Chapter Text
Hello.
I couldn’t help but notice you staring, your inquisitive eyes practically yelled for my attention. Oh, don’t bother apologizing if it isn’t meant, it makes the gesture so very meaningless. I understand why you might stare, it isn’t every day you see an immortal entity watch mortals with such an intensifying glare, is it?
Oh yes, silly me, I forgot to introduce myself! I am the Author, the one who writes each of these silly mortals stories, the one who pulls at the strings of fate. But you may also refer to me as the Narrator.
I do not need to ask who you are, as it is quite plainly presented. You are the Reader, the Audience, the Consumer, the one who obsesses over all the small, finer details of everything in existence.
You are often victim to Attachment, a thing which I don’t and will never understand. Why do people feel for such small and meaningless things? People who let themselves care deeply for such objects or peers will only get hurt.
How do I know this you ask? How can I say such things about an emotion I have never let myself feel, you think? Well, whilst some learn from mistakes or actions, I learn from observations.
Let me take, for example, Theseus Innit.
I have been watching him since he first spoke, and I happen to find him quite the interesting person. He let himself get attached to too many things, too many people, too many ideas, and has paid the price tenfold, almost to the point where I empathise with him.
Almost.
He first found himself a brother in all but blood, Wilbur Soot Craft. They were together everywhere they went, Theseus, or Tommy as he prefers to go by, would very happily go to the ends of the world for Wilbur. In fact, he ended up giving two out of his three lives to a fake fantasy country created and destroyed by his older brother. And that was only one, small attachment in the boys' life.
Although I am sure you would enjoy hearing me nitpick at every mishap in his mere 16 years of living, I am certain you would prefer to watch as it all unravels for yourself. So why don't we begin?
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Tommy shot up out of bed, gasping and clutching at his chest as droplets of cold sweat fell from his forehead.
It had been another night of attempting and failing to get a proper eight hours of sleep without being rudely interrupted by a night terror. The one he just woke from had been of the loss of his second life, when Dream shot straight into his chest during the duel for L’manburg. Just thinking of that man’s name sent an uncontrollable shake into his hands.
Tommy thought that if Dream could see the hold he had on him, regardless of him being trapped in the prison, he would laugh.
Deeming it useless to try to fall asleep again, he tossed his sheets aside and clambered out of bed. Back hunched and eyes droopy (not as though they aren’t normally), he dragged his feet over to the kitchen. Despite entering the room, he wasn’t planning to actually eat anything, so he just slumped forward in one of the rickety wooden stools he had made during the first L’manburg war. Oddly, despite how much trouble it had cost him, he found himself missing the failure of a country. Maybe it had something to do with the way it had always felt like home, throughout all the wars and fights. Or maybe it was just the intoxicating feeling of nostalgia that he felt towards everything that has happened, even towards Dream and the time they spent together during exile.
When did he get so off-topic? What was he even doing before anyway? Oh, right, avoiding the constant state of hunger he was in despite not particularly wanting to eat. The last time he talked to Puffy, she mentioned something about it being something called an eating disorder? He couldn’t exactly remember it all, just knowing that and the fact it probably developed during exile due to Dream withholding food from him. Though he couldn’t think of a time when Dream kept food from him? Yeah, he did sometimes take away his food when he misbehaved, but that was deserved! He had broken a rule, and that was Dream’s way of disciplining him so he didn’t do it again! And okay, he did feel very faint and weak during practically all of exile, but that wasn’t Dream’s fault!
Oh, look at that, Tommy had gotten himself completely sidetracked again. All he wanted to do was relax goddammit! Rising from his stool, he moved over into the bathroom to get ready for the day. He grabbed his toothbrush and looked into the mirror- a big mistake.
His eyes immediately began tracing the crack-like scars that ran along his face, a permanent memory of his third death. No matter how much he had tried, he couldn’t cover them in any sort of way. It was times like this that he wished he had Tubbo’s confidence to wear his scars with pride, but he wasn’t like that anymore. He was cowardly. On his right cheek, his fingers ran down a triangular scar that rose from his collarbone to just under his eye. He thinks he can recall earning it from a punishment Dream gave him, what for, was lost to his mind. A few more were littered around his face, like the one through his eyebrow, or the one which extended from the left side of his mouth into a smile-like shape, an imitation of the smiley on Dream’s mask which he assumed was a way for Dream to brand him. He hated that one.
Other noticeable features were the eyebags that could easily pass for bruises that lay under his eyes, or the way his cheeks were hollowed out. Or the way one of his eyes was completely grey, a feature developed during exile. Just looking at his face made him frown, which half of his face was doing. The other half took too much energy to move normally after his third death, which he guessed was a side effect of getting his head slammed into an obsidian wall.
Tearing his eyes away, he finished getting ready and threw on some random clothes at the bottom of his closet. Tommy hadn’t yet established a plan for what he was going to do, but that didn’t matter at the moment.
For now, he was fine.