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Ajax is a normal boy.
He smiles often. He eats his big sister's cooking excitedly. He tells her it's delicious once he's done, and runs off to play with his baby siblings until they're too tired to keep their little eyes open any longer. He carries them to bed. He tucks them in. He sings them lullabies until they fall asleep. He kisses their foreheads and tells them he loves them.
He kisses their little foreheads and tells them that big brother Ajax will always be there to tuck them in at the end of a long day. He promises that big brother Ajax will always be there to play with them. He whispers love into their little ears and finds his older siblings once the sun has set and the young ones have long since sunk into their slumber.
He finds his older siblings, and has the same told to him. They don't tuck him in. They don't carry him to bed. They don't kiss his little forehead and whisper until his eyes slip closed. They ruffle his hair. They tell him they're proud. They tell him they love him.
Their father does the same. He says that Ajax is becoming a good man. A good man is one that protects his family. A good man is a man that loves his little siblings. A good man is a man who protects those who cannot protect themselves. A good man doesn't lie. A good man keeps his promises.
Ajax wants to be a good man. If only so his father will keep ruffling his hair and telling him how proud he is.
When his older siblings ask him what he wants to be when he gets older, he tells them that he wants to be a good man. They laugh when he says that. They say, "No, silly. What do you want to do?" And Ajax doesn't have an answer to that question, so he just says that he wants to protect them.
They joke about him becoming their guard dog. He smiles and says that it doesn't sound so bad, and they laugh with more mirth and love than even Ajax's heart has room for. They ruffle his hair and kiss his forehead and tell him that, if he did become their guard dog, he would be the best guard dog in the world.
Of course, Ajax knows that already. If it's for his family, he thinks he could do just about anything.
Ajax gets lost, one day.
He doesn't get lost often. He thinks the last time it happened he was only 6 years old and barely understood right from left. He had wandered into the trees surrounding their little home in the snowy countryside and couldn't wander his way back out. He remembers crying. Crying and crying and crying until he could barely breathe and the cold had threatened to freeze his lungs. His sister had found him. She claimed to have heard his shrieking from the house, and rushed to his aid.
Ajax is not that little lost child, anymore. He carries a bag of bread in one hand and an old sword in the other. The trip was meant to be for the sake of gathering meat for dinner. Ajax told himself that no one would mind, if he spent a little longer out in the cold. He was curious, about the forest. He had wanted to know what he could find.
The crunching of boots through the snow, and the mist of breath in the air, Ajax ventures through the cold in search of something interesting. Knowing that he has to be home in time for dinner – and with something to make – makes it a bit more difficult. Yet, with a spark in his small blue eyes, Ajax ventures forth, until–
He stumbles upon a pack of wolves.
His siblings warned him about such things. They told him to be careful, but Ajax has never exactly been good at being careful. It's a moment of panic that has him dashing in the other direction. It probably wasn't the right call. His brain was a bit too slow to let the rest of him know that. He hears barking behind him. He's being chased. They're going to catch up to him, he's going to have to–
Before the thought – he's going to have to fight – fully forms, there's a different sensation. A feeling of weightlessness. The ground is gone from under his feet. Before he can even open his mouth to shout help, the world is vanishing. He's plummeting. The light is fading away, and the pit never seems to end.
Ajax, at 14, falls into the abyss.
Ajax comes back different.
By the time he returns he's 3 months older, three months wiser, and three months scarred. His clothes are torn and stitched and torn again. The sword he ventured out with is chipped and cracking. The bag of bread he carried has long since been emptied, and the fabric used to keep his clothes from falling to pieces. His hair is unkempt and unwashed. His cheeks are stained with splotches of red. A vision with the mark of the hydro archon hangs off his hip. He wonders if the Tsaritsa would disown him for that.
Ajax steps out of the forest. His siblings are sitting there, waiting for him. The little ones run up to him. They don't hesitate, even for a moment. They all look the same. Not a moment of time touches their faces. They cling to his legs, crying and shrieking, and the older two rush to meet them. His father is shortly behind. Ajax is enveloped in their arms. All of them. His entire family wraps themselves around them. Even his father.
Ajax loves being hugged by his family. He always has. He loves when his older siblings hold him close. He loves when they kiss his forehead and he loves telling them that he's going to protect them, and he loves hearing them say that they love him. He loves them. He loves being held by them. He loves–
Ajax does not return their embraces. None of them. Not even the little ones. His arms weigh a million tons and his heart weighs nothing. He's been gone for three months. How they must have worried for him. He would apologize. He apologized when he was little.
