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Ruth Kieran was an absolute picture of pure anguish. He’d colpsed down onto his knees with fat tears rolling down his face, and his sword y forgotten on the floor next to him.
Everything about the picture looked wrong to Noth. Why was he crying? Noth was the one who got attacked! Noth was the one who could have died! Had something gone wrong and he just hadn’t noticed it yet? The child checked himself over to make sure he was really as fully in one piece as he felt, his eyes wide as he looked toward his angel and gave her a quick thankful nod for the shield that had protected him. Then, his gaze inevitably drifted back to his father, whose wails were seeming to increase in volume with every passing second. The sounds were making Noth's heart ache deeply, and the clear sense of suffering being conveyed moved him, despite everything that had happened prior. He cautiously crawled on his hands and knees to his father’s side, sat down next to him, and gently tapped his shoulder in a hesitant patting motion.
“Are you… You’re ok, right? D-did you get hurt somewhere?”
Ruth Kieran’s words came out in sobbing pants. They were almost hard to even understand.
“I… FAILED… you. I couldn’t save you! I’m so weak… And useless…”
The man gnashed his teeth, and his fist pounded the carpet. Noth flinched at the sudden movement, but after observing the man for a few moments, he returned to patting his shoulder once more, as if he’d never stopped. He was completely baffled by what any of this could have meant. Deciding that the only way to understand was to ask, Noth leaned in and spoke as pacifyingly as he could.
“But…I’m here? I’m fine. Nothing happened to me.”
Noth had to hold back his sour feelings as he spoke, the irony of this monster trying to ‘save’ him from anything feeling almost like it would overflow and spill hatefully from his mouth at any moment if he thought too much on it.
“No, no! You’re not fine at all! You’re here now, people have seen you! They’ll talk.”
The more words that escaped from his father’s lips, the more his crumpled body shook, and the deeper his sobs grew. His head started drooping closer and closer to the floor, as if he might colpse if this continued on for too long.
“I locked you up to protect you while I strengthened my resolve to do what’s right… But it’s too hard! I can’t! I can’t do it! How can they expect me to do such a thing?! I…”
Before Noth could even realize what had happened, his shoulders were suddenly in a tight grip. The way he was being grabbed felt like he was going to get shaken violently at any second, so he braced himself and clenched his teeth. But the shaking never came. Instead his father’s forehead was pnted against his own, as the man looked down into his eyes. For the first time ever, Noth was finally able to learn his father's eye colour. It was blue, a beautiful, icy blue.
“You’re Natalia’s son! You’re my son! You’re my beloved family! And what’s more, you’re all I have left… I’ve done everything they’ve told me to, but how could they ask this of me?!”
Noth’s mind seemed to freeze, getting plugged up by all of the new revetions he was abruptly learning from his father’s ravings. As he watched the tears falling repeatedly in front of him, he tried to force himself to take in what all of it meant. His father didn’t want to kill him? In fact, it looked like his father loved him? It seemed in some way that his father had also loved his mother, but then why did he kill her? And…
Wait.
Someone… told the one and only Earl of the nation, Earl Kieran, to kill his son?
But who could order an Earl?
Noth fisted his pants and stared hard into his father’s eyes. His voice was strained as he choked out his question.
“Was it a higher noble? Or maybe the church told you to get rid of me.”
No answer was given, instead Noth was just met with even more desperate sobbing. It seemed like his father was just too saddened and afraid to say.
“Father, I need to know. I deserve it.”
“I… ha… I-I can’t-! I…”
The boy’s face twisted into a scowl. He honestly missed his father’s cold and strict appearance from before, when compared to this; A monster seemed much more manageable to converse with than a blubbering fool. He didn’t know how to handle or interact with any of what he was seeing right now.
Noth let out a sigh, acknowledging that he most likely wouldn’t get anything more out of him for today. It was time to retreat for now. He peeled his father off of him and took a step back.
“I’ll leave for now, but I still need answers. I expect to hear some from you when I come back tomorrow, Father.”
The tragic look on Ruth Kieran’s face as he desperately reached towards his retreating son would probably haunt Noth’s nightmares for a while at least. It had been completely and firmly etched into his memory. Noth hurried his steps, trying to escape from the scene he’d never in his wildest dreams thought that he would have witnessed. He all but ran out of the office, navigating the halls without a care for who saw him, and dashed back to the safety of his vil. Out of breath, he flopped down on the stairs that he had no strength left to climb, and flung his arm over his face as his mind churned through everything that had happened during his outing.
“I never want to leave this pce again. It’s too much.”
A cold hand stroked Noth’s arm, and he gradually started feeling refreshed. When he felt a light kiss nd where the hand had previously been, he moved his arm up to his forehead so that he could see again, and gnced up at the angel glumly.
“I also never want another big day again.”
The nervous giggle and the avoidance of his gaze told him just how unlikely that dream would be. He let out a small frustrated huff and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before settling his eyes back on her. A clear look of worry sat across his features.
“Do you think… I did good today? I didn’t mess anything up? Or at least not worse than it already was?”
