❝ what is so wrong with wanting to take care of you? ❞
|| Darken Prompts || Accepting || @umbranatus
There was a moment’s hesitation—A moment where he did not react immediately. So many years, he honed himself, his body, his mind, and yet, sometimes he was still caught off guard. Kayn tended to be the one that had caused that reaction from him—But was that unexpected? Kayn himself was an enigma—Noxian by birth, Ionian by choice, successor to the Master of Shadows, no doubt would be the one to control the shadows one day, and yet corrupted riddled the young Assassin’s flesh. Darkin. A battle of the mind, Zed could only imagine the agony that his Second experienced. He feared for whatever it could be, but he would not voice these fears. Nor could the Shadows voice it for him—Not since Kayn’s own reach to the Shadows was… compromised.
Zed finally took a breath—Did he need to breath? Not really. But he did—If nothing else, out of force of habit, out of having been alive so long, out of having needed to breathe just as normal people did, he forgot that it was no longer a necessity—Certainly felt like it was, especially on the off chance something prevented it. Still human. Somewhat human.
“Kayn…” He took another moment, staring at the other—Perhaps not staring, but with no pupils, there was no chance of tracing where the other was looking. Instead, his eyes were darting, yet it would seem that he only stared—Rather, Zed’s eyes darted over the other, scanning every little bit, every little feature, as though he feared he would one day forget these features, or perhaps it had been so long since he had last seen him, trying to compare them to before, even if the before was a mere day, or even a single hour.
Zed’s arms folded over his chest, anxiety in his still-beating heart—Was it beating, or only the shadows manipulating it to think it beat? He would rather not dwell on that thought, should the shadows interpret that as a shun from the Master, and to stop. His arms protected his chest, even if his spine was rigid and stance firm, that did not stifle that he struggled to find the words he needed to answer this question. To shield himself from his own second—Almost a funny thought. Should the question not feel so heavy, the words that tried to form feel so heavy on his tongue, he may have smiled beyond his mask.
But—He bared himself, moving his arms—Rather, he moved one to behind his head, and the other at the front of his mask, the tipped fingertips sliding between the slits in the front of the mask, his other hand undoing the back, the scarf sliding around his neck, and he finally pulling the mask off, red eyed—Face bare, just as pale—sickly, even, as always, his long white hair sloppily done up, only enough to keep it out of the way when placing his mask upon his face, or to not cause disturbance during the day…
And he set down the mask, and looked his son in the eye. Finally, he grew past the anxiety, and mustered the strength to speak.
“You are the Successor to the Shadows themselves. You bear your own demons—And you cannot ignore them to fight mine, should they eat you from the inside out…” Quite literally, but that thought caused a deep sickness in the pit of his stomach. He could not bring himself to say it--to say those two words. “For the Order—For Ionia herself, you need to not want to care for me, but rather yourself. You cannot afford to fall into disrepair, and any spare time or energy is due to be placed for yourself—And to grow stronger, or to defeat the parasite within you.
“I love you, Kayn. I do. And for that reason… Care less. It would all be in vain should…” He hesitated. For a moment, genuine fear was on his face, but just as soon as it appeared--it disappeared. “Should something… happen, to you.”
That thought terrified him above all else. It was the one scenario... He had no plan for. No idea what he would do, how he would react, what he would think... It was the only thing that could evade him, no matter how long he thought about it.
Those thoughts came by more and more often as Kayn seemed to grow... Worse.