119 | impossible; scattering papers

"We need to overthrow Reed."

The five words hung in the air in foreboding, weighing down the atmosphere in its murky meaning. The group of people, minus the elder who had been unwillingly kicked out of her cave by a certain, frightening dragon, sat in a circle.

Niklas sighed loudly into his hands, fiddling with the white bones before tossing them away with disgust. "Seriously. We're getting right into it?"

"You told me to trust and rely on you," said Kaden bluntly, staring at him. "I wasn't aware that relying on you was a part-time thing."

"Hey now, it's not. I'm trustworthy at all hours of the day! I just mean, I haven't even eaten—"

Kaden had turned around at some point, fumbling at the ground. When his body twisted again, he held the matted and half-eaten body of a rodent.

Niklas let out an unseemly screech, leaping backward as Kaden neared him, palms innocently spread in offering.

"Are you seriously offering that for me to eat?"

Kaden stared at him solemnly. "I've eaten similar things before."

Nilkas faltered, unable to respond as his body trembled. He couldn't say anything, knowing that sometimes, in the slums, one became desperate for food.

To the point they would eat anything.

He swung his head to Noah pleadingly, blinking his blue eyes furiously. The dragon was staring at Kaden, but feeling an intense stare, indifferently glanced sideways.

"Come on! Diseases, Noah, diseases! You aren't going to stop him from touching that?"

"The elder is particular about hygiene," replied the dragon coldly, nodding at the cleanly picked bones around them. "She would not eat a diseased animal, and cleans them before she eats. I knew of her when I was young."

"Wow. You. Know. So. Much!" gritted Niklas, waving his hand. "I don't care if it isn't diseased, throw it back!"

Kaden frowned, leisurely tossing it back into the corner. "There's several around you. What're you panicking over just this one?"

"...Several?"

Niklas didn't dare twist his head, scurrying to sit back in the circle with a straight back. He refused to even stretch his neck. His entire face was white and horrified.

"Pfft—" Kaden turned his head, coughing.

Niklas turned his head so slowly they could hear it creaking. "...are you laughing at me?"

Holly giggled, wrinkling her nose in between disgust and amusement. "You look like you're about to pi—" She paused, thinking of a more elegant wording. "Expel a certain liquid."

"...I appreciate the effort to not sound crude, but that really isn't your best vocabulary choice, Holly."

She shrugged. "It's impossible. Anyway, haha, there's nothing around you. There are two in that corner over there where Kaden was looking, but stop looking so miserably terrified." She snickered again.

"T-then. Kaden, did you really eat—"

"I did not," the pink-haired man said coolly, although amusement crinkled his eyes. "I did consider it. But there were enough fruit and bread scraps in the dumpsters for emergencies."

Noah's eyelashes fluttered, turning downcast at the words.

He contemplated, as thinkers did, the life Kaden had lived. No amount of description would be able to describe the things he'd experienced and seen through his young eyes.

If he had been able to meet Kaden sooner—if that young, persisting child had met the lonely little dragon—

His head hung low, quietly ruminating. The truth was that they didn't meet earlier. Their meeting was at the dormitories, and Kaden's false confidence had been written all over his face.

Noah had first thought then that it was his misfortune to room with one of those pretentious humans, all talk and no bite.

His second had been that the man's lack of belongings was both uncomfortable and jarring compared to his attitude.

And the third birthed his ever-growing list of dislikes.

It'd made him so uncomfortable that he'd stopped unpacking his items, directly turning off the harsh light that fell over the furrowed sleeping face.

The foolish man who stirred various emotions in others.

Hatred, and then frustration, in Niklas. Devotion in Nicola. Reliance in Skye. Curiosity in Noah. Amusement in Holly. Admiration in Arlo.

All these different points of beginning transformed into a similar desire; an aching need in Kaden's survival, at whatever cost.

