Enter Abyss

Chapter 35; The return journey.

The return journey to the kingdom of shadows was, quite predictably, cold and long and dark.

Archer, now thoroughly worn out from his argument with his mother, was starting to realize that maybe they should have taken a lantern or some food with them. Running off without resupplying had been rather stupid, he realized, but can one really be expected to remember such things when your heart is being torn in two from where you stand?

Sighing, Archer blinked in the unforgiving blackness and wished it had been different. He wished he and his mother hadn't fought, he wished he had stayed with her longer. 

He wished she hadn't left him all those years ago.

It was anticlimactic, he thought, to meet your long lost mother only to find out that she never really care. Not REALLY. She only cared about adventure and freedom-- not Archer's new life or the friends he had already made. She wanted to rip him away from all that and keep him to herself, not realizing that he NEEDED his friends.

That he loved them as much as he loved her.

Vaguely, he felt Galen squeeze his hand in the pitch blackness. "Are you alright?" the young king asked gently, knowing full well that Archer was nearly ready to burst into tears again, but seemingly not wanting to press the matter too much.

And for that, Archer was grateful.

"I'm as well as one can be expected." he replied.

"Do you wish to speak of it?"

"Not particularly."

There was a breath of silence.

"Then again..."

He heard Galen chuckle softly. "Go on."

Archer huffed, "It's like she didn't care. Like she was happy to have me back, but she would have been fine if I'd never come at all. She never once looked for me."

"She thought you were dead."

"And I believed that she wasn't!" Archer burst out, "For years I had a sense that my parents were alive. I knew it somehow-- that was why I came here, to find them. I had never been more sure of anything in my life-- bloody heck, I staked my life and the lives of my friends on it by coming down here. And now that I've found mother, she seems to be..."

"Disappointing?"

"More or less."

Archer heard Galen pause slightly. 

"I think," the king answered after awhile, "That you built up a picture of her in your mind. You imagined her as what you hoped she would be, and when she wasn't, you grew disappointed."

"So it's my fault?"

"By no means. She simply needs time. It's a lot for her, you must understand."

Archer frowned, not feeling any better as they walked through the darkness. And though he was beginning to wish that he had never met his mother, he knew it would have had to happen eventually if he wanted to ever be sane about the whole ordeal. But as he continued to think on it, he realized that perhaps, for the time being, it would be best to simply forget about her.

They had more important things to worry about, after all.

"Gale," he said suddenly, "Why did you choose to go back now? Of all times?"

He could practically feel the king shrug his slender shoulders. "I felt a presence calling to me in a way. I know I cannot let my people suffer at the hands of my brother, and I know I must take action. But there was a voice calling to me as I slept, saying that I had to go back. Thus, here we are."