Edited by: bafflinghaze
Rainier craved colors.
His earliest memories were the blue of his mama’s skirt on a green field with azure skies and miles and miles of white rolling clouds, and the gold of his papa’s buttons in the purple evening, surrounded by the orange-yellow glow of a campfire underneath the black night dotted with the infinite rainbow of stars.
His eyes always followed those colors like a lover following temptation.
Temptation, as Rainier knew it, only led to desire.
Dawn was a sight to behold on the first day of summer. The sky was a swirl of red, pink, orange, and yellow. The clouds painted the canvas with bold fluffy streaks of white.
As a child, Rainier often waited all night, anticipating beauty over the horizon, the leaves turning verdant green, and the silvery wisp of pollen and puffs floating in the air.
His cravings for color turned into lust as he grew.
Color was life.
Vibrant and lovely on every stitch his mama ever made.
He would watch, enraptured, as she embroidered a skirt. Colors made pictures, and these pictures were the most gorgeous things his eyes would feast on.
Color was yearning.
Everyone wanted them when they saw his papa’s wares.
Rainier witnessed the way men and women from all over would bid for the many fabrics his father had to offer. The shimmer of pearly white silk and metallic silver draping from his arms like a holy treasure was akin to the divine clothes worn by the gods themselves.
Color was the world and all that it could offer.
It was the soft fawn brown of a cashmere scarf in winter, the emerald jeweled eyes of a woman known as the Butcher of the Battlefield, the raven feather black hair of two brothers, the northern tundra snow locks of a sister, and the gold of a dandelion field.
Color shared hardship, pain, and joy.
It was freedom.
The hollowness of life without it was like death.
—
Rainier woke up and fell out of bed.
His chest heaved with unspoken panic, breathing in labored pants. He heard Madam Vespera’s war hawks screaming at the top of their lungs while one of the gardeners cursed at them.
There was a scrape near his windows, and he could already tell some of the hawks had flown up to tease the gardeners.
His bedroom was located in the West Wing servants’ quarters. As one of the highest-ranked servants in the West Wing, he had no roommates and was given the tower room, which was larger than most servants’ quarters, and overlooked a nice view of the Western Garden.
The sun had risen into the sky, its rays splashing the ground with a warm light.
What a fine morning.
A nightmare, Madam Vespera’s hawks, and a bruised back.
Rainier got ready for the day ahead.
He donned his pigeon grey uniform, adjusting the coat and buttoning the buttons with deft hands.
Then he opened his dresser with rows and rows of rolled-up ribbons in shades of black and grey, organized by color, material, and opacity.
If this was three months ago, Rainier would have gone for the black cotton. It covered his eyes, and would basically render him blind, but it was safe and familiar, and Young Master Nazareth would not throw anything at him.
Rainier was not blind.
The thought was a constant reassurance to himself.
The Young Master Nazareth might have preferred him to be, but the boy he once knew was gone, and in his place was a man who knew too much and too little and swore he would fix everything wrong with the world.
If Rainier was a man with a pride bigger than himself, he would have claimed he needed no one to fix him–that he didn’t need anyone to save him from the hollowness he felt when the first ribbon was thrown at him.
But he was not a man of pride. He couldn’t eat that.
Mama and papa taught him better than to let a mindset of pride and honor get the best of him.
Rainier only needed color, but that was taken from him long ago by a selfish boy who didn’t know how much he really took from him the day he demanded he cover his eyes.
While his vision remained perfectly fine, it was the shame he felt at the shackles etched into his skin that broke him.
Both freedom and color were taken, and in time, he learned to serve as a blind man, occasionally wearing sheer ribbons, just so he could have a glimpse of the world beyond his personal quarters.
He got used to wearing the ribbons around his eyes. It was better to wear them than to show the world the marred symbol on his face.
Mama and papa would be so disappointed.
