"Wha... What do you mean by that???"
Aurelius asked hesitantly, his golden eyes flickering softly.
He took in the terrifying sight of the fifteen-year-old elf sitting in the dirt.
In Melodius's hands was a crude, horrific instrument.
The frame was jagged, freshly harvested bone, strung tight with unnaturally elastic, silver elven hair.
The hidden cave behind the artificial waterfall went dead silent.
The only sound was the heavy, rhythmic crashing of the water veiling them from the overgrown garden outside.
Aurelius was only ten years old.
He had seen the brutality of the Tamaskrit Empire, but this defied the logic of his childish mind.
He knew exactly whose remains those were.
The King and the Queen.
Melodius's expression turned somber for a fleeting second.
He looked down at his trembling, blood-soaked hands.
His vision was literally swimming in red.
Thick droplets of dark blood wept from his pitch-black, void-like eyes, coating the world in a horrifying crimson haze.
He brought the crude bone lyre tightly to his chest, cradling it like a fragile newborn.
"My mama and papa..." Melodius chanted, his voice a broken, psychotic whisper.
"They are mama and papa..."
The air inside the damp cave suddenly grew impossibly heavy.
An invisible, suffocating miasma began to violently ripple outward.
Aurelius froze, his heart hammering desperately against his ribs.
"I... I am sorry. I didn't mean to..." Aurelius stammered, genuinely feeling a bizarre pang of guilt for upsetting the unhinged boy.
"I just didn't understand what you meant," Aurelius lied.
He knew exactly what the lyre was, but survival instinct was overriding his royal pride.
For the very first time in his sheltered, regal childhood, Aurelius was genuinely scared.
"Lies!"
Melodius spat, his head snapping up with sickening speed.
His void-like eyes locked onto Aurelius's golden ones.
"All lies... You knew exactly what this was," Melodius hissed, tilting his head at an impossible, manic angle.
He slowly stuck out his tongue, dragging it across the jagged edge of the bone lyre to lick the fresh blood dripping from it.
The invisible miasma flared aggressively.
The runestones carved deep into the cave walls flickered frantically, glowing bright blue as they struggled to swallow the dark aura.
Aurelius swallowed hard.
The terror was real, but he was still a Prince of Tamaskrit.
"I said I am sorry," Aurelius stated, his voice suddenly firm, dropping the childish tremble.
He straightened his posture, moving with a graceful, aristocratic elegance that stood in absurd contrast to the bloody, terrifying cave.
"I....Aurelius Tamaskrit, Prince of the Tamaskrit Empire, bow in front of you."
With extreme, theatrical dramatic flair, he dropped down to one knee in the dirt.
"Please take this as an apology," Aurelius declared like a royal decree.
He extended both hands forward, presenting the fruit bowl he had carried away from the funeral feast.
The pristine porcelain bowl was piled high with Athervale delicacies—glowing blue moon-berries, sliced golden pears, and ripe, crimson star-apples.
Dead silence.....
The deafening crash of the waterfall seemed to fade entirely into the background.
Melodius abruptly stopped his incoherent chanting.
The suffocating, murderous anger in the air literally vanished.
His mouth opened and closed silently, resembling a very confused, bloody fish out of water.
He stared at the serious face of the kneeling ten-year-old, then down at the colorful plate of fruit, entirely unable to form a coherent sentence.
Aurelius maintained his rigid, kneeling position.
He gulped, awaiting the terrifying elf's reaction.
He could see the absolute disbelief on Melodius's face.
Aurelius was deeply embarrassed by his own silly, desperate stunt, but his royal pride refused to let him break character.
Melodius cycled through a violent cocktail of emotions.
His knuckles turned white as his grip tightened around the bone lyre.
It looked as though he was about to unleash a curse that would make Aurelius's ears bleed.
Instead, a sharp, wheezing sound escaped his lips.
"Pfft—hahahaha!"
An uninhibited, chest-aching laugh echoed wildly through the damp cave, bouncing off the rushing waterfall.
Melodius wheezed breathlessly, completely dropping his terrifying aura to clutch his stomach like an ordinary teenager.
"Oh, Aurelius... You are something else," he managed to gasp out between fits of hysterical laughter.
Aurelius's pale face finally began to burn with a fierce, violent flush of pure embarrassment.
"I am a human!" Aurelius snapped defensively.
He scrambled to his feet, hurriedly smoothing out the wrinkles in his mourning uniform.
"Oh, believe me, you are anything but a mere human," Melodius replied, his laughter gradually subsiding into soft chuckles.
He wiped a drop of blood from his eye.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, it was a tear of actual joy.
He looked at the plate.
"Trying to bribe me with a bowl of fruits from the funeral of my own parents..."
Melodius shook his head slowly.
His expression turned somber, wistful, and filled with something that looked suspiciously like a desperate longing for normalcy.
"Do you really think that I would actually take a bite—"
GRRRRRRUUUMBLE.
Melodius froze.
A loud, echoing growl erupted from his empty stomach.
The heavy, terrifying tension in the cave evaporated instantly.
A faint pink flush crept up beneath the dried blood on Melodius's pale cheeks.
He slowly looked up.
Aurelius was standing over him, looking down with a deliberate, arrogant smirk that clearly screamed,
Fuck off.
"Ahem..." Melodius cleared his throat awkwardly, adjusting his blood-stained collar.
"Well, since you asked so desperately and nicely, I guess I can eat a few bites," he muttered, maintaining his shattered dignity.
