IF YOU'RE YOUR MOTHER'S SON
...
Tangier, spring 1900
...
"Shall we go see the World's Exhibition?"
Etienne hadn't talked about anything else for weeks. He had to go there. The prospect of all the innovations and knowledge of a century gathered in one place excited him beyond words.
"It'll last until November, Etí, of course we'll go."
"But soon, right?"
He practically lived hopping around the house and had Jean send him postcards, books and pamphlets about the subject. Philippe was fine, Jean said in his letters, and by the age of three, he'd rather play with wrenches than toys. Jean, to make Nadia happy (she feared for Philippe's safety all the time), had built him a small toy train that really moved... under the supervision of the child, who had filled the whole house with small rails.
So, there was a constant exchange of packages and letters between Etienne and Jean. Jean sent Etienne sketches of the projects he was working on and material about the Exhibition, Etienne sent little presents to Philippe and puppets to fill the famous little train. Electra, for her part, maintained her correspondence with Nadia and was kept up to date about Marie and all the others. Icolina was still living in Marseille and had given birth to a beautiful little girl, who was five years old already.
At the age of ten, Etienne spent much of his time in his father's library.
Every now and then he would go to Electra and ask her to read him some books written in the ancient language of Atlantis, which had remained in use in Tartessos. Etienne was not like Nadia, he spoke the language but could not read it, while his sister was able to interpret its signs intuitively, without ever having really studied it.
Electra understood him. For anyone with the slightest curiosity about the sciences and how the world works, Nemo's library was a treasure. It contained, in addition to the biology and medical texts Nemo had studied, a good number of scientific volumes and everything Nemo had managed to save from Tartessos. He had continued to commission the purchase of new books until shortly before his death, and it was a miracle that he succeeded, given the kind of life he had lived.
She was continuing the work, ordering new books every time something interesting came out.
She also bought French novels for Etienne, who loved science fiction and adventure books.
"I can't wait to go to the cinema!"
"Now think about your homework, not about films."
Etienne snorted, sitting at one of the library tables, while Electra looked up and took off her glasses, closing the book she was reading.
"You still have maths left, don't you?"
Etienne was taking his time, because his maths homework always took him just a short time, and often the exercises seemed so easy that he didn't understand the point in doing them.
"I want to see the Electricity Building at the Exhibition."
"And you will see it, but now finish your homework."
Etienne moaned, but he bent over his notebooks and didn't comment.
His homework consisted in long divisions and equations he could solve mentally without any problems, and by a quarter of an hour he had already finished. Electra shouldn't have been surprised, she had taught him how to solve certain exercises in a short time, and the child had always been extraordinarily attentive and capable.
"Can I stay home tomorrow?" Etienne asked.
"Why should you stay home?"
A shrug of the shoulders was the only answer she got.
...
Etienne attended a French school, together with the scions of the high dignitaries of Tangier.
He had started it rather late, most of all because of his mother who wanted for him the company of boys of his age, but he made up for lost years with ease.
Etienne didn't like the idea of going to school, he was already studying quite well at home, but Electra had been adamant, and it was better not to upset her.
He had confided in Raoul, however, one afternoon that they had gone to the market.
"I don't want to go to school."
"Why not?"
"I don't need it. They all hate me."
"What are you saying, Etienne?"
Etienne, his blue eyes darkened by annoyance, was silent.
Even that morning, while sitting at his desk, he looked grimly at the blackboard.
Omar, a boy a little older than him, was trying to solve one of the equations they had to do for homework and was failing miserably. Etienne was beginning to get fed up with that pitiful scene.
"Not there," he said at one point, "you have to subtract that figure, don't add."
The rest of the class laughed, Omar lowered his head, humiliated.
"Arwol."
The teacher's voice.
"You have not been asked to intervene."
"Main ise aur nahin le sakata," Etienne mumbled.
He couldn't take it anymore, and when he couldn't take it anymore, Tartessos' language slipped out, unwillingly.
"As a punishment, I'm going to give you some more exercises that you'll do here in class at the end of the normal lessons. Exercises from my textbook, for the next cycle."
He could give him as many exercises as he wanted, Etienne'd do them in an hour at most.
And he would write three versions, solved with three different methods.
So, everybody would have learned the lesson.
...
"Orphan!"
He found them in front of him when he left school early in the afternoon. It was Omar, probably back to revenge for the shame he'd suffered, and his gang of friends. Etienne grimaced and moved on.
