#sylan

Dylan wasn't really a jealous person. Least not lately; he was pretty grateful for what he had, ya know? He had brothers, he had a father that loved him, he had friends, had Chance, a place to go back to, affection if he wanted it. He should be happy. He was happy.

But listening to his old friend... it made him bitter. Made him... feel weird.

It was just supposed to be a simple run into town, get supplies for the cabin, get out, then head back ya know. But then he ran into Gunna, a old ruffian gang member that hadn't been one of the bad ones really. They believed him to be dead, so might as well catch up at the local saloon. Neither drank, but Gunna paid for his food.

Dylan decided to not go first in talking about his life and now he actually didn't wanna talk about it at all. He was slowly eating, his eye glaring at the plate like he wanted to smash it.

❝So I told him, i told him 'that'll be 30 dollars sir,' and what does he give me? 300! All because he mis heard and truly thought my work was worth that much! Wild right!❞

Dylan glanced up at him with a dull look, not even forcing a smile anymore. ❝...That's great.❞

❝I know right!?❞ The blonde haired boy laughed as he started to eat his own stuff again, looking around.

A painter. Gunna had become a painter, a upcoming famous one too. He showed dylan some of his doodles earlier too and Dylans rage just grew; why couldn't he draw like that? Why was gunnas handwriting good? Gunna also was in a happy relationship with con, starting over. Forgiving each other. Thinking of adopting. Con was getting to work at the mill.

Gunna didn't have scars, only one on his arm but he got that removed from some... surgery? Dylan didn't much understand it. Gunna had a gambling addiction too apparently back in the day, but he fought it and over came it. Dylan still struggled with not wanting to go back. Why did he get to be better? They had been in thr same gang, same crimes, why was this boy better?

He didn't meet the devil. He didn't get people killed. He didn't feel worthless or have to fight for his soul, for himself. He just... lived. And apparently thet was enough to get lucky. Why did he get to be lucky?

Soon it got to the point where Dylan couldn't listen anymore and he stood up, putting on a smile, though heavily forced. ❝My brothers waiting for me back home. It's been-... uh, really nice seeing you again gunna. I'm happy for you.❞ he forced the words out, his flowers curling into his chest.

Gunna frowned, looking up at him. ❝Wait, but I didn't hear about your life. How are you doing? You have a brother?❞ he seemes genuinely interested, he wanted to learn about the kids life.

But that stroked the ever growing fire. Dylan bit his tongue to not spit the words, 'why's it fuckin' matter to you? Huh? It ain't grand! I was beaten to death mlre times than once, I can't do shit, I lost every piece of me and my brother should toss me in a river and forget I ever existed because 'm a burden on everyone i come across! Fuck you!' And the worst part wad he could imagine Gunnas sad, pitiful sympathetic look.

❝Maybe some other time.❞ he mused calmly, searching in his pockets to pay the man back for the food. But he had nothing.

Gunna waved his hand dismissively. ❝It's on me like I said before, don't bother, seriously. We'll it was nice talking to you Dylan. Maybe next week?❞

❝Next week. Mhm.❞ dylan nodded with strain, turning around before he imagined something he'd feel ashamed for later. Why was Gunna so nice too... ❝Take care.❞ he didn't await a response, just stormed out, feeling tears of frusteration in his good eye and he hissed at himself. Gunna probably didn't get sensitive like this. Gunna probably was always happy.

Gunna probably didn't get angry.

Gunna probably didn't do stupid things.

Gunna probably didn't think of murder.

Ouranos’s hands started to tremble.

He was alone in the bar he owned, the Transdimensional Raven, as he usually was if he was not in Voxwell, the capital of the Winter Court of the Dreamkin. In this bar, he could travel anywhere in Sylan and even traverse into different dimensions; however, this night, what haunted him could not be run from. He’d see it no matter where he went.

He had been used to the endless gears and machinery of the plane of Mechanicron, the sprawling and mostly empty machine-city, growing up. His mother had, alongside the lessons of a normal childhood, taught him how to handle Mechanicron, and how to weave the tapestry of Time and Space with the physical machine. But seeing what Mechanicron only modeled... seeing the true machine of the universe always filled Ouranos with dread.

