Music for today:
Rok Nardin - solace
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Chapter 487: Solace
N/A - N/A : Year N/A : Location Unknown
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- Zachari ~
"Os..to..?" The na reverberated in my skull, flashing my mind with a burst of visions, feelings, and sensations with every ripple.
'Osto Whyte.' My future husband.
mories of him felt almost distant, as if I wasn't yet ant to know of him—of his secrets and habits—but with every blink, another mory played, and the fog continued to lift.
After being introduced to him, my perception of the world rapidly shifted. With every passing day, the calculative questions and theories that'd always burden my mind began fading, and I found myself actually living—experiencing what was around rather than simply observing from a distance like a monarch.
While unable to truly free myself from my responsible side thanks to by growing responsibilities in Bahamut, I unknowingly found myself using him as an escape—an excuse to live like a child, explore wherever I wished, and make mistakes.
With him, I was a different person. I felt younger, and more youthful—I'd tease, play, and ss around like I was never allowed to at ho, and in the process, I learned.
It took forever to recognize, but that innocent boy nad Osto was simply a beacon that illuminated everything I believed was hidden in shadow, whether a hidden nook of the world, the human race, or even myself.
However, just like turning on a light in a dark room.. shadows didn't always hide pleasant or fascinating realities.
*Blink* Finding myself before Osto, beside a crackling fireplace, mory of a conversation played...
It began innocently—with questioning why he was slowly growing more stoic as ti passed.. questioning if it was because of sothing I did or if it was sothing family related. After all, with him being from a large family as well, I was certain he had his own responsibilities behind the scenes.
We all did...
However...
"I wasn't raised the sa way my siblings were..." He was different... "I wasn't taught to excel at any one thing, and was simply taught everything to an adequate level." He had no specialties, focuses, or major responsibilities. "I always assud it was because I had a specific purpose..."
Even in mory, his family was notoriously politically motivated.
"Just as my parents were, my siblings were taught and raised to be impartial judges for the courts of Bahamut..." They were raised to be duty-bound—to grow the influence of the family by any ans necessary. "But I didn't receive any of what they did... I was never granted a voice, or shared the responsibilities of the family..."
Unlike the rest of his family, Osto was made with a different mold... -Its almost like.. he was raised to be a servant...-
He was so detached from his family's norm, it was like he wasn't ant to be a part of it at all—like a tool whose purpose was to take whatever shape it needed to in order to sh with sothing...
"I really didn't know it was anything out of the ordinary till I was sent out of the nest and saw how other dragons and humans lived."
It was both pitiful, and gut-wrenching... "So the reason you aren't super close with your siblings or parents, is..."
"They never really let themselves get close."
But that was when it clicked...
The possibility of a reality I wasn't ready for... "Have our parents ever t?"
He was quick to nod. "My closest brother was actually the one to bring it up when we bumped into each other recently... My Mother t Lady Asimi sowhat regularly when we were still very young."
...Decades before we were even introduced... -Then.. our eting wasn't just so haphazard agreent between families to introduce each other..?- I didn't want to believe it...
I couldn't...
-He.. was raised to be with .. from the beginning...-
'Confliction.' I didn't know what to believe...
At the ti, even the suggestion of Mother doing that was beyond dumbfounding. She hated arranged marriages more than anything else in the world. She even explicitly taught to search for as many lovers as I felt I needed... To search for anything that could fill that empty hole in my chest.
So perhaps that was why the suggestion of her orchestrating it from the start landed so bitter.. and why, the longer that possibility lingered.. the more it almost seed to twist into desire.
...A desire to grip onto that childish hatred, and fight against the mold she made for out of raw spite...
With more blinks, hours.. perhaps days of that conversation passed. Osto and I continued to talk, sharing countless stories and experiences we seed to almost share, brewing a mutual disgust, not aid at each other, but at our families.
Until eventually.. the dam broke...
"Why do we have to stick to what fate our parents forced on us?" It was the day we vowed to change ourselves—-not to simply be sothing other than our parent's wish.. but to find who we were ant to be.
Though, Osto was still a bit reluctant.
