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The sound of gunshot rang through the forest, deafening the young Elias’s ears. Unbeknown to him, he crawled out of the space that was pitted by two huge rocks. A meter ahead of him lay the corpse of a bear. Elias knew at that time, a second before his instinct told him to search for a gap and hide, he stood there in the exact spot of that bear.
Elias then learnt he was not afraid of death. He saw a blood coming out of the arteries that is now so raw, so red, and ripe coming and oozing out of the bear’s abdomen with indifferent eyes.
Elias’s corpse should’ve been there instead of it.
He immediately knew that fact.
Elias Hohenzollern had heard of the numerous victories of others in every hunting ceremony he went to. In the end of their victory, the hunter let out a victory gunshot.
Elias however didn’t care, laying his attention elsewhere. A bullet that was so small and used to harm people was used to announce a victory.
Victory has a different meaning to Elias Hohenzollern.
The victory that they talk about reeks greed and arrogance. Elias thought that being noble was the outcome of the greed and arrogance that God wrote in the bible. He thought back of the dishes the people inside of the palace gulped were the result of greed. Elias didn’t dare to lift up the spoon that was lining up from the left and right side of the table. He found it ironically laughable how noble people find a various size of the spoon as options whereas commoners would eat with their bare hands just to fill up their hunger.
The rule that was written up here defines you as a person.
So when Elias decided to step aside and observe, people started pointing at him with scornful stares and hatred. Nodding your head to follow their rules makes Elias feel sick in the stomach. People wanted to stick to one meaning for every word. So when someone else stepped out and defined something differently, you will be seen as an outcast. What does being normal mean? How far can you go to drag that normality? What rules do one hold to be able to blend with others?
These were unsaid rules.
There were unsaid rules for them that after the guillotine decided one’s fate, they would eat right in the dining hall like those chopped down heads were just meant to be chopped. To mourn is to forget, to forget is to ignore. Just as they picked up the smallest spoon to scoop up their desserts, they thought that chopped head rolled down to the floor was just something that was meant to be left as it was.
However did that shake Elias’s stance?
It didn’t.
He then found out about Leonard Wittelsbach’s existence. The hand that was offered down to him with indifferent eyes. Elias however didn’t feel like it was a hate kind of indifferent. Elias found it amusing, a pity, and a disgrace of himself in those two pairs of eyes.
Young Elias was sure it was a pity that the young Leonard offered to him.
Then, not long after his encounter with The young crown prince of Bayern, he was acquainted with Julia Zähringen, the crown prince of Baden.
Sure enough, this too, was a pity.
So then he pretended like their friendship was based on that. He wanted to see how far pity could base off a friendship they had. Will it last?
However, just as Leonard found out Elias almost risked his life, Leonard didn’t pity him at all. Elias found himself being dragged to the Wittelsbach’s hospital chamber, and found out that Leonard took him in as his responsibility. Then Elias found out the indifferent eyes that had been there all along were the responsible kind of indifferent. Julia also visited him a few times. There were leisure talk and not even bits of them trying to pry open the reason why he jumped.
Elias found himself staring at his palm, questioning that maybe he had been wrong and unknowingly doubting someone else’s kindness as a pity.
Elias however never experienced what it means to be cared for, he lived his life as if he was participating in a voyage of manhunt everyday. So how could he differentiate what is like to be cared for and what is like to be spared?
After finding the perfect definition of the current relationship he had with the other two, Elias finds himself a little bit of solace. However he was still unsure of how much honesty he could offer to his friends, so in the end he promised himself to put them at a certain distance.
At a certain distance too, there was Lukas Askanier.
Elias remembered the second prince of Anhalt to be rumored as pleroma. The only similarity they had is the scrutiny they gained in the empire. Differences that they each own made their names get scorned and pointed out. How eerily similar of them, he thought.
One thing Elias was sure of, the death people wanted to get from them each is different. When Elias was hunted down to death out of hatred, Lukas would be already disqualified as a target of hunting even before his death. This was caused by the base of the differences they had in the society. Elias had the differences he believed himself to be and Lukas have the differences people believed for him to possess. By then, Elias didn’t pay attention to Lukas that much because he was sure they would never be able to cross paths. What was waiting for Elias was death but for Lukas it was cross. For Elias it was a triumphal song and for Lukas it was hymns.
For Elias, his death was never about beliefs, but the death that was purely gained by himself.
So when time passed by and God proved him wrong by making him receive help from Lukas, he started to believe maybe he should actually start having faith in something too. The pair of eyes that were sharp and colored to be pink was staring at him with unwavering faith. “Luka” then spoke of things that were very accurate for Elias’s taste, making him feel intoxicated by how addictive it was to meet someone that is very similar to him. Lukas always said things that Elias wanted to hear. What left him breathless is how Lukas seemed to always mean what he said, with eyes on him, Elias felt like eternity was on his side.
When Lukas said Elias will always be right in the end, it made him believe it.
When Lukas griped and relied on him while being visually incapable in the third exam they had, Elias felt like theyーboth of themーcould win against Leonard and Narke.
When Lukas said he wanted to spend one day playing around with Elias, a spark of selfishness arose in the back of Elias’s numb heart. He wanted to see what Lukas had. He waited for Lukas to say the things he wanted to say. It didn’t matter how long, but at the end of the day he heard a piece of Lukas that was reserved for him only.