"We know you don't have a father!"
Etienne swallowed up.
"Go home to mommy, orphan!"
He stopped.
Slowly, he turned around and looked at them.
"First, don't try to offend my mother. Second, it's not my fault you're an ass in math. Third, I have a father."
Omar laughed, imitated by his friends.
"And where is he now?"
Etienne, again, swallowed and clenched his fists. It cost him a lot to say that.
"He died in battle."
Heaven knew what it cost him.
"In what war? The last one here ended in 1844, you should know."
"Ten years ago. The spaceships over Paris."
They laughed. They just laughed.
Etienne closed his eyes.
"He was a king, my father. He was greater than yours will ever be. And he was the captain of a submarine."
"Yes, and then what? What else was he? The discoverer of America?"
Etienne could have left, as he had done many times before. He could just walk right through that bunch of stupid boys, head held high, and pretend they didn't talk. To stop him, to nail him on the spot were the tears in his eyes, which held him back more than the rocks those kids were holding in their hands. They could hit him if they wanted to. It didn't matter. The tears, though, they were boulders. He was angry, but he couldn't understand who the target of his rage truly was. It was this inner conflict that left him motionless, that wore him out.
"I'll bring you the proof," he said then. "Tomorrow I'll bring it to you. If you don't like it, beat me or whatever. I don't care."
He ran away at last.
He left them behind, slipped into the confused maze of Tangier streets and got lost in the crowd.
...
Nadia should be scared.
She should be trembling for her brother.
But she's quiet.
"There's no danger," she says. "You'll see. He runs like the wind."
Etienne, down below, in the dust, seems to hear her.
He doesn't turn around but smiles, barely lifting the corners of his lips.
He springs forward.
...
Etienne came home an hour later and found it deserted.
His mother had left him lunch and a note that she had gone out with Raoul on some errands. Better like that. At least Etienne's eyes wouldn't have been swollen anymore by the time she came back. He had cried too much.
He ate, then he said to himself that it was time to look for evidences.
Evidences, yes, but what kind?
He thought about it.
"I've got it!"
The photos of the Nautilus and the crew. Electra had kept them, he just needed to find them.
"They must be in Dad's study."
He went upstairs, hoping his mother wouldn't suddenly come back and catch him in the act. He wouldn't have known what to tell her and Electra could easily tell a lie.
He opened the door to his father's study holding his breath. It was a quiet place, there was that imposing desk and the chair that Nemo had once sat on, his books, his things that no one had touched since the launch of the Nautilus. Everything there was awe-inspiring, even though Etienne had free access to the study.
He breathed deeply, approached the desk, opened the drawers one after the other.
He felt guilty doing it, it was like violating something sacred, but he had no choice: he had to find those photos. Nothing. They weren't in the drawers.
He looked at the books. Maybe the photos were stuck there or there were some albums hidden between the books.
The shelves were full of texts on oceanography, medicine and marine biology. Etienne went through them one after the other, quickly. It was a fine library, which few could afford to have at home, but it wasn't those tomes he was interested in. He passed his hands over the spines, paused on a couple of tomes whose titles were written in strange ideograms. His mother had explained to him that this was the ancient language of Tartessos. She could read it; he, on the contrary, had never learned. Sooner or later he would have. He took one of the books in his hand. The alphabet didn't look like any other, ideographic or otherwise, that he'd seen. The book's types seemed to give off a faint, barely perceptible blue glow. Strange, he had already seen that book in his mother's hands; he didn't remember seeing it shine.
He put it back on the shelf and pushed it down.
Click.
The sound of a mechanism being activated.
Etienne, astounded, took a few steps back and watched.
Part of the library shelves ran forward and then sideways, revealing what appeared to be a staircase. It descended, Etienne noticed, and it was dark down there. Should he go and get a lamp?
He tried to look down the tunnel, unsure about what to do.
He was startled.
One after the other, small spotlights lit on the ceiling of the tunnel.
He had no choice now and was curious to discover where the staircase led.
He went down, not without a shred of fear at the idea of being discovered.
The spiral staircase seemed to have no end. Etienne realized he had descended well beyond the ground floor when the walls around him began to get cold and damp. His heart was throbbing, and he was counting his breaths, increasingly terrified. His mother had never told him anything about a secret cellar, and he couldn't imagine what he would find there. Maybe nothing, but then why keep it a secret from him?
