Makar walked through the crowd, looking at his hand. The piles of people walking through the compact streets were usually a bother to Makar. But not today. Today, he had a far greater thought anxiously pacing through his mind. What did that devilspawn do to him? Will he be in trouble? And who would come for him? The Kingdom or more Aethers? What would they do to him? Why would they want him?

  "Stop." He thought. "Whatever happened back there... I had nothing to do with... I'm sure it will all be fine... It has to be." He reassured himself, not truly sure whether he actually believed in what he was saying to himself. But it was the only comfort that could be afforded at the moment.

  He reached for a small purse attached at his hip, feeling the weight of the coin inside. The crowded streets made it easy for pickpockets. Desperate little rats looking for loot. But Makar felt a strange pity for them whenever he saw them caught. They were only children, put into unfair conditions for the crime of being born. Seeing them being treated so roughly despite their young age, their small puny forms, and their disadvantaged beginnings - it struck his chest. A ball of heavy metal was always placed into his heart whenever he saw it. But what was he to do? He was only human. He had as much freedom as them, even with his mildly more fortunate circumstances.

  Along his journey home, the folk that had once been pushing against him had began to disperse as he came closer to the west edge of town. The homes that once towered over the streets had shrunk, and the stone walls that surrounded him had turned to wood. He could hear the familiar muffled screams of the local brothel. Makar could never understand the noises. Were they passionate? Angry? Even human? As he walked past he saw a clearly ill woman standing outside of the entrance, with her dirtied torn dress, that could tell was once yellow, but had faded with age. It hardly fit her thin form anymore. She smiled at him with her crooked blackened teeth. Makar smiled back with as much politeness as he could for a man as uncomfortable as he was. But he kept walking. Brothels were never something he was interested in. Perhaps an effect from his father, Edgar, who had always told him as a boy that if he ever entered such a place, he'd be cut open and skinned like a lamb - that the whores were witches in disguise. The belief had left Makar years ago. But the fear remained. Maybe it was this sort of reckless language that made Makar afraid of any kind of intimacy. He'd never been with a woman, even at 23 years of age.

  Makar stepped up to the entrance of his home. A small wooden shack, hardly two storeys. The small square windows were dirtied and cracked, filth climbing on the edges and corners. Makar grabbed the handle of the splintering door and entered. The boards creaked under his weight with every step. He looked around the small space and noticed the fire was only dimly lit, a few curled charred pieces of wood still lined with a warm amber glow. He settled his pouch of coins down the wooden table at the centre of the room, the weight was enough to tip the table slightly, the leg sizes without the equal lengths to keep it firmly pressed to the floor. Makar stepped over to the fire, and placed a single thin log on it. He blew a few gentle gusts of breath on the pile, and before long, the heat crawled up the log, dancing up into a greater fire, great enough that Makar could now feel the warmth brushing over his cheeks. It was a sweet reprieve from the biting cold that nipped at his face and fingers.

  After satisfying his desire for warmth long enough, Makar stood up and walked to a staircase behind him. He took each step carefully, feeling the steps bend beneath his weight ever so slightly. Makar never knew if they would ever one day snap. They had always been this way, bending, creaking and splintering. But never breaking, never yielding to the forces applied on them. Makar almost found it admirable, as much as one could admire a set of inanimate wooden steps.

