Toren arranged everything and started drawing a line.
He began fabricating some recollections at his brain and attempted to materialize it in front of him – at the blank canvas. He decided to draw the flower beds around him – the chrysanthemums and lilies and daisies.
Whilst maneuvering his hand into different strokes, bringing to life the lush colors of flowers, a certain image flashed before him abruptly.
A deep blue-shaded flower taking the shape of a rose.
It does not have thorns, but it had a beguiling voice.
Toren tried brushing it off, thinking it might just be one of those things he had seen somewhere between the centuries he observed his brother in the real world.
Out of the millions of images he had seen, the odds of glancing at such flowers... he wondered about it.
A probable thing. However, it did not stop there. The flower seemed to be jeering and swirling across his skull, teasing him and even tearing apart some beliefs.
It was the most vivid image he had seen – more than his own reality. How could he shake it off?
He struggled focusing on painting his picture as more vivid ones paraded through.
He saw a moonlight splayed at a room and across the face of a boy. He was inside a castle. He was the only heir, the infamous young prince whom the kingdom adores. He was having a frightening and strange dream.
The dark tunnel, the light of hope, the solid ground, the wavy sea, the beautiful piano, and finally the deep blue flower.
Toren stopped painting.
He let go of the brush and clutched his hair while shutting his eyes close.
The memories slowly began squeezing in, drilling and forcing itself inside his head like an unwelcome intruder. He began palpating desperately and he began fighting some metaphysical internal turmoil. Everything felt like chaos.
The painful riot went on and on until a warm, soft hand rested itself on his head down to his cheeks.
He recognized the touches, the fingers, and the mystery.
It was definitely Airen.
He slowly opened his eyes and all was still the same as he had left it. He somehow feared that the moment his sight returned to him, everything would fall apart and turn into a dystopia like how he was beginning to feel.
"Airen," He softly called out. "Was I the prince of a flourishing kingdom before? Was my father an unjust king?"
"Did you perhaps see something?"
"I am not sure either. But I know one thing. I was utterly falling in love with something incomprehensible. I wanted something out of the world, something that only greedy people wish to have."
"Do you think that you are greedy then?"
Toren could not answer.
He was not even sure about the hallucinations inside his head as he had a hard time figuring out which was an illusion and which one had truly happened.
Out of all the supernatural things that his conscious mind had experienced, sorting out reality from not was becoming nearly impossible. Toren glanced at his unfinished painting and remembered the things Airen said he was willing to do for his passion.
He thought that it must have not been an exaggeration, but perhaps even an understatement.
He wondered what condition he was in to have such a strong desire to elude into the blank sheets.
He wondered what kind of 'worst' things he had seen and the harsh environment he had been to embrace the world he wanted to create for himself.
They went through the gateway and returned to the dim-lit room.
The orange hues from the lamp splashed across the golden brown walls somehow calmed his nerves. Toren laid down on the bed while Airen caressed his skin.
And again, as worries popped into an unbearable state, they would go somewhere. Inside a place that belongs to only the two of them.
They would go far away from where their worries were rooted from.