It started as a tale, nothing more, nothing less. Just a simple string of words, vowels and consonants dancing along the air as a melody from the pale lips of a mother whispering to her children in the midst of a dark night. This tale was told often. It was listened to when the night was calm, it was beloved on nights when the sand man refused to appear, and it was grasped like a lifeline on the nights the candle would not light, the words proving to be an essential distraction from the ghoulish shadows that were created from the warped mind of the child thanks to his own imagination. He was often complimented on his imagination, often told that he had a mind like no one else, that he was blessed. His mother would tell him he was unlike the others, that he was lucky to see things other couldn't see, but she was wrong. It was a curse, because how do you explain the tears when they were caused by the things only you can see when the candle does not light? That's why the tale was born. To subdue the mind of a child cursed, for it was easier to fall asleep when his mind was told what to create.
When the baby was born, the tale became a lullaby. The melody akin to a poison; light as air as it filled the room, putting its victims into a trance as they were captured by the sound. It would suffocate the cries of the babe and steal the breath of his older brother without either ever fully noticing the effect of the song. When mother died, he cried at first. He did not cry for her, but for the absence of the story. He knew where his mother went, she'd been telling him where she would be going his whole life; she would go where the story ends. It took him a half day to stop his crying when he realized what his tears were for. He missed the story, and he was foolish for missing it for so long for the words had long been burned into his mind. He had solved his sorrows, but his babe of a brother still wept. He was only four winters old, he was much too young to understand the reason for his weeping, so his elder brother took it upon himself to teach the boy why. He embraced his brother tightly beneath the blanket, just as mother had, and retold the story they'd both been hearing every night like clockwork since the moment they were left screaming in this cold, unforgiving world.
He let the tale live on from his mother through him and to his brother. It was good this way, as he would say. His brother did not mind, just as enamored with the story as he himself was. It kept them moving, it kept them living, it kept them dreaming. It kept them waiting for so much more. They were not good children, or at least he wasn't, but he did not mind that fact too much. It kept his brother happy and they slept happily knowing that because of the tale, their destination did not rely on them being good children, it relied on them searching. And search they did, through the woods and trails, through the shops and houses, through many fields. They knew they would not find their destination this way, but it was fun to believe.
His brother was the third to find it out of their small family. It was his father first, or so his mother told him, then his mother, and now his beloved brother. His brother was special though. He would not find the location of the tale, but become the very being they sought to admire. That thought did not stop him from mourning, however. This time he did not weep for the loss of their tale, nor for the fact that he could no longer tell the tale for someone when they were sad, but for the fact that now there was no one to tell him the tale when he himself was sad, for the fact that now the tale only lived in hin, for the fact that now he was alone, and for the fact that he would miss his brother. His brother both deserved to find the field but did not deserve the right all at the same time. He would tell himself that his brother was not ready, but the truth was that he himself was the one who wasn't ready; wasn't ready to say goodbye. So he didn't.
His imagination, his curse, was something he had gotten used to living with, but now he wanted it, lived for it. But life is a cruel mistress, and now that he has finally learned to love his curse, it was almost gone. It can't be gone, it's no longer a curse but a blessing, his lifeline, his will to continue. He let go of it too soon and now he's left leaping, left begging for it back as his fingers graze its fleeing tail. He cries, he screams, he begs, he tries. He stops trying. It's gone. Life is a bitch.
His mind runs rampant now with truths; his rose colored lenses have shattered and now he sees what all he had blinded himself to before. He thought it was Luka who had been kept blind and naive, but he had simply been kept happy. No, it was the eldest brother who had been blinded with the promise of companionship and childlike naivety, and now that his frames lay lensless he wishes he were just simply blind. The world was a curse in itself, tainting anything that takes a breath of its air. He feels as though he's been stripped of his illusions, cleaned of his poisons, and he hates it. Now he notices every lurking shadow, feels every tear of sadness and tear at his being that the grief brings on, now he notices the pain of loneliness that leaves you numb on the outside, but destroys him from within. He wishes for the pain of flames licking at his being over the pain of loneliness, he wishes for it everyday.
