My Empire: Bonus Content

Rise To Power

Date: 12 years before the beginning of My Empire

Canon: Canon

Notes: This story was written by Pearlescentmoon12335, not myself, so go give them some love! This is the background story of Lord Sylver of Arcefracti as a child, as well as their advisor, Declan Tyndall. 

Enjoy!

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My knuckles were bruised worse than anything I'd seen in a long time. My lip was busted, a sharp purple bruise dancing with a cut on my face. All over my body, painful cuts and bruises bloomed. I think he broke my nose too, as blood, thick, sticky, and hot, poured from my face.

I found myself in a dark corner of the orphanage. The windows were boarded up, casting the room into a strange, greenish light. Chairs and tables were pushed against the wall, spider webs dancing between them like a million tiny ribbons. The walls, yellowed with age like everything in this godforsaken place, were decorated in graffiti. Initials in hearts, tags, "hell is empty and the devils are here", along with my personal favorite.

It was a large painting of a young person with wings. I'm not sure it could be counted as graffiti, to be honest- nobody would put this much time into graffiti. The wings were colossal and golden, individual feathers painted in shades of ochre, bronze, and even silver. The person knelt down, head bowed as if in prayer, hands clasped together to strengthen that impression. Light brown strands of hair fell down, flying as if caught in the wind, glittering in the nonexistent light that shone.

But it wasn't the size of the wings or the beautiful hair that caught my attention. It was the halo, shattered and crushed, laying in broken pieces like shards of a long gone hope on her head. It was the black tips of her fingers and feathers, like ink had just spilled onto them. It was the darkness seeping into her. It was beautiful.

Beside the art, a quote I've never seen nor heard anywhere else was painted; "Devils are only angels who thought too much."

I don't know what it meant, but it was nice. Poetic. Like something you'd hear in those nursery rhymes that are always darker than they say. Like that one about the burning man, killed by their best friend; they'd disguised it as some story about the comfort of fire, but I saw past it. I always did. It worried people.

The cupboards were bare, as always. Some scraps of paper and useless graphite. But, deep in the bottom, was some scraps of fabric and a needle, glittering in the green glow of the room. I scooped them up, cringing as the needle stabbed into the raw flesh that webbed between my knuckles, but I didn't make a sound. If I did, a matron would come running, and she wouldn't be pleased.

You weren't meant to get into fights here.

I tried to stop my hands from shaking as I pulled a strand out of the fabric, threading the needle with it and wrapping the remains of the discolored fabric that couldn't decide whether it wanted to be black, grey, or blue around my hand, trying to gulp down the chokes of pain that threatened to escape my mouth as fabric met raw, exposed, pink flesh.

Evidently, the attempts weren't successful. No sooner had I stitched the first bit of fabric together after wrapping it a million times around my knuckles, than Declan Tyndall, my best friend, the one I would go as far as calling my brother burst into the room.

His fluffy brown hair was cut short, like it was newly chopped. The ends were messy and choppy, tiny hairs decorating his shoulders. Its soft brown eyes were bloodshot, like he had just been crying. It tugged at my heartstrings, seeing my best friend, the person who had become my older brother in this hellish place, so broken and vulnerable was physically painful.