With mories beginning to flow like a waterfall, I found him continually struggling to move on, to change, but perhaps that was part of his charm.
With every blink, and every mory of taking his paw and moving it forward, feeling the resistance ease more and more with each step, the warmth I felt toward him grew...
He too was becoming his own person, and in the process, we grew close.
Getting more serious about our exploration efforts, we dug through the world together. We followed our whims, did whatever we wanted, whether smart or stupid, and learned from the consequences.
It was a trial by fire that held our lives in the balance, but with every subsequent year, it helped us break from the cages our parents had built around us, and changed into beings of our own.
Overti, Osto began losing that servant-like rigidity he had been taught, and similarly, I began learning just how different I was from who I was raised to be.
According to Mother, I was ant to be a queen—to rule with an iron paw, and push statistics between my observations and logic—yet the more I truly lived, the more I found that my aggressive side was more playful than serious.
Just as I'd fight monsters like a berserker and hold my head like a monarch in the streets, I'd lay in Osto's embrace and whisper sweet nothings like an oversized teddy bear when we were alone.
It was.. incredible...
With every year—every mory—we beca more and more of our own people, not ford by the restrictive guidance of our parents, but by ourselves.
Until eventually, I had completely escaped Mother's shadow.. and Osto made turn around to see her through a new lens...
Not a lens of my own.. but the lens of the man she told to despise the most...
My Father...
Having gone out of his way to find him, Osto had t with him not long before we were set to return to Bahamut.. and despite knowing of the countless stories Mother had fed , chose to introduce him to ...
I.. didn't know what to think or how to feel. -He.. knows what kind of man my Father is...-
But eventually, we sat before each other, and the turbulent chaos in my mind settled...
Unlike the the aggressive, war-torn ss Mother had told he was, he seed more like.. ... He was a man who loved to fight and rule a battlefield, yet similarly wished to simply snuggle up with a loved one after it was all over.
It made our conversation blend hours and days together, sharing stories of our lives and experiences we never had a chance to before.
Until eventually.. we ca to the subject of Mom, and things derailed...
Just.. not how I expected them to...
Unlike how Mother painted his image, Father was never the abusive one. Having followed the lead of my grandmother, a woman known as the gentlest of saints—akin to an incarnation of Bahamut—he was an old war veteran who rely wished to set his past behind him and find a place to rest, but Mother had no plans of giving him that.
From physical to verbal abuse, she despised him as if he were the incarnation of death, but pressured by the public, neither of them could break off the relationship.
Wishing to try and show Mother he wasn't the horrific creature she believed him to be, Father continued to try and help disconnect her from that deep hatred, eventually getting her to agree to sharing a clutch which appeared to be a remarkable step of progress...
But just as she appeared to be letting go of her past and improving, the day she was to lay her eggs, she disappeared without a word.
She wanted young, but not with him.. and had rely maintained the act to get her way...
But the courts never would have allowed it. With Mother still so young, she was largely shunned from most positions of power or influence, holding them more for the title than anything, while Father was one with the greater grip on family resources.
She had blood, and he had power.. so in the end, they had to co to a crossroad.
While Father wanted all of us, yearning for Mother to understand he wasn't so demon forced on her, and prayed endlessly to raise and my brothers together as a family.. Mother encouraged the informal split, and after an overwhelming amount of conflict, he was forced to give to her.
It was.. not the first ti I had caught wind of her true self... From the chatter of maids, to her clear lack of friends or acquaintances, it was clear she was quite troubled outside of when she was around , but I had never known just how deep it all ran.
And once I did.. I wanted it to change...
Even after seeing her darker side, I knew deep down there was sothing else there.. sothing beneath that layer of hatred cultivated over years of understanding she would never be given a choice.
So, I continued to change.. to define myself with my new experiences and shed the final pieces of the cage Mother had built...
Until eventually, after deciding to marry Osto on my own accord, and taking hold of several large family assets with the help of Father, I decided to sit down and confront her—nervous it would snap the final string holding our relationship together...
But.. she never spoke...
Sitting there in silence, she simply listened. Watching rant, raise my voice, and plea for an explanation.. a reason why she made live a life of lies.. she just locked her voice in her head and left only the gleam in her eyes to shift.
