Lelouch vi Britannia. Beautiful tyrant. Fiend angelical. The demonic messiah who destroys worlds and creates them anew is dead. Fate saw it fit to bring divine retribution upon the tortured soul of the young prince by forcefully ripping out any remaining inkling of happiness in his life. Everything he held dear was torn from him, augmenting the despair from his concluding failure. But Lelouch Lamperouge has not perished. He is an empty hollowed shell, void of emotion, drained of the natural charisma that fueled him a year ago. Empty hollow shell, however, implies that his void can be filled. Determined to set things right, an amnesiac prince sets out to find the solution for a gentler world, and perhaps may even find himself in the process.
Chapter 1, A Marigold for the Prince
As the grasp of an early eventide bloom dawned upon the Aries Garden Villa, the aerial greenery glittered along with the setting sun against the vast desert backdrop. The imperial capitol, Pendragon, was built on an barren landscape that was first surveyed by Sir Richard Hector in 1865 a.t.b., who stated that for his queen he would bend nature itself to his will. Ironically, a century later it was his ancestor, Richard V, who had suggested the idea of recreating what his predecessors had sought to enslave. Encouraged by the emperor's latest consort, Marianne "the Flash", the Aries Imperial Palace was born. The singular structure was designed to be the pinnacle of the Holy Britannian Empire's virtuous power and elegant beauty, and it served its purpose as the mask that hid the rotten and bloodied amalgamation that was Britannia, beneath.
Breathing heavily, the young man struggled to regain his composure as he brushed his now messy obsidian locks out of his eyes. A rusted syringe fell to the debilitated tile floor reminding him where and who he was. The peculiar tinkling of the oxidized metal meeting stone ignited Lelouch's brain.
Even refrain has lost its ability to bring me back to those days. Hmph. I can't seem to remember any of it. Perharps I... Lelouch hesitated and paused, afraid to dwell on his shattered past, cautious of cutting himself on the disparate fragments of what used to be.
Sitting up took more effort than Lelouch had thought, and the voices didn't help. Lelouch, why are you Lelouch? You changed your family name to Lamperouge, but you left your first name as Lelouch. How naive. He clenched his fists. You are unable to give up the past. "Shut up!" snapped the broken man. Lelouch summoned the last bit of energy he had and stood up shakily, realizing he was talking to someone that wasn't there. Violet eyes widened as he gazed out of a singular emerald tinted window that was the color of her hair. It was snowing. The dance of the ice crystals entwining and unraveling mesmerized him, making him forget, if only for a moment. Lelouch was like the snow, for both had forgotten something important. For him it was the present, and for the snow it was its color. "C.C..." he whispered as he recalled who it was who told him this. But like the snow that melts at a touch, his reverie was short and fleeting.
The abhorred spear of reality had shattered Lelouch's brief period of nostalgic rapture. Everyone he had held dear to him was gone. The heavens were merciless in his defeat, mocking Lelouch to no end. The power of the kings had truly condemned him to a life of solitude, forcing the outcast prince to resort to refrain as an instrument to drown his sorrows in.
Now ignoring the brilliance of the translucent crystals drifting down from the sky, Lelouch staggered to find the handle of the old wooden door separating his room from the rest of the boarding house. He comically half walked and half fell down the flight of stairs leading to the main entrance. "Ah, Lelouch. I see you've been doing as well as ever!" shouted a middle aged, bespectacled man, with a thin build and dull gray hair. Lelouch sighed and asked the man, whom he called Cromartie, for "the usual." "You know... this stuff really isn't good for someone your age. My nephew tried it and I recall he's been trying to talk to a tree ever since." Lelouch was about to glare at Cromartie, but caught himself from meeting eyes with the other man, narrowly avoiding a disaster. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to put off refrain for a day, then." The older man ecstatically agreed and started babbling on about some other story of his. Lelouch didn't bother paying attention to the rest of Cromartie's incessant bickering and walked outside as the man continued with his rather lengthy anecdote.
The truth was, Lelouch would have never skipped his daily stock up if it weren't for the snow. For once he had something to look forward to, outside of his drug laced fantasies. But the snow had stopped as suddenly as it had appeared to him, leaving only a barely noticeable layer of white on the ground. Musing to himself, Lelouch came upon something he had recalled from his frequent ventures into his mind. Speaking aloud, he uttered a phrase that was once said by someone from his forgotten past. "You were right. Happiness is like glass." He paused for a moment before concluding his thoughts. "Just look at how easily it breaks."
Lelouch was startled by a small voice that came from behind him. "But mister. If you try really, really hard, you can put it back together can't you?"
That voice.
I suppose I have more important things to work on, like that essay that's due tomorrow (that I still haven't started), but I couldn't help binge watching Code Geass again, and well one thing leads to another. First story. Yay. I guess.