For many years, the boy and his first friend could not meet. While he knew that he had succeeded in creating a friend for himself, the tear he had created them from was near the furthest reaches of his power, and far beyond his community’s borders.
With his power, the two of them could converse, however it was not the friendship the boy had imagined, and as the months dragged on, his first friend slowly moving through the wilderness of the not-yet Free Colonies, the boy grew sad once more. One day, his first friend would reach his community, yet that day was still many years off.
The boy would wait, however anxious that he was, to finally meet his first friend. He could not fight down his desire for a friend immediately, however, and he began to search out more tears in the universe, finding ones closer to his home. These tears were the smallest of slits in the aether, and the creatures they created all far smaller than his first friend, but they were his friends nonetheless.
The boy’s group of friends grew and grew as the years marched on. Some were beautiful, composed of intricate limbs, their soft fur etched over in the most complicated for designs. Others were not beautiful, instead composed of grotesque limbs with too many bends and skin that scrapped against the boy’s fingers with as much bite as their sharp teeth. More still watched the world with unblinking eyes, analyzing and still, as though they were waiting for something.
All of the boy’s friends had one thing in common, however: they were each formed from a piece of the aether and a piece of the boy’s core. In his desperation for friends, the boy had begun to tear himself apart, offering up those small bits of himself to the universe in exchange for another friend.
Time marched on, and the boy continued creating more and more friends, each of them waiting for the day his first friend would arrive.
Time marched on, and the boy grew into a man, although to the adults who had assisted in raising him, he would always be a boy. To the friends he had created and hidden through his household over the years, he would always be their boy.
Their boy grew and grew, caring for each of them with a tenderness the universe never had. Even the creatures who cut him with their sharp existences, the ones who let off unpleasant smells, the ones who snored and caused chaos in the household as staff searched for their hiding spot; their boy loved them unendingly.
He was theirs, and they would do anything to protect him.
When the war that had been threatening the community’s borders for generations began anew, they wanted to go to war with their boy, they wanted to be there to protect him, if only he needed them.
“It is too dangerous for you,” their boy told them, kissing each of their foreheads as they said their goodbyes. “I will shatter, if only I were to lose a single one of my precious friends. Stay here and be safe. I will return as quickly as the universe allows.”
And so their boy left, exiting the walls that surrounded his family’s estate, which no longer seemed as tall to him, for the first time in years. The world outside was not as he remembered it. When he was a child, the world had been beautiful and filled with possibilities. Now, the beauty of his life was trapped inside his house, awaiting his return, and all his saw were the now-grown faces of children who were not suited to be his friend.
When their boy arrived at the border, he was a sight to behold. Their boy was power and strength. Their boy was his community’s saviour, and the war they had been losing quickly became a war of annihilation.
Their boy was unstoppable.
Their boy was unstoppable, and his friends breathed out in relief. Their boy would return to them, once the war was over, surely.
Their boy was unstoppable, and yet he still made no friends among his teammates. Some might say it was because he was still strange. Others would say it was because he was now missing so much of himself, pieces of his core gifted away to give life to his friends. Still more may say it was because his heart was full up with those friends.
Their boy’s teammates would say it was because he was terrifying. He kept them safe on the battlefield. He pushed back their enemies with the brutality of war. He was unstoppable, and even his teammates feared stepping too close to him.
Some may have minded such isolation. Where his teammates found friendship and camaraderie, their boy found none, but he had never expected to find any. He had already known he would find no friends among the humans. The aether had told him so, so many years before. Their boy had already searched every household in his community for a potential friend and found none.
Their boy would have been more surprised to find a friend, hidden among his teammates, than to not.
It was here, that Emilia interrupted again, asking if the boy was seriously just trusting a vibe from the universe.
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⸂Also,⸃ she added, ⸂these people suck.⸃
⸂Power scares people away,⸃ Conrad pointed out, his voice holding enough emotion that she knew he wasn’t thinking in a hypothetical way. No, he knew full well the flavour of being feared by people. Did they fear him and his power? Or perhaps a friend or family member’s? Not that the man’s family didn’t deserve to be feared.
Luckily, Conrad took no offence to her musings that his family was terrifying, and she couldn’t blame anyone for wanting to steer clear of them.
Stars knew she would be keeping away from them for the remainder of the raid if she could help it.
And thus, the war marched on. Their boy fought and won. Their boy fought and killed. Their boy fought and barely anyone thanked him, for he was such a terrifying young man, hardly anyone dared even speak with him.