He doesn't apologize. His siblings cry. They tell him they worried. They tell him they couldn't sleep. Three days, they say. That's how long he was gone.
(Three days. Three days? Ajax is certain it was longer than that. He marked every day on the hilt of that chipped sword until he ran out of room at 45. Another 15 days after that. He got better at keeping count.)
His older sister cups his cheeks and pulls away. She looks into his eyes and smiles and tells him that she's happy he's alright. Relieved that he's come back to them. Ajax stares back at her. He stares back at his beloved older sister, and wonders why he feels nothing.
He smiles. His sister's expression shifts. No one else notices. Ajax smiles, but it feels hollow. His sister goes back to holding him. Tightly. Tighter than she's ever held him before. Ajax lets her. He doesn't argue.
There's no way for him to know the light has left his eyes.
There's no way for him to know just how much they scared her.
She holds him still. His other siblings refuse to let go. Ajax knows that he'll never tell them the truth. He knows that they'll never ask.
Ajax's father looks at him differently.
For a short while, things returned to normal. He dropped his sword in the snow and let his siblings lead him back inside the house. He let them dote on him like a scared little child. He let them care for him like they so clearly wanted. He let the little ones sit in his lap and came up with a contrived lie to ensure that they don't worry any more than they need to. He tells them that he was hiding from the bears and wolves that surround their little home. The little ones eat it up. The older ones look skeptical, but say nothing.
His father, however, makes no attempt to mask his disbelief. A boy of Ajax's age doesn't simply spend three days lost in the woods running from bears without the slightest sign of distress, and a boy of Ajax's age doesn't come back from those three days with red-stained cheeks and scars that look not of this world.
His father says nothing, but Ajax knows that the man is thinking.
His father looks at him blankly, at first. As though trying to assess the differences between the boy who walked into that forest and the boy who walked out. Ajax understands. There are a lot of differences. Eventually his father will come to an understanding and things will return to normal. Perhaps Ajax himself will return to normal, and then it will be like nothing ever happened. Perhaps this persistent, numbing emptiness will disperse, and he'll be able to hold his siblings and kiss their foreheads and whisper love into their ears just like he used to.
His father stares at him. Ajax takes up his sword, steps into the woods, and returns that night with more meat than he's ever been able to carry before. His siblings stare at him as though he's the Tsaritsa herself, come to bless them with a bountiful harvest. His father says nothing. His father used to ruffle his hair, when Ajax returned with meat for dinner.
He doesn't anymore. Ajax wonders why. He doesn't say anything. The air around the dinner table in their little house is tense. It's never felt this way. The little ones don't notice. The older ones do.
Ajax is 15, when his father seems to decide that enough is enough.
Ajax can no longer pretend that things will go back to normal. They haven't. He's immersed himself in the way things used to be. He's spent endless time with his siblings. He's played with them. Eaten with them. Tucked them in. Kissed their foreheads. Told them stories. Has his hair ruffled. Been told he was loved. He's been unable to say it back. Things are different now.
Teucer climbs into his lap while he's eating breakfast – just barely 4 years old, and the little one looks up at Ajax with all the admiration in the world – and wraps his little arms around Ajax's torso. He says that he loves his big brother. Ajax loves Teucer too. He does. He knows he does. More than anything.
His throat closes up, when he tries to say it.
His father watches from across the table with narrowed eyes, and Ajax leaves for the day with sword in one hand and a bag of bread in the other. Teucer wants to come with him. Their father says no. Ajax didn't want to have to say it himself.
He returns with cheeks stained red and another chip in his blade. His eyes stay focused on the snow, and he carries with him more than just the remains of animals.
"Ajax." His father looks at him, with a cold stare and wide eyes. "What happened?"
Ajax doesn't remember all the details.
"Ah, they were coming towards our home." He answers, holding up a plush hat in one hand. Soaked through with dark crimson. The same that stains Ajax's pale skin. "Bandits, I think. So I took care of them before they could." He smiles up at his father. The man looks as though he's seen a ghost. "Better that than in front of the little ones. Right?"
The next morning, Ajax leaves their little home to find five soldiers in Fatui uniforms and his father, standing outside.
The little ones cry. They hug his legs and beg him not to go. Ajax doesn't have a choice. Their father made the choice for him. He understands. It must have been hard, to worry for a son like him. It must be hard, to watch him exist. A reminder of the man's failure to protect his own child.
Ajax goes happily, waving over his shoulder as he walks away. He promises to visit soon.
His throat closes up, when he tries to tell them he loves them, but he does. He knows that he does. More than anything.
He hopes that they know it, too.