The staircase suddenly ended, blocked by a metal door.
Etienne tried to push it and found out it wasn't locked. He took courage and went inside.
The room, a rectangular room not too large and without openings, was not illuminated. Etienne realized that the floor and the walls were completely covered with the same metal as the door, he stepped on it and felt its clangour under his feet.
He took one step, then another, tentatively.
He bumped into the edge of a piece of furniture.
"Ouch!"
He didn't even have time to wonder what hit him. He heard a loud "beep" and three monitors enlightened, right next to him. They were similar to those inside the Nautilus, according to what Electra had explained him about the submarine's structure. Etienne tried to read the data, if only to see what it was for, but he failed. Only one of them showed signs of life, it showed a kind of rod splashing upwards intermittently, but interpreting its meaning was too much for Etienne.
He'd better get back upstairs; his mother could be back any minute and he hadn't found the photos yet.
Just as he turned to leave, however, his attention was caught by a closet.
It was leaning against the farthest wall of the cellar, visible only because of its doors dimly lit by the screens.
Oh, well, he supposed he could have a look there too. Maybe he'd find something interesting.
When he opened one of the doors, though, he didn't find what he expected. No junk or old papers, no photographs. There were guns. Pistols and rifles. At least a dozen or so, of various calibres, and they were so shiny they must have been recently cleaned.
He didn't dare to wonder why similar objects were stored in his house.
He didn't dare to wonder if they were his mother's.
Maybe not, maybe they were his father's. Or Raoul's, even. But then why hide them?
He had to go back upstairs immediately. He had to slide through the bookcase door again, then go back to his room and do his homework.
He had to.
Without even thinking about it, he took a gun in his hand.
It was heavy.
He ran away, carrying it with him, up the stairs like a madman. He didn't even check to see if it was loaded.
Panting, he closed the passageway behind him and looked at the gun.
He knew what he had to do.
...
"Omar!"
He went straight to his classmate's house, hiding the gun in a bag, and now he was waiting for an answer.
"Omar!" he called again, "I got something to show you, come down!"
The boy showed up, moving away the white curtains that flapped past a mullioned window.
"Look who is there, the little orphan. What do you want? To fight?"
"Come down."
Omar laughed.
"All right."
He was making fun of Etienne and that was clear enough. He was bigger than him, taller, stronger. A child not even ten years old wouldn't have stood a chance against him. That's why Omar went down into the yard and then through the gate of his house, which overlooked a small square surrounded by big houses painted of blue and white. It was a quiet, residential neighbourhood, not far from their school.
He didn't notice the look in Etienne's eyes, he didn't notice the shining anger.
He found only a gun pointed at him.
Speechless, he couldn't scream or move.
"Everything I told you is true," Etienne said, "and you must leave me alone or I'll shoot you."
The wind blew in the perfect silence that had fallen.
On the roof of a beautiful French colonial-style house, a weather vane was squeaking.
...
Electra would never have known what instinct guided her straight into Nemo's library before she even passed by her room.
Perhaps it was because of Raoul, who had called for Etienne and had received only silence in response. Electra must have thought in her heart that Etienne was maybe hiding in the library again and that he had not heard the call. The room was the farthest from the entrance.
As soon as she entered the room, even in the half-light filtering through the curtains, she knew something was wrong.
She looked around. One of the carpets had been moved, so had the papers on Nemo's desk. Etienne had definitely been there.
"Etienne?"
It was clear there wasn't a anyone in there, but she still tried to call him.
What could he have been doing in there?
That's when she noticed that some books in the shelves had been cobbled together.
"No..."
She ran downstairs, down the spiral staircase. It wasn't possible, he was still too young. He couldn't have noticed that room. Who knows, maybe it was someone else's fault. A thief or something. She'd have preferred it.
The first thing she saw was the monitors still on. Only one of them showed a reaction. She went over to read the data. There had been a fluctuation in the level of that thing. The meter, now calm, had also recorded the date and time of the change.
There was no possibility of error. Etienne had been down there.
Oh, she said to herself, even if he had, what could he have done? He had no idea how those instruments worked, or what their purpose was.
She looked up into the closet. The guns!
She didn't even need to count them, she immediately realized one was missing.
"Damn it," she murmured.
She should have been more careful.
She ran back into the study and closed the bookcase, taking care to change the access code. It was a useless scruple, she knew. Etienne, code or no code, would have been able to force the opening anyway, as he had demonstrated that very afternoon.
