February, 1989, 18:26
The war and Iron elves
Kingdom,
Domoa castle
Robin finds Jean standing on the parapet of his room's balcony. He's wearing a thin black t-shirt, olive shorts and white socks. It's a cold night, but Robin doubts that's an issue you would worry about if you're planning on jumping to your death.
Robin walks slowly to the doors of the balcony, a ginger lemon hot tea in his hand.
"So, have you ever considered telling me about it first?" Robin wonders and Jean flinches in his place, and Robin would be lying if he claimed not feeling his heart leave his chest when Jean was startled and almost fell off the fence.
"Go away, I don't think you'll enjoy seeing it happen." Jean whispers, but loud enough for Robin to hear it.
Robin sighs heavily and walks to the balcony's coffee table, placing the mug on it.
Robin knows. Robin knows all too well what Jean is going through. But he's nine, a nine year old reaching the end of the row is quite bazaar, yet very real come to think of how his life has been like so far.
He can't remember how to shine, no, he has never shone in the first place. Never.
Loneliness is his favourite place to be. Sometimes he's lost, sometimes he's broken, sometimes he's content and happy with his made up images of a different life he's living. Even if his parents were to change one day, Robin knows he couldn't bare digging out his heart that was buried six feet under.
Who could save him? Who could possibly save a heart that has become stone cold yet set on fire like a thousand stars up in the galaxy.
"You're not alone you know? This isn't the end, Jean. I know, trust me, I know it's hard to breathe in this building any much longer, I know. But there are people who care about you, with all they are. Think of Evdokia, Ira, Tommy, Valodya, Mizuki. Think of their parents. They care for you, so much, Jean."
"It doesn't matter anymore." Jean mumbles, and he lets go, taking the leap with courage and misery, but Robin was quick enough to catch his arm and stop him from falling.
Robin pulls Jean up with all his force, tightly embracing him as Jean tries to squirm away from him, screaming and wailing, his eyes hammering like a waterfall.
"Jean, please, listen to me. You're much bigger than the sea you think you're sinking in. When the lights go out in your tunnel I'll be there to light it up with setting myself of fire. Nobody, and I mean nobody can take away that light from you. If it ever burnt out, the rest of us will be there. You're not alone, trust me, you're not alone. You've got it in you to live far much longer, you've got it in you to treat your people better than your father is.
If your walls caved on you, I'll be a mountain elf to build them back up, strong and tall. If your water dried out, I'll become a water elf and stream you down a river. If it got too warm, I'll be the one to blow you a swift of wind your way."
Jean is still sobbing, not holding back his whimpers. He stops crying, eventually, and he calms down, hand fisting the back of Robin's jacket, not wanting to let go. Like a drowning man, holding onto the rope of life.
"You're a special kid, Jean. Stay alive to see it for yourself. Promise me you'll live long enough to fix all your father's mistakes. Promise me you'll stand tall before him one day and make him fall. Promise me you'll stay alive for the sake of the people who love you."
"I don't want to be alone. " Jean whispers, his cries calming down.
"And you're not. You're not. As long as I'm here, you'll never be alone." Robin cups Jean's face, innocent and broken and everything in between.
"But you'll leave one day." Jean says, ready to start cry all over again.
"When that day comes..." Robin doesn't know how to put it, he can't promise him anything, he doesn't know if he could fulfil any of this, but he knows he can hope for the best when it comes to Jean, "when that day comes I'll make sure you have others around you that wouldn't even realise I'm gone." Robin smiles sweetly at him, his eyes beating his emotion restraints and becoming glassy.
Jean pulls his face away from Robin's palms and goes to hug Robin tightly, small fists grasping the back of Robin's shirt, probably wrinkling it and messing it up.
But Robin doesn't mind.
Because Robin doesn't mind seeing Jean fuck up shit and go around being a clumsy child, because he is. Unlike his parents, one egoistic dumbass of a king and the other his mean and greedy side chick that only cares for Jean's wellbeing because it guarantees her a life in the castle instead of living on the streets of the iron elves kingdom, probably spending most of her days in other men's beds to be able to provide for herself and her son.
