When I woke up, I didn't expect to see Koruru or Gash in my face, smiling their believing, caring smiles at me. I could deal without seeing Gash--I hadn't known him long enough for his company to be an absolute necessity, but I had seen Koruru's smiling face and pretty pink curls every day since I could see. My earliest memory is of me looking up at Kururu, who could be no older than three or four at the time. I thought that I could truly go through withdrawal without her.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes and stretching. No "Good Morning Zeon." No "Don't rub your eyes like that, Zeon!" No, "Hey, wanna play chess Zeon?" Nothing. My room was silent. I could never get used to a silent room in the morning. I tossed my covers of and my feet made contact with the freezing floor, which sent a barrage of shivers up my spine. Where were my slippers? Koruru always made sure my slippers were there. The memory that Koruru wasn't there to move my slippers hit me like the realization that I would have to look for them. Where were my slippers? After looking for about five minutes and gave up and started downstairs, my feet slapping against the stone floors. I wondered how the servants could stand walking around here barefoot.

"Good morning Zeon! Hey, why are you barefoot?"

"Because Koruru wasn't there to move my slippers and I couldn't find them." I murmured as an answer to my Stepsister's question. My father and Queen Eduron shared a glance as the contemplated something. Probably how to explain to me why may faithful servant and friend since birth was missing from the castle. But the said nothing as they continued eating the food in front of them. I realized quickly that if I was to get answers, then I had to ask the questions myself. "Father..." I began in the casual tone that I only use under extreme stress and anger. I saw his large fearsome form freeze up suddenly. Only I could make my father do that. Was it wrong that I hate a sort of pride about it?

"Where's Gash and Koruru? I haven't seen them since last night."

He continued to be silent as he chewed. His mouth went up and down slowly, trying to elongate the time he had to think about his response. I waited patiently, my shining purple eyes oh-so like my mother's upon him, making it clear that I was not going to drop this until he answered.

When the food between his lips was nothing more than mush, he swallowed the probably tasteless food, cleared his throat. He remained silent for several more minutes before deciding upon a suitable answer. "Son... Zeon..." He was trying to calm me and it wasn't working. "I know and understand Koruru and Gash are your friends, but... oh how can I put this..."

"Let me dear--"

"No." I said sharply. My stepmother turned to me slowly and opened her aged mouth as though to say 'excuse me young man?' but I shifted my gaze instantly onto her, and the heavily painted rose-red lips closed silently. "The last thing I want or need is to hear something from you. My father has a mouth and a mind, not just a cock you whore."

Her mouth opened in shock and my gaze remained fixed. I glanced to my father and his eyes told me all I needed to know. I was disgusted with this so-called 'family'. I stood up and made to walk away. "It was better when it was just me, my father, and my mom's spirit." I walked out of the room, out of the castle and into the garden. The ground was sun-warmed and slightly damp with dew. It was a beautiful spring day and I couldn't even enjoy it because of that woman and her prejudice. I found my way through the green thicket to the bench and began to rock back and forth. The creaking coaxed a tear or two out of my eyes, because I realized something. Where I was, I had found my mother again.

I was someplace where I could hear her voice (the creaking), feel her touch (the wood), smell her smell, (the flowers), and see her face (the moon). At night my mother sat at this bench and allowed me to lay on her lap. She'd sooth me by rocking me back and forth and if I concentrated, the creaking became her words as she said everything was alright. As long as I lay here, I didn't have to face my father, my judgmental stepfamily or anyone else.

So I lay there for the entire day. I didn't move to go to the house for lunch or dinner. I went to the bushes, far from my mother's sacred place for the bathroom and drank deeply from the clear lake. Every time I would return to that spot without fail because I love it there. I admitted that as I listened to the creaking and ran my fingers over the wood, I felt the least alone. I sometimes felt a little alone with Koruru and Gash, but right now, I felt as though there was truly something else here. Something better here.

I contemplated going into the house for my sleeping bag when the idea was promptly washed away by a sudden downpour of rain.

I rushed into the castle soaking wet from the rain and my still-bare feet slapping on the ground as water pooled around me. My father was surprised to learn that I was still outside, as he had apparently been under the impression that Queen Eduron saw me come back in and run to my room in a hurry. When he prompted her about it she merely shrugged. She said it must've been her imagination. Her imagination my ass.

