One year. It had been one year since Iris Gwenneth became the first heroine of Eldia --one year since her life took a dramatic turn for the better. And in this one year, she'd found meaning in the days that had once had none. Iris had a new job, one...
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A/N -- Here's a cute puppy, guys. For your happiness. *Thumbs up* Also, unedited. Bleh. I'll come back. Just on a writing kick. And I'm adding a song too. Because yay songs.
First, there was despair. Bottomless darkness. A soul shattering into fragments and forming back together all wrong --less whole. A son held his dead father's face in his hands. Fingers hovered right over eyes that didn't see, one motion would shut them. He stopped. How could he close them? For once they were closed, they would never reopen. They would never reopen. Tears splashed over what was and wasn't Dyran anymore. It was only a husk, showered in salted sorrow. The soul had gone, leaving the shell behind.
Kayde pressed his forehead against his father's and sobbed. He didn't feel Iris's fleeting hand on his shoulder, he only felt empty. He didn't even register he was in the middle of a battlefield anymore. Not even when Iris fluttered from his side to defend him from harm as he fell to pieces. His father was gone. His father would never return.
"Please don't be real," he whispered, his voice ducking in and out. Kayde shut his own eyes --tightly, for good measure-- and opened them again, hoping to find himself just waking up in bed in a world where he hadn't just lost a large piece of his heart. But he didn't. He woke up in the same world that he'd never see his father sitting in his office again, never see him walking down the halls. He'd never have a casual conversation with his dad again. It was the simple things that hurt the worst. The little things he'd taken for granted.
He'd never hear his father's smooth voice again. He'd never see the vulpine smile that Dyran was so known for. Those eyes are open but they aren't eyes anymore, Kayde realized. They aren't eyes. And when he realized that, he finally found the strength to close them gently. Maybe strength wasn't the right word, though. Maybe it was the opposite. Weakness. Weakness in knowing that... Kayde took a breath. He pressed his mouth to his father's cheeks and forehead, offering three mournful kisses. He took his father's hands and squeezed them tightly --these were the hands that had taught him how to fight. The hands that had held him as a child. The hands that had just stood between him and what might have been his own death. His father had died to protect him. No, his father had been gutted to protect him.
Second, there was anger. White hot rage that burned a fire inside, filling in the void that had just been torn. Kayde finally looked to where Dyran's own guisarme skewered him. Kayde let go of his father's hands and pulled the weapon out of him. Finally, he noticed where he was again. He noticed Iris finish off someone five feet away. He noticed Nightingale stalking at Dyran's feet --he noticed the great cat nudge his dead master with a paw. When Dyran didn't move, Nightingale stared at Kayde with wide eyes. The guardian could tell that the cat understood. Somehow.