Kaden poked at the pensive dragon, leaning over as he frowned. His hair swayed, lightly cascading over light green eyes, curious and watching, seeming to wonder of Noah's thoughts.

Noah gazed back quietly. If he were to tell these thoughts, the fool would deny them with a stubborn shake of his head.

Niklas was still rambling, although nobody was listening and he didn't seem to care.

"Anyway, listen. That prince will crawl his way back like a parasite—"

"I don't think he is one to crawl," interjected Holly. "He's more to elegantly and arrogantly storm into the scene?"

"...does that really matter?"

"If you're describing something, at least paint an accurate picture. Isn't that right, Noah?" She swiveled her head to the dragon who gave a single nod of acknowledgment.

Holly beamed.

Kaden had shuffled his position closer to Noah at some point, unabashedly leaning his entire weight sideways. He rocked back and forth, finally settling into a cross-legged position.

"We need to find a replacement that will satisfy the citizens. And then," His back straightened at the light amusement dashed away from his gaze, "We must eradicate the plague at its roots."

Silenced draped over them like a heavy cloth, suffocating and constricting.

Niklas fiddled with his hands, sighing. "Sometimes, I see it," he muttered. "How he exists within you."

To eradicate the disease, you must rid of it at its roots.

They were different, Niklas knew. But all people were similar in some minor, trivial ways. For Reed and Kaden, it was in their cruelty that they displayed unknowingly.

Or perhaps knowingly for the former.

Kaden recalled his investigations with the deceased snake woman, a hum of silence buzzing in his chest at her memory. Their investigations, thorough and lacking, were not fruitless.

Revenge, Kaden thought quietly to the woman who could no longer listen, approaches soon, Bolivia.

Niklas contributed to the conversation with his recent investigation and discoveries in the vacation home, as well as more minor discoveries throughout the years of him working.

Alexander and Raymond were searching for the missing diary pages.

"Obtaining those entries is important proof. They match the cases and influx of deaths in the towns—whoever has them will not be able to deny their involvement." Niklas scratched the back of his head. "I considered the Crown Prince. I didn't understand it before but—"

He trailed off and Kaden gazed at his resolutely. "What?"

"The Profs' friend wanted to extend his wife's life. If it's Reed who stole those papers, then...?"

The implication taunted them, hanging high in the air.

A throb of pain, sharp and ancient, tugged at Kaden's chest. He had a vague, impossible guess. But there had been many impossibilities in the past years, and he was proved wrong on several occasions.

His senses sharpened onto the tittering bones, small fragments of various joints and parts polished clean.

He stared at the crevices lining the stone walls, padded with small tufts of moss, collecting along the cracks.

A hand gently but firmly tapped the back of his hand three times. Every time lightened the load on Kaden's shoulders, smoothening his tense limbs.

"What is it, Chauvet?"

Kaden opened his mouth, the answer of "Nothing," pressed on the tip of his tongue.

Holly and Niklas were engaging in a discussion, dragging along Wisteria into a heated analysis of the scenes they'd investigated, and how they related to the current situation.

When Kaden lifted his gaze, his initial answer chased back down his throat.

He chewed his bottom lip and sighed. "I'm reconsidering, dear Bellamy, everything I've thought to know. I rewrote my opinions on people to fit my narrative."

He uncomfortably shifted in his spot, but did not stop talking. "My narrative in which I don't exist."

Noah's voice was impossibly gentle, listening. "And in a narrative where your existence is key, what answers have you found?"

"It's improbable."

Noah stared at the hesitation, written in the creases that furrowed Kaden's face. He'd been startled at Kaden's willingness to respond, and a surge of overwhelming happiness stirred in his chest.

He smiled faintly, dark eyes soft. "If you think it's unlikely," he reminded quietly. "Then it's likely true."

Kaden laughed lightly, although his voice was slightly strained. "Are you calling me out right now, dear dragon?"

It was impossible for Noah, a certified Kaden observer, to not notice the fluctuations in the other's speech. Especially not in the confines of the cave where sound pulsed like a heartbeat.

