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31_days2005-09-21 11:58 pm
swollenfoot.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-09-21 11:58 pm
[Sept 21] [original] The Room He Lost
Title: The Room He Lost
Day/Theme: September 21 / A secret unlit room
Series: original
Character/Pairing: Adrian, orig chara
Rating: G
11:08pm
It was at one of the higher spires that topped Cair Tara. That was where he truly lost his innocence. People always assumed he had none from the start, as if he had never stayed long in childhood but had suavely sauntered past Freud’s latent stage and into hormone-charged adolescence. But that was just image----the world was a stage and each person has been cast in advance. Wasn’t that how life worked?
But there was a secret room in the stronghold of Those Who Do Not Forget that was not meant to be a secret but had slipped into secrecy because in reality people do forget. Lethe was a world that was barely there in the first place, and some of its less used spaces were spun into the space of other, more dynamic worlds. And because he chose to forget his role that night years ago, because he chose to forgo the duty and burden of being one who had memories, one who carried the memories of his people (subjects, fellowmen—it all meant he, dear adorable Adrian, prince of Kentrona, served them) he couldn’t remember how the room looked like. What he recalled was how the darkness felt, how cold it was that night, how warm Karan was. He had given himself to Karan, really, really meant it, but Karan was not Karan, but a veteran actress who played him as well as he had played others. Hatred was something he was not equipped to deal with—indeed, too dangerous for one with as much power as he—so he decided to forget Karan, and that decision was absolute, for that was the power of Those Who Do Not Forget : they could choose to do otherwise, and abolish a memory or memories in their long reaching, generation-spanning minds.
After Karan, after forgetting, he slipped into a sort of manic quest—or so his siblings pointed out. As if to seek her again, remember some nuance of what he felt for her, he bedded woman after woman. And suddenly, he wanted to remember again. There was a loneliness in oblivion. Pain was a better companion.
But she was never there, though sometimes he sensed ghosts of her in some random girl—and didn’t you know it, they were those he failed to conquer. Later, he realized, that she lingered long to haunt him, because she was essentially non-Lethian, a creature beyond his dominion. Her memory he could never totally banish, and now he learned to live with smelling her smell on his own body. Her master tasked her to get under his skin, and there it was, no matter how many times he bathed, scrubbed his body till it was splotchy red and raw, she was still there.
The Halcyon, the personification of Fate, had a perverted sense of humor, he noticed.
And the room where the betrayal of the woman he loved was sealed? Perhaps, it had been negated when he erased his memory of it. He had never been able to find it again.
(The secret, of course, was that he really was incapable of forgetting. But he was still half-human, and humans had always been interesting little critters. His brain merely misplaced his memories of Karan and that room. Which meant the secret unlit room must be floating somewhere in the infinite reaches of the world of Lethe, waiting for some creature to stumble upon it, as did the memories in his head, waiting for him to face them.)
~11:55pm
A note: Adrian was an original character created originally when I was thirteen. Which was then used a year later for a Yu Yu Hakusho fanfic. =_= Karan’s name wasn’t Karan there, but I can’t remember what right now. Hmm... For those who might raise eyebrows at the choice of the character’s name (and as a reminder to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cea_chan and maybe luckychan), no, I wasn’t going through a narcissistic phase or anything. I just really, really couldn’t think of any other name. (Of course, I *was* 14 when Adrian became his permanent name, so you never know. XD)
Day/Theme: September 21 / A secret unlit room
Series: original
Character/Pairing: Adrian, orig chara
Rating: G
11:08pm
It was at one of the higher spires that topped Cair Tara. That was where he truly lost his innocence. People always assumed he had none from the start, as if he had never stayed long in childhood but had suavely sauntered past Freud’s latent stage and into hormone-charged adolescence. But that was just image----the world was a stage and each person has been cast in advance. Wasn’t that how life worked?
But there was a secret room in the stronghold of Those Who Do Not Forget that was not meant to be a secret but had slipped into secrecy because in reality people do forget. Lethe was a world that was barely there in the first place, and some of its less used spaces were spun into the space of other, more dynamic worlds. And because he chose to forget his role that night years ago, because he chose to forgo the duty and burden of being one who had memories, one who carried the memories of his people (subjects, fellowmen—it all meant he, dear adorable Adrian, prince of Kentrona, served them) he couldn’t remember how the room looked like. What he recalled was how the darkness felt, how cold it was that night, how warm Karan was. He had given himself to Karan, really, really meant it, but Karan was not Karan, but a veteran actress who played him as well as he had played others. Hatred was something he was not equipped to deal with—indeed, too dangerous for one with as much power as he—so he decided to forget Karan, and that decision was absolute, for that was the power of Those Who Do Not Forget : they could choose to do otherwise, and abolish a memory or memories in their long reaching, generation-spanning minds.
After Karan, after forgetting, he slipped into a sort of manic quest—or so his siblings pointed out. As if to seek her again, remember some nuance of what he felt for her, he bedded woman after woman. And suddenly, he wanted to remember again. There was a loneliness in oblivion. Pain was a better companion.
But she was never there, though sometimes he sensed ghosts of her in some random girl—and didn’t you know it, they were those he failed to conquer. Later, he realized, that she lingered long to haunt him, because she was essentially non-Lethian, a creature beyond his dominion. Her memory he could never totally banish, and now he learned to live with smelling her smell on his own body. Her master tasked her to get under his skin, and there it was, no matter how many times he bathed, scrubbed his body till it was splotchy red and raw, she was still there.
The Halcyon, the personification of Fate, had a perverted sense of humor, he noticed.
And the room where the betrayal of the woman he loved was sealed? Perhaps, it had been negated when he erased his memory of it. He had never been able to find it again.
(The secret, of course, was that he really was incapable of forgetting. But he was still half-human, and humans had always been interesting little critters. His brain merely misplaced his memories of Karan and that room. Which meant the secret unlit room must be floating somewhere in the infinite reaches of the world of Lethe, waiting for some creature to stumble upon it, as did the memories in his head, waiting for him to face them.)
~11:55pm
A note: Adrian was an original character created originally when I was thirteen. Which was then used a year later for a Yu Yu Hakusho fanfic. =_= Karan’s name wasn’t Karan there, but I can’t remember what right now. Hmm... For those who might raise eyebrows at the choice of the character’s name (and as a reminder to
cea_chan and maybe luckychan), no, I wasn’t going through a narcissistic phase or anything. I just really, really couldn’t think of any other name. (Of course, I *was* 14 when Adrian became his permanent name, so you never know. XD)