anger, revenge. And then out of fun. Why not? They had thought, Why not, when they would come back good as new, only a day from their death? 

They had a solace from all of it, a cat and three dogs. Rescued from their battle sites, they sat docile at home. It had been discovered, after a while. Nothing went untouched in their land. And so it was burnt, and only one of them had survived. 

Not Donti, of course. They came back the next day, and found their one surviving friend. A mutt they had dubbed Bandit. They left the others behind. They wonder how the boys are.

[space-onthecrownarg]

"How was death?" 

Grueling, they had said. Before, it had been short enough to tolerate. But months and months passed the last time they had been there. An empty room, with an itchy carpet and ugly lights. An empty home with nobody in it, waiting for someone, something to come back. A visitor, every once in a while, telling them to wait, that their death wasn't over, that it had been nothing unusual. It wasn't much different from this, they surmised. The difference was that this time, they got to choose. 

They missed their friends, but only the ones from the past. The ones of now were different, missing something, or gone. Not much to do there.

The buds and growths at their crown withered without blooming, shriveling up day by day. He tried not to think of his family, but when they would fall from his head, he offhandedly hoped that they would find it, and think of him. They wouldn't of course, but it was a thought. He still loved them, he thought, but he hated them more. He hoped that if they could find the buds in time, they would think him dead, and mourn him. 

He hoped they would mourn, at least. Who knew? He had already died once, and maybe that was enough for them. Too many deaths got old, overused. Too many washes would fade the cloth. Maybe he wasn't as vibrant, and that is why they had tossed him aside. 

[space-onthecrownarg]

It had taken months for their self imposed silence to be broken. He had extended the olive branch first. Donti didn't seem to care to do so.

“We can go back to the mineshaft, if you want? I don't really care now. Whenever you're ready. “

They had shrugged. Who cared really, he felt. It wouldn't be the same, and they doubted anyone would be happy to see them. They hadn't seen anyone in a while, and had been ignoring their calls and texts. They had dwindled over time, but they still got the monthly messages from Raeva. (They always came at the same time. Were they automated?) 

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

And that opened the gates. Every other day, he would return, and they would talk. Or he would talk, and Donti would think. They didn't care to do much. Just stare listlessly at the clouds. 

A waste of time, he thought, but their agreement from months ago still stood. One day, and then they traded. They could use their time as they wished.

[space-onthecrownarg]

They did this to each other. Their petty disagreement and their stalemate had ruined them both. He wished he could do it over again. 

If he had been home more, would they have noticed when he stopped returning? If Donti had gone and visited, would they still care? It was hard to tell. 

He told them he was sorry. They told him it didn't matter. This was what they had. This was their bed, and they had to lay in it. He told them again, that he was sorry, for whatever it was worth. It was worth as much as he meant it, they said.

[space-onthecrownarg]

Paralytic began wandering ever farther. Why not? He had reasoned to himself. They hadn't come looking before, and they certainly weren't coming now. If they did, they deserved to suffer for it, at least. He wouldn't let them earn him back without some effort. 

And so day by day, he would go out. Into the town, his borrowed hood keeping him anonymous, around lakes and through neighborhoods.

And into the woods where he had once died, carelessly. 

Completely uneventful. He had their… his sword. (He had laid claim to it himself, he used it more nowadays.) Nothing but stray beasts and traps left behind by the townspeople or forgotten by pillagers. 

He didn't know if he should be relieved or upset. He was different now. Older. He didn't even remember dying, just the passed along stories of his family, when they had still cared. 

He always went back to the patch of grass. It was nice, honestly. To have a place to return to when his day was done. To have someone to talk to. To have the grass welcome him back into the indent they had made. 

[space-onthecrownarg]

And it went like this for a year.

[space-onthecrownarg]

He could never bring himself to walk away. To leave the home he now insisted he hated. 

So around and around in circles he would walk, grumbling, muttering. He would take Donti's sheathed sword to the trees and rocks and to the ground. He would leave his mark on the world. Maybe they'd wonder where the marks were from. Maybe they'd remember him. 

He would return and wander the wreckage of his first home, where he had lived and died and unknowingly haunted. There was nothing really left for him here. 

He resisted the urge to go home to the arms of his family. They wouldn't be there anyways. They wouldn't care.

 And when his time was up, he would go back to the patch of grass, flattened in the shape of a body. He would lay down, and let Donti take their turn, and let them waste their time staring at nothing.

[space-onthecrownarg]

Days, weeks. Not a word from his loved ones. He would see them shopping, chattering of gifts to buy each other and dinners to cook. None for him, of course.

He had long since dropped the habit of staring longingly at Mona's house. 

He stayed away from them out of spite. He wanted to hear them call his name. He would check their phone often, never really typing, just to see if they had remembered him once. 

He wanted to go to the house, but he wouldn't. They would have to want him back. He would walk along the boundary of protection. Maybe he had to get hurt, and then they'd regret it. Regret not finding him, not looking, not caring. What could be more important than him not being home?