When Lukas unconsciously showed an outright favoritism towards him, Elias could only grin and found love to be not so bad after all.
However Lukas had things that Elias disliked the most, his partake in fate is inevitable. That's what they have in common.
Here is the thing; Elias hated fate probably as much as Lukas did. To be sincere is to let things go as it is, and Elias hated that. If death was meant to be the fate that is lurking, lingering, and waiting for him at the end of the rope, then it must be a death that he gained fully because of his worth. However, just like Leonard would stare at the unconscious Lukas as if he was staring at a undying man, Elias would find Lukas’s hand to be cold even though he knew well the other is still breathing. The smell of medicines, the smell of ashes, the smell of grass, it was eradicated into one conclusion; Lukas had been wearing death as his fragrance. When he was laying out the plan, Lukas must’ve already smelled the decaying fate of his to be laid down as the sole escape route of his plan.
But Lukas didn’t die. He came back each time as if he performed magic.
Elias would like to believe maybe Lukas did die at some point, and that thought eerily calmed him down. Because at some point maybe he did rest in peace. But Lukas came back staggering each time, collapsing, throwing up blood for his closest friend to see. He didn’t die but Elias hoped he at least did, because that would at least put him to rest. Elias, of course, would never be able to say that to Lukas.
“I intend to become the emperor with the determination to make the triumphal song sound on the day when my dirge should sound.”
Instead, he said that.
When he was separated from Lukas centimeters away by the remnants of a collapsed building, he felt like Lukas was about to fall asleep. He can’t feel his lower abdomen, but the staggering breath he heard clearly is starting to make him feel very afraid of something he wasn’t afraid of before.
When Lukas said that death was at least fragrant, Elias didn’t want it to be like that.
By the time he realized time flew differently between him and Lukas, Elias finally reached a conclusion that death is very, very, very scary when you least expect it.
Elias didn't realize he was trembling, his voice came out and blabber about the things he experienced back then.
There was a hunt tale, how he was afraid of death. How he was selfish. How he was stupid. How he was ignorant. The speech of his childhood was something he said out of regret.
He wanted Lukas to respond to every of his tales, laugh as he always does, stare at him in eyes that is full of faith and affection so pure it made Elias feel so welcoming towards love for once, he wanted Lukas to know that everything will be okay and at least one of them will go out alive and that has to be Lukas. But there was a slight delay in every of Lukas’s responses, and the fight between Lukas and his consciousness was so silent it frightened Elias.
Then Elias started saying, he liked going to the St. Peter’s church and saw how tall it is, because the view of Munich up there is so, so, pretty. For some religious reason that Elias had to agree, being up high there and realizing how insignificant everyone is in the eyes of God put him at ease. At a certain height your worth will be meaningless, at certain ages people’s worth will be meaningless, and at certain conditions your worth will be meaningless.
He wanted Lukas to stay with him at that moment, trying to draw out the other’s existence, every tiny bit of it, to make sure Lukas would never give in to that slumber invitation.
Elias realized again, death is indeed very scary.
“...Luka?”
There was silence.
“You can’t sleep yet.”
Lukas didn’t respond.
Elias felt Lukas agreed.
Elias’s heart thumped in a rhythm that was very painful for him to bear.
Whereas he felt like his heart kept on tugging every strain of his impatience, Lukas’s heart could stop anytime soon. Maybe he would sleep and just leave him alone just like that. Just without trace, the fate that Lukas had been so sincerely accepting finally welcomed him with open arms. Elias hated that. So when they finally dragged themselves out in order to escape from the attack, someone dared enough to play-pretend as Leonard.
'They' found it exploitable that care was meant as a weakness.
Elias's consciousness was no far better than Lukas. But he knew well he could at least do something.
Then he found himself being carried by Lukas, his consciousness fading. He felt like they swapped roles now.
By this time, Elias didn’t feel like death was scary.
With just a short time, Elias realized that death is only scary when Elias didn’t gain it. But now that death is only a fingertip away from him, he felt like maybe it wasn’t that bad after all.
It’s a bit regretful that there was no way Elias could’ve written this exact feeling to letters and stamped it now, sending it to Lukas to make him read how the death they both aim for feels like, so Lukas could have at least a picture of it.
So when he said to Lukas he might as well sing, he really meant it. But Elias found the other side of his cheek to be damp.
Elias found himself searching for the source of that emotion.
He looked away and tasted death for a second and now Lukas was crying.
Will you beg for me to live?
Lukas didn’t say anything.
Elias felt like if Lukas at least begged, his resolution would crumble.
But still, Lukas didn’t say anything.
Is this your way of loving the things that you love?
Elias wandered.
Elias’s way of loving didn’t consist of letting go, this was proved by how he was so stubborn not to let Lukas fall asleep back then.
But the love that Lukas had was so genuine, it let him have the things that he wanted the most all this time.
Elias found himself defining victory.
He had never known that was the kind of love Lukas Askanier was capable of having. So then, with a sore throat, Elias brought every tiny piece of what’s left of him to laugh. It was a sincere laugh. In a very genuine and gentle curiosity, he finally asked Lukas.
“Why are you crying on such a wonderful day?”