On this particular morning, however, Rainier did not reach for any of the black ribbons. He even avoided reaching for the grey ones as well. Instead, he dug out a soft blue cornflower fabric from the very back of the dresser.
The material was a soft silk, thin enough to be near-transparent, and trimmed by intricate white threads on the edges that were near invisible, but pleasant to touch.
Today was going to be a good day…
He thought to himself as he wore the fabric and made his way out.
Thirty seconds later, he nearly tripped on his way down the stairs.
The only downside of living in the tower room was the numerous flights of stairs he needed to climb. The ground floor was four flights down.
He would have almost taken a painful tumble if Eun-Ki, the gardener who was once a shadow guard from the Hangul Kingdom, hadn’t caught him in time.
“You can put me down.”
“Rest. I will bring you to the Eldest Young Master.”
“…”
—
“Rainier–”
Rainier heard the greeting before his Young Master cut himself off.
He pretended not to notice the distinct silence, plastering on the usual smile he knew was artificially charming.
(Not that it actually worked on his Young Master. The man probably believed it was his default expression.)
Despite knowing his Young Master was no longer the Nazareth he once knew, Rainier remained careful.
Old habits died hard, and Rainier sometimes felt like he needed to treat his Young Master with even more respect for being much older.
The morning continued with some blunders on Rainier’s part. He brushed his Young Master’s hair for a minute longer than usual, and he kept fumbling with the other’s cuffs while dressing him.
His Young Master must not have noticed, but Rainier felt ashamed at all the little mistakes he’d been making since he woke up from that awful nightmare.
“I like the new color,” his Young Master finally said as Rainier checked the time on his pocket watch.
He could hear the mix of confusion and painful earnestness in the other’s voice, and he nearly dropped the pocket watch in surprise.
“It was a gift,” he lied… like a liar.
Once again, the room fell quiet.
“… Oh.”
—
Once his Young Master boarded the carriage with Young Master Aurelion and Lady Guinivere, Rainier went back to his Young Master’s bedroom and opened his closet.
As a personal servant, the job of a valet naturally fell on him. Summer was upon them and the clothes in his Young Master’s closet were no longer in season.
—
Before he became a Capable Servant, Rainier was an ordinary valet. Before he was a valet, he’d been a footman. And before becoming a footman, he was some brat from a backwater village in the middle of nowhere, and the village wasn’t even his hometown.
Rainier had no hometown.
His papa was a silk maker and part-time merchant, and his mama was a traveling dressmaker. They wandered the continent and never stayed in one place for too long.
His mama took inspiration from the world around them to create her dresses and coats. She taught him the values of color and the world and life. The beauty of nature’s gifts and the sights they held to the eyes. No ordinary farmer would witness the moon at its largest against the night sky and the constellations right above their heads viewed from the tallest peak of a misty mountain.
His papa knew color like he knew people. Color that enchanted both the common people and people of wealth clamored for his attention. He was an artist in his craft, weaving spider silk from his own spiders and making dyes with flowers and minerals from each corner of the world. He re-envisioned the world in the silk he spun.
Rainier’s parents were followers of Cosmopolitanism. The world was their home, no matter where they were.
He was used to nomadic life. His childhood was filled with unspeakable freedom. Staying in one place for too long often made his feet itch. He couldn’t stand being in a city for longer than a month.
According to his parents, he used to throw constant tantrums whenever the time drew near, and that was usually their signal to leave.
(He suspected they were using him like a calendar of some sort. He was never told off for his monthly tantrums.)
Rainier never had the urge to settle down, to become rooted.
There was an entire world to see beyond the four walls of a house.
Ironic, considering how his life turned out…
He cherished freedom like it was the air he breathed.
Who would have known there would be bandits in those woods? The familiar trail was unknowingly infested with criminals looking for easy picking.
He remembered the cornflower blue of his father’s neckerchief. In death, he still held him close, trying to keep him safe and unknowing of the noises Rainier could hear behind the trees.
