Resus: Hi there, coauthor here. First of all thanks everyone for reading. So, there are a few things I need to mention. It’s possible that tags for this story will change a bit. We’re not gonna remove any of them but it’s possible that tags such as “psychological” or “drama” will be necessary in the future. Next… the “early childhood” of our hero is ending soon and all the RPG parts will kick in then, so just a bit of your patience is still needed. It shouldn’t take more than 1-2 chapters… at least I think so. I’m so happy we managed to end this chapter on time. It was a painful week for me… and Mirrond is… not entirely qualified to write on  his own :P

Mirrond: …

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Chapter 2: My cousin is an asshole but I can be one too

Spending time on watching someone else’s life can be boring… even if technically it’s my own. I can’t say I’m enjoying this but relatively speaking it’s still better than darkness. About a week ago my host had his third birthday and since the feast two years ago he never let me in charge. It seems that I’m not yet strong enough to force my will on him. But thankfully he understand the language now and because of that, so am I. He actually learnt it amazingly fast despite not being interested in talking with anyone.

As much as I understand from that blurry soap opera of our childhood, most of our time we spend in our room with a nanny. I haven’t seen my father even once this all time, as he’s probably too busy licking grandpa’s ass. From my guesses, and heard snatches of gossips between my nanny and other slaves, I deduced that after seeing me acting - again - mentally impaired after that feast, he lost all interest in me. As for my mother - she never had any interest in me in the first place.

And so I am free to do… nothing. Watching my host’s life is basically the most boring thing I’ve ever done, but besides that being the only thing to do here, it might come useful later since it lets me gather informations. For example I finally learnt my new name - Varth Veles of the proud Veles family.

It’s boring for me, but for my host… well, his life isn’t easy. Even slaves laugh at his condition straight to his face. It’s pretty pathetic as they vent their frustration to the only member of the family who can’t do a thing about it. Only his nanny and one or two others actually treat my host like a human being. I remember the faces of the offenders for… future reference... let’s call it that way.

However today something’s different. Usually my host is free to play in his room all day long but today his nanny is taking him somewhere. I finally have a chance to see some of the mansion… Yes, my host spent the last two years in his room… alone… and he didn’t mind. He was actually somewhat happy about it as much as I can tell. For me it was the main reason of my boredom. Anyway, right now we’re going through a fourth or fifth hallway and it seems like we’re finally at our destination.

It’s a rather small room with a big, heavy looking wooden desk in the middle, a single chair behind the desk, and big thomes and rolls of parchment filling every space on the shelves along the walls. It seems to be a cabinet or an office of the greying baldy patriarch. He’s nearly the same as I remember from the feast - only with a few new wrinkles, and greyer hair. To my surprise already in the room are also my father, uncle and cousin. It’s a chance to slip myself in control of my host’s body! In presence of other people he seems to become too nervous to fight back.

Looks like they were waiting only for me. Nanny leaves the room after leaving me to sit near my father. He doesn’t look like he even noticed that, eh. After only family members were left in the room, the baldy begins talking. Thankfully I understand him.

“You two know why I called you.“ Judging from the fact, that he is looking towards my father and uncle I guess he is talking to them. “I am slowly getting tired of your little games and schemes. I tolerated them for so long because you kept them within the family, but recently I heard gossips that you started looking for backers in other Families and a Temple.”

They both look like they want to wildly deny his accusations but one look from him… and they hold their tongues.

“If you really thought, that they would help one of you in becoming a head of this family out of the goodness of their hearts then you are more retarded than…” This time it is him to hold his tongue but not before stealing a glance towards me. I love you too, grandpa. “Such actions are irresponsible and may become a threat to the future of the family. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

His sons, even though they are old enough to have their own kids, now act like a pair children getting scolded. Well I have no idea what’s this all about but… serves them right, ha! I expect the scolding to continue but we hear knocking and a second later the doors open.

The woman that comes inside has a typical family looks - hair so dark navy blue that nearly black, blue eyes etc. She looks slightly younger than my father 25-30 years, at best. She ignores patriarch’s sons and hands him some papers.

“Here is a trade agreement with Firellians you ordered me to negotiate. I’ve managed to convince them to lower the tariffs for our goods but only by a slow margin. Now we only need your signature, uncle. “ He gives her a weak smile and looks through the papers while nodding.