Until.. at the end of it all, when I stood to leave.. her gaze fell, and mouth opened. "I'm sorry..."
It was the only thing she muttered before sending out with a wave of her wing... She sounded guilty.. and hurt...
Yet she refused to et my eyes again...
After walking out of that estate, it was like she simply vanished... For years, the letters I regularly received vanished.. the activity and responsibilities of the house eased, and like she had passed on, I found many of her titles and responsibilities shifting onto .
The maids told she was alive, but.. I couldn't believe them...
Until one day, I received another letter with her writing...
A summons...
Returning to the estate, not sure what to expect, I walked in expecting the sa, lavish hall full of servants I always knew, only to find a single maid bowing to beneath candle-light. "Welco back, Young Miss."
It was a very different greeting from the cheery 'welco ho' I was used to.
"Lady Asimi is waiting in her room for you..." The maid grimaced as she shallowed her bow, "She has.. been waiting for you..."
Her words made my stomach twist.. made doubt cloud my mind...
I.. didn't trust it...
But, I continued forward anyway...
Walking down the dark hallway, devoid of light and activity, I kept my head high, body firm, and senses sharp.
Until I opened that door...
*Creaaak* Swinging open with a neglected creak, my eyes fell on a room that hadn't been cleaned in years... Books, papers, and ink were strewn across the floor, and sat atop the central bed, Mother was sat staring at a huge painting.
A painting of my grandmother...
"Zachari..." Her voice was damaged and frail... "I know you won't ever be able to forgive , so, I just wanted to say.. thank you..."
The words lingered...
Not stepping forward another ter, the silence hung.. and her head followed. "Thank you for not letting the hatred that infests reach you.. and thank you for telling just how infectious it was... Just how miserable I had beco..."
She paused.
And she spoke. "I'm.. sorry..."
The words struck deeper than any other I knew, for a reason I'd never understand... Like I was hearing her final words...
But perhaps that was why, instead of backing out to let the lone remaining maid close that door.. I walked in...
For that ti.. that mory.. blinks didn't move the clock forward...
Every second that passed, an eternity of thought and contemplation flooded my mind.. until the mont I set my paw on her back, and it all went silent with the sound of her weeping.
That day would have been her last... One single step would have sealed her conviction.. and resolve...
And yet I stepped forward.
That day, we spoke endlessly.. reminiscing about my younger years before digging into what really happened with Father, my grandmother, and her past...
But in the end, rather than ending it all, she found a glimr just bright enough to try.. not to forget or bury her past.. but to break out of the cage she had put around herself.
It took years.. decades.. but after reconciling our relationship, we began speaking more regularly and openly, not as mother and daughter, but as peers helping each other move forward.. and she began listening to those around her.. and shedding the misery that haunted her.
Over the coming years, she softened just as I had—disconnecting herself from that deep, unbridled bitterness that defined her—and did everything she could to beco a better, truer version of herself with the help of those who once dreaded her presence.
It wasn't easy.. even with her progress, there were so things she simply couldn't let go of.. but over ti, she progressed, just as Osto and I had, and began finding herself...
Over the course of decades, the warm image I had known her to have when I was young began becoming sothing more genuine and open, sothing others could see as I once had...
And with every blink.. every burst of mory.. what separated from those visions thinned.
With every blink, my mories grew more vivid. With the laying of my own clutch, the warmth in the deepest reaches of myself spread...
With every mishap—every tragedy—the image of who I was sharpened. Every mory brought familiarity, and every blink brought closer to that deep, muffled voice that always felt just out of reach...
Until eventually, it all blended together.
Retaining mory of the edge of eternity, a fear dug into .. a terror of knowing I had nearly forgotten everything.. my life.. my purpose.. my warmth...
And I gripped.
As if my consciousness stepped back through ti, I gripped that thread.. that touch I had felt eternities ago through the defiance of my 'shell', and pulled.. simply praying to draw close enough to caress his cheek one last ti...
The being even I, as a shell devoid of everything that defined , found familiar...
That endless.. infinitely encompassing warmth and love...
That presence of...
'My son.'
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