Now the important thing was to go and find him.
She told Raoul to stay at home in case Etienne had returned.
Once outside she stopped, took a pendant from the pocket of the djellaba she was wearing and opened the lid. Inside was a portrait of Nemo. It made her cry for the first time in years.
"Your son is already ten years old," she whispered, holding the pendant. "What do you want me to do?"
First, she had to find him.
...
Etienne was still pointing the gun.
Omar, terrified, was trembling like a leaf in the hot wind of that afternoon.
Up, high up, the weather vane squeaked and turned on itself.
"And now leave me alone."
Etienne fired.
...
Electra heard the shot, hoped it wasn't too late.
She ran.
...
The barrel of the gun still smoked.
Etienne took a deep breath and lowered his arm. Omar had instinctively thrown himself to the ground and was still shaking, but he was unharmed. Not far away, the weather vane was lying destroyed, hit cleanly by the shot and fallen not far from them.
"I'll leave you alone," stammered Omar. "You're damn right, I'll leave you alone."
The people, meanwhile, were looking out of the windows.
What was that, they were asking, it sounded like a gunshot.
Etienne didn't even think about hiding the gun, he didn't think about leaving, he was too dazed to look after what was happening around him. Omar found the strength to get up, to run in his house screaming. He would have warned his parents, for sure. They would have talked.
"Etienne!"
His mother's voice.
He was safe.
Maybe...
Electra slapped him so hard that he threw the gun on the ground. She grabbed him by the wrist, picked up the gun, dragged him away.
"Let's get away of here."
"Mum..."
She didn't say a word. She just ran home, holding him by the wrist with a strength Etienne would never have believed possible.
Once they were safe, she led him to his room, heedless of Raoul's regretful gaze.
"You are reckless."
She didn't shout. She never shouted, Electra. She was angry in a silent, furious way, and the more intense the silence, the more Etienne felt oppressed by the burden of guilt.
He already had tears in the corner of his eyes and a frightened, upset expression.
"I didn't hurt him," he tried to justify himself, "I hit the weather vane, I..."
"I know what you hit. But your bullet could still have hurt someone."
"I swear I didn't mean to kill him."
"I know. But that doesn't give you the right to steal a gun and poke around where you shouldn't."
Etienne bit his lower lip, barely holding back the tears.
"I'm sorry."
"You'll stay in your room until tomorrow to clear your head about what you did. Then we'll see what your punishment will be."
The child, shoulders trembling, had the strength to nod.
Electra's gaze, as she watched him, was cold. She showed no sign of pity.
...
"It was after that event that Mum decided to retire me from school. In hindsight I realized that she was the one who was feeling the greater pain. She always tends to hide when she suffers."
...
The door closed behind her. Etienne found himself alone, confused even within the four walls of the room he knew so well. He cried then, laying on the bed, curled up in a blanket.
"Dad..." he whispered.
He closed his eyes, biting the pillow to choke the sobs in his throat.
He was scared, he truly didn't know what instinct had driven him to get that gun and had guided his hand, or why he chose to shoot the weather vane instead. He didn't want to kill anybody. It was more than true. He closed his eyelids. He didn't want to think back on those moments, neither relive them.
"Dad, where are you?"
For a long time, he called out to his father, in tears.
He knew that Nemo could never answer, but he just wanted so much his father to be there! He wanted to hug him, to feel that everything was OK.
...
"Mom had to act as a father for me, too, for 26 years. It wasn't easy."
...
Half an hour later, exhausted from crying, Etienne fell asleep.
...
The child, not even ten years old, wakes up in the middle of a dream and realizes he is not alone.
He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he knows he was crying.
The emptiness that his father left is eating his chest.
He recognizes the columns, Tartessos, the palace.
Not bad, he says to himself, because it's not the first time he's woken up there.
"Who are you?"
He jumps.
There is a presence, yes, but it's so similar to Nadia's that Etienne doesn't really notice it until it's too late.
He realizes he's made a huge mistake.
Just before he fell asleep, he was thinking about his father, Elusys, he desired to be with him.
That's why he's at the palace.
To get as close to him as possible.
But it's a child's voice he heard.
"Who are you?" the voice asks again.
He turns.
A child apparently five or six years old.
Black hair, like Nadia's.
Green eyes, like Nadia's.
And the facial features, the dark skin tone.
