An exhale escaped Xerxes's mouth, cool mist settling into the chilly air of winter.
His bones and muscles ached. These past few months were treacherous for him; it was a constant fight, quite literally. Whether it was emotional battles or physical battles, he wasn't resting.
Airi noticed this change; anyone who spent time around Xerxes noticed these changes. "Xerxes, you ought to take it easy; if you wish to leave Baratheon and make it back to Layne, then you must grant yourself some rest."
Xerxes shrugged off her concern, shaking his head. It was a habit he had picked up, an especially damaging habit at that. After the events of the Fallen Kingdom, Xerxes couldn't bring himself to form new relationships or deepen any that he had.
That way, he wouldn't harm anyone else, and the glass that represented his relationships wouldn't shatter into even more pieces.
"I'm fine the way I am, Airi. All I need to do is get more powerful. How can I ever hope to travel through multiple kingdoms at this level of strength? I need more gold, power, and determination. Layne, that's the goal, isn't it?" Xerxes spoke, with his thoughts set on the future, as the past was only a devastating reminder of his treacherous peril.
Xerxes continued to trudge through the layered blanket of snow on the floor, believing that was the end of the conversation, but Xerxes's empty statement of him being 'fine' didn't pass so easily with Airi. Emotions of bitterness, tinged with anger, swelled deep into him.
Then, she questioned him.
However, it seemed more like a confrontation of his innermost emotions, "What about her? What about Leiya? You promised Aemon that you would protect her!"
His footsteps came to a halt, and snow lightly began patting against his motionless body.
Xerxes took a moment to reflect on what happened at the Fallen Kingdom. He also thought back to when they first arrived in Baratheon. The raw emotions of tragedy, solace, and grief replayed in his mind all at once.
His hands trembled, then his voice bubbled and exploded into a sea of anger and regret, "Just shut up about Leiya! I've tried, I've tried god dammit!"
People who were walking within the busy streets of Baratheon took a moment to glare at Xerxes, who had looked so strange for shouting at supposedly nothing.
'Isn't that the kid who fought in the eclipse tournament not too long ago?'
'I heard he's crazy or somet', who becomes a tier 4 mage at 13..'
Xerxes shot a few unamused glances at those who were gossiping, as they all continued to walk along, not daring to cross eyes with him, and Airi's sadness only grew.
He continued to walk, acknowledging Airi's silence as the finality of their conversation.
But Airi could only suppress her emotions so much; she thought of the Xerxes she first knew, 'When did he learn to suppress his true emotions and thoughts? I know there's more piling up within him, but what can I do? I-I hadn't even taught him that yet.'
***
After an hour of walking in silence, Xerxes and Airi finally arrived back at the inn, which was affordable and manageable. Xerxes hung up his cloak upon the hanger and rested his tattered sword on the tableside. Feeling chilly, he used his fire magic to ignite a flame within the fireplace.
Xerxes gazed around the room, but he couldn't see someone whom he had expected to see here.
"Seems like Thornfum is out, prepping; at least I get his cooperation nowadays, before it was a challenge and a half," he spoke aloud, not noticing any of the dwarves' belongings here.
Thornfum Furdia, he was a bit out of line, but Xerxes could at least give him the benefit of being a resilient dwarf with a nigh-impenetrable resolve. He was ideal; had he not assisted Xerxes in the eclipse tournament, he wasn't sure he would have gotten as far as he did.
Not only that, Thornfum was someone who could do something no one else in the kingdom could do, and Xerxes needed that.
Xerxes took a deep breath, sitting down on a rocking chair by the fireplace, his eyes locked on the dancing incandescent firepit that swayed left and right, almost hallucinatory.
Slowly, an unwarranted voice settled into his mind, synonymous with how Airi spoke to him mentally. It was Leiya's voice.
His focus fixed more intently on the fire, its flames swaying with more turbulence, fuelled with emotion, as Leiya's voice grew louder.
Suddenly his mind drifted off, to the point before the Eclipse tournament, to the point he and Leiya arrived in Baratheon, awaking within an inn, run by two inviting dwarves. Gundrik and Bertha, the two helpful dwarves who helped lost, frightened children.
But it wasn't them who he was reminded of; it was Leiya's face, a face consumed with a catharsis of emotions, Tragedy, anger, and regret all fused into one.
Xerxes spoke aloud, whilst reliving the moment where the ties were cut, "I remember I tried speaking to her...but what use were my words? She lost everything, and-and if I had just said something differently, if I had spoken sooner, then maybe things could have changed?"
Unknowingly, a singular tear began rolling down Xerxes's cheek; despite being so inconceivably strong on the exterior, on the interior, he was still that boy who had just wanted a simpler life. He wanted to stop fighting; he wanted to have Leiya back; he wanted Aya back; he wanted Dorian back; he wanted his family.
But his destiny was crueller than most could handle.
Then, the memory began playing in full effect.
Back then, there were no tears, no noise; Leiya sat in stillness. Airi was perched on the edge of the wooden cabinet between their beds, her wings slightly outstretched, as if afraid to move, to disturb the fragile silence.
Leiya didn't bother looking at Xerxes. Her eyes were fixed beyond the cracked windowpane, gazing at the sky, the sky that wasn't filled with the same canopy she had been used to.
The moonlight spilt in, cold and indifferent, etching her face in silver, fractured lines. Her eyes were hollow, her cheeks sunken and still. A stillness that didn't resemble peace.
