Chapter 216 The Hope of a Boy (1/2)
The new buds of Spring had broken through the frost of winter. Though the nights were still cold, for the first time in a long time, Rassa couldn't bring himself to care about what happened during the darkest part of the day. Instead he stood by candles and torches and wood oven fires. Smiling with his parents on some nights and his friends on others.
He found time passing him by. The rhythm of work and the warmth in his heart seeing and interacting with his home as he used to allowing him to push any worries of his life outside of the illusion aside. The illusion in fact was becoming more real to him than his life outside. Still, it was in those deep nights, when the candles were doused and the fire had burned out that Rassa found his mind drifting elsewhere. Where he found himself in his dreams were memories of what he was. Of what he would always be. The reminder, where at first it had grounded him and made him determined to find a way out faster, it now turned into resentment.
He wanted no part in the pain and blood lust that had ruled his life before. He just wanted peace. He just wanted to be free of the burdens that had been placed on him so long ago just because they'd thought his will was strong enough. His will? How was will enough to get past all that he had been through. To face it and tell himself that this was his life, that it always would be.
So one night, Rassa decided not to douse the candle by his bedside. He would let light lead him to his peace, not the shadow that had always ruled his life. Only then, much to his disgust and increasing frustration, he couldn't sleep.
Taking the candle with him, Rassa walked down the streets, out towards the orchard then over to the lake. Surai sat there, waiting for him as she stared out over the water.
”I've made my decision,” Rassa said.
Surai didn't look at him, practically ignoring him.
”Surai, I-”
”Yes, I heard you,” she replied, ”I also wouldn't say you have”.
Rassa frowned, ”I'm not going back there. To all that pain, both mine and that of others. It's not how I want to live my life. It is too big of a burden. I would rather stay here”.
”Would you?” asked Surai, turning to look at him, then her eyes flicked to the candle, ”I think you're just clutching onto the hopes of a boy. I told you to pick between the man and the monster. Not the boy and the burdens”.
”You sound like you're the one who has made the rules when you said this was my choice,” said Rassa.
”And you are making it by my power,” Surai snapped back, ”I told you to prove to me that you were confident in your choice. That it was absolute and that you'd never go back on it. You have yet to do that”.
”I have too, I have accepted this life,” Rassa insisted.
”Then what is the reason you're carrying that candle, Rassa?” asked Surai.
Rassa blanched, unprepared for the question as his gaze flickered down to the flame.