The Silver Seer

Chapter 17: Child of a Loving Heart

Reyes paces outside of Felix's room, waiting for a specific officer. It doesn't take long for him to spot the two faintly glowing red eyes through the darkness of the night. He decides he will take Felix's suggestion seriously and ask Reko all he possibly can about him, to both satisfy his curiosity and maybe get a clue regarding what truly happened to his parents now that he discovered Reko would not have been able to kill them.

Someone killed his parents- someone that looked strikingly similar to Reko yet was not the mechanical being himself. Maybe he didn't remember their appearance, so his mind just made something up? No; Reyes knew the murderer of the royal family had blonde hair and red eyes. The vermillion uniform is a universal outfit for those originating from Finland. So, the person had to be a mechanical soldier from Finland, but if it wasn't Reko, who could it be? What if they were already dead? Reyes would lose the satisfaction of enacting his revenge, and he would loathe that loss until the day he died.

"What are you doing outside of Komentaja's room?" Reyes stops and turns to face the mechanical soldier, who stares at him with narrowed eyes.

Reyes' left hand automatically moves to rest on his rapier's handle, and he can see Reko's right hand grip the black end of his chef's knife. Reyes does find it peculiar why the teenager- a boy who is designed for war- would fight with a kitchen utensil, but it does not matter when his skill with such a blade is on par with that of Reyes' own techniques.

"I was waiting for you. I had questions about you, and Ko-men-ta-ja suggested I ask you my questions, since he could not give me definite answers." Reyes sounds out the foreign word the boy used in reference to who he believes is Felix, and Reko sighs, before walking over to the door leading into Felix's room and knocking on it.

"Who is it?" Reyes hears Felix's voice on the other side, unaffected by how late it is. Does he, perhaps, have trouble sleeping? Or, perhaps, he chooses not to sleep?

"Reko and Reyes. Reyes says he wants to ask me questions because you won't answer him." Reko opens the door and invites himself in, while Reyes peers around himself and then inside the room before entering.

A light from a lamp on a table by Felix's bed is turned on, illuminating the small space. The young man sits up in his bed, while Reko pulls over two chairs. Reyes takes off the black hat atop his head and plays with the feather, a habit of his when nervous. He can't pinpoint the reason why he's nervous, but if he had to guess, it stems from either Reko's presence or Felix's. Yet, he sits down when Reko does, and faces the young man.

"I answered the questions he asked to the best of my ability with the knowledge I have of you, Reko. But I don't know everything you do, and I figured you two would find you may have some common interests while talking, so I simply suggested Reyes initiate a conversation. I thought you liked talking to other people. Was I wrong?" A small, teasing smile comes across Felix's lips, and Reyes turns to look at Reko, who raises his shoulders and lowers his head.

"No... I just don't like being pelted with questions about myself. It makes me feel more like a machine than a human being, and I don't want to be a machine. Not one solely created for war, at least." Reyes looks between the two, wondering what they are talking about, and Felix clears his throat before looking at Reyes and explaining the words they speak, as if reading the boy's mind.

"As you know, Reko is a hybrid mechanical being. What children of Kirsi's desire more than anything is to be loved, treated, and seen as human beings, as that is what Kirsi intended them to be for the couples and people they would end up with. They would act just like actual human children, and maybe never even know they were a mechanical being in the first place. This is one of Reko's strongest desires.