It was a crude sense of ruin.
To Xerxes, at that moment, it was clear that Leiya was not different; she was just broken... though maybe broken wasn't the way he would think of it this many months later.
She was emptied of positivity; Leiya was like a vessel, filled with pain until nothing else could fit.
"Leiya?" he said gently, his voice barely louder than a breath.
No response. Not a blink, flinch, or reaction. She was stone carved in the image of someone who wasn't there anymore.
Xerxes stepped closer, uncertain. His words fumbled over the silence. He recalled in that moment when he had lost everything after being sent to the Fallen Kingdom; at least that time, there was still hope of Aya being alive.
But the only thing Leiya had left were the memories of her family's deaths and her life, just barely.
'So what could I have said differently?' Xerxes thought in the present. But all that came out of his mouth then were words that seemed empty.
"I..I'm glad you're okay. I woke up a bit before you, not too injured." He swallowed, the guilt of not knowing how to comfort her scraping at his throat. "I found out we're in the Baratheon Kingdom. A couple run this tavern, Gundrik and Bertha; they said we crashed through their beer garden last week; they've been taking care of us."
Still nothing. Just the distant crackle of flame that was eventually killed of sound and life. Leiya perhaps hoped she would go with it.
Then, just as the fire was snuffed out, she spoke with callousness and forwardness, "Xerxes, there's nothing in your power you can do to make any of what happened go away. So just stop; stop with this bullshit act of you being so chivalrous, you being so heroic; stop with this pathetic attempt at comforting me."
Xerxes held out a hand, gulping slightly. "I just...I thought I could help."
Leiya swatted away his hand, as if it was an unwanted presence, like a fly even.
"Help?" Leiya scoffed, repeating his words. "You've done more than enough to help. You heard that bastard Yves, didn't you? He said it was because of you."
She then turned around, her eyes swelling with the memories of those lost. "Mairon. My father. My mother. My grandfather. The citizens of the Truth Kingdom. My home. My peace. It's all gone, Xerxes...and I was powerless."
She pointed at him, "But maybe if you'd never come, maybe if you didn't even exist, then we all could've lived our lives happily. I was stupid."
She chuckled hysterically, "I was so foolish believing I needed to admire some beauty the outside world held. Because all that time I was blind. Ignorant to the truth. The truth being that my peace, my gratitude, my happiness, didn't come from dreams; it came from the reality I was in. Now it's all gone. It's all gone."
She clutched her mouth, the body that contained the sea of tragedy slowly cracking, "I have nothing left, Xerxes. You're the only person I have, and I don't know if I should depend on you or if I should hate you. Just why, if you knew something was going to happen, if what you told me that day when you reached tier 5 actually happened, then why couldn't you just tell us? Why did they all have to die?"
It finally felt like defeat.
Xerxes looked at her. Her words struck him where she knew they would sear. He could have tried to move forward; he could have tried doing more, but what would happen, what greater repercussions would destiny have in store for him, if he were to tell her about the man within his soul core?
It felt like his mind was splitting apart, tearing into two.
Not telling her would be a repeat of the past; it would only deepen the hole of mistakes and distance that would grow.
But if he was to tell her, if he was to just tell her everything, then maybe, maybe she would have clarity, but Xerxes feared what would happen as a result. He just didn't know.
"I..I don't know," Xerxes sheepishly said with solemnness in his voice.
Leiya looked at Xerxes, a look of disgust carving on her face. "Even now, even fucking now, all you can spew out of your mouth is I don't know!" she screamed.
Xerxes's head lowered and his face darkened; he may not have realised it then, but that was when something changed in him as well.
"The reason why my entire family were slaughtered in front of me is an 'I don't know'!" She tried to stand, moving closer, as she drew back a fist and punched measly at his chest repeatedly, "We saved you!" Then another punch came, "We gave you a home!", and another punch, "We made you a part of our family!" Finally, a weak and empty punch came, resting on his heart, "I was...opening my heart to you."
Xerxes's eyes widened; those words constantly replaying, growing louder and louder by each second, and the dancing flame was eventually snuffed out by the breeze of wind.
He was back in reality; he was in the cold room, which didn't have enough time to give him any warmth.
He took a deep breath and stopped rocking in the chair.
'Relationships. They were so delicate, fragile things. You can spend months, years... an eternity, moulding them, forging them in shared fire, refining them with care, nurturing them with every broken piece of yourself you offer. You build this...beautiful, precious thing. It becomes everything. The most powerful and important thing.
Creation is a beautiful irony; it's so demanding. So why... why is the world built this way? Why is life so brutally, hideously unfair? If it requires all your strength, all your hope, all your soul to create something...then why... why does it only take a single moment to destroy it?
Why does it shatter? Not even break cleanly, but explode into a million irrecoverable shards. Why is destruction so... effortless? So easy? As if that was the world's true nature all along, and the beauty was just a cruel, fleeting lie.'
Xerxes put a hand over his eye and slouched forward. He looked down at the planks of spurce wood, that lined the floor.
"I can't tell you, Leiya. I can't tell you the truth because I care about you too much. I'm afraid. I'm a coward. If I were to go against the will of the person within my soul core, something would happen to you."
He sighed, as his throat felt like it was being pinched by thorns, "But I dream, I dream that you could be here with me now. I wish you wouldn't look at me with those cruel eyes. I wish I weren't all the things you hate."