“I will sign it after I finish the current… business. Thank you, Iverie. “ He says while she leaves the room. Eyes of my father and uncle are filled with antipathy for her. I doubt she could miss that so she must be ignoring them deliberately.

“You two should learn from her.“ The patriarch returns to scolding. They look angered and pretty… hateful, but not really towards him.

Well, looks like they aren’t the only candidates for being his successor. And I guess they just lost few points. At the same time I, for some reason, don’t like her. Not because she can take my father’s position - which wouldn’t be good for me - but because she looks… deceitful? Arrogant? I don’t know where that feeling’s coming from, but something in me screams to avoid turning my back on her.

Well, if she is doing it deliberately - I mean trying to compete with grandpa’s sons - then it definitely means she is ambitious. Another obstacle. Damn.

“Back to the topic. “ Grandpa continues. “This … ‘feud’ of yours is about to end. Instead of never ending attempts to undermine each other's position - which are sources of problems to our ENTIRE FAMILY - I am going to force you to cooperate. And you should better pray I won’t divide our assets after my death between you. And Iverie. She at least focus on work, so maybe our family won’t end because of you two.”

Ok, now they don’t look angry. Now they look terrified. Or rather they feel both feelings at once but are too afraid of his reaction to get ‘visibly’ angry. Now that’s authority!

“Also… it would be irritating if your sons were… influenced by your petty squabbles.” I wonder how much self control it takes to act like my host is a normal kid and potential successor. Well, he is going to be a potential successor - after his fifth birthday - but they don’t know about it yet. I guess it’s just a facade - they ignore ‘my’ mental problems so people outside won’t think about them as a weakness. No gossips about ‘the son of their leader having retarded son, which most likely means that there’s something wrong about that family’. Incest while everyone in the family looks nearly the same may not be easy to notice, but may end with genetical problems after all.

“That’s why from now on Iar’e and Varth are going to spend most of their free time together.” Grandpa finishes with a wry smile that somehow remind me of that black bastard. His sons look shocked, my cousin look shocked, and I’m amazed. And shocked. The first feeling comes from the fact that with just one decision he managed to punish my uncle for troublemaking but also make my father remember that without him my mental problems would be most likely revealed, which would start very unpleasant gossips about him. The second feeling… well, let’s say that I am pretty sure it’s one of the ideas that looked much better on paper than in real life. “This way they will learn something about the fact, that they are a part of single family. Which is a lesson you two unfortunately forgot about.”

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Both of them look like they want to say something, but he doesn’t let them.

“And get the hell out of my office. I have work to do… and so do you.” He turns back to his desk and start to read carefully the documents he received from Iverie.

So, father, uncle and cousin retreat from grandpa’s office. I can hear father calling for my nanny to take me back to my room. And while she takes me there my host regain control. I’m back in the… ‘not so dark anymore darkness’ since the vision is already in full color and starting to look like low quality YouTube video. It also slowed down to a real time speed. It’ll be tedious to wait here like that so maybe if I concentrate I could speed it up? Last time concentrating on better quality gave me sound, so it might just work. And it just so happens that it does, slightly. I can get it to twice the speed and apparently no more.

Rest of the day my host spends in his room undisturbed but when the next day starts nanny once again takes him somewhere. This time to a different part of the mansion but seemingly equally distant from his room. There’s a lot more slaves on the way there and when we finally arrive it looks like we interrupted a conversation between my uncle and cousin.

“(...) and that’s why you must be careful but while no slaves can hear it you can…”

Oh great, now that sounds… threateningly. I doubt their conversation could be about something other than me and my grandpa’s Master Plan - especially considering the look I receive from my uncle after after he saw me. I had bad feelings about this because of what the older child could do to my young and, well, retarded host. And now I have even worse thoughts about the future because I can see an irresponsible adult who actually tries to incite problems between me and my cousin. Just. Fucking. Marvelous.

* * *

Contrary to my expectations, throughout the first two weeks my cousin acted normally. He ignored me all the time. Every day was the same - my host doing whatever he want to do (at most cases - nothing, as that’s apparently his hobby), while my cousin supervised by a slave was continuously trying to improve his reading skills. He didn’t have lessons here, he was only practicing with some ‘lightly’ written books. Of course he read it out loud.

