Prelude
In another life, Rush may have actually grown to like Irina.
He may have loved her as an older brother truly would have, he may have sworn to protect her no matter the cost. They could have truly been siblings, friends who look out for each other with a bond that could not be broken.
Instead, he grows with hatred festering in his heart.
He sees her, and he cannot bear to look at her any longer than necessary. She speaks to him, but he doesn't want to hear her words, whatever they may be. With jealousy coiling around his heart with ease, he finds that it is just as easy to pack up and leave. He knows when he's not wanted nor loved and that his parents preferred Irina over him—they always will and they always have.
The night he does leave, it is on impulse and he doesn't take anything with him. There are no thoughts pertaining to such a concern when there is a dark cloud obscuring reason, and it is this same dark cloud that pushes him to run, to never look back because this isn't where he belongs. No one wants him there, not when they have Irina.
He doesn't know where he'll go, he doesn't pause in his running nor does he wish to. His lungs are burning and there is this roaring in his ears that will not stop; no sound escapes him save the fluidity of coalesced frustration and pain from the brims of his eyes and he wants this agony to end. He wants love, no matter how childish the thought is. He wants a family and he wants attention, faces to love him and for him to love back equally. Nothing like the people he has just left, so obvious in their preference of who they love more.
Or maybe… there's just something wrong with me.
"Child. You've run far from home."
He hadn't realised he's stopped, kneeling now upon the grassy cliff overlooking the shores of Eulam. He's breathing hard, but it does not take much for him to finally lift his head.
White cloths. That is all he can make out within the blanket of darkness that is this island currently.
"Are you alone?"
Alone?
It is a prospect he hasn't given thought to yet, but considering the actions he's now taken, he hasn't a home to go back to. No family to welcome him back. For a moment, his eyes prickle once more and he's reminded of the tears that have already streaked his face. He wipes them away angrily.
No, being alone is far better than always being put second, unwanted and unloved.
The figure before him kneels to meet his level and he notes with rising curiosity how one of the other's eyes are covered with a flap. There is a thought to reach up and inspect behind it, a notion purely innocent and impulsive, and perhaps there's even a slight movement towards it but there spreads a smile across weathered features.
"I will take your silence as a yes." The white-robed man stands suddenly, and he has the need to stand—albeit shakily—with him as well. "Come, then." A sudden movement, and the older male is whipping his hand out to the side—no, something. A… what is that? A flick of the wrist, and it expands, and the man motions to cover his lower features with it. So fixated on the new object, he does not notice the hand that is outstretched to him before it beckons in something like impatience.
"Well, boy?"
He hesitates then. Eyes drift past ivory, and he glimpses the crashing waves of the beach. It's beautiful, how the moonlight shines off the rippling textures, and in his mind he recalls picnics shared with his mother and father, remembers such awesome moments and how they… stopped the moment Irina came into this world.
He doesn't belong here anymore.
A hand reaches out, and takes the offer.