The war marched on, and even through the fear that chased him, their boy led the charge to push the community’s enemies back to their own borders and then further. They had brought war to the community’s borders, and now the community would claim their territory as their own.
It was only fair. A payment for the lives their enemies took.
Their boy did not agree with this plan. He had grown up learning the now-lost histories, learning of how lust for power and revenge alike added more hatred into the pile of human anger. Yet, the leaders of the community would not listen to his pleas that they simply let their enemies return home.
One day, their boy would be a leader himself, just as his father now was.
One day was not today, and although he spoke with as much passion and conviction as he had when he was a child, convincing his parents to let him see the world, just once, his words went unheeded.
He was just a boy, even if he was now grown.
He had no experience in the real world, even if he knew the histories better than anyone on the war counsel.
He had no say in the way the war melded and turned, and instead their boy was forced to keep going, to keep pushing the community’s enemies further and further to the north.
The war marched on, and even their boy’s strength began to wain. The end was nigh, however, and soon the community’s enemies were forced into the north, where they would face the cruel wrath of the tundra. There, the cold terror of the ice and swells and the creatures that lived within its horror would destroy them.
There was no need for them to do more, and finally, their boy could rest. It was time to return home, and the soldiers of the war began their long march home.
Tired of the senselessness of war for people who barely spared him a thank you and who had instead ordered him to kill more and more, faster and faster, their boy did not realize where they were or how far they had travelled from his home. In the long years of war, he had reigned in his powers, conserving them for battle. He had a promise to return home to keep, even if conserving his energy meant he often went months without hearing from his friends, only rarely risking expanding his power to speak with them.
And so, as he and his teammates made their way back towards the villages they each hailed from, excited to finally part from one another, the boy was not expecting to finally meet his first friend.
There, in the middle of the sunny road, not yet cleared of blood by the rains that would only come in a month’s time, stood his first friend, just as beautiful as it had been through their boy’s visions of the aether.
Their boy’s first friend was by far the largest creature he had ever allowed to enter this world. It was two grown men stacked atop each other, another five standing shoulder to shoulder wide, its body a soft black orb, bright purple eyes the only colour on its precious body.
It was beautiful. His first friend.
Their boy stepped forward to greet his first friend properly. It had been travelling so long. It had been separated from its friends for so long. Their boy was so happy to meet his first friend that he forgot himself. Just as suddenly as his first friend had appeared was it killed by one of his teammates.
“What a strange monster,” the man said, oblivious to their boy staring at the bloody remains of his first friend.
As the man turned back to join his teammates, each and every one of them congratulating him on a job well down, their boy felt his control snap.
For years, as pieces of his core were torn away, he had felt his careful control over his power slipping. Over those years, he had his friends to keep him happy and safe. Now, one of his precious friends was gone, after spending the entirety of its life seeking him out. It had found him, finally, and then died of it.
Their boy’s friend had died because of the people he had wasted years of his life fighting for.
These people did not like him.
These people were not thankful for him
These people had stolen years of his life and one of his precious friends, and all they did was laugh and joke and make plans to meet again, in the years to come, to reminisce about the horror of war and their supposed contributions to his victory.
To their boy, these people and the people who supported their vision of the world—their version of the world—did not deserve to live, when his beloved first friend was allowed no such thing.
For miles, every tear in the universe, those big and those barely specks, were torn asunder as their boy’s anger and power swelled. Out of the aether tumbled hundreds of creatures. These were not kind friends, safely tucked into their boy’s home, but monsters, summoned to destroy their enemies.
The monsters sought out every soul they could, devouring ever human who crossed their path, and their boy returned home with the body of his fallen friend.
The community their boy had spent years protecting was destroyed within mere days. No person was safe from his wrath. There were those who tried to flee, their bodies snatched into the air by creatures circling for prey. There were those who tried to beg, falling to their knees before the monsters and pleading for their lives. Their boy saw this, through the eyes of the aether. Their boy did not care, and when his monster’s fangs bared down around the throats of those who looked upon his and the universe’s children as horrors, unworthy of life, he felt no grief.
Their boy’s heart had gone cold for humanity, and as he returned home, his friend’s opening the gates to welcome him home, the servants of the household long dead, along with the tutors and nannies and parents who had loved him enough to imprison him in that empty, loveless household, their boy smiled.
All he needed was his friends. His first friend might be gone, but he could make more.
He could always make more.