What surprised the wisps more than a mortal speaking the language of gods was the pathetic situation he was in. With a stack of books in his hands, the boy kneeled in the middle of a majestic lawn lined with manicured pine trees, and a cobblestone ground hard on his knees.
"You, a mortal, can hear us?" Lucius marveled condescendingly, sizing the boy up in his reduced state.
A hint of disdain flashed in the boy's eyes, regretting the words he had spoken. He averted his gaze, feigning ignorance to the wisps' existence.
"It's too late to pretend you can't see us now." Caelum protested. "Hey!"
Caleum and Lucius hovered around the boy, whispering various profanities to get his attention. But the boy didn't budge, even with an irritated expression, he refused to speak another word. While the rowdy wisps went with their futile attempts, Riven observed the boy in silence. With his knowledge of mortals, the boy appeared to be eleven years old. His physique, though thin and sickly, held great potential. If he weren't starved for days he'd be in a better shape.
A copper-skinned mortal woman approached the boy, her dark amber eyes glinting with malevolent intent as she looked down at him. Her curly hair bounced around her head, threatening to escape the mobcap that held it together, as she swiftly dropped two more books into his stack. Her hands rested on her hips, radiating a sense of authority and menace which was uncanny for she was clad in a maid's uniform.
"Lord Greyson made it clear that you are to kneel until you recite the first book by heart," she said, a grim expression appearing in her face. "You really are some bastard's son, aren't you?"
The maid laughed. "You deserve to suffer for your mother's infidelity."
Once she'd left, Riven inspected the books she dropped off.
"Cultivation for Infants?" Riven almost snorted. He stared at the boy in disbelief. As if the book's title wasn't enough atrocity, how could an eleven-year-old boy fail a book for infants? "You're real dumb aren't you?" he said.
The boy let out an exasperated sigh. "Is that what it says? Cultivation for Infants?"
Riven was surprised to hear him reply. The two wisps, however, protested. Rambling about why they were being ignored. "And you can't even read?"
"Worse." the boy said. "I can't understand a single word they all say."
The three wisps fell silent. For eons they've lived, only once did they meet an entity who miserably failed at grasping the language of mortals. A mere picture of that entity sent shivers down the spines they lost a thousand years back.
"You can't possibly be--" Lucius pulsated."--his son aren't you?!"
"That's impossible," Caelum said. "The Celestial Emperor never messes with mortals..."
Riven remained silent as he watched the boy's expression become that of confusion and curiosity. As Caelum and Lucius rambled continuously, feeding his curiosity more and more, the boy snapped.
"Stop!" he said, his face getting paler by the second. Burdened by hunger and exhaustion, signs of dehydration were getting to him as well. "You're making this a lot harder than it's supposed to."
Every single day for the last five years, he'd been surviving on his own. He was made to ace punishments—a loser who could not speak, not read, nor do any magic. But with three ghosts mumbling profanities and nonsense in his ears, his energy depleted faster than it was supposed to.
"What's your name, kid?" Riven asked him.
"I don't know. I hear a lot I don't know which one it is."
"Alright, we'll choose which one to call you then," Lucius said. "Go on."
The boy obliged. "Bastardsson?"
Caleum stifled his laughter. "Well, I'd gladly call you that--"
Riven burned red, halting Caleum from his words. "What else?"
It didn't take long to realize the tragedy this boy's life had been. Bastardsson, Gnat, Disgusting bug—those were only a few of what he'd believed his name was. No one called him by his real name.
"The woman who birthed me..." the boy said in labored breaths, his face paler than the brocade on his neck. "Before she passed... she called me Aiden."
"That's the one," Riven said. "Aiden."
"Bastardsson was better," Caleum mumbled under his breath.
Just as he'd finished racking his brains, Aiden fell to the ground, the books in his hands crashing down to his bruised knees. The torture finally getting the best of him.
"Bastardsson!" Lucius squealed. "Someone do something! This one's the most interesting mortal to ever face me yet. Save him, man!"
Riven hovered closer to check on the boy, but upon closer inspection, his light began to flicker. For a millisecond and only a millisecond, his immortal body teased his wispy-desparity, revealing his true form like a glitch for the first time in a thousand years.
"What in the world?!" Caelum exclaimed.
Lucius stared in disbelief as well. The two wisps hovered closer to the boy to no avail, and they both ran their questions to Riven.
"Don't ask me. I have no idea what happened either," Riven said, questions swarming his mind, his gaze pinned on his hands that has since then disappeared.
"How was it?" Caelum marveled. "What did it feel like? Tell us!"
Riven needed no recollection of the sensation he felt. Up until this moment, he could still feel the electricity coursing through his entirety as if he had limbs and veins.
"I'll tell you later," he hissed before pinning his attention toward the boy. "We save him first or he dies while we gawk around."
"Right, right," Caelum said. "Lets save him first."
The three wisps formed a circle, then offered a moment of silence for their unfortunate handicap, only the cicadas heard from the distance.
"But... How?" Lucius mumbled. "We don't even have limbs?"
"Oh..."
"Right..."
As if answering their prayers, a slender figure emerged from a distance. With a cane in his hands, an old, graying butler with a monocle came to approach the boy. For a moment, he scrutinized Aiden before letting out a sigh.
He took out a magical conch shell, "The young master has fainted. Take him to his room and prepare a hearty soup."
A voice came out of the conch. "But Lord Greyson said we're not allowed to help him--"
"I'll bear the consequences."
The butler kneeled in front of the boy, his eyes filled with worry and anger. "This might be the last time I stand up for you, young master," he said, his voice filled with woes and melancholy, "You have to learn how to stand up on your own soon."
The wisps' lights dimmed out of respect. It didn't take much to know this butler was nearing his life's end.