Once Fate Became Twisted | Man x Boy | Ⅱ

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Things quickly fell into rhythm once Isoloses stayed the first night at Naevys's castle with the intention of staying. Isoloses usually just accompanied Naevys on his walks, while he handled his business in town, and acted pretty much like a babied security guard. All he had to do was stay a few feet back and observe. He kept a mask covering his face and often kept a hood over his head, and honestly he gained a lot of suspicious looks, but when their eyes landed on Naevys with him the gazes averted almost immediately.

Naevys was of high status, and he was known to all of the elves in the realm as a savior, someone respectable and kind. He would be immediately overlooked and ignored as long as he were beside him, essentially, because no matter their personal distaste for Isoloses himself, their respect for Naevys prevented them from expressing their distaste. Isoloses honestly appreciated it, a lot.

He didn't expect people to love him, like him, or forgive him. He just wanted to follow Naevys around as if he were on a leash. Naevys didn't need protection, Tenebris Regni was about as Utopian as possible, and Naevys could kick his ass so he wasn't really sure what the point of him doing it was... but he enjoyed it. He would probably just sit around and twiddle his thumbs otherwise, for so long he'd lived the same day every day that he didn't know what he personally enjoyed doing.

He couldn't remember a time when his everyday life wasn't consumed with worrying about his fathers antics, what role he would be forced to play in them, and the potential repercussions of it. It was nice to have nothing to worry about, but at the same time, it was all he had done before. His own interests had fizzled away under the constant pressure and worry, and he didn't know how to find them again.

To the best of his knowledge, he'd always been on-edge and panicky, because there really wasn't much time to sleep when your realm is literally the cause of multi-realm destruction. That undoubtedly garnered a lot of enemies, especially when Isoloses had spent many millennia serving in his fathers military. It wasn't like he was really given much of an option. He'd been assigned an Alpha at eighteen, and his father had immediately put him into training.

It wasn't like he didn't receive training before that, but official, on the books training? Eighteen. His father had been training him for years in different ways. His father had learned about his siphoning ability and he'd been put to work as soon as he could be. It was convenient for his father, because if Isoloses siphoned someone, he gained an exact copy of their abilities. He had siphoned so many beings he'd lost count, and while they'd return to normal and still have their ability, it still ate at him.

A lot of things did. He had a lot of guilt to live with--and while that wasn't... surprising to him, it might be to most.

In the beginning, he'd followed Isandro into battle because he felt it was an honor to serve his king. He was chosen to be one of the highest ranks in the army, right out of the gates, and he was high on life... on purpose. His father tended to heighten the value of his happiness and approval, and when Isoloses failed to garner it as an adolescent, he needed to gain it somehow. He had to have a value, a purpose, something to live for because he lived only to serve at his fathers feet. If he weren't a tyrant, perhaps that'd be a good thing.

His father had spent years, had dedicated centuries to grooming Isoloses into the perfect soldier, the perfect emotionless, empty-shelled abomination he had become. He hadn't always been evil, perhaps an unbelievable statement coming from a demon, but he'd been a kid at one point. He'd had, at the very least, a shred of humanity in him. Now? He couldn't even look at himself in the mirror without wanting to shatter it into a million little slivers.