He doesn't notice when he forgets the words geld dearest to him to the put that formed in his stomach at the first stormy night he spends alone. He'd been so consumed by his emptiness that he hadn't been expecting the terror that storms brought. He fears the dark, but he fears the crack of lightning just as much. He feels this fear, or at least a small fracture of it, when he hears the sound of rolling wagon wheels on the old beaten path from the woods. There is no other noise. He should have listened to his fear, but he ignored it because it told him to move or he would die. He was not afraid of death, he had been waiting for it, for he was a coward. 'My brother is not a coward, he is stronger than you all because he isn't afraid of protecting me! As long as I'm here, you he's more brave than anu hero!'
He is a coward.
His mind falls silent and the wagon continues on.
There is no other sound.
The bedroom was cold, it was dirty, full of hate, but the hate was all he could ever focus on. He couldn't decide if it was better than the basement or not. The pile of shit laying next to him made him believe the latter. He spent almost every night in that bed, and it was warmer thanks to the blankets, but that didn't stop him from feeling the ice in his soul. He always felt watched now, adding to the chills that wracked his body. He knew he was being watched, he just ignored it until he had a wish. The spider was patient, forever patient, but even he knew that was a thread running as thin as its web. He needed a wish, but he had no wish to want. He wanted to end it all, but even he knew this was his chance to get so much more, to reverse where he was now. It had taken him many nights of pondering, of forgetting the world, to finally decide and those nights were followed by even more nights of consideration. Now he was sure though, sitting up with as much confidence as his shaking body could produce in its broken and bruised state. One step at a time, his pain would disappear.
The manor now was full of life, glowing with color, and radiating energy. Too bad it was all false. The laughing was laced with sarcasm, the grins were masks for hatred, the dances were to prevent the sluggishness of depression. It was a tough role to fill for one person, it was almost a miracle as to how he kept it up for so long. It helped him to think it was like a show, a stage. It took time for his imagination to return, but it wasn't the same. Now it was darker, more like a hallucination. He was told he required help, but Claude knew better. If he were locked away, no one would love him. Not like anyone did now, but he prefered to ignore that. It was easier to pretend they were playing along. His imagination was temptation itself, creating a curtain that told him he was loved, he was needed, that he was important. They may be hallucinations, but they were a drug he needed. He may know they aren't really hallucinations, but he felt better lying to himself. It stopped his dreams though. His sleep was filled with nothing but silence and the light of his bedside candle. His 'dreams' were lived in the daylight. It was easier this way.
He almost felt repulsed at the color of the creature, sending his stomach tumbling into knots and cramps. It hurt to look at it. It was such a brilliant shade of blue it seemed to glow with a phantasmagorical radiance. He was certain for a moment it wasn't even real as he held the creature in his hands. Maybe it was because he had to pluck the pitiful thing off of the spiders web, damp with morning dew. But then the hatred started to settle, akin to a cyclone in his gut that nearly sent him reeling over the tree stump to be sick. He could vaguely identify the source of his hatred, a little nag in the back of his mind, summed up to be his jealousy over the beauty of the creature. His grip tightened as he pulled at the wing ever so slightly, not feeling remorse until he had registered what he had done to the creature. He had torn off its wing, the beautiful sapphire crumbling in his hand. He blew the dust away gingerly, a smirk settling on his face at the fact he destroyed it's beauty. Nothing can be beautiful once a piece of it is missing, anyone can see that clearly enough. Once the deed is done however, dread sinks in and he cannot fathom why. He continues to be confused as he stands, butterfly cupped in his hands, and makes his way back to the manor to his beloved butler. He continues to ponder as he reveals the creature to the man, demanding his room to be filled with flowers and a cage for the insect to enjoy in an attempt to calm his nerves. He feels as though he should not have injured the butterfly. When he returns to his room to let the creature rest he almost cannot believe his own eyes as the shock of it all. Shades of blues and violets akin to the insect in his hands grace his vision, and although he wants to look away he cannot, he knows this once the tears start to fall. The bluebells, the brilliant blue bells from the tale. His butler revived the tale, dragging it out from the depths of the child's mind. He knew. His butler knew. He cared.
