His eyes are cold like ice, even after watching the world burn before him.
No one knows what he'd gone through, what the seawater irises that reflect the waves had witnessed. The blue of his gaze may at first seem innocent to all that looked, it belonging to a child, but upon peering deeper anyone could see that this wasn't a child.
He'd lost his innocence.
No one could ever hope to understand how. No one cared for that matter either. They would just see his gaze, turned away by the darkness it held, the seriousness that shouldn't be present in the eyes of one so young and carefree.
But he wasn't young, and he wasn't carefree.
He was a man in the body of a boy, the life of an adult thrust upon him, violently tearing away freedom and shoving responsibility into the void left behind.
He didn't do anything to deserve it and wondered if maybe in a past life he had committed some sort of irreversible sin, this his punishment. But no, he hadn't done so. All his lives were this hell, back to the beginning of time itself.
Somehow, he knew that.
It didn't matter how much blood was spilled by his hand, how much of his own had trickled from his wounds. He would always get back up, fighting stronger than ever. At some point he had begun to notice he had taken joy in the demise of his enemies, for they were all that kept him sane on his quest, knowing he had stopped yet another monster from killing someone.
In the process he had become a monster himself.
He hated that. Hated it all, everything that had come to pass… but he couldn't do anything about it, and knew he never could have anyway.
Blessed by the Goddesses… what an ironic thing. The mark that adorned him was no blessing. No. It was a curse, one that would follow him for the rest of his life – the rest of all his lives. A curse shouldn't be so bright, so full of hope, and most of all, so innocent… because there is no innocence in this world, there is only ignorance. That was something he had to learn the painful way.
What a twisted world he lived in… but all worlds were twisted. He knew that from his travels. That's why he would continue onward. He no longer had hope that he could escape destiny. He gave up having hope the moment the truth of who he was took hold. No, the truth of what he really was.
Hero.
What a cruel fate. None in the plane he traversed would know that he was a 'hero' or what he had done to save them. No one ever would, and even if they did, they wouldn't care. He'd just be a story to them, not a person. At least because of that they wouldn't see him as a monster. Or maybe they would, his eyes betraying the truth as their cold gaze bore into every being that crossed its sight with his.
The legends in the time he left behind would say he did it willingly, that he fearlessly fought every battle.
None of it was willing. He only fought to move forward, to attempt to escape it all, no matter how futile. The reality was he had been afraid. He wasn't any longer though. Fear was an emotion that had been dulled by everything he had gone through. All his emotions had, even those he didn't have the chance to experience.
Happiness and love…
Everything.
He never even had the slightest chance of grasping those anyway. He wasn't worthy of them, after all he had done.
He'd killed. Taken lives. Even if he had saved many in the process, it didn't matter. It was all undone; the princess of the world he had been born into had reversed even the deaths that were caused by his hand.
No one knew. No one but he did. So he had to shoulder that burden alone.
He'd watched the world burn with his eyes cold like ice, and he walked away pretending as if nothing ever happened.
Since none of it ever did.
Yet he knew it had, and he was the only one who ever would in a sense. At least the only one in this realm. The legends of what he left behind would never reach him from the other world. Maybe that was for the best. He didn't want to be constantly reminded of it all, to recall each nightmarish moment, every one of his own screams from the agony he had endured and witnessed.
But forgetting completely? That was hopeless. He'd given up on hope anyway.
He'd given up on everything now, in a way.
"Boy, are you coming?" said the captain. He turned, face unreadable as the eyes of the child that witnessed more than any adult should glanced to the seaman, nodding in reply. He never did say much. How could he explain all he'd seen? He knew even after what he had gone through, he was no longer welcome.
Everywhere he went, he never had been.
But that was fine with him. He never felt like he could stay in one place long, knowing that something would come after him if he did. Now that all the physical threats were gone, he had to face those that came in a much more frightening form.
The perils of the knowledge he carried, that of his own mistakes and actions that had pained so many others.
This new journey… was he trying to run away from the memories? He didn't know. He knew escaping them would prove to be impossible anyway. He never fully understood any of this, wrapped up in something much bigger than himself. From it all he had gained wisdom and understanding, courage and bravery, power and strength.
Yet no one knew that.
So he would simply leave, not a single person missing him as he drifted through the waves, starting yet more travels to yet another land, sight gazing somewhere far off. He couldn't see through time – at least he could no longer – but he knew all the secrets it held, so he looked into the distance, simply watching to see when the world would burn again.
His eyes cold like ice.