  He finally reached the top and turned to enter a room on his left. Makar hesitated slightly as he moved to grasp the handle. But after a short internal conflict, he pushed the door open. He looked inside the small bedroom. The room was littered with drawings and paintings, canvases covered in art. Some of them with multiples layers of art, reused again and again over time. They were all of the same thing, a fair woman with short white hair and piercing silver eyes. But it was obvious that some were crafted with greater skill. The older works were beautiful, with enough care and prowess that they seemed fit to be placed in a gallery for nobles, at least that was the opinion Makar held. While the newer ones were a twisted abomination on the human mind, the face that once looked fair and elegant was now a mere mirage of humanity. A pretender to what it meant to be human. A fractured mess of colours and abstract thought. Among these works sat a small pitiful man. Edgar, now working on his newest piece of what he called "art." But this one was even more horrid and assaulting work, nothing more could be said for it. It was all a mere reflection of Edgar's mind, just as broken and disturbed as the man behind it was.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Makar walked up to his father, who had not moved since his arrival, not a single sign that he even knew Makar was there. He was a small thin man, his bumpy spine peaking over the back collar of his torn shirt. His hair was long and littered with strands of grey and brown, it hung down around his face, curling around his chin and neck. His cheeks and chin were smeared with a coating for short prickly grey hairs that made his already course skin even rougher to the touch. Makar crouched down next to Edgar, prodding at his shoulder lightly. "Father." He spoke softly. "Have you eaten today?" He looked at Edgar's cold unmoving eyes, whose sole focus was on the work in front of him. "Father." Makar spoke with more firmness now, but with concern at its centre.

  Edgar shrugged slightly, a grunt as his single response. "Needed to work." His voice was quiet but gruff with age and wear.

  Makar huffed with annoyance. This is how Edgar had been for the past few years, only getting worse with time. "Come. You have to eat." Makar grabbed Edgar's arm, gently pulling him up.

  Edgar groaned as he moved, almost like a child but with all the roughness of a man at 80 years of age, despite Edgar only having reached 51 a few months prior. "Did you buy my colours? I need them for my art."

  Makar shook his head slightly in disbelief. "No. I'll buy them for you next time I go to the market." He hurled Edgar's arm over his shoulder to speed up their walk downstairs. Edgar had done such little movement over the past few years that his legs scarcely remembered how to move.

  They shuffled over to the table, Makar placing his father down on a chair. He was so light that his body could force a sound from these boards. Makar walked over to some cupboards and from them, pulled a small plate and a stale loaf of bread, already half eaten. He rips a piece of bread from the loaf and places it in the bowl. He brings it over to Edgar and places the bowl in front of him.

  "Eat." Makar gently commanded. He walked over and sat on the other side of the table, facing Edgar, whose eyes and head still slouched only to the ground. Makar watched his unmoving father, almost a corpse now. "Eat." He pressed more firmness to his tone now. Edgar twitched, as if sparked to life from some divine intervention. But he still remained cold and stiff. Makar huffed with defeat, his head falling, only to be caught by his hands, each of his fingers curling to grip a thick curl of his white hair. Makar was tired of this. HIs father was once someone he could rely on, someone he had looked up to. But the creature before him was not his father. Not truly. He couldn't recall when this thing had replaced the man who raised him. He could only recall the sharp difference between the father he knew from boyhood, and the ratty geezer he saw now. It pained him. But he could not stop himself from holding a deep care for him still.

  "Please. Father." Makar desperately pleaded with the softness only a boy could give. This sparked something in Edgar's eyes, his lid twitching slightly before his pulled his head up. Makar's head was still buried in his hands, but he could hear Edgar eating. He pulled his hands away and saw his father chewing on the stale food before him. A small sigh of relief escaped Makar. His shoulders fell slightly as he relaxed.

  Edgar chewed on the stiff bread, his jaws managing to barely compress and mash the bites into forms that he could safely swallow. "How was work?" HIs voice was quiet and almost unintelligible.

  "It was fine, nothing much-" Makar remembered the Aether. He was so used to the same old day with the same response that he had forgotten all about the creature he had encountered. Edgar noticed Makar's shift.

  "Something... wrong?" Edgar had stopped eating, his curiosity now being the centre of what little energy he had in both mind and body.

  Makar contemplated speaking, telling Edgar about what happened. But something inside of him urged him to keep it to himself. Something deep and instinctual. He shook his head slightly. "No... Nothing. Everything was fine."

  Edgar went back to eat after a mere moment. He lacked enough energy to push the subject further. He accepted Makar's answer.

  Makar looked down at his hand, the worry and the anxiety had returned. Creeping into his heart and mind...