After the fourth day of his nearly never ending monologues with terrible pronunciation I began to hope that either he or his father actually tries to kill me. If not for the fact that my host is happy - as no one bothers him - and has a strong grip on our body I could actually kill myself just to end that torture. Well, maybe I exaggerate but recently I’m quite easily annoyed. Especially when it’s about my cousin or uncle. Actually, I think that even my Host rather dislikes the latter one but I have no idea why.

The problems started shortly after that. During the first two weeks we were constantly monitored by slaves, but after that time they become less and less… strict. They were still close enough to hear us if we started shouting or something, but there was no longer someone in our room all the time. That gave my cousin an opportunity to do… things.

At first those ‘things’ were rather small. Angry looks when my host made louder noise or, let’s say ‘uncool’ words about him and his ‘problems’. But it escalated quickly, and after just a few days he threw a toy at my host after he accidentally dropped something on the floor. Next day, when the situation repeated itself, he used heavier ‘ammunition’ - a wooden piece of something that looks like jigsaw puzzle.

Host’s reaction was the same as always. He hides in a far corner of his mind, and locks himself there. As the bullying progress, he gets even more passive. Soon I was - nearly - in control of the body. I think I’m still quite far from getting full control, but I can decide when to kick him out of the darkness in which he hides and force him into the spotlight. For the rest of the time body is more or less mine.

Actually for most of the time I decided to hide behind him. I doubt if I could believably mimic his mental problems. And then, when my cousin threw another toy, I suddenly got a lovely idea.

I let my Host’s mind slip back into the darkness he’s so familiar with and take control of the body, then I stare at my cousin with face twisted in a way I think is scary. I must look like a creepy possessed child from a C-class horror movie. I try to keep staring at him without blinking or at least doing it as rarely as possible.

He notices me after a short while but doesn’t pay me much attention. No matter, I’ll just keep it up like this for a while.

About twenty minutes later I finally get a response. He throws another toy at me, luckily it’s nothing heavy. It takes plenty of self control to avoid breaking my stare, especially since he manages to hit me right in the face. But the effort pays up, for a second there I saw a glimpse of satisfaction on his face, but now he seems confused. After looking at me like that for a short while he goes back to playing with his toys.

However he can’t help looking at me from time to time. On his face I can see some fear slowly building up. Staring at him like that is painfully boring, but it’s much better than watching my host from darkness. And now, when my boredom pays up, it actually gets interesting. Unfortunately our ‘bonding time’ today is ending so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to continue.

Waiting for the next day to resume my ‘fun’ was hard and now I eagerly wait for my cousin to do something. I need a pretext to start staring at him again but he, as if remembering what happened yesterday, doesn't really want to give me one. That is, at the beginning. But after an hour or two of my host’s standard behavior Iar’e coms to him and pulls a toy wooden horse right out of his hands.

My host’s standard reaction would be a moment of apathy and then screaming like a madman. Fortunately I can use that apathy to slip in control of the body since I already know that in the darkness he’ll calm down and won’t fight back. So, without my intervention loud reaction of my host would attract attention of a slave who would come and take him to his room. It happened a few times already because my host sometimes screams without any reason when outside of his room. Soon, smug on my cousin's face is replaced with a bit panicked expression.

“Wha… what are you doing, you creep.” He throws the horse back at me but he didn’t use much force and I’m able to grab it mid air before it hits me. And slowly, still staring Iar’e, I put the horse down on the floor. “Stop it! Stop staring at me!” Now he is visibly afraid of me. He moves to the door while still looking my way. Then he leaves in hurry. The very second he disappears, I kick my host back to control. He resumes his play with the toy like nothing happened.

“I’m telling you! There’s something wrong with him!” I hear my cousin shouting in the corridor. Not before long he’s back in ‘our’ room with two nannies, and an unknown family member.

To my cousin’s surprise what they find isn’t a creepy possessed child, but one which acts completely normal. He’s trying to persuade people he brought in, but to no avail. The looks on their faces can be translated to “yeah, you have us this time, but you know, this wasn’t a good joke”.

Who knows, this ‘bonding time’ might actually be fun.