His mother was long dead. She was the first to be killed, though entirely by accident according to the bandits. They stabbed her too deeply and she bled out quicker than they intended.
But those beasts still defiled her, nonetheless, making use of her body as much as they could until her dress was in tatters and she was nothing but a rotting corpse.
Rainier pretended to be dead. He felt the way his father’s body cooled.
When night fell and the bandits left with their stolen goods, Rainier crawled out from beneath his father’s corpse and ran. He only took his father’s neckerchief and nothing else but the clothes on his back.
The village he stumbled upon took pity.
He was given to the local seamstress.
Three months later, the bandits were annihilated by Duchess Vespera Odum during her quarterly survey of the Odum Ducal.
She was scheduled to stay at the village to discuss reparation plans due to the bandit issues, and the village threw a celebration feast.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ktfgf kjr ilaaif atf nliijuf mbeiv ulnf atf Gemtfrr yfrlvfr j obbv-oliifv ofjra jcv atf qfia bo j yfjg atf nliijuf tecafgr mjeuta obg wfja.
Ktf rfjwragfrr bgvfgfv tlw ab aegc la lcab j mbja.
“For who?”
“You’ll find out later. Just make sure the design is unique, comfortable, grotesque, and mighty.”
“… Okay.”
Ktf qfia bo atf yfjg kjr ygbkc.
C vffq mtfracea klat jmmfcar bo gfvvlrt jwyfg jcv qjif abooff.
It was a pretty pelt with color that reminded Rainier of the wild, campfire, and stars.
He paid his respect to the bear and began to stitch.
The pelt would become a worthy coat. It would be lovely and mighty, and anyone who wore it would be comforted by the weighty power of its appearance.
Rainier stitched the pelt together.
It would be long, near dragging on the floor if he could help it, with big billowy sleeves and large shoulders. The hood would be edged with wood-carved teeth, sharp like tiny daggers so that no one would forget who the pelt once belonged to.
When all was done, the coat looked mighty, but it was not ugly and horrifying.
His head turned to the spider silk fabric, crumpled in a heap by the corner of the seamstress’ house.
It was all the other villagers could find at the site of the bandit attack besides their bodies.
The pieces of white silk–scraps, really–were covered with bloodstains.
It was the color of violence.
The undoing of innocence.
The black hearts of people who couldn’t see the sun.
Rainier stitched it on.
It was the ugliest coat in the village.
And he only realized Duchess Odum would be wearing it when he saw her approaching him with the bear head hood obscuring her face.
“Boy.”
Rainier felt his knees tremble a little from her terrifying presence, enhanced by the coat she now wore.
“Your Grace?”
“Did you make this coat?”
“Yes… Your Grace.”
The Duchess lifted the hood and all Rainier saw was the emerald green jewels shining in the light with twin fires burning in the backdrop.
“I will be taking him.”
Beside her, the seamstress sighed.
“Of course, you will.”
Rainier was relinquished into the Duchess’ hands.
By evening, he had his meager belongings in his arms and was tossed into the Duchess’ carriage like a bag of turnips.
—
Rainier just finished getting his Young Master’s closet sorted when a passing maidservant, Lorelai, called out to him from the door.
“Rain, Eliza asked me to inform you that the Duchess’ fur needs cleaning. She wore that ghastly thing into the mountains again last week. Gods know how much she loves wearing it to hunt.”
“I’ll clean it tonight. Change it for the deer fur. It will be more comfortable to wear for summer.”
“You got it.”
Lorelai left to do what Rainier requested, her steps light and feathery like a bird, clearly eager to do what she was asked.
Rainier didn’t have the heart to tell her she had three candle holders sticking out of her pocket and a bunch of silverware.
Lorelai was new. She was once part of a notorious gang of thieves and still had kleptomaniac tendencies.
Someone else, most likely Eliza, would break her little heart when they noticed what was in her pockets.