The angel drifted closer to the small boy, her hands coming to embrace his cheeks as she pced her face just inches away from him, and tenderly looked into his eyes.
The more the spirit talked, the more starry eyed and worked up she seemed to be getting. Noth debated on whether he should slip out of her grasp and maybe escape to his room, but luckily his angel let him go and swiftly flew up the stairs, looking down at him once she reached the top.
The unreadable look in her eyes had him wary for a moment, but a yawn that snuck up on him a second ter had him crawling up the stairs after her.
~~~
The rest of the day had passed by so uneventfully that Noth almost felt disappointed by how such a big day could end so mildly.
Even though he’d napped so soundly from how frazzled his nerves were, the same wasn’t true when it came time to sleep. Too many worries and possibilities and trains of thought occupied him every second that he id in bed, and in the end he was only able to squeak out about 4 hours of sleep because of it. And when his angel roused him awake at the time he’d asked her, she had a terribly guilty look on her face.
Crabbiness almost had him snapping at the well meaning comment, but he just sighed and got out of bed instead.
“No. He’ll be expecting me now, since this is around the same time I showed up yesterday. We go now.”
A few wishes ter and the boy was once again inside his family manor. He didn’t even bother trying to hide from the servants this time, now that his father was expecting him, knowing that he’d most likely informed people not to impede his son’s path. It’s just the kind of thing the orderly Earl would have done. Of course, this didn’t stop those servants that Noth did come across from giving him a myriad of different looks. He did his best to just ignore their reactions and keep marching towards his destination, but his face slowly grew more and more unsettled each time he heard the dark chuckles and derisive words of the angel floating behind him.
“I don’t think that’s something an angel is supposed to say. Especially not out loud.”
The spirit flew in close as Noth reached the final hallway outside his father’s office, and suddenly hugged him tight from the side, staring at his profile. The young boy had stopped in pce, and his eyes were locked on the now visible door.
Her words seemed so loving and passionate on the surface, that at first they brought a blush to Noth’s face. However, the moment he turned his head to look at her, he realized his mistake. The slightly unhinged look in her eyes as she gazed at him, combined with the odd way she was smiling so widely that it almost looked like the corners of her mouth would rip, immediately made the blood drain from his face. Her hold seemed to tighten on him when he started to lightly tremble, but after just a handful of seconds she suddenly let Noth go and slowly flew away, continuing down the hall. She hummed and giggled and called out her next words in a sing-song voice.
Noth was supremely confused by her sudden changes in behaviour. His little legs were still rooted in pce, almost afraid to take another step closer to the thing that had scared him so, just moments ago. He swallowed a lump in his throat as he watched her flittering around, and decided to let his curiosity win out over his fear, yet again.
“W-what kind of favour…?”
He frowned at the answer he was given. Noth hated how ambiguous the angel could be about things that were important to him. Every time she did something like this it drove his curiosity wild.
His frustration at his ck of understanding somehow managed to eat up the rest of the fear that had had him stuck in pce, and he finally managed to move forwards once again, his grumbling having pushed the incident from a moment ago to the back of his mind. He slogged himself to the doorway his angel had nded herself next to, and after a brief moment of apprehension and a quick repeat of yesterday’s oh-so-essential shielding wish, Noth finally entered his father’s office, once again.
His father, Earl Ruth Kieran, was clearly the most haggard that Noth had ever seen him be. It almost looked like he’d aged a handful of years overnight. Lines and creases that he was sure hadn’t been there the day before pervaded the man’s face, and Noth came very close to turning and asking his angel what had happened- Or better yet, he also came close to just blurting the question out to his father directly! Noth was aware that such things would be impolite, however, so he decided to shelf the question and see if he couldn’t remember to ask someone about it ter.
“My son, you’ve come! I…”
At first the his father had smiled and stood up from his desk when Noth had entered, but it seemed that the wind left his sails very quickly afterwards, and he flopped back into his chair, his face falling along with his body. A second ter he slumped forwards against his desk and hung his head. Shaky words left his mouth, and were mumbled into the expensive wood.
“...I was thinking that maybe you wouldn’t come back, or that maybe I’d just dreamed the whole ordeal yesterday. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep… I was worried you’d be d-disappointed in me just like everyone else. I’d almost convinced myself that you wouldn’t come today.”
The feeble words put a confused and concerned look on Noth’s face. The past two days had shown him a man that was nothing at all like the father he’d seen when he was younger. Where had his monster gone? He had to admit that his father was correct; He was indeed very disappointed. But once again, Noth’s curiosity reigned supreme. He needed answers, no matter how different things were going than he’d imagined. The young boy strode up to the desk, deciding that it’d be best to just get to the point.
“Well then it’s good that I showed up. You promised me answers today, father! I was promised. If you want me to not be disappointed so much, then I’d like to hear them from you. Please.”
A just barely audible sob escaped his father’s lips, and his shoulders trembled for a few seconds, but after a deep sniff and a wiping of his eyes, Ruth Kieran gazed across the desk at his son.
“You wanted to know ‘what’ exactly, again? I’ll tell you anything. I owe you that much. It’s all gone to hell anyways; You deserve to know what’s happening before it comes to you.”