Prologue Winter, Day 83, 503AV (Aged 17 yrs.) The Welcome Home Syliras "What do you want?" Outside the orphanage, Julian stares down an aging blond man, dressed in a fine tailored suit and wearing a scabbard. There is pain etched across his face as he avoids making eye contact with the raven-haired youth. "You can't honestly be here to give me your well wishes. You made it clear that you want no part in my life. I've made peace with that, why ruin it now?" "Julian..." The older man shuffles his feet uncertainly. "It's your birthday. I just thought..." "You thought wrong, Edward. Now please leave me be. I have an appointment to keep and it's waiting on the far side of the city." Julian attempts to brush past the older man, eager to be on his way. "Just wait a minute." Edward claps a hand on the boy's shoulder and gives him a stern look. "I'm not here to quarrel with you, Julian. Your life is your own, I get it. But there's something I want to give you. It's rightfully yours." From the inside of his coat, he pulls out something large and rectangular. Julian turns to get a better look at it. It's a book - or a journal - bound in stained cattle leather and fastened shut with a rawhide string. Stamped into the leather, spidery lettering spells out his family name, MEREDITH. Staring at the book stirs old visions from the edges of buried memories. The image of a long haired man wearing an eyepatch passing hurriedly across the room is, for a moment, so powerful that Julian almost grows weak in the knees. He'd forgotten about that man, the father he never knew. And he'd done it deliberately. "That was Father's," Julian murmurs. "Yes." "Why? Why give that to me now?" Julian glares up at Edward with renewed contempt. "He was nothing but a cold-hearted murderer. I want nothing to do with that monster." "Julian..." Edward sighs. Julian rolls his eyes, but something hidden, something very old in the tone of the blond man's voice makes him wait, makes him yearn to hear what he has to say. "There is more to your father than what he did to your mother. Rowan was... a long time ago, he was my greatest friend. He was troubled, but talented, creative, and more intelligent than anyone I ever knew. The person he became could only... yes, could only be described as a monster. But Julian, it's important for you to know about the man your father used to be. That person has become lost, forgotten, remembered by no one but an old man who spends too long lost in his own nostalgia. That person... deserves to be understood for who he was. Even if he can't be saved." Julian stares down at the journal. Edward is just blathering about nonsense, he knows, but something takes a hold of him at that moment. The journal seemes to emanate something - a power, almost an aura, as if it were alive. Julian tentatively touches the cover of the journal - the only thing left of his father. "I believe you're a lot like him, Julian." Julian quickly pulls his hand away and glares up at Edward, snarling before he begins to walk off again. "And I think it would do you good to learn about why your father became so bitter and consumed by madness, lest the same thing happen to you." Julian pauses, his fists clenched. "If you run from this now, you'll be running for your entire life. Take your father's journal. Understand who he was, so you can understand who you are. Face your fears, or they'll consume you just as they consumed Rowan Meredith." Sighing, Julian turns around. |
Rowan Meredith's Entry Summer 67th, 490AV Locked in my office again while these fools ask their questions through a thick, well built door. They don't understand. None of these cretins do. I don't CARE what the accountants do with my god-forsaken money. Fine, yes, invest it in the banks and turn a profit on the resulting interest. Help fund new locally opened shops to receive a portion of their starting proceeds. Gods, they could sit on my front step and throw every last coin at passersby and it wouldn't make the slightest sodding difference to me. I don't CARE about my finances. That's why Evelyn went behind my back to hire people who DID. SPEND the money, SAVE it, BURN it. But don't ask ME what to do with it. What am I thinking? They work with money, of course they care about it. Or the numbers, I'm not sure. For them it's the lifeblood of every society, the mysterious factor, the IT that assigns the fates of paupers and aristocrats alike. It makes them feel empowered to feel it flow through their aching, hungry fingers: To hold this poison that drives people to heinous measures to attain it; to hold the cure that will bring bread to starving children. Money is the WORLD to these people, and is given this divine, this sacred meaning that I can never understand. And I don't want to. What I know is that for me, it has been a binding force that has defined every aspect of my life since I was a boy. Since I watched it turn my father, but all rights a BRILLIANT man, become nothing more than a twisted shadow of malice and greed. A perversion of the bright-eyed entrepreneur he once aspired to be. And what is it, this all-powerful driving force? Virtually nothing. Bargaining chips. What did I do to deserve this kind of wealth? Be born as the son of a merchant? It's absolutely VILE that I could buy out a market when a poor family loses children to starvation and sickness. The strong become fat and the weak become fodder, flattened and stamped on to pave the roads for the rich. Those who live outside the cycle of the coin must take up arms and kill each other to place their stake on a crumbling mountain. The world cannot function this way. PEOPLE cannot function this way and still claim to be human. How do they live like this? How can I? *Added to the bottom of the page. Response by Julian Meredith Spring 18th, 511AV Father, Sometimes I wonder if you left me to the wolves because you thought it was a fate better off than yours. Other times I think you deliberately thought out ways to hate your life, no matter how comfortable you were. Was your hatred truly garnered out of the ugliness you saw in the world? Or was it the re-directed loathing you had for yourself, burning so hot that you couldn't bear the touch of its flame? |