Etienne knows perfectly well who that child is. He doesn't seem frightened but only intrigued by his presence.
"What's your name? And what are you doing here?"
Etienne swallows up.
The child is Vinusis, his brother.
Etienne struggles to stay calm.
"My name is..."
He's hesitating. A part of him would like to reveal his real name. But no. He can't.
"...Etienne", he exhales at last.
Vinusis smiles and doesn't ask anything else. He doesn't even seem surprised, but there's no way he could have recognized him. Etienne is certain that he never revealed himself to Vinusis before, even though he saw him several times from a distance.
Maybe Vinusis isn't surprised because he understands that Etienne is not a real threat.
Etienne knows what he must look like: a bluish, translucent figure, little more than a hologram.
If Vinusis tried to touch him, he would pass through him.
It's already enough that he can see him.
His mother, whom Etienne met several times in his dreams, has never been able to spot him.
Not once.
Vinusis keeps smiling at him. He seems like a sweet, benevolent child. He looks a lot like his mother, Queen Sana'a, just as Electra describes her. A kind smile, a calm, clear gaze.
He looks like Nadia only in appearance, in fact, and Etienne almost laughs at that thought.
Then Vinusis turns around, hearing voices along the corridor.
"Let's go," he says. "It's my father and the Prime Minister, Nemesis. It's better that they don't see you."
Etienne holds his breath. It's the first time he hears his father's voice.
He follows Vinusis, though. His brother is right. It's better if they don't see him.
The boy takes him to his room, a large room with a coffered ceiling and a balcony overlooking the courtyard and a canopy bed. Vinusis sits down and invites Etienne to sit next to him.
"Where are you from? Your body is not here."
Etienne doesn't know what to answer. He nods.
"Sometimes, when I fall asleep, I dream of being in different places. I don't know why it happens. But I'm from Morocco."
He can tell Vinusis at least this.
"Cool!"
"It's also the first time someone can see me."
And it's the first time he meets his brother.
He is talking to his brother.
Etienne sniffs, then smiles.
"Can you stay? While you're here, do you want to play?"
"I can't touch things."
Vinusis seems surprised.
"Are you sure?"
Etienne nods.
"We'll invent something else then."
Etienne doesn't know how long he'll be able to stay. It's not something he controls. It depends on when he wakes up in the world over there. Hopefully as late as possible.
They really play.
Most of the afternoon, or at least that's what it looks like in the dream.
At some point they hear a baby crying down in the yard.
Etienne can't hold back, he looks out just enough to see what's going on.
There's little Nadia in her mother's arms. She's beautiful, Sana'a.
Looking at her, Etienne thinks that maybe she would have loved him too, if she was still alive. She seems like the kind of person who can love unconditionally.
But no.
That's his mother, Medina.
Electra.
She's always loved, and still loves, despite everything.
Despite death, too.
There's his father, approaching both his wife and daughter, gently caressing the crying baby.
Etienne's heart throbs, he holds back the tears.
He doesn't miss Elusys in the strictest sense, because he's never met him.
And yet, as long as he has memory, he's always looked for him.
The emptiness of his absence is unbridgeable.
Now he envies Nadia a little because she at least shared that moment with him.
He observes his sister and smiles. He loves her, he's always loved her.
Then he senses he's waking up, and it's better like this or he will start crying again.
He smiles at Vinusis.
"I must go."
His brother stares at him, looks like he's about to say something, then he stops.
"Will you come back?" he asks.
"I don't know."
There's one last favour Etienne must ask.
Vinusis will probably forget the afternoon they spent together, but it's better to stay safe.
"Please don't say you met me. To your father especially."
...
Things started to change after that week. People talked about the accident with the gun. Etienne returned to school only to be looked at in a strange way, pointed out from afar as the one whose mother, who did not have a husband, hid who knows how many weapons in her house.
Etienne did not apologize for what he had done, which reinforced his reputation as a smart but difficult boy, raised without a father to set him straight.
Electra didn't care what they said about her, but she was afraid that the situation would become too much for Etienne. Besides, she shouldn't have blamed her son. It was her who had to take some responsibilities. Etienne had behaved very badly, but it was Electra who tried to make him live like a normal child in the first place, when, well, he was not exactly a normal child.
She should have known that.