The girl was trying, but she’d been a thief longer. In time, she would learn, but for now, her mistakes would help her grow.
—
“Emotions!”
“I LOVE YOU, GILDE! LET’S ELOPE!”
“YES! ELOPE! LET’S ELOPE!”
“That’s too much. Tone it down.”
Neo wanted to rip his wig off and chuck it at Professor Rickman.
He took a quick glance at Finneas and knew the other was about to throw hands.
“… But it was better than before. Good job, you two. Next scene!”
Now Neo felt warm and bubbly at the praise.
Professor Rickman rarely praised them for anything these days.
The performance of “the century” as many were calling it, was at the end of the week.
The budget for the production became near limitless after that hefty donation from his father. Costumes, wigs, and set designs were on par with professional opera houses.
The thespians out there would be salivating, but the money was wasted on their “privileged asses,” as Finneas once said.
Once everyone heard the Odum Family was throwing money at the school play, other families started to fund it as well.
Their performance would be the first Tragedy of Ohmlet production with light shows and firework displays…
This was their last rehearsal.
All the costumes fit and the technical aspects were polished.
Neo’s and Finneas’s acting was subpar, but they were improving.
It wasn’t good enough for a career in theatre, but will definitely give off “high school theatre production” vibes.
Neo remembered playing trees in primary school, which wasn’t the same, but how different could they be?
Low-budget, awkward kids, and bad light cues.
Basically the same.
“This will be the last rehearsal,” Professor Rickman announced, gathering them on stage. “Go over your lines as many times as you need and invite your friends and family. Odum, please tell your parents I do not have ninety-three extra tickets at my disposal.”
“Yes, Professor,” Neo answered expressionlessly.
He’ll say he tried.
—
After rehearsal, Neo planned to stop by the Magic Tower.
Quill made it a habit to deliver supplies by carrier bird, but the final ingredient he needed for the Slave Emblem was precious and couldn’t be trusted to birds.
When Finneas heard where he was heading, he shoved a lunchbox into his arms.
“That idiot hasn’t gone home in two weeks. Tell him to choke on it.”
“… Okay.”
And off Neo went to the Magic Tower with Finneas’ homemade lunchbox for his beloved older brother.
Pherbian was a man of few words and little presence. Neo had only seen him once or twice at a banquet in the past. After he became the Grand Wizard, which was basically a year from now, he never showed his face in public again.
Neo was a little jealous of Pherbian.
Maybe he’ll try his hand at box lunches during the summer holiday.
Gods know how many outdoor activities the nobles would come up with this season.
The carriage pulled in front of the Magic Tower.
After passing the double-stone lions, Neo donned his visitor pass and made his way to the receptionist.
The woman at the counter smiled politely, “For Charm Master Quill, Lord Odum?”
Neo shook his head, “Can you hand this to Heir Dagon? His brother wanted him to have this.”
The woman didn’t bat an eye and she took the lunchbox, “Certainly.”
The lunchbox was set down on a glowing surface behind the counter where probably all lunchboxes went when families of magicians delivered them.
It soon disappeared in a glow of flashy lights and was most likely on Pherbian’s desk somewhere in the Tower.
“Will that be all, Lord Odum?”
“No, I’m also here to meet Charm Master Quill.”
“Certainly.”
A few minutes later, an escort from the Charm Department made his way over to them.
It was Perseus, Quill’s talkative assistant.
“Lord Nazareth! Horrible timing!” the man said cheerfully, despite his hair an absolute mess and his violet robes looking more rumpled than usual. “Master Quill is a cat, but he’s still got the things you need. Coffee?”
“…”
Neo expressionlessly turned around.
“Tell Quill to deliver–”
“Now don’t be like that, Lord Nazareth! The Master waited all day to see you!”
Did he now…?
Neo thought dubiously.
Or did he just want to fuck with me?
“He’s got his hands on some Drakon Orchids.“
Neo stopped.