He reached out with his bloody fingers and picked up a glowing moon-berry.
He took a small bite.
Then another.
And then... all restraint vanished.
The fruit was gone in seconds.
Melodius ate like a starved, feral animal, aggressively chewing and swallowing even the thick skins of the star-apples.
"It's not like I was hungry or something," he mumbled defensively, his cheeks completely stuffed with food.
"Yeah... That's evident," Aurelius replied sheepishly, watching the massacre of the fruit bowl.
"You definitely aren't gobbling it down like a starved beast. Well, more like a starved ghost," Aurelius noted, truly looking at the frail, emancipated frame of the older boy for the first time.
Melodius ignored the insult, licking the porcelain plate entirely clean before tossing it carelessly into the damp dirt.
A deeply satisfied sigh escaped Melodius's lips.
He flashed a genuine, warm smile, even though his blood-streaked face made it look incredibly creepy.
"Well, I can spare your soul for this once. Come here, sit. I won't kill you... At least, I hope I won't."
He casually plucked a string on the bone lyre, making room on the dirt floor.
Aurelius hesitated for a fraction of a second before giving a sharp nod.
He crossed his legs and sat down in the mud.
Melodius nodded in approval.
The two boys sat in silence, the only sounds being the rushing veil of the waterfall and the gentle, humming ripples of the lyre.
"You... know?" Melodius started, his voice barely a whisper against the water.
"I didn't really expect that you would really come... [.....]."
He murmured a name completely foreign to the young prince.
A name belonging to a life not yet lived.
"Huh? I am not [.....]," Aurelius squinted, thoroughly confused. "I am Aurelius. What are you talking about?"
Melodius blinked, as if snapping out of a trance.
He let out a small, bitter chuckle.
"Yeah... It's nothing. Don't mind it," he sighed, the weight of his curse settling back over his shoulders.
He quickly forced a smile to change the subject.
"Well, why don't you make up for your earlier insolence by singing a song for me while I, Mama, and Papa play the tune?"
"Alright," Aurelius nodded proudly, entirely missing the morbid undertone of the bone lyre.
"I will sing for you as an apology."
"Good boy. At least you accept your fault. Now, sing," Melodius commanded, his fingers finding the silver strings.
Aurelius took a deep breath, puffed out his chest, and began to sing.
Melodius instantly regretted his life decisions.
"Sto... Stop!"
Melodius finally begged, his hands flying off the lyre to cover his pointed ears.
"Stop murdering music!" he pleaded, his void-like eyes wild with genuine distress.
"Huh? Did I make a mistake?" Aurelius asked, stopping his tone-deaf screeching, looking genuinely confused.
"Mistake? No, not at all," Melodius replied dryly, gasping for silence.
Aurelius sighed with relief, puffing his chest back out, before Melodius completely shattered his pride.
"I made the mistake by telling you to sing."
"Hey, that's cruel!" Aurelius protested, his feelings visibly hurt. "Don't you have a human heart?"
Melodius tilted his head, thinking about the literal anatomy of the statement.
"Well, I don't think so."
SHING.
Aurelius instantly drew his hunting dagger, his golden eyes flaring with defensive panic at the confession of a monster.
"Hey! Hey, calm down!" Melodius waved his bloody hands frantically, his terrifying aura completely gone.
"I meant that I don't have a human heart since... I am an elf!"
"Oh... I... see," Aurelius muttered.
He slowly sheathed the dagger, his cheeks burning with a fresh, hot wave of embarrassment.
"Well, try to speak all at once next time," the young prince grumbled, looking away to hide his flushed face.
"Alright, alright, I will try to say it completely next time," Melodius snickered.
"Also, what about—" Aurelius started, his curiosity finally overriding his pride.
He was cut off by the sharp crunch of footsteps outside the waterfall, accompanied by the violent, cracking hiss of static electricity.
"Get back here, you little brat!" Malakor's annoyed voice echoed over the rushing water, chasing the zapping sounds of a young Valerius.
Aurelius froze.
His posture went rigid.
He couldn't let his brothers find him in here with the disgraced, imprisoned prince.
"You should go," Melodius said softly, his voice barely carrying over the water.
"Go, Aurelius. It was nice playing with you," he added, his face filled with a genuine, lonely smile.
Aurelius looked torn between running back to his envoy to avoid trouble, and staying to uncover the mysteries of the boy with the bone lyre.
In the end, logic won. He had to go.
"Alright... It was nice to meet you too," Aurelius said, adjusting his mourning collar. "Even though you are creepy."
Melodius let out a soft, echoing chuckle at the blunt honesty.
Aurelius walked toward the heavy, rushing veil of the waterfall.
Just before stepping through the icy water, he turned back.
His ten-year-old face was an attempted mask of stoicism, but his golden eyes betrayed a deep, conflicted gravity.
"I will come back later. I will remember you when I am older," Aurelius declared formally.
"Since I really want to curse you... but I can't since I am only ten."
Aurelius stepped through the water, disappearing into the overgrown garden, leaving Melodius entirely alone in the damp, dark cave.
Melodius sighed softly, his bloody fingers resting gently against the silver strings of his lyre.
"You won't remember me, Aurelius," he whispered to the empty air.
"The moment you step out of the waterfall... the Runestones will erase all the memory of your encounter."
He plucked Z a single, sorrowful note that vibrated against the wet stone.
"But you did say one thing correctly... That we will meet again."
"A decade later....."