She'd been naive instead. She'd hoped he'd make friends, live a life just like everybody else. It was impossible. Etienne had inherited the blood of Atlantis from his father. He had the ability to dream of the past, and that was frightening enough. Etienne did not know how to manage such powers and was afraid of himself, Electra understood this very well. Gods knew how much he would have needed Elusys beside him. Elusys would know what to do. He would know how to guide his son through the maze of himself.
She, as a human, couldn't do much. Nonetheless, Elusys had died with the certainty of having left his child in the safest possible hands.
Elusys had guided her. He taught her everything.
She might have been just a human being, but she was the living person who knew Atlantis best.
At that moment, sitting in the courtyard of their palace, she decided.
"Raoul," she said, "go call me Etienne."
Raoul agreed that it was the only thing to do.
...
It was a very clear, sunny day, the wind was sweeping the coast. Electra had taken Etienne to a little beach just outside Tangier.
She hadn't told Etienne anything about her intentions, there was one thing she had to make sure of first.
"Here," she said, and she put that same gun in his hand.
Etienne opened his eyes wide.
"What..."
Electra took a bottle from a bag she had brought with her and placed it a few meters away.
"You'll have to try and hit these. I'll put them at different distances."
"Why?"
"You almost hurt a boy, if you want to shoot, you'd better learn how to do it."
"But I don't..."
"Silence."
Etienne sighed. If his mother had decided so, there was little to do. He'd better get busy. He grabbed the gun and Electra corrected his grip.
"Don't hold the stock so tight. You have to be firm but relaxed."
Etienne looked for the target, aimed, pulled the trigger.
The shot went empty, albeit slightly.
"Give it to me," Electra said, "and watch how I do it, especially the body posture."
She shot three times, one after the other, and reached the targets.
Etienne, again, was speechless. How...
"I had to learn," Electra said, "to survive."
"To survive?"
"Your father, Etienne, was the king of Tartessos and a marine biologist. You know that. What you don't know is that the Nautilus was not a submarine born to study the ocean floor. Not only that, at least."
Etienne remembered the explosions. Something that, from time to time, crossed his dreams.
"The Nautilus was a craft born to hunt Garfish, our enemy's submarine units. I'll tell you all about it in a little while, I promise. Just shoot those bottles now."
Etienne nodded.
Bang!
It was the first time in his life he felt that way.
Bang!
Thrilled, happy. Maybe the questions he'd been carrying around since he was born would finally be answered. His dreams, those flashes of screams and pain that he heard in his sleep so distinctly, Nadia crying and throwing a blue stone off the Nautilus bridge during a storm...
Pictures, fractions of a second.
Bang!
He reached almost every bottle.
Electra seemed satisfied. She was beautiful, dressed in white and with her long, blonde hair that lashed the wind.
"Good. Looks like you've inherited my aim."
Etienne looked at her, his eyes wide open...
"Is that why there are all those weapons in the cellar?"
Electra, for the first time in days, laughed. She sat on a rock out of the sand and invited Etienne to sit on her lap. She held him tight.
"You're suffocating me."
Electra kept laughing and kissed his dark hair. Her child. Her beloved son. She embraced him and, for the first time in a long time, she felt happy. Now she was sure that, whatever happened, she and Etienne together would make it.
She would always protect her little boy, whom she loved more than herself.
"You know, Etienne," she said "you are a son of Atlantis. And I'm here to answer your questions. As many as you want."
...
"She told me everything. What Atlantis was, where humanity came from, the war against Gargoyle. She told me things I'd seen in my dreams, about Nadia, about you. Then she taught me history, science, everything that could have been useful for me. I absorbed it all, unlimitedly, I devoured the knowledge as a hungry man would devour a meal. It was what I had always known in my heart, everything that I could not explain, it was my very nature. I was born a prince of Tartessos, thus she spent the following months and years educating me as such. Or I would've been eaten alive by my questions, by the answers that I sensed, by the reasons I looked for, by ignorance and uncertainty. She, who had tried to guarantee me a normal life as a human boy, decided to sacrifice everything after realizing that I was not and would never be a normal human boy. I would have been condemned to madness, otherwise, tormented by the anger of not having certain answers and the impossibility of obtaining them or even knowing who I was."
Etienne, standing against the ruined balustrade, watches them both.
His beautiful blue eyes glisten with affection and determination.
"So, instead, I'm exactly where I need to be and I'm ready to do what needs to be done."
She's in tears, she approaches him, holds him.
"Why?"
He doesn't waver, he smiles.
"I love you."