ZEPHYR RAVENSWOOD

Zephyr breathed a deep exhale as his eyes wandered open slowly. It was heavy, the same as his body, his eyes felt like it had been shut for a decade, and even though the yellow glow dimming the room was faint and blurry, it still made them pinch and his head throb.

It took something of an eternity, but the blur before his eyes finally went its way, allowing him to glimpse a lucid view of the ceiling that hung above him as flat as his body. He turned his head left to the opened shutters of the small window of his bedchamber and looked at the moon hanging from the sky with the same silvery silver as his eyes. It was as though he had never seen the moon before, such a beautiful sight it was from where he lay.

It was little surprise, seeing as darkness was where he had been before, it might have been a dream, but it felt less dreamy than the ones he used to have, it felt real, as real as anything could be, and for a first, the faces were nowhere to be found, all of them gone without a trace.

In the midst of black—starless and lightless black—he was floating, for how long he did not know; days, months, maybe years, he was not sure, it was long, he could tell even though time seemed not to exist in that black space. He had read in a few books, none of which names he could have cared to remember at that moment, that the loneliness which came from succumbing to the darkness of a void, could make a man spiral into insanity, and it seemed to almost prove true for him… almost… if not for the voice, the one that kept him from falling deep into the dark.

He heard it the same as he had heard people speak, only its was a crack, like the voice came forth from a radio with a breaking transmission, but it was not in his head this time, it was before him, like a person, a real person.

There was no way he could see in the pitch darkness he was home to, there was no light and there was no way, but his eyes told him someone was before him, floating as he floated, and hazy in the dark. His ears helped him validate what his eyes told him, the voice was close, cracking and close. “M… b…d…y… b…k,” it had said, not once, not twice, but with every passing moment he had remained with its company, cracking shrilly in something akin to anger.

Sometimes it would wail before it cracked, the wail was strident and clear and sorrowful to his ears… and painful. He would try to lift his hands whenever the voice began to wail, but it would not move, it was as though they had been bound to a tight chain anchored to a large boulder, and dropped to the ends of the darkness. When his hands did not move, his legs became his other option, he would kick whoever was before him and make them stop, he thought, but they were the same as his hands, they felt bound and unmovable as well.

His own voice did not work, he could undo his lips and scream all he wanted, but his throat would not give a sound. The other had taken his, that was the thought he had when he grew tired of trying. The shrill wails and cracking speeches did not stop like he did though, they kept filling his ears with a voice he later found recognizable. It was the one he heard sometimes, not the witch’s own that called, but his, the one in his mind. Why was it wailing now though? He did not know. It never wailed before, it never cried, but it did now, making his ears ache, spouting some nonsense he could not understand. He was tired of it, he was tired.

He blinked and went from dark to dark, however, the dark he arrived at was not the one he left, this one had light, white and yellow faint lights.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

A sleepy mumble followed by little tuts, which came from where his legs were spread out beneath his blanket of thick wool, called his eyes from the light of the moon he watched. They were still as heavy as they had been, bound and unmovable, only they were not bound by what he thought it was, they were bound by a wilful boy of ten, with dark hair that he would say he did not want tousled, sprawled above them in a sleep.

“You’re awake?” This one came from his right, and there his eyes went, his head turning slightly on the feather-pillow, going from his sleeping brother to the gaze of the woman he now called his mother. She sat in red with unkempt dark hair and eyes glistening with joy and a spicy bit of sadness mingled within. “You’re awake.” She assured herself that he was, not questioning this time.

“That I am, Mother,” he said, managing a soft smile at the end of his hoarse talk. The warmth of her hands were on his own hand, the one she was close to, chasing off the cold of night from it, while his other hand twitched in envy. He was a sad view. A king lying flat on his back, looking weak and unfitting. What a king he was. He knew he looked pathetic, maybe not to his mother and brother in this world, but what about the others, the ones that are his subordinates, what did they think? It has not yet even been close to two fortnights since he sat the throne, and he was already lying weakly. He did not know losing a night’s sleep would prove so costly, but was it really just a night? His body felt weaker than that, like he had lost far more sleep than just one night.

Her warm grip on his hand tightened as her dove-like eyes of obsidian lingered over his weak face. When last did he feel the warm touch and see the caring eyes of a mother, of his mother. He had slowly forgotten its feel, but now he remembered. It was good, it had always been. Maybe this was not only a second chance at life, but also one at motherly love. Maybe it was pastime he accepted… accepted the love this woman offered him. He had nothing to lose, all he had lost when he died, even long before that when his father had died. He was already in possession of the real Zephyr’s name, body, and throne; he was living his life now, and it would prove no harm to take the love of his mother as well, the love of his family. It had become his rightfully, the moment he awoke in this body, everything had become his.

Zephyr turned his head back to gaze up at the ceiling, before slamming his eyes shut and giving way to a soft and deep exhale. “Why do you keep loving me?” He was scarred, the events of his past still lingered in his mind somewhere, and even though the question he asked proved to be nothing short of odd, to him it was the first step he needed to take for him to accept them. “My father is dead, so why do you keep loving me?” He opened his eyes and turned them back to his right, where he saw the confusion that ploughed her brows, and the tumult that gleamed in her eyes.

“Why ask such, my son?” Thalia wondered what had overtaken him.

“An answer… I would very much prefer.” As soft as his voice was the smile that came afterwards, and it made it impossible for her to pry further as to why he was reasoning the way he did now.

“I did not choose to love you because of your father, I chose to love you because you are my son. The seasons may come and go but that will never change. You and your brother are all I have, and no amount of grief will make me love either of you any less.” She let one of her hands loose from his palm and gave it to his blue hair, stroking it calmly. “Do you understand?”

That I do… he intoned. Forgive me Zephyr, I’ll be taking your family as well…

He answered her question and hair-stroking with a smile, one that brought the same to Thalia’s face and filled her with warmth, and one that also placed an approval on their acceptance. He was Zephyr and they were his family. Yes, from now on he will formally take them as his family, and Thalia was now his mother.