a rebel carries no name

paradise lost

Sitting in the chair, I pulled myself closer to the table. The chair making hideous scraping sounds all along, attention already riveted on the book in front of me, I hardly took note. The candle flame played at lovers with the sharp wind inviting itself into the increasingly chilly room, through all the cracks I knew of and still left to persist.

The ink ran out.

And it took me falling flat on my face straight to the floor like dead weight, my arms seemingly paralyzed by the cold and failing to buffer my ungraceful descent, to realize the extent of how bad my feet had gotten – I could barely feel; my eyes saw, they moved when my partly numb hands coaxed them to, but I didn't feel them; it felt so wrong.

I started to call for the butlers, thought better of it. It was too early, or too late to be rousing them.

So, like the incredibly short-sighted person I am, I decided it would be absolutely wonderful to light a bunch of candles and then, just sort of...thaw...out? Well, the candles were thankfully close, the problem came with me finding the matches – they just weren't there. So, the last, and trust me the clearest one at that time to me, way of action was me lighting that big cake of candles with the already lit one on my desk – but that would entail me standing up, something I forgot that I was working towards, and that is how I almost set fire to my room.

It would have thawed all of me out quite nicely.

All this excitement over, I crawled under the blankets, the book inseparable, and read in the light of the candle set on the practically arranged stack of academia next to the head of the cot.

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

I woke and realized I had slept. The flame had long gone out into the now solid stain of wax and the sun waved a cheerfully taunting hello at me through the window. Before I could blink again, he stood at the door, the light streaming around him, framing him in the doorframe. I sucked in a startled breath and forgot all about normal courtesy.

Over the absolute loathing for myself and the incessant chant of you're an idiot you'reanidiotyoureanidiotyouareidiotidiotidiotidiotidi—I heard him deliver father's words. He wanted me with him; no doubt to sit alongside to learn the ropes of the family business. I nodded once, dazedly & he slipped out as quietly as he had entered.

I shook the cobwebs of sleep out of my head and wondered not for the first time, why I was always doing everything in a daze so often.

I realized all too late the big puddle of wax from last night's adventures. My face burned he must have seen my shame – and I knew it would never be mentioned, he would just clean it discreetly. And my face burned hotter.

I was beyond embarrassed.

"...young master?"

There he is again. "Mm?"

"Your father is asking you to present yourself to him within the next hour." And there he is no more.

It took me a mere twenty minutes to be standing infront of him. Turns out Father just wanted to discuss the proposals of marriage that were pouring in. I was dismissed when my reluctance to even consider them got on his nerves.

Within minutes I was collapsing into the bed again, falling into the warm, cloying arms of sleep.

My dreams were a kaleidoscope of tragic battlefield death and more tragic heroes, clearly reflecting the book's themes.