In My Heart (You'll Always Be)

Chapter 15

Taylor's garden, Perseus realized, was vastly different than Alltid in numerous ways. The only way the god could put the feeling he got when he walked through the door was that it felt quite like coming home.

With each step they took inside, the floor changed beneath their feet from dirt to marble and bookshelves rose around them like flowers sprouting from their buds. Novels filled the shelves, ranging from children's tales to masterpieces such as the ones made by poets long gone. Along the path, grass grew, and flowers bloomed, petals waving at them with the wind one could feel but never place.

Picture frames lined warm brown walls, gold and silver surrounding ever-changing scenes from the boy's childhood. Some remained the same and Perseus figured that those memories must be like treasures to him. The path split off at one point, leading off into a room closed off by a dark blue curtain and golden rope. Though curious, Perseus didn't enter because, as the floor turned back to dirt, he thought that the earth felt sad in that moment, as though the garden was grieving.

"It's beautiful." Perseus said as the garden grew around him, a library as much as it was a sanctuary. A museum full of memories and love like treasure on a ship of silver and gold.

"Can you see the end?" Taylor asked, his brown eyes big and his grin mischievous, and the god thought that he looked much like the future he soon wouldn't be able to see anymore.

"There are many doors." The god remarked as his eyes caught on the multiple openings guarded only by aged wood with stories etched into their handles. "So many endless possibilities."

The aura around the boy, so young and full of life, brightened considerably and something inside Perseus warmed with the knowledge that he wouldn't mind if Taylor was the one that told his story. "I tried to add a fountain in here!" Taylor's smile was large and the red around his eyes from his tears before had finally begun to fade as he led the god by hand to another part of the library. "I don't know if it looks like how I want it but it's my favorite part already."

Though the boy still had many things to learn, Perseus never pushed, never rushed him, because he cherished those moments as well. The moments he hoped to remember when the lights dim, and he becomes part of a once upon a time, a page in a book told by a growing boy with trembling hands and a big heart shunned by the people around him.

"Here it is!" The preteen gestured to the fountain proudly and Perseus, for what felt like the first time in a long while, found himself breathless with disbelief when he realized he recognized the fountain's design.

It was made of smooth obsidian lined in silver but there was no mistaking the fact that the fountain looked like the roots of the rose and iris in Alltid. Each bump and crevice were created with such care, like the story of the flowers were forever immortalized.

"Why?" The god asked, turning to the child who was now gazing at the fountain with pride. "Why this?"

Taylor shrugged, attempting to look indifferent but his eyes gave him away. "I couldn't think of anything else. Besides, you said that Alltid was the prologue of the story." He gestured to the fountain. "Well, here are the pages."

Perseus didn't say anything for a moment as he ran a hand along the edge of the fountain, and he knew it was putting the child on edge. He needed to gather his words, however, because the structure was not a painting, but something made to last for a long while, to never fade or crumble with age. 

The god turned back to the child, who was standing a bit away from him and fiddling with the hem of his sweater, and walked over to him. His steps echoed on the marble floor and his lips quirked up in a smile when the preteen looked at him with his big brown eyes line in blue. He framed the boy's face with his hands and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. "They insult and shun you." He whispered, feeling the way the boy trembled beneath his grip as though he would falter without it. "Shame on them."

"Why me?" Taylor asked when he could look up at the god again, his eyes filling with tears but refusing to let them drop. "Why did you choose me?"

"Why?" Perseus repeated as though the question had never occurred to him. He smiled something gentle that reminded the preteen of a warm ray of sun through a foggy window. "There wasn't anyone else. You asked me if I was a fixed point in time before." He gazed back at the fountain, looking wistful for a moment. "You never once wondered if you were one. Why is that?"

Taylor shrugged; his voice thick with emotion even as he still refused to let the tears fall. "I can't be."

The god looked at him, raising an eyebrow in incredulity. "How come?"

"Because... Because I'm just me."

"That's exactly why it is you. You're a fixed point written in the stars because it's you. You are the one that watched me bring flowers into existence with envy instead of wonder. You wanted someone to see you as well, to think you were special, but you never seemed to realize the universe was already watching."

"But... But what if you didn't choose me?"

Perseus paused, feeling a soft echo in his heart that he hadn't experience in a long time. Taylor reminded him of the good parts of himself in so many ways, it was incredible. The boy was strongest in his weakest moments and stood alone in a crowded room because no one could quite understand him. They thought he was simply a boy that killed any flower he touched, much like they once thought Perseus would be the boy who died young. Shame on them. Shame on them all. Perseus knew the boy was going to be something special before the Norns had even blessed him with a vision because there wasn't any way he wouldn't notice the boy. Taylor was a fixed point in time, written in the stars themselves, but even if that wasn't true there was an undeniable fact that Perseus could never shake- not that he wanted to. 

"You shine more than anyone I have ever seen." The god confessed, the words seeming to echo in the library despite the murmur they were spoken in. "And sometimes you're so bright, I can't look away." He gasped slightly when the boy surged forward to hug him, but he held him close all the same, gently stroking a hand along the child's back as he sobbed. "There will never come a day where I will not be proud of what you do and what you can achieve. Times will be hard, that will forever remain true, but I will be with you every step of the way. Alltid is the prologue and now it's time for your chapter."

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words: 1,194

song: Zero - Imagine Dragons (lyrics)