The Past Haunts the Present in More Ways Than We Think

Ghosts

The past haunts the present in more ways than we think.

Ghosts are rife in everything we do, everything we see, everything we are. Our dear dead ones shape us more than we can possibly imagine, and in ways we do not even consider. Everyone has ghosts. Everyone is haunted.

But, it has to be said, some have more ghosts than others.

Old ones are the best, usually. They have lived long lives, full of joys and pains and failures and mercies, and they often remember the value of the past much better than the young ones—like the old, wrinkled man you see on the rock, smoking his ever-present pipe. Their ghosts are slight, quiet, but still ever-present (such ghosts don't really count; they are there, but at peace. They do not haunt the way restless spirits do). Or they are like the witch, as bleached white as her soul is vile, crooning to the worst of spirits and gleefully bathing in the cruelest of stories. Her ghosts are violent and vicious and very much not at rest. They will laugh to see her fall.

Yes, the old ones are haunted the most. Young ones are too new to have stories and ghosts.

Usually.

There are some people you just know are going to be haunted. Be it fate or misfortune, you can see the way the past whispers to them; they practically breathe of future ghosts.

The boy-king is one of those people.

You can see the way history's web wraps around him and his chosen, how it sings of restitution and destruction and peace. After all, he holds the sword of a man who cursed his kingdom (the blade once flashed with vindictive bite and ran cherry-bright with blood). A young Seadragon perches on his shoulder (it has a scar above its heart, faint but visible, an echo of those before), and on his arm curls a golden bracelet (born of pain and tragedy, with an eye of bittersweet love embedded in the metal). Even his name reeks of hurts and curses and hopes and tragedies (you remember his predecessors. Perhaps he can succeed where they failed). He cannot see any of this yet, poor boy (and perhaps he never will; one never really knows how much they are haunted), but you do. You see everything.

Most fear ghosts. To be haunted is not something to be taken lightly. Ghosts tell their stories through the ones in which they choose to live on. That is why your path in life must be chosen so carefully, for fear of what the ghosts might ask you to carry (and sometimes they don't ask; you have no choice). Their stories are a blessing; their secrets are a burden.

You see them. You crave them. You love the blessed tales and the cursed tragedies, and you love watching the never-ending spiral of the patterns of life and love and death and pain. So you watch and wait.

Time passes. History plays the way you saw. New ghosts come to life (or is it death?) and old ghosts are laid to rest.

And one day, you see the trio. They have weathered history's cruel grasp far better than even you ever thought they could. Eagerly, you drink them in. Eyes greedily search them for whispers, ears listen for signs. For surely the boy-king which fate had chosen must be haunted (ghosts tell their stories so beautifully through the people in which they choose to live on, and you crave them).

But it is not the boy-king your eyes are drawn to.

A thin, scraggly boy stands off to the side. Curly hair singed, glasses smashed and teetering brokenly on his nose. Small. Quiet. Ordinary.

But a tattered, useless eyepatch flutters from where it is attached to his forehead (others flinch slightly when they see it). A dull, worn, lobster claw necklace hangs around his neck (he touches it every so often, as if to remind himself that it's there). And a great green three-headed dragon, graceful and deadly, hunches over its small master like a comfort and a shield (the look in its eyes as it gazes at the boy reflects an ancient love). That's when you realize.

The boy-king may have been shaped by the past and guided by Fate.

But it is him that is truly haunted by ghosts.

Disclaimer: Again, I don't own HTTYD. Just a really obsessed fan :)