Robin thinks she has forgot all too quickly what kind of life she had before the king cheated on his now late wife with her. It's all a messed up pot of filth that only affected the late wife and Jean in the end. Robin thinks neither of the two deserved any of this.
Onda was a beautiful kind woman, but the world was too cruel to her that she was used as a peace trinity between kingdoms, ending up with probably one of the worst princes to ever grace this kingdom. In the end, she took her own life when she found out about her husband's affairs. King Ademero had to marry a lowly street woman he slept with when he was probably wasted one of those nights he escaped the castle duties, because yes, he impregnated her.
And then there's a poor child that was left to deal with this broken family and has the weight of an entire kingdom above his shoulders, because like it or not, Jean was the only heir up for the throne, and the past couple kings have fucked up real time through their lives that the kingdom is already on the edge, Robin doesn't think anyone can actually pull it back together.
That's where his job lies. Keeping Jean in line. Teaching Jean the right before the wrong. Showing Jean the missteps of the ones before him.
But most importantly, making sure Jean stays alive so there's someone to inherit the throne when the time comes.
Robin likes to imagine it isn't about any of this, but rather his relationship with Jean.
Robin and Reema never got to have kids of their own, and taking Jean under his wing was probably the best decision he has ever taken in his life. He doesn't know what it feels like to have a kid from his own blood, but he doesn't think he needs to know, because he believes Jean is more than enough.
Robin loves Jean like he's a detached part of his soul, if he's being completely honest with himself.
"I love you, kid. You're the best thing that have ever happened to me." He comes to realise that the moment he actually says it, and Jean doesn't say anything, he buries his face further into Robin's chest and hugs him tighter.
"please don't leave me." He says, after a while of the silent hug.
"I won't. Not until you're ready."
*
July 15, 2021, 02:53
Jean feels numb all over.
It's a tragedy.
He feels nauseous the longer he looks at the three corpses before his eyes, blood soaking their clothes up more with every second that passes by.
He stays calm. He stays calm as he falls off the top of the mountain along with Robin's body.
An inhale, an exhale.
It gets harder to think rationally with each breath.
He feels lightheaded and dizzy.
Robin lied to him. Robin lied to him and left before Jean was ready.
He's angry, but he's also feeling a void that has hollowed his insides to the point it has become hard to breathe.
He knows better than attacking Thomas, he knows he'll be putting everyone behind him in danger.
It feels like the end. He's a martyr to his love to this man that took the place of his father with all he had. He was never obliged to, and maybe that's what Jean feared the most, that his parents kept Robin just to have someone with an eye over him, after all, that was the only reason they hired Robin in the first place.
But it wasn't that. No, it wasn't. Reality was far from it actually.
Robin was a father before a guardian. He was the father, mother and brother he never got in his life. He was the light that lead him out of the dark. Robin was the fire that warmed Jean when he was cold. Robin was the wind that cooled Jean down when he was flaming in anger and frustration.
Jean wonders. Is that true love? Was that the unconditional love they talk about in movies?
He likes to think it is. Was.
Jean likes to think that Robin was an angel sent to him from heaven, he likes to imagine himself with Robin at the dinner table, talking about their day, about what he has learnt today, about Robin's work, because yes, in his head, Robin was a father to him, not his guardian fairy.
But now its gone.
It's all gone with a swift of a blade.
Jean wants to scream his pain away, take it out on someone else.
Evdokia has always been telling him to stop repress every emotion he feels and just let it flow into the river. He wants to, he wishes to, but life hasn't been too kind to him to allow him to. Jean thinks from the day he was born, he was doomed to live on a miserable life. He doesn't think he remembers a part of his life where he wasn't. He liked to imagine that he was happy when they started up their life in the humans realm, but that's a lie he lured himself into believing.
Because no matter how much he tried to, he never forgot, he never got over.
Jean thinks he should go up to his body and hug him, one last time while his body still has it's warmth. But he refrains from it, he doesn't think he'll stay composed.