That was all he ever wanted.
When the butterfly died, the hatred returned. But it wasn't alone. It was accompanied by sorrow, by dread, by jealousy, by the sickly feeling of regret. As he stared at the body of the insect he tried to dam his tears, damn his tears, but the realization he was refusing to admit was gnawing at his control. It was gnawing at his illusion. At his repaired lenses. At his lies. He couldn't bare to look at the thing, the disgusting corpse. It meant too much and yet nothing at all at the same time. It meant too much to him, far too much. It brought up memories, blistering painful memories of that night. That night was forever seared into his mind. That's how that night ended, and that's how this night will end. But as always, when he blocked out those memories that often haunted him, he forgot the useful details. That night, he forgot how quickly fires spread.
That night he dreamed again. But he was not happy that he could dream again. Not all dreams were cheerful. Nightmares are dreams too.
Life was not fair. Or maybe it was far too fair. He wouldn't be able to tell.
He had no idea how he got to this point. Wait, no. He knew exactly how he got to this point. He was just so used to lying, so used to looking through his cracked rose colored lenses, that he forgot that now he could face the truth. None of that would matter now, none of these facts who change where he was now, what he was doing now. He was sitting below a tree, alone, dying in the rain. He could feel his blood spreading from beneath his hand, warm like the embraces he'd longed for for so long, but no as welcoming as he'd imagined. He was going to die. He had wanted to die for so long, and here he was, achieving his wish. He forgot he was a coward. He couldn't move, it hurt too much, and he didn't have the courage to move regardless. He was a coward. He wished he had been somewhere else. He was finally having a happy dream, something he said he would have died for merely weeks earlier. The dreams were a pleasant distraction, but he didn't think he was ready to die. He was so close. That boy, the one named after the sky above, was the one who he could get through too, but now it was too late. Had that damned reaper not interfered, he would have known what it felt like to actually help someone. But now he was left to sit beneath this tree, dreaming of better times with his younger brother, a pleasant thought to get him through the pain as he tried to summon his butler, only broken by the growls of wolves. Here it was. The Mistress of Life here to deal her final blow as an actual bitch. He would have laughed had he the energy to. His energy would only return once he laid his eye upon his butler, his beacon of light. But there it was, the underlying gnawing truth. He couldn't run anymore, couldn't lie anymore. Couldn't stop the tears as he professes the truth to his butler while his mind screams the truth at him, the truth he suffocated that night with the butterfly. This tree was his web, his beloved butler the terrifying arachnid, and he, the butterfly. The butterfly he hated because he was looking at himself. The butterfly he hated because he wanted to think it ugly, but the butterfly that was still prettier than him with all its imperfections, for it shouldn't be possible to be beautiful when you're broken. It isn't possible, he should know. What right did hat butterfly have to represent him and still be pretty when he was considered nothing but disgusting and atrocious by everyone including himself? Why was he the one to call everything beautiful when nothing ever says it back? The butterfly that was already dead. The butterfly that suffered, just like himself. Within the final moments of his life, he thought of the tale. His poison. The thing he had cleaned himself of unwillingly, ignoring the euphoric joy he achieved when he thought of it. The tale that helped him through all the toughest moments in his life. The tale that told him Luka was a butterfly, his mother was a butterfly, and maybe even he was a butterfly. Maybe that's where he was headed, to where his family was. As warm hands wrapped around his face, he dreams for the last time in his life.
Legend says that there's a land so ever far away, so far in fact, that it cannot be reached by those within these lands. These lands were full of bluebells, the flowers spanning as far as the eye can see. The lands never saw a drop of rainfall, never once a storm, nor did the evils of night time even stand a chance at disgracing the land.
These lands can only be seen by those worthy, by those with wings of only the most brilliant of beauties. Those who were truly free, who were happy.
By the butterflies. Those who may have done wrong, but will be pure at heart and whose beauty will never be matched. Their beauty was of a depth that went far beyond surface level. Many people would hate the butterflies, or even kill them, for their beauty all out of jealousy, so these lands for a safe haven for them.
They were the lands where butterflies never died.
Because on earth, the butterflies never survive.