Tempest

Interlude: Eyes

A/N~ It's been waaaay too long since I've updated this. This is an interlude. Basically, there's going to be one every ten chapters, and each one will be centered on four times in a character's past. This isn't a new thing; it's been planned since I began the story. This is very Taz-centric. Hopefully it'll clear some things up, but will most probably just make more questions arise XD

I. stranger

He had been sitting in the little white room for days. Someone would come and give him food, and there was a bathroom attached to the room itself, a private bathroom, but he wasn’t allowed to leave. He would just sit on that little white bed with his whole body swathed in bandages and just stare at the wall.

The owners of the mansion were extremely concerned and nervous to have someone- something- like that in their house, and they thoroughly scolded their son for bringing the bloody, unconscious mess home.

The blue-eyed child had crept through the hallways at night in his bare feet and sat by the entrance to the white room and would listen to the visitor talk to himself, mutter in words that he couldn’t make out. He would think to himself of how he had found the Stranger, with swords and pitchforks through his body and butcher’s knives through his legs. It was the first time he had realized that the world was not all peaches and cream as his mother made it out to be.

The first time he talked to the Stranger was at three in the morning, when he was sitting outside that room and the Stranger had begun to scream. He had been scared, terrified of the inhuman noise that had split into the gloom, and had rushed inside despite his parents’ warnings.

The Stranger had been sitting up in bed, his mouth open as he screamed, his eyes wide and unblinking. The sound seemed to radiate from inside of him, and his gaze was blank. The child had pleaded with him until he had quieted down, but his father was already in the room and pulling his son away from the scarlet-haired visitor. The door to the white room had slammed in his face and he heard his father yelling at the Stranger.

Don’t yell at him, Dad, he had pleaded when his father had come out, red-faced. He was scared.

His father had ignored him and returned to his room.

The blue-eyed child pressed his ear against the door but heard nothing but silence. He remained by the door the whole night and was found the next morning in his pajamas and bare feet, still with his ear against the door, as if waiting for a sound that never came.

II. shock

The Stranger was part of life now. A rather different part of life than the child had imagined, but yet, a part of life. After being let out of the white room and not making any more fuss, his father had decided, seeing how strangely obedient the Stranger was, that he would be a new servant in the house.

The blue-eyed child’s fascination with ordering him around was part glee and part curiosity. He would tell him to go outside and find a pink leaf, or do a handstand, or make him an elaborate dinner. The Stranger obeyed without complaint.

But the child was delighted to also find a partner in crime in the scarlet-haired mystery, and the two would get into all sorts of mischief. He rarely felt guilt over the fact that the Stranger was usually the one to get in trouble, rather than him, considering that the Stranger really just didn’t seem to care at all.

He didn’t quite know when the Stranger’s health began to decline. He never noticed it, but the maids certainly did. He heard them whispering and exchanging secrets on their break in the hushed corners of the hallways, breathing that the Stranger was dying on his feet, with each sluggish step he took and each ragged breath his heart would get a little weaker.

It was around the same time when his parents suddenly got a lot stricter and a lot more demanding, and suddenly his life was filled with tutors and people who told him to sit up straight and that fraternizing with the servants wasn’t proper, and ordering them to do ridiculous things was even less proper. And soon he felt like he was balancing his old, happy life with his new, strict one.

But he only realized exactly what was going on with the Stranger until he dropped a plate in the kitchen. His father, who had been reading a newspaper, had jumped in surprise and dropped his coffee, and proceeded to yell at the Stranger for something that hadn’t even been his fault. He knew his father had been stressed lately, and it was partially his fault, becoming more and more spiteful of his own new world by the day, but he didn’t expect, standing in the doorway, to see his father storm up to the Stranger and jab his finger in his face while still yelling.

It was the first time he’d seen the Stranger scared, and he noticed when his father stormed out, pushing him aside, a shock of white in the Stranger’s scarlet hair.

III. speak

No, I am not, and never will go out today, he would snap angrily as he sat on his bed where he was banished for being disrespectful to one of his tutors.

The Stranger sat on the edge of the bed, sighing, before springing back up again. Come on! You have a window! Let’s do something stupid! He had continued to say, as he had been saying the entire afternoon, but at his charge’s stony glare, he drooped back down into a chair.

He thought that the Stranger had boundless energy. And of course, he was much more open with himself now that he had managed to get the Stranger to spill all his secrets. Of course, he was silent for about a minute, before springing back up. Do you need anything? He would ask that constantly, eager to get out of that room, because even though he was not explicitly stated to stay, it was implied that whenever his moody charge suffered, so did he. Of course, being bodyguard to said moody charge was becoming more and more of a chore to him now that those parents had pulled all the fun out of it. But, to the blue-eyed teenager, his bodyguard was just being a royal pest right now.

Maybe if you just went and apologized…

No.

Well, do you need food or anything? I might be able to get you a donut or something…

I’m fine.

Are you suuure?

Yes.

The endless chatter never ceased, until the teenager, in all his exasperation and stress, had just yelled, God, shut up! I never want you to open your mouth again!

Immediately he rubbed his temples and sat back down from where he had jumped to his feet. He had apologized miserably, explaining that he was stressed and just wanted some peace and quiet.

There was no answer. He confusedly turned to look at his bodyguard, the Stranger, who had an odd sort of look over his face. Are you… okay?

He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. The blue-eyed boy stared at him, before cocking an eyebrow. Then suddenly a stab of dread pierced him in the stomach and he shuddered as if it were a physical blow. You can talk still, right? You can? This isn’t funny! I didn’t mean it like that! You know I didn’t mean it like that! You can talk, okay? You can open your mouth! Talk…

…Please?

 

IV. smile

 

The fire-like hair on his head had faded into a snowy white, along with his skin and his eyes had become more and more closed off. The blue-eyed boy had tried everything in the book, but nothing. The Stranger didn’t talk.

The blue-eyed child had watched the household he used to adore with vehemence and disgust, growing into a fifteen-year-old who truly saw how things were run in the house, how his father yelled at his servants and how his mother was able to cheat others out of money with smooth words and ensnaring and trapping contracts.

And one night, as he sat at the dinner table, observing his mother, whose green eyes were tired and her fingers tapped on the table, and his father, whose blue eyes were fixed on his food as he daintily speared a piece of steak. The blue-eyed child knew with a heavy heart, as his servant refilled his glass of water, that the most innocent one in the room had brown eyes.