Jean decides there and then that he won't let go. Because he's not a foul. He has promised Robin. And so he takes it all. Every hit. Every kick. Every blow. He takes it all. He'll take them all. For the sake of his oath to Robin. For the sake of the promise his father asked him to take into his heart and secure it with a lock that has long been broken and worn out.
*
Thomas does close up Evdokia's wound, which is very nice of him, Jean thinks. However, Jean does not think it was very nice of him to hold her hostage on a different plane than the one they're all on.
She doesn't wake up, not on their way to the mountains, nor when they're thrown into a cell, he realises.
It's for the best, Jean thinks, he doesn't know how to exactly break the news to her, she'd die from the pain of the fact that Robin and Reema are dead before Thomas kills her.
But that doesn't stay for too wrong, because after being locked up for five hours full of YuNing freaking out and LiQin's attempts to find a secret open in the cell, Valodya checking for a pulse on Evdokia's neck every few seconds, they finally send someone to check on them. They also happen to have Ufuk with them, who gets chained between Jean and LiQin onto the wall. He's unconscious and looks beat up.
One of the men casts a spell on LiQin and he suddenly drapes over the floor.
"What do you think you're doing?! Stop!" LiQin screams at one of the men from where he's paralysed, the man unchaining YuNing and throwing him by the hair to the middle of the cell.
The sound of heels echoes bouncing around the room's walls shifts all of their attention to the new arrival.
Fucking Thomas.
"Thomas I swear to god if you fucking dare touch a hair from my son I will-" LiQin starts, rage and venom on the tip of his tounge.
Jean shudders. He doesn't think he has seen LiQin at lost of control this much before in his life, it scares the shit out of him.
"You will what? Huh?" Thomas starts, a sword in his hand, and Jean realises the men are setting up a coal box to heat up the sword. "your magic has become ancient and our development on the spells makes them iminium to your reverse spells. You can't do shit, darling." Thomas has a smug look painted all over his face, and it makes his blood boil. But he also realises it suits Thomas just about right.
Thomas lifts the sword out of the coal, the two men holding down YuNing and exposing his forearm. And there, Jean sees it, a beautiful mark he's all too familiar with on Evdokia's arms.
Does she know?
"No! Stop!" Jean screams, realising what Thomas is about to do to YuNing.
"Thomas! Don't you fucking dare!" LiQin shouts helplessly as he sees YuNing scream and try squirming away from the sword that only keeps coming closer and closer to his arm.
"Thomas, pleased don't! We can talk this out between us! YuNing has nothing to do with any of this shit!" Valodya pleads.
YuNing howls in pain when the sword touches his skin, the sizzle loud and clear in the room, audible even through all the screams going on in the room.
YuNing doesn't stop screaming and neither does LiQin or Valodya, begging Thomas to stop, which doesn't faze him one bit.
Finally, after what seemed like minutes, Thomas lifts the sword off YuNing's forearm. He's shaking and crying, understandably so. The burn is big, big and deep enough to erase any marks on one's skin. But the soul mate mark isn't a superficial tattoo that can just be gone. It's magical and marked into one's soul rather than skin.
Thomas hums in disappointment when he realises the burn couldn't hide the mark that is still glistening in the dark.
"I guess I'll have to use something stronger to erase it." He mumbles. "Put him back up." Thomas orders as he discards the sword.
The two men drag YuNing by the arms back to the wall and hand cuff him up again.
Only then does Jean look to his right and see Evdokia's tears. She's holding onto her arm where her mark lies. Right. Physical pain does teleport between them.
Jean thinks it was a kick to them while they're already down, an attempt to break their spirit and shatter them into incoherent pieces.
Jean would be lying if he said they didn't succeed in it. All Jean wants right now is to take Evdokia in his arms and swim with her to the deepest pits of the ocean, where no one can find them again, where they'll never get to hear about the surface ever again.
He thinks this sacrifice wasn't worth it. Not one bit. A tear from Evdokia's eyes is worth so much more than this silly little plan to save the world. They're not heroes, they're not gods and goddesses to end a world war solely by themselves.
But he prefers not giving up. He prefers being persistent than a guy who gave up at the very being of the road. He think he can take it. That he's got it in him, like Robin once said.
*