Seven days later we set foot on the New World. We were greeted with the news of Goa Kingdom's declaration of war and handed new passports with cheerful grins. Not matter, where we turned, welcoming faces surrounded us, constantly congratulating us on having escaped the war just in time. In fact, two days after we had set sail the borders had been closed, only to be turned into battle lines another forty-eight hours later.
Three months after our arrival we received a letter from my father, telling us he was fine and that he would try to contact us more often, but since he was constantly on the run, it was almost impossible. He had added another piece of paper solely addressed to me and I took it from my mother with violently shaking hands, briefly considering to just rip it into tiny pieces, and deciding against it. Deep inside me there was still a glimmering bit of hope for Sabo to follow us.
The letter said that, ever since my mother and I had fled the country, my father had someone monitor the Outlook Mansion, constantly spreading the rumour that I had escaped to the New World. However, about four weeks after we had left the country someone from the kitchen staff had joined my father's underground resistance group and told him that Sabo had been sent to the Outlook family's country residence, under the pretence that he needed the country side's fresh, clean air in order to better recover from his illness, the moment he had been healthy enough to travel again. But the man admitted that apparently it had all just been to hamper his attempts at escape, since his parents deeply feared that he would follow me to the New World.
Yet when my father had finally made it to the town, where the residence was, the townsfolk had told him that the young lord had just been called to the front and had thus left town two days ago.
My eyes flew over the rest of the letter without actually reading the hastily scribbled words. They were nothing but a constant repetition of his promise to me anyway, a promise he clearly had failed to live up to. Reaching him amidst the threats of war was impossible. Even I wasn't as stupid as to believe he would make it.
Eager to escape the suffocating narrowness of our house, I blindly ran out onto the nightly streets. But my grief and self-loathing never left me and there was no way of escaping my own tormenting thoughts. As I stumbled on I silently begged for the pouring rain to drown me.
It took Thatch and Marco two days to find me in the corner of some rundown, shady pub down by the docks, selling booze distilled in the basement. They carried me back home, oblivious to the world as I was, robbed of all my valuables, suit torn and stained, mumbling Sabo's name in devoted repetition, stuck in the infinity of my regret.
I never mentioned his name again thereafter.
The war raged on for six whole years, leaving countless dead, widowed, orphaned or heartbroken, before the allied forces finally claimed victory, occupying Goa Kingdom and dethroning the king. Two weeks before the war had ended my father had given himself up for the sake of those fighting with him in the underground. He had been executed a week later. In his last letter he had once again apologised for not having been able to keep his promises to us. I burned the note he had attached for me without reading it.
And in all those years neither one of us had ever heard anything about Sabo.
Well, thanks for reading! I can already say there's definitely going to be a sequel! :) And as always favs and comments are very much appreciated! Dankeschön! :)