My Good Friend Aleksander.

Shadow Ⅹ| Year 7: "Throw Away the Key."

It was a strange place, within the mind of Malyen Oretsev.

Perhaps, at one point, he could have been able to love as men did—to love his wife as he ought have. If it was long, long ago, when he had been a boy and a good man, untainted by the filth of human blood, he could have offered his wife the love that only men could give. He might have been able to offer that love to the child who shared his blood, but not his face.

If he had truly had a family, he would have more easily been able to understand and reciprocate the feelings of love and healthy attachment. Or even if he had surrounded himself in environments good for things like love and affection, and not simply the pleasures of the body, he might have stood a chance against the obsession that all descendants of Morozova experience. 

But, if it was long ago and he was the old Malyen, and she was the old Alina, he'd have never married her—separation was the only thing that granted him perspective into her meaning. She had been a perfect placeholder for commitment; he could have her as his stalwart best friend while he experienced the beauty of 'romantic entanglement' with others, all the while returning to her in a show of faith.

In this play of permanence and romance, somehow, the fool went and realized he was in love with her; or rather, he supposed he did. Sometimes, Aleksander pitied him, because he truly did not seem aware of how incorrect his 'love' for Alina was.

Of course, to a certain degree, he understood what Malyen's mind was like—he knew more than anyone the weight of permanence upon the soul, of how fleeting and fast the flow of time robs one of people and dreams.

 Life was like clockwork, and permanence was a drug; having a fragment of that clockwork that once was believed to be permanent suddenly slip out of the mechanisms of life was a frantic, horrific experience. Suddenly, everything starts to slip away and fall apart, cogs and gears fleeing from the mechanism that was previously well established and stable, and now was tumbling into oblivion.

Now, when there is a man who has lost everything, what is the proper response to have?

From what Aleksander understood, to move on and gather new pieces to add to the clockwork of life was the 'proper' act, and if one day the old pieces returned, a choice to add or leave them from the new clockwork was made by the individual. However, Malyen took a route most Morozova seemed to take—that of obsession.

When something deemed permanent leaves, Morozova's cling to and race after the first fragment to leave, abandoning all the others for the sake of that singular one. Clutching the piece of clockwork, a Morozova—in this case, Malyen—would force this cog to remain in place, for fear of change. 

Or the initial clockwork would, alternatively, infiltrate the other clock's mechanisms and gears, replacing former gears and memories with their own, construct themselves into the very center of the other cog's heart, and refuse to leave. Admittedly, this was the approach Aleksander himself took when interacting in Alina's life in particular.

Morbidly, he knew that no matter where she went, who she met, or how she lived, there would remain a piece of him stuck in her cogs of her timeline, and she would never be able to fully remove him. While he lived, such a thing granted him a perverse sense of satisfaction; now dead, he gained perspective from being removed from the pressures and horror of his living mind.

He had been tired, and old—so, so old. The world had passed him by, the rot of living infesting his mind, heart, body and soul as he drowned from the blood of all those sacrificed and all those lost. 

His convictions, his mindset, and even his desires... were all wrong. 

In fighting against those he considered monsters, he had become one, and there was no redemption for all the harm he had inflicted upon the living and the dead.

Death was the sweetest mercy Alina could have offered him; to continue to rot away within the never-aging carcass of his body, with a husk of a mind, a man and a monster... yes, to be relieved of such burdens had eased the weight on his soul substantially.

Though his time had long since passed, he wished to offer... something. It couldn't be reparations—he had no right, asking for forgiveness after disrupting so many different clogs of life.

Making sure the pieces his victims had lost were picked and put back together... that was a separate matter.

That was why, even after three years, he still remained where Alina was—to offer comfort to her child, the object of her love and affection, and the heart of her clockwork. He earnestly wished for little Illya to grow and become a happy, wonderful woman, and to grant Alina the peace she so deserved—the peace he had stolen from her.

'...I certainly seem to still enjoy excuses for my obsession, even though I'm but a shadow,' he thought critically, his hollow gaze following after the child and Alina's movements through the shadows of the house, noting the smile that curved her lips. 

'I am sincere in my desire, though; that child deserves happiness. Maybe then... maybe then, Alina will cease looking so very sad. At least then I can fade away, knowing that indirect as it was, my influence brought her at least some happiness in her life.'

For that to happen though, two courses of possible action needed to be established and executed.

The first option was for Malyen to change.

The second was to either kill him, or help Alina escape.

Though he despised admitting it, changing the otkazat'sya for the better was both the most and least feasible option; as Aleksander had no body, he could not physically confront, kill, or utilize force in order to change him. Changing him however... that could not be done by him.

Only the child seemed to see him, touched so vividly by merzost as she was; Alina had a chance to do so, but with her powers significantly reduced, so had the connection to merzost.

Malyen hated Illya, and was obsessively restraining and pig-headed when it came to Alina. Even if the merzost ran through his blood, its effects had been broken; besides, the last person Malyen would listen to is the monster who aided in ruining his 'perfect' life.

So, helping Alina escape was the most possible route, however, he needed to gain at least a sense of physicality to obtain that goal.

He prayed it would not take too long.

He didn't want Malyen to have the chance to throw away the key of the prison he was slowly, painstakingly building around Alina.

Aleksander's manifestation, or Malyen's obsession—which would be faster?

Only Time could determine the outcome.