His mother Cella, and his father Ybris, could see the true machinery of the universe too. Ouranos couldn’t remember if they had told him when they started to perceive the cosmos as it truly was. He knew, though, that asking them how they coped with that knowledge was pointless. They didn’t cope with it - just as people in the material Sylan didn’t ‘cope’ with the fact the sky was blue or that mountains exist. It’s just how things were.

His father Ybris would always rebuke him for caring too much about the material. He’d always say that the beings and the places and all that made up the land of Sylan did not matter outside of the fact that they were the moving parts of a grand, cosmic machine. “Why do you care about the gears so much, my son? They are working perfectly fine.” He’d ask. Ouranos didn’t understand how his father could be so cold and callous about the lives and existences of those 'gears’. Him and his father would have row after row about the subject, and Ouranos’s identical twin brother would usually get involved, though usually to take their father’s side.

Ouranos’s mother agreed with Ouranos, though she often approached the conversation with Ouranos as a conversation of detached philosophy. While he didn’t understand his mother’s seeming distance from the subject at the time, Ouranos felt like he understood her now. She had always approached the weaving of Time and Space, and the fates of all those who lived in Sylan, with the utmost care. To Ouranos, it felt like she believed she had to be distant; her lifespan was the immortality of a God, so getting too attached wouldn’t end well.

Ouranos’s hands started to shake worse than they were a couple of minutes ago. Whatever particular mixture he had taken of whatever was behind the bar, as well as a dosage of dreamgrass, to try in vain to stop himself from seeing glimpses of the True Machine had only made the situation worse. It was all he could really see, now, as he shakily reached for the wood of the bar to stabilize himself.

His mother and his father could live with the very knowledge that made Ouranos panic and shake with existential dread, and that was one of the things that was a particularly sore spot with him; if they could deal with it happily, why couldn’t he? His brother, who had taken to calling himself David, would tease him for it every time they crossed paths. “Oh, little brother mechanic, you’re scared so much by the machine you’d run away, and yet you constantly fondle the gears and stick your dick in them,” he’d taunt. Ouranos was sure that David was just jealous about the fact that Ouranos had seen the True Machine and David hadn’t yet, hence the taunting and snide comments that would always leave David’s mouth when they saw each other.

The first time Ouranos had seen the Machine, it had been his last night in Mechanicron, the place of his childhood. He, being a very young man at the time, was filled with overwhelming dread upon seeing it. He shut himself in his personal room and screamed in terror, then sobbed in pure fear. If it had been his mother, Ouranos thought, it probably would have turned out better; she knew how to calm her children’s fears. However, it was his father Ybris who arrived first, annoyed at the ruckus that Ouranos was making. He told him, coldly and angrily, to get over it and move on, brushing aside Ouranos’s terror as irrational and very, very stupid. Ouranos had already had a shaky relationship with his father and the brother who listed to every word that came out of their father’s mouth, and that night was the last nail in the coffin of him ever getting along with Ybris in any sort of polite capacity.

Even the words of Cella, his kind mother, couldn’t convince him to come back to the gear-halls of Mechanicron after that night, though she did keep in constant contact.

Ouranos had disguised himself for 4,000 years as a Dreamkin in the Court of Winter, disguising his time and space magic as ice, snow, and dreamkin magic; and had gotten involved in the affairs of both dreamkin and mortal alike. He had used the Transdimensional Raven as a way to travel across the multiverse as a cover for the fact he was bending space and time to travel as he did. But now, because of Ybris’s disappearance and the necessity of his hand as a mechanic of Mechanicron now that his father wasn’t at the helm, he had to admit to everyone of his true nature, of a family he had distanced himself from.

Ouranos looked down at his hands that were shaking the bar and making the drinks sway. His shaking hands were starting to freeze and be engulfed by icy gauntlets; the first signs of his mind switching to the Huntsman’s. Ouranos closed his eyes and steadily worked to calm himself from the state of panic and dread that was coursing through his body, and after a few minutes the ice around his knuckles melted. He looked up, and only saw his bar and not the machine of the universe. A heavy sigh escaped his lips, then a chuckle.