*****
It had been a long time since
Luce had felt so sullen. He stared out at the white roofs in neat and uniformed
rows spread out across the residential quarter, the main plaza’s spiralling
spinel clock tower seen towards the other end of the white roof fields. The sun
was slowly setting behind the western mountains, painting the expanse of his
city in shades of orange and gold.
Star, the ever so patient and
kind butler who had half raised him, could be heard bustling about in the kitchen
of his home. In a part of his heart, he felt sorry for getting angry at the man
because of his bad mood. Star might have looked alright, but Luce knew he had
been bewildered and hurt. He wanted to apologize to the older Child, but
somehow he couldn’t find the courage to say anything and instead locked himself
up in his room like a petulant teen.
After nearly five years, the fragile
balance of his mind was shattered unduly by a nightmare a fortnight before. That
beautiful man garbed in white and red had appeared, becoming his unheeded
partner and fellow witness to the horror that he was forced to watch.
It was one of those dreams he
wished didn’t play out with such clarity. The colors were too vivid, the sounds
too crystal clear. He could see the pale pallor of tender flesh caged under
thick tendrils of black and grey, struggling against the bondages of its prison
and yet betrayed its intended goal. Hair the color of a peaceful winter morning
fell limply like a torn veil, being tossed about as the flesh it was attached
to kept moving about. Wine red eyes were clouded over with pain and forbidden
pleasure, just as pale lips remained open and garbled screams and pleas escaped
it.
Monstrosities he had only heard
of from his more experience allies were everywhere, slithering in and out of
the shadows aimlessly. Some though, had become attracted to the main object of
this dream and slowly made their way past him towards the writhing mass his
eyes were currently gazing upon.
“Horrifying, isn’t it?” His
companion had asked, but it wasn’t a question as much as it was a statement.
Luce frowned, crossing his arms over his chest to calm his wildly beating
heart. The moans and screams weren’t something he wanted to hear. In some other
time, the sounds made would have been amusing. But now, it was simply
disgusting. How he wanted to stop everything himself. But it was only a dream,
and this companion of his seemed to be controlling it. The young mage knight
knew long ago there was no other recourse but to let everything happen, bitter
as he was with this show of submission.
The man he knew as LeRoux turned
to smile at him. It was very unnerving, but he couldn’t look away. Snow white
hair fell in layered and loose curls to his thighs, blood red eyes regarded him
with slight amusement. “This dream feels much like that day, does it not?”
There was no disgust, no pity in his tone. Neither did LeRoux look anything
remotely bothered by the scene. In fact, he looked quite the opposite.
Luce was quick to snap a reply. “I
don’t need you to tell me that.”
“No, of course not, of course
not.” Sang LeRoux, clapping his hands merrily. No, he certainly did not need
for this psycho to remind him of that memory branded with the shatter of his
heart. A pained scream jolted him back to the present. The mage knight turned
to see flesh jerk against the tendrils before it relaxed back into the dreadful
dark mass. Pity, he could understand that feeling, but why did rage threatened
to explode as well? He didn’t recognize the human trapped under all that mass.
One of the mages he knew perhaps, but he recalled none of them had eyes like those,
like his. Male or female, he did not know nor did it matter to him either. The
rage didn’t leave him still.
He turned towards the other, mask
shakily set into place. “What’s the point of showing me this, fiend?”
“Fiend? Ah, I have fallen that
far since our last meeting.” LeRoux chuckled, but went on, “Oh, you certainly
needed to see this. I find it very entertaining to say the least.”
“You’re damnably sick if you get
your kicks off of things like this.”
“Words, Luce. Indeed, it is a
terrible sin unto myself that I have left your upbringing amongst the less
eloquent Children. Ah! Mea culp-”
“Shut it and just answer my
question.” Luce felt his already thin patience wearing thinner. LeRoux merely
brought a finger to his smiling lips and pointed back to the scene. As if on an
unspoken word, the shapeless monstrosities began to move in a different pattern,
dragging the human deeper into its mass. The screams renewed with strength, and
Luce could even hear swearing and cursing.
“The hell!” Luce swore, catching
himself at the last minute before he lunged for the monstrosity and its victim.
“Would you be that hero you could
only dream about, Luce?” The white haired man beside him asked. “Or would you
always remain the boy gladiator?”
“What?”
LeRoux shrugged with a careless
smile. “People cling to objects that remind them of things they could not save.