Noticing his actions, Perseus renewed his persuasion, “Those are difficult plants to breed, but we located a breeder living in the Cloud Forest of the Lower Continent. Still fresh off the ship, Lord Nazareth.”
Neo turned back and sighed, “Let’s go.”
—
“How’s the coffee?” Quill asked, whiskers twitching.
He was staring at Neo like some lazy cat god, tail swishing in a slow rhythmic movement while laying on his table.
Neo took a sip and was surprised by the taste, “You should meet my personal servant.”
Quill sniffed, “You would sound more sincere if you sat closer.”
Indeed, Neo made sure he was about ten feet away from Quill.
“I’m fine where I am. Where are the orchids?”
Quill made a sound at the back of his throat, a deep rumble that had Neo scooting another few inches back with displeasure.
Quill shot him an offended glare and nodded to a plant pot sitting by the window.
“The final ingredient. Hope you like it.”
Neo donned a pair of gloves and checked the blooms.
Everything looked perfect.
“Satisfied?” Quill asked in a lazy tone.
“I am.”
“Then why are you leaving so quickly?”
“…”
The door closed shut.
Quill snorted. “What a rude brat,” he muttered.
He sat up and licked his paw.
—
His second destination was St. Achilles.
He sent the carriage driver to Sutton’s for flowers while he was at the Magic Tower.
He carried the white lilies and roses in his arms as he made his way over to his Mummy’s grave.
“Mummy,” Neo greeted, resting the flowers in front of the stone and beside the incense pot.
The incense pot lit with a small flame.
—
His Young Master returned later than usual.
“Let’s go to the lab,” his Young Master said without prompting.
In his arm was a strange-looking plant with a weird face on each of the blooms.
Er…
“Do you need me to bring that up?” Rainier asked.
His Young Master handed the pot to him, “Yes. I need to get the rest of the supplies from the Glasshouse. I’ll meet you there.”
He was clearly in a hurry.
Rainier soon found himself standing in the middle of the entrance with the ugliest-looking orchids he had ever seen in his arms.
The sheer blue of his blindfold did nothing to hide the weird mix of colors he could see on the plants.
Huh.
The blooms looked like grinning monkeys.
—
Freedom was a cloud.
White and fluffy against the myriad of colors in the sky.
To be a cloud, free from the shackles of the earth, drifting above the mortal plains and being one with the heavens, was a beautiful dream.
Rainier was not a cloud.
He could no longer drift from one place to another. At most, he was like mist.
Grounded, transparent, with a presence that went unnoticed until he was needed.
“What do you think of this?”
His Young Master showed him the final sketch of the Anti-Slave Emblem.
The lines were soft and curved, with swirls and wispy peaks merging together.
“It’s a cloud.”
His Young Master frowned. He turned the sketch over and stared at it for a few seconds.
“You named it,” he said, his voice barely above a murmur, “let’s call it the Cloud Mark.”
It was a breakthrough, Rainier knew, watching his Young Master transfer the sketch onto a piece of white spider silk.
His heart palpitated with each second as his Young Master worked, activating the fire talisman beneath a pot and bringing the water to a boil.
First went in the Mariagold, then a drop of Goldenrod Serum. After was the powdered Yew, followed by the freshly chopped Gumtree Leaves. Let the mixture brew until the time was right.
“Open the windows.”
Rainier put on the gas mask for his Young Master and donned his own.
His Young Master put his gloves on and uncovered the poisonous ingredients on a separate table.
The extracted liquids he had painstakingly prepared were the first to be combined.
He carefully poured them into the brewing pot, stirring once, then twice, before letting the ingredients mix.
A puff of poisonous fumes bubbled out of the pot, but his Young Master made no move to prevent the brew from bubbling.
If it were anyone else, they would be dead whilst playing around with not even a quarter of the ingredients for the Cloud Mark, but his Young Master was one of a kind.