The dragon's eyes flicked sideways, meeting the peeking stares of their spying companions.

Niklas coughed and swerved his head around and Holly blinked her large eyes innocently. Wisteria wore an expression of extreme reluctance in being associated with the other two.

Noah pretended that he noticed nothing, turning his attention back to the pensive fool.

"I've had many frustrations over the years."

"I'll listen to your complaints," Kaden smiled playfully, leaning closer. He didn't want to think about serious matters. Not right then. "One per year."

Noah quirked an eyebrow. "Is that a proposal?"

"...how does what I said and a proposal relate?"

"One complaint a year," Noah replied calmly. "I'll need a lifetime before I can voice them all."

"Your list can't be that long."

Noah stared back as if challenging the other's words, and Kaden felt a little offended. "Is it that long, Bellamy? Tell me. What it is. I'll adjust my deal. One complaint a day."

The words 'I want to know' were stamped on Kaden's exposed forehead, still red from Niklas' flick.

Noah's eyes curved faintly in amusement.

"One a year."

"Ten a year."

"One a decade."

Kaden's eyes widened in injustice and complaint. "How can you go up by a decade?"

"I can," said the dragon in that aloof, unable to be swayed tone. "I did."

Kaden shook his head in protest, but the distraction of his mind couldn't spark amusement at the exchange.

In a narrative where his existence was key...

...it was a narrative of a tale entirely different from the one he'd lived. His fixed mindset and biased assumptions led him to believe that his understanding of the world and people was correct.

That was wrong. Because he could never really understand the world of people without considering all possibilities.

Even then, he would not know which was true and which was false.

Reed Chauvet.

Who did he want to save?

The possibilities danced and stormed in his stomach, nausea creeping up his throat and drilling into his head. Staggering to a stand, Kaden tried to steady his thoughts.

"I need some fresh air." When he saw the others begin to rise, comically as if it were arranged, he added, "Alone."

All gazes settled on him unpleasantly, their dislike of the idea evident. Although Wisteria's expression was clearly sour at all times, save for his admiring glimpses at his distant elder brother.

"The sections of the lands are owned by particular dragons who may not like your wandering," warned Noah slowly, sitting back down.

"I'll be alert. Thank you, Bellamy."

The dragon scowled, every scale on his body unwilling, but he remained seated.

"Kaden," called out Niklas tentatively from where he leaned back, a somberness taking his leisurely gait.

Kaden stared at him and scoffed. "I'm not running away."

Four gazes of suspicion fixed on him. It couldn't be helped. They'd trust Kaden with their lives, but not his own.

Kaden a little helpless and a little overwhelmed. How impossible, how unlikely and how wonderful. To be cared for to this extent—it made his breath catch and his mind spin.

He convinced them that he wasn't running away by swearing an oath on the Watchers of foods (by Holly's request), receiving a murderous glare of warning (Wisteria, of course), being promised a brotherly scolding (who else, but Niklas?) and gaining a silent but equally threatening observation by a certain dragon.

He left the cave, a twisting formation building before him to lead down. He turned back, looking at the smiling elder who wriggled her fingers, perched up a rock ledge.

The forest changed, from the glazing day to a falling sunset, streaks of violent pinks entangling with the orange-blues of the sky.

The trees fell behind him, rocks replacing where grass grew.

Soon, he was wandering into ruins, broken slabs of stone and rubble. He'd entered another domain, he realized. Entirely absent of life.

Kaden continued walking for a little while, crouching down as a glimpse of colour caught his eye.

Between the rubble, buried under the stone, small little flowers grew in tangled, fragile vines. Stubbornly rooting themselves in the cracks and stretching out underneath the ruins.

They were easily overlooked among the myriad of twisting turns in the sky and the dreary collapse of the ground.

But there they grew, hidden and persisting.