That was the source of your idea to become a ‘hero’, however disillusioned that
dream is. That hope is quite smaller than it used to be, however you are still
an optimistic hypocrite.” The older man spun merrily with his arms spread at
his sides, his bell like laughter filling the darkness aside from the whimpers coming
from the prisoner. “My young gladiator, who always struggle to fight for causes
beyond his control.”
Luce heard the words, but he did
not look at the other. Instead he kept his gaze fixated on the struggling form
before him.
Even if he were a phantom to his
own dream, those red eyes seemed to focus on him, only him.
Please. They
begged. Please? Luce could not understand what this person wanted. Please can
mean so many things. Please? If by some miracle he understood what exactly this
person wanted, can he do anything?
Don’t
look at me. He quietly said in his mind. Tears spilled out of those accursed
red orbs, their lips trembling to form the word that those eyes voicelessly
pleaded.
Ever since that incident, he
didn’t want to be deeply involved with people. Hating was better too, but he
realized to his frustration that he couldn’t hate as much as he wanted to. But
he could still hate. He can still turn down what was being asked of him. Who
was he to fix someone else’s problem? That person probably deserved what was
happening to him.
“Stop it.” Luce whispered, unable
to shake the emotions gripping his heart the more he stared. Unable to take it
anymore, he glared at LeRoux. “I said stop it!” He demanded.
Please.
The mysterious smile on LeRoux’s
face turned a notch sinister. “Stop it? Luce dear, have you ever heard of
dreams as premonitions? Prophetic messages? What is happening is something I do
not have control over. I only invited myself into your dream to oversee.”
Luce lunged for LeRoux, baring his
teeth in an angry scowl. The other did not move away, but he laughed as the
younger man gripped his shirt and pulled back a fist.
A sudden, sickening crunch and
abrupt silence stopped them both. Fear gripped Luce’s heart as he closed his
eyes, understanding what that noise was a result of. But a force compelled him
to turn, to force his eyes open at the sight. He nearly retched at the blood
that leaked into rivers from between the monstrosities’ tendrils, at the now wet
and deadened eyes in a head tilted at a very disturbing angle. Blood trailed
from lips parted in a scream that was denied escape.
LeRoux brushed away the hands
that lost its grip on his shirt. For a moment, he sniffed childishly at his
rumpled clothes. Smoothing the creases to his satisfaction, he regarded the mage
knight with all mirth returned to his smile. “You are a smart man Luce, though
one so muddled with hatred for humanity’s imperfections.”
Luce felt LeRoux touch his
cheeks, wiping away the tears he did not know had fallen from his eyes. But he
didn’t feel the need to push the man away. There might have been something that
LeRoux saw in his eyes, for somewhere between the heaviness constricting his
chest and the fuzziness in his head, he heard the other vaguely sigh.
“Ah, I am sure you understand
what this is. Take this as a good-natured advice.”
He heard a high pitch note of
metal being unsheathed. His instincts kicked in, but a moment too late as he
saw the blade swinging up towards his chest.
Luce screamed his agony, that very same
emotion filled cry finding its way back with him to the waking world. There was
supposed to be no pain felt. It should have been nothing. But the pain that exploded
in him had been remarkably realistic. The blood that spurted like wine from a
bottle too convincing.
That had been the first and last
time he would have that dream, and the last he saw of LeRoux. Frankly, he was
grateful for both to happen. Since that dream, he still rubbed his chest,
feeling the ghostly sting where the scythe’s tip had pierced.
It was now the present, months
since then. Luce trudged out from his room and stopped before the door across
from his. He stood there for a long time with a hand hovering over the knob,
creasing his brows while lost in thought. After a long debate, he let out a
breath then stiffened his shoulders. Quietly, he turned the knob, pushing the
door open just a little to peer at the occupant lying asleep on the bed.
He could not see his eyes, but he
knew in that moment that Star brought him to his home that the man’s eyes would
be wine red like his. His hair was parted away like a veil of white blue,
making his pale face visible to all. Bandages swathed the man’s thin form,
though a heavy blanket was tucked up to his chin. He didn’t know how old the
injured man was, but that was a question he could ask when his surprise guest
was in better conditions.
Luce watched the man take shallow
breaths before he closed the door behind him. He leaned heavily against the door,
rubbing his temples with a hand while the other gripped at his chest.
Don’t
fall in love with something you don’t understand.
The psychotic Immortal was half
right. Hatred is something Luce was more familiar with. Masks too, were just as
familiar. LeRoux’s parting words made so much sense, but Luce... Luce knew that
nothing was as predictable as they looked.
His story was beginning to move
once more.
Luce hated a lot of things, but
most of all, he hated that he could not do anything to stop the wheels of Fate from
turning.
End entry.
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