Dakyres of Ardor | BoyxBoy ✓

19 | Flame Butterflies and Fresh Air

FALDREY

"You're miserable," Aphrodite worried.

"No, I'm not. Why do you think I am?" Faldrey tried to force a smile, but it never came. He couldn't even fake happiness.

"Yes you are, just look at you," Aphrodite placed a compassionate hand on Faldrey's shoulder.

It had been a whole year since the butterflies stopped coming. A complete year since he got seperated from the best thing that ever happened to him; Eren.

The past year had been the worst year of his life, it was bleak. He had a huge void in his heart, a void that should've been occupied by Eren's words, Eren's touch, Eren's soft breath on his face. The castle guards had continued with their harrassment, teasing and smacking him wherever and whenever they pleased.

Faldrey had learnt to live with that because that was his new life. That was the punishment intended for him, it had to be. He wasn't flagellated so he was sentenced to live the rest of his years a punching bag for the spiteful, lustful Flame Breathers of the Red Stoichi Tribe. He'd learnt to become apathetic, because that was the only way he could survive.

Some of the guards had gone as far as to drag him to their chambers and make him strip naked in front of them, whilst dancing and singing Blazing Sun rhymes. The first few times were abhorrent, but when it became the norm for them, Faldrey adjusted. He had to, that was the only way he could survive.

He'd seen Eren only once this past year and that was when all the foreign servants were summoned so Goliath could pick one for replenishment, the process was called The Selection.

The Mage had picked Chayne from the Floating Mountains. Faldrey was just waiting for his turn now, maybe the sweet relief of death was what he needed after all.

He was just like a Dakyrian husk with a spirit struggling to survive, he wanted to finally let go so his soul could find happiness in the Otherrealm. If there was happiness still left in any realms for him.

His eyes didn't for once connect with Eren's during The Selection. Whenever he dared to glance over he just saw dark eyes staring blankly into oblivion, the rest of his face scarred and hidden behind a mask.

The sight of Eren that way, hurt more than everything the castle guards had done to him, but they were cursed to end up this way. This was what fate had in store for them from the very beginning. If only Faldrey had known.

Zaal seemed to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to his pleas and requests for a quick death. He thought maybe Zaal still had a lot planned for him, maybe this wasn't the end of his story. But it surely felt like the end.

"I'm still adapting," a sad smirk broke on Faldrey's lips. "Someone once told me I'll always be fine, no matter the situation I find myself in. So I will be fine, I'll adjust completely soon enough."

Aphrodite wished she could save her friend. She wished she could destroy these stupid rules that kept her friends apart but that was way out of her reach. She wished she could use a coaxing poem on everyone in the realm so they'd just stop fighting and live in peace. She wished she could go back in time and stop the alliance of the Blazing Sun and the Westerners from ever happening in the first place.

She wished she could lift her friend out of this pitch-black pit of despair he'd sunken deeper into. But there was only so much an Earth Stoichi Dakyre could do, and she was determined to put her best into it.

It wasn't a beautiful evening, the wind was whistling aggressively, battering the tree branches and blowing leaves away from their mother trees. The skies were dark with vengeful rain clouds that threatened to unleash it's anger on the air-dried land which was as a result of the long dry season.