His heart seized and he spun around, green eyes frosty and sharp. Further away, deeper into a towering pile of slabbed stones and fallen gray pillars, two large and yellowed eyes peered at him.

Kaden didn't move, and a low rumble shook the ground, sending vibrations under his feet.

The pale yellow eyes blinked once, and a second time, and then they were gone. The stone trembled, as if something slithered away underneath them.

Kaden stayed there for a while, in no hurry to return after his presence seemed to be accepted by whatever beast slumbered.

He wasn't sure how long had it been when a shadow cast high above him, soaring towards the ground. He heard the sounds of cracking bones and then footsteps, walking over to crouch besides him.

"You couldn't bear to be without me, Bellamy?" teased Kaden half-heartedly, keeping his gaze on the torn, blooming flowers.

"I couldn't," said Noah without missing a beat. "If you know that, then you shouldn't leave my side."

"Nobody likes a clingy partner, dragon dearest."

"And yet you like me."

Kaden stiffened and swung his head, squinting at the irritatingly calm, collected face. Then, a relaxed smile spread over his face. "And yet I like you," he agreed.

Noah fell silent for several beats before he took Kaden's hand, flipping the scarred palm into his.

Kaden looked down at their interlaced fingers, at the inked hands that kept fiddling with his own, drawing circles and lines over his ugly scars.

It was still foreign and familiar, all at once.

In that first lifetime, after seven years of exile, Kaden had died once. In reality, he'd died long before that.

Who would've thought he'd be blessed with a chance to live again? To live in a sense that was more than his mere reincarnation, his rebirth into this second life.

It was a curse. It was a blessing.

He really thought so.

"I'm dying, aren't I?"

He could not understand Reed Chauvet, no matter how he tried, no matter what truths came to light. He could not and would not forgive for all the years he spent barely living.

But there was a realized truth that he understood. A truth that he would've never understood in his first life, no matter how long he lived. No matter what evidence he found.

Because how impossible was that thought?

The fact that the glorious and cruel Crown Prince wanted to save the stray he took from the streets.

Niklas gave him ten years—then how many did he have, without those ten? And at the rate of his blessing's deterioration, were ten years of a normal human's life enough to last?

The hand holding his tightened, and Kaden smiled.

"If death is the ending I cannot rewrite—"

"I've been dreaming, lately. Every evening I woke with you by my side, and every minute I woke painfully cold," interrupted Noah, squeezing the slender warmth in his hold.

"I can only remember fragments of my dreams, all leading into each other."

"In all those dreams, I see my life. My life as it had been, and should've remained. In solitude and isolation. Save for an irritable voice that always called after me."

Noah lifted his gaze, fathomless black. Kaden realized then that a leather satchel slung over his shoulder, thick and padded with paper.

The dragon turned slightly, using one hand to pull out the thick stack. His handwriting, powerful and deep strokes of endless words, filled each paper.

"I may only remember fragments,"

A gust of raging wind blew around them, hurling towards the pink skies, blooming into darkness. They wrestled with the paper, snatching several and scattering them around the pair.

Strangely, the papers did not fly far, circling around and around. Kaden saw pieces of sentences scrawled across each sheet.

"But let me tell you a story,"

Noah did not make an effort to catch them, allowing his endless words to dance and twirl in the air. He watched the spinning papers reflected in Kaden's gaze before the man slowly turned to face him.

"Of a sinner destined for ruin."

———xxx———

Lukiyo says,

It begins with a spark of curiosity. A noise that enters his life and becomes as constant as the air that swirls. He can live without it; but after so long, the lack of it becomes a discomfort. He thinks nothing of it, the throb of a distant longing that he doesn't understand.

How can he miss what he doesn't have?

How can he miss something he doesn't dare dream of?

Of five, foreseer, psychic, curse-maker, misfortune and dragon, it is the last two that have the least reason. And it is the very last that yearns for the noise of a person he never knew.

From that point, it becomes impossible to be 'strangers' again.

See you Thursday.