-closed starter for Kailana @interritusinferno flashback to Adrian’s return to Calamity Dryden Manor, The Forgotten; mid–morning
Three hundred years. Give or take. That’s how long it had been since he swam through the corridors of Dryden Manor, of home. Although, he couldn’t think of it like that anymore. Not despite the warm welcome awaiting him, led by his hypocritical parents and attended by some of his siblings. The return of the black sheep wasn’t enough to tear them away from their obligations. If only they knew of his piracy, and not the merchant crap that was fed to them.
And for that, Adrian was grateful.
If he was back, it was only to protect one of them from his own mistakes, he didn’t doubt their parents’ lack of moral scruples. And he just wished that their secret target wasn’t the one sister he had always held dear to his heart.
Kailana. There she was, coming to see the one sibling who had missed all of the major events in her life. The one who wrote her but never showed up. As he stood next to one of the large reading room’s windows, he turned to look at her. The tight knot in his stomach tightened a tad more. Guilt almost seemed to pour out of his gills.
“It’s been long, Kai,” he murmured, his voice hoarse with heaviness. It wasn’t just remorse that tinted it, there was so much reflected in his eyes that she couldn’t have possibly noticed from his letters. But now, face to face, it was obvious that Adrian had lived through many lifetimes.
