The archive of the forgotten

the better one ~ what did you bury?

I frown as the point of my pencil breaks, I sigh. I look around, this room probably has a sharpener somewhere right? I put down the drawing that honestly is mostly finished, but studying people I thought I knew beautifully sounds like a better distraction than going to sleep. I step out of the bed and look around, the best place to look is of course the beautiful old desk, it has the same mechanism as the one back home used to have. If you pull out the place to write the thing simply opens. It reminds me of the thing where you keep your bread. Look around in the drawers, there are a lot of notebooks in there. And a lot of drawings, so there should be a sharpener. I take out all the notebooks when one falls open. I look at it and I am flabbergasted when I see the old runes I used to write with. I frown as I pick it up, I feel my head tilting as I read the declaration of boredom in my language, who wrote this, who has the bravery to still write in our language, who has the bravery to do so when surrounded by people who are at least partly Awnlund. But as I try to avoid reading it one sentence stands out.
"How can I call somebody mother when they were raised to hate my kind."
I put down the notebook, it is not my business nor will it ever be. The one who has lived here probably wouldn't want anybody to know their inner workings. I keep looking for the sharpener and I finally see one in the back of a drawer, I take out a framed picture so I am finally able to reach the sharpener. As I put the sharpener aside I start putting the things back when I focus on the picture.

I smile, Thrjel really was adorable when he was a child. He can't be much older than five. I look at the other three people on it, Sostrate is beautiful in her youth, a beauty you would see on a poster plastered somewhere in the city where rich people buy their perfumes. Her eyes still kind, but not as open as they are now, she seems frightened and I can't quite work out what she is frightened of. Perhaps it is simply because she wanted the picture to be perfect, because her family is.... Right? The man next to her can't be Thrjels father, he could not possibly be, he is far too ugly. And the scar I have seen before reminds me that he must be an Awnlund, you see them more often those hideous scars on their cheeks. I have always wondered what they were from. I frown, it could be another husband of Sostrate, but I am not quite certain how many she has had. I turn my attention to the fourth person on the picture. He is about 16 years old, or at least fifteen. He could be my age too, I turn my head and I stare at him, his long black hair tied in a low bun, his angry eyes, his pale skin. His quiet anger, his distance from the person with the scar, but a loving hand on Thrjel's shoulder. If I had blue eyes I could be that boy. Who is he, and why do I not know him? I trace my finger over his face, the same features I hate when it comes to my own suit him perfectly as if the world balanced everything out perfectly. I look at his lanky body when I notice the traditional Fianlynds black waistcoat. What did Thrjel say about a waistcoat? I immediately stand up and walk to the closet, as I open the doors my eyes immediately catch a flash of black. I grab it out of the closet and trace the embroidery, the embroidery pictured on the photo. So it was his room, it was the room from the stranger that looks too familiar to admit. I walk back towards the desk and kneel in front of it, my curiosity gets the better of me when it comes to hidden truths. I take out the notebooks and start to look for more pictures, because reading someone's personal writings is too much for me. I am not that curious.

With every other picture I start to wonder if Thrjel does love me for me. Or if he loves me because I am the hope that this person will return to him. I feel a tear in my eyes, but I don't blame him, because I would do the same. If there would be anyone who could fill the emptiness my heart suffers from I would do anything to keep them with me. I understand, and it is a good reason to love something as unlovable as I am. There is one picture with where he is young and sitting on the shoulders of the person, I take a breath. It can't be his father, so it must be his brother. I tilt my head and feel my expression slowly crumbling, I don't understand. I slowly climb back into the bed and curl up into a ball. I don't want to know. I want to be blissfully ignorant, I want to be dumb, I want to believe in something as fully as my father did. I want to sleep. I want to forget, I want to be someone else.