Mr Burton looked over the empty workshop, the smell of dust seemed to be seeping in already. It had only been a few weeks since Ciaran started memorising the patterns he gave, yet the boy had already run off for a school trip. Mr Burton had already started teaching the boy what each part of the patterns did and how to identify them, but it was not the lack of progress that bugged him. Mr Burton knew what such a trip meant to the children confined to a such a small town, but he still couldn’t help but think the teachers cruel for their destination.
Mr Burton much preferred the sights left behind from the once glorious city that the town once was. From the old iron mines all the way to the stone forges that lay abandoned in the mountains. The ferrous smell of moist metal tinged with rust was a delicacy to his nose, the eroded walls and crumbling roofs tickled his eyes with an inexplicable wonder.
The man’s childishness was soon overshadowed by reality he knew the academy didn’t have the power not the budget to venture into that forest. Still Mr Burton hoped that his student could experience such wonders, and with a final sigh Mr Burton looked in the direction of the dying embers of the forge. beyond that was east, and surely Ciaran would be in that direction. Assuming of course that they didn’t get lost.
Mr Burton was much correct and the group ventured evert onwards through an eternity of greenery. Ciara was in the middle of the clump, who were in turn surrounded by eight adults. The one at the rear was Mr Luper while there was only other that Ciaran knew was Mr Gilbert. From what Ciaran had gathered it was not unusual for the head of the academy to come along on the first school trip.
There were a few things that interested Ciaran about this tradition, the first was the meeting that would happen before the trip. The meeting was not in school time, but there hadn’t been one this year. The second thing that piqued his interest was the increased guards, normally there was only three to four.
A headache born of an unwillingness to think struck Ciaran, and as the free spirit he was he decided to pick a flower. The action was quick and fleeting but it left an impression. There was a new type of aether that sprouted from the wound, and Ciaran wondered as he walked.
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“Can plant’s feel pain?”
The dumb question and Ciaran’s cute blue and red eyes should have caused laughter from the adults but most kept silent while another shuddered.
Ciaran did not know that he had spoken, and he kept on thinking. Feelings ebbed at his mind, it was not remorse or guilt in the normal sense. Ciaran felt more like...
“it’s unfair... we can harm such beautiful things so easily, yet all they ca do is watch.”
Caitiff was nearby and chimed in
“It’s not unfair, you have power”
“And what is power, surely it is not the ability to take from something without any ability to resist.”
Caitiff answere4d happily again, seeing no problem in Ciaran’s dilemma
“power is strength?”
“and what is strength”
“hmmm, you got me there”
At this point one of the adults chimed in
“Strength is the ability to achieve one’s will, the ability to accept failure, and the way of the-”
Mr Gilbert interrupted the other adult
“It is not just that, although I'm sure you are happy to answer your young master, you must remember the wishes of your current one.”
Mr Gilbert looked to Ciaran in effort to quell the inevitable curiosity. Instead of beady eyes staring back Ciaran’s head was done, his thoughts slow and steady as he mulled over something presumably deep.
Ciaran wanted to land on a soft and cushy conclusion filled with ideals, but his head didn’t work like that. h thought that he would never kill anything, not even a plant, but then he remembered weeds. Everything was aways just so complicated. Ciaran had gone from being calm to wanting to just FUCKING SCREAM.
Ciaran’s breath came to leave him faster and faster as his frustration grew, NOTHIN seemed to work out, why can’t there be those who do not harm. For some it was to live, others greed, but all of them caused more harm than the worth of their life, such a subjective thing life is. How does one measure it by the price money they could earn? Does one measure it by the difficulty to kill? Does one measure it by the steps it took to kill? Would someone's life be worth more if you bashed their head in with a bat, or if you carefully removed all their skin then slitting their wrists neck and ankles to see the blood gush drip and flow in so many different ways.
Ciaran had cared little about the colour of the flower; he had merely thought it pretty. But as the flowing river brought clarity into his racing head, he wondered what had happened to it. The flower was no longer a creamy orange with curved petals but was instead a red colour, and also no longer in his hands.
Confusion washed over the boy, but he was soon whisked away to play in the river by the other boys.