The masks that were procured from the Magic Tower also served as their lifelines.
Rainier was pretty sure they were risking their lives in this makeshift laboratory, but the nonchalance rolling off his Young Master in waves made him believe this was an everyday occurrence.
The process was still dangerous, but he could fool any layman to think what he was doing wasn’t particularly hard.
The control his Young Master had over his craft, the careful and measured arm, the perfectly diced and crushed ingredients, handled with skilled movements and extreme proficiency.
Some of those plants were dangerous to touch. Others were sensitive to the way they should be prepared. Plants with red in their ledgers should be avoided at all costs.
Unless you were his Young Master.
In which case, “it was free real estate.”
“Step back.”
Rainier did as he was ordered.
His Young Master put the rest of the ingredients into the pot and removed one of his gloves.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled out a glowing string from between his index and middle finger.
The lifeline, or the source of magic, was a raw form of magic most magicians rarely showed when performing magic.
Magic was a code, a work of science and engineering, calculations and formulas, activated by the source of magic from an individual’s body.
Only those who could utilize their bodies like batteries received invitations to the Tower.
His Young Master was not a gifted magician. If he was, he would not be living in the Manor.
But he knew enough to create that horrible Emblem, and he knew enough to make the cure.
His Young Master was not a magician, but he was something else entirely.
The lifeline connected to the mixture like a live electric wire to liquid.
There was a spark.
A fizzle.
His Young Master’s face grew white.
And then there was light.
—
Holy shit that was painful.
Was the first thought Neo had as he dipped a strand of his magic into a boiling pot of what was essentially “poison juice.”
The explosion of light was something he got used to, but the painful sting remained difficult to withstand.
It felt like a throbbing limb stripped of skin and pressed down with salted bandage wraps.
Taking another breath to regain his control, Neo carefully mixed everything together and removed his lifeline.
The pot was now a shimmery mixture of colorful lights and neon vomit.
Neo took a pair of tongs and grabbed the silk talisman with the Cloud Mark on it.
The runes were dried and had a glow that pulsated, awakened by the thrum of energy he sent through the room.
The ink was now an interesting shade of blue that he swore almost reminded him of Rainier’s eyes. While it wasn’t his intention to stain the lines with color, the results were oddly pretty and would fade alongside the Slave Emblem, anyway.
With a quick prayer and a string of spells at the tip of his tongue, Neo lowered the talisman into the pot.
There was a crackle as magic touched magic.
The liquid burbled and some droplets shot out like hot oil.
Neo took a step back and let the talisman do its thing.
Guruguru… guruguru…guruguruguruguru… guruguru…
Toxic vapor rose into the air.
Inside the pot, the liquid was gone and all that was left was the finished product.
The Cloud Mark talisman was steaming at the bottom.
“It’s done.”
Neo suddenly felt out of breath.
It was strange.
“Do you feel that?”
Rainier was behind him, one hand on his shoulder to make sure he wouldn’t fall.
On the walls, the air-purifying talisman activated. The toxic fumes were sucked away quickly.
Neo removed his gas mask. The tingle in his chest continued to grow.
It was inevitable for those who wore the Slave Emblem to feel the presence of the Cloud Mark.
They were the inverse of each other. Like siblings.
The black and white, the white and black, the balance of freedom and shackles, poison and medicine.
It was life and death and cycles, and it was this realization that Neo made the Cloud Mark with every intention of making its purpose the opposite of the Slave Emblem.
No one prototype reacted as strongly as the one they were seeing now.
Even by being in the presence of it, he felt weak.
“This is it. This is the one.”
Neo picked up the talisman and felt a strange sense of elation racing up his spine.
He turned to Rainier, whose expression he couldn’t see due to the blue blindfold he wore. Neo placed the talisman on top of his hand.
“This…” the man slowly took off his blindfold.
The Slave Emblem was still there.
The talisman needed to be applied onto the skin first.