She thinks I don't know what's going on but she'd be surprised that I'm more than just a pretty face and foul mouth. Because right then, everything began to fit into place. She got sick of her tiny kingdom, so she decided to mosey in on my families much larger one. She married my father after my mother's death, whittling away his resolve to keep the promise he made to me. She was trying to make my life miserable, and I just figured out exactly why. This woman wants me dead. She wants me gone so that the only one left to succeed the throne would be Cherish, because my father was an only child just like I was. If I was gone then the kingdom as well as hers would go straight to her. She'd a sulfur witch but I'll be dammed if she isn't smart.

She made my father think that I was inside so he wouldn't send someone looking, in hopes that I died or was killed out in the garden. It was a logical thing to think, since one never knew when the castle garden ended and where the forests began. Well, that's not true considering you would know when a wolf came out of no where and made a meal out of you. She thought I was depressed about my mother, and perhaps she thought that I would take care of my own life eventually. Boy was she wrong. I may be a lot of things, but Zeon Bell is not a quitter.

Well fine. She wants to play, I'll play. As I lay in my bed, changed out of my soaked pajamas and straight into a new, dry set, and thought about what to do. What could I do anyway? Who was he going to believe--his, "lawfully wedded wife" or his both lawful and biological son? I sighed and got out of my bed, as I had still never gotten the answer to this morning's question.

He sat on his throne as always, but he seemed to be bored. There were no things which needed attending to, so he merely sat, staring at the door, waiting from some crisis to come crashing in. He wanted a crisis, here comes crisis.

"Father. You never answered my--"

"Your foul words disgrace me, Zeon."

My father had cut me off. He never did that. He continued when he saw that I was making no interruption attempts myself.

"Did Gash and Koruru teach you those words?"

"Wha--a?! Father, no! Gash and Koruru never even used those words!"

"Well neither did you until you started spending all that time with them!"

He was raising his voice as well. Who was this man and what had he done with my kind but strong king of a father? The one that always spoke in quiet tones?

"F-father..." I stuttered. I never stuttered. "I've known those words for a while, other Princes and Princesses say them I just never used them its just that she made me so mad she makes me so mad father!" I said as fast as I could get them out of my mouth. I was stuttering. My words were falling from my lips jumbled and messy. What was wrong with me? What was happening?

"What happened to the Zeon that wanted only to make his father happy, hm?" All the while I couldn't see the expression on his face. I was afraid for perhaps the only time in my life, that my father would strike me. My mother had struck me several times in her lifetime, whenever I did something bad or made her cry she would strike me, but only once, and never more than once. He eased up out of his throne and turned to me, and I took many steps back.

His face was hard and he looked enraged. He walked towards me and I backed away. This was the only time I was frightened of my father. No, I was beyond frightened. I was positively terrified. I turned heels and ran for the steps, tried to get away. This was just a dream, I tried to convince myself. None of this is happening.

I still tried to convince myself of that as I lay on my bed, splotches of blood on my clothes and every beatable part of my body covered in scratches and bleeding or just plain hurting, and every time I tried to shift pain would shoot up my body and a new wave of pain and tears would try to force their way out of me. But I bit them back, afraid that if my father heard my cries of pain or my sobs he would thunder into the room and attack me again. What's worse is that I smelled the fermented grape and alcohol on his breath. My father was drunk. Perhaps he would have no recollection of what had happened. Perhaps Queen Eduron--whom sat in the throne beside him and lifted not a finger to help me even as I yelled from someone to make him stop--would say that I had injured myself outside and offer him another glass. And then the process would start again tomorrow.

She was truly out to get me. She was tearing us apart from the inside, picking at my fathers love of fine, rich wine, infecting it, and turning it into some horribly mutated beast hungry and lustful for the blood of one pale skinned demon.

I wished Gash and Koruru were here. If no one else in castle had helped me, at the expense of their jobs they would have. They would have tried to pull him off me, and Koruru would tend to my wounds as Gash made me laugh to take my mind off the pain. A few tears feel from my eyes, but not from the pain of the beating--from an entirely different, inner pain.

Let the child abuse lawsuits begin.

Review? OR ZEON'S DRUNKEN FATHER WILL COME AT YOU IN THE NIGHT!

I feel really sad I made that happen to him... but the fic must go on!