Revive

From The Mind

Chapter V: From the Mind
Adrien's POV
    Adrien understood what to do, he just wasn't sure how to start. His life had always been a mess and he chose to blur it out. As he spoke, it stung a little to recall the memories that he tried so hard to forget. He started at the beginning, the first thing he could remember. He was young, younger than he should have been allowed to remember the memory, but maybe his magic stored it somehow.
Adrien was barely three years old, and he was being tested for magic. The setting was dim but cozy, sheltered by the cottage his parents lived in. The night had been peaceful, his mother playing with him, her affection and love burning through the future dark scars that were to take over. Adrien didn't remember how they did the test, he just remembered the horror on his parent's faces when the Guard of Letrelle had tried to steal him away. What were they to do with him? He hadn't known. He hadn't let it escalate that far. Had he sensed their pain and hidden them from view? Another question left unanswered.
Adrien left his trance of a memory, and skimmed Kora's face. She looked just as horrified as he had expected.
What other terrible things had my parents been doing? How much worse could they have been?  Her thoughts sunk deep into the ocean of thoughts in his mind. The questions were building up.
He quickly changed to a different memory. Adrien was just around four years old. Him and his parents had escaped the guard a year earlier, cloaked by Adrien's subconscious will for them to stay safe. They lived new lives, away from danger. Had Adrien been old enough to be wary of that belief, he could have prevented what happened to his parents, but he was young, and he didn't understand the world yet.
Adrien choked up a little as he spoke. He initially knew something was wrong then, when his father had gifted him with their beloved wedding rings. Rings they had sworn to each other to never remove. That's how strong his parent's love was for each other, but how obvious the sign of danger had been to him. Adrien went to bed when his parents had told him, and he had woken up alone. The only evidence of the scene was a pin that must have fallen from one of the cloaks that sat still on the rusty wood floors of his newish home. On the pin, a dead rose falling in on itself, the thorns of the rose looking so real, that they could poke you through the shiny metal. The Letrelle Guard had found his parents, and had killed them for running. But why hadn't they done anything to him?
His throat burned, the words getting harder and harder to release. Luckily, the next eleven years of his life he had spent in an orphanage alone were more boring and less painful to voice. He had no friends, and had earned the nickname "Tragic Mind". It was a cruel name, spun from the webs of his dark magic and his devastating past. He was happy he escaped. Did the director really care about his disappearance? No, but she would have rather watched him suffer than let him run free, but in the end, she was happy that his burden was gone. With his father's silver band sitting snug on his left thumb, he fled. At age fifteen, he had no wonder of what to expect.
He started off okay, thankful for the cloaking abilities his magic included. Of course he felt guilty about stealing necessities, but he hadn't much of a choice. He wasted away most of the year, trying to find a way to bring justice to the King of Aleama, and had been unsuccessful. That was until he heard of their secret daughter who had also had magic. So powerful that they had hidden her away from society and she was to be exiled in no less than half a year. It was no surprise that someone had found out about this and spread it to the entire continent.
Another journey had begun. He traveled from the edge of Cordelia, to the border of Aleama. He had some idea of what she was going to want, and maybe he could help her. Maybe they could help eachother. Adrien traveled mostly cloaked, and rested under shade to be hidden from view without cloaking so his magic could replenish. Months had passed, and it was almost the time that the girl would be exiled. He hadn't learned what she yielded yet, until word spread around the border of Aleama that she had healing powers. He hadn't done much during the boring months before leaving to find the Kora, but he had read enough about magic in the "forbidden" section of libraries. He knew the power of her magic, and he knew she would need help learning. Help he knew enough about to give. Within a week, he had found Kora. Her jet black hair rustling beneath the ribbon that held it together. Her pale skin shone in the moonlight as she trekked further into the forest.
He watched as her cloak rustled with the wind, the night chill ineffective on her growing determination. She hadn't known it was there yet, but he felt it in her thoughts. Then Adrien felt another presence. A confused presence. He felt the presence of yet another hidden soul. Someone who wasn't known to the world.
Adrien searched his thoughts, the thoughts of the youngest Prince of Stellarea. A prince who was ordered to hurt the possible friend he had just made, not even knowing it was her; but he was also the prince who refused to do so. He was not a murderer-- assassinator. He was just a lonely discarded boy searching for his life, hoping for a friend to come along, and at that moment, Adrien added yet another addition to his journey: Protecting the girl under the moon, along with the lonely Prince of Stellarea.