Yet, Rainier was now looking at him as if he was looking at stars for the first time.
As if he was seeing colors again.
It was at this moment Neo realized they were practically holding hands.
He started to let go of the talisman, happy enough to let Rainier play with it, but the other man did not let go.
Rather, he held on tighter to the point the talisman was now crumpled between their hands.
Neo wanted to laugh, in disbelief due to all the protocols they were both knowingly breaking, and in ecstasy, because this moment suddenly meant everything.
The pulse was felt, and the warm palm of a hand slightly larger and more calloused anchored him to that one sensation.
He could not describe the horror he felt at the realization, nor the selfish need to let it happen. The sheer greed in his heart amassed desire. It was temptation and cornflower blue and colors and, and…
Freedom.
Gods take pity on a poor, poor sinner.
Neo broke away and allowed for distance.
He cleared his throat.
“I’ll send the instructions and recipe to Quill for duplicates. I’ll test the first one on myself.”
Neo reached for the talisman, but at the last second, Rainier pulled it away.
“Hey–”
Rainier frowned, “Recover first.”
“What?”
“Your magic capacity is already depleted. This is a complex spell and even magicians need a week to rest.”
“But–”
“The incantation drained you. You need more than a week.”
“Rainier–”
“Please lie down, Young Master.”
The next thing Neo knew, he was in his bed, hair down, and changed into his sleeping robes.
Hovering over him was Rainier with the brightest smile he’d ever seen.
“The sky is still purple,” Neo said, his voice already heavy with exhaustion.
“It’s more of a collision of yellow and scarlet staining the blue to form lilac–”
What?
“–but you will thank me in the morning.”
“Is it pretty?” Neo asked.
“What is?”
“The sky.”
“It is.”
Rainier didn’t leave.
Neo hadn’t dismissed him.
“Let’s go watch it. You mentioned it before. We missed the first day, but midsummer has the second prettiest dawn, right?”
Rainier didn’t answer him straight away. The silence stretched on to the point Neo’s lids grew heavy. Before he completely fell asleep, he thought he heard Rainier say something.
He didn’t know what the sky meant for Rainier, but Neo never dared to contemplate on its supposed beauty.
The sky, for him, was a passage of time. It was the infinite universe beyond everything he knew, and it made him feel small and helpless.
It was beautiful, but it represented the unknowing.
The expansiveness of space and stars, time and constellations mixing into one, the devastation of some universe billions of light years away.
How little he was—something of no importance in the grand scheme of things.
And clouds!
Oh clouds…
Clouds were the first thing Rainier claimed to see on the Anti-Slave Emblem.
Neo only saw the haze–the uncertainty and the oblivion.
He couldn’t voice that, though.
Perhaps it was for the best.
—
Step 40. He thinks of beauty and color, you see the infinite wonders of the unknown. Aren’t the two of you an unexpected pair?
—
Volume I: Spring–END
The author has something to say:
Drakon Orchids are Dracula Orchids. Search ’em up. They’re super cute.
This is the end of the first arc. We shall be going into the Summer Arc real soon once I’ve written the extras. Neo still has a play to perform, remember?
Thank you to Yuu-kun and no<3 for the lovely fanarts! You can find them on the fanart page.
AND, Thank you @Niveggo for the amazing new cover. You can find them on Twitter with the same handle.
New Cover
Yuu-kun
no<3
That was beautiful
Thanks for the chapter! This novel is always missed ❤️ Can’t wait for Reiner to be free!
Beautiful.
Those are interesting orchids. Reminds me of snapdragon seed heads.
😭 the romance that is still so hidden but also not at all, so good!
Thank you (≧▽≦) 💕
Another immensely beautiful chapter.
Ah~ I could never get tired of this.
Thank you Author Clowd~~
Thank you for the chapters!
GOD, how i love this novel… keep the awesome job sweet clowd! And thank you for this chapter 🙂