#katyadored

"Sothis, Balthus why are you so old?" - Nina

“AKIRA!!”

“...!”

Hmm. That wasn’t the response he’d been expecting. This was yet another time he wished to not be so easily flustered.

“Albright, what the fuck?”

“Oh, Cyrus...”

“Well, I know you haven’t had an easy time with him.”

3. A memory of their mother

Try as he might otherwise, Forwin wasn’t always all sunshine and songs.

With Balthus and Yuri gone, leaving him alone in the makeshift bedroom for the Ashen Wolf boys, the self-appointed bard of the team let out an uneasy breath as he shed his guise for a brief interval. He aimed an open palm at the ceiling, and with naught but a flex from his fingers and a swirl of air at their tips, that loathsome sigil flashed before his eyes in the dimly lit dorm.

Saint Macuil’s Crest.

Wyndell hated this power from the very bottom of his heart, and wished so strongly to be rid of this burden altogether. It did not matter how well he played the part of the lower class, for there was no escaping this damned mark in his blood. He did not care for whatever higher status it gave him in his old life, that gilded prison and all its chains. Neither did he care for its boons, for he had sworn off magic forever lest he accidentally triggered it for all to see – it would take little guesswork to draw a line between the missing son of Gerth and a commoner his age bearing his Crest. Rhea won’t be able to protect him anymore.

No, he hated his Crest for not only taking away the only peace afforded to him as a child, but for the day he accidentally called upon it altogether...

...for that was the day his mother stopped smiling.

Forwin berated himself for hardly remembering what Isolde looked like back in those days. It’s been, what, a little over fourteen years since he last saw Mom? All he could recall was that she was still there one night, then gone the next morning, and it burned him to his core that the Duke was responsible for that too somehow. Thinking about it now still hurt, but he can’t always help where his mind wanders off to on some days.

He could never forget that first rush of adrenaline that surged from his tiny body when he cast that basic little spell, literal child’s play to test whether he were already capable of magic. Even without a Crest, he was at least the son of Roland von Gerth, who was still an accomplished mage in his own right. But when he shot that spell that time... it was different. A symbol flashed before his eyes the likes of which he had never seen before, and did not understand what it was aside from making him more powerful when it glowed.

“Mother! Did you see that? Did you see what I did?!”

His voice—how high in pitch it used to be!—rang with so much excitement as he ran to her and almost fell against her legs. The little boy was giddiness and innocence incarnate, with not a damned fucking clue of what would follow.

Little Wyndell just wanted her to be proud of him. That was all. He hoped to see her smile like she often did whenever he succeeded at all sorts of tasks, because already he learned to give up on receiving such reactions from an absentee father. He just wanted to be scooped up into her loving arms and be showered with all sorts of affectionate praise.

“...Mother?”

Instead of all of that, he only saw dread in Isolde’s eyes. She repeated whispers to herself, just “Oh no...” over and over again as though she encountered her worst fears in her own son. That made Wyndell afraid too.

“...did... did I do something bad?”

Not long after, Mother was gone and never to be seen again, leaving him alone with Father for the rest of his youth.

Teeth, once grit against themselves, bit his lip down so Forwin could distract himself from feeling a growing need to cry, but that did not stop tears from building up anyway. Just as he brought his palm back down to wipe them away, however, he heard footsteps until the bedroom door gave way. He turned his head to find Balthus standing in the doorway, cocky and confident as ever.

“Hey pal, you’re losing daylight! Hapi’s gonna eat your share of breakfast if you don’t hurry up!”

“S-sorry! I was just, uh, getting some extra sleep in, that’s all. I’ll get dressed,” Forwin replied, adding a dismissive wave with one hand while the other rubbed out that ‘extra sleep’ from his eyes. “Thank you, Balthus.”

With a nod from the Timely King of Grappling before he took his leave, the musician let out a sigh and shook his head as though to do away with any more unpleasant thoughts lingering about. One deep breath in, then out, just as Tristine taught him before, and then he pulled his bedsheets off of him before stepping out.