"..." Her smile froze.
"I had this suspicion for as long as I knew him and I only got more convinced after spending so much time with him on our journey…" He could vividly picture Arlen's golden hair flowing with the wind as he stared at the setting sun.
On multiple occasions would he see Arlen's sad face as he woke up, and every time his eyes would scan the sky for the sun and he would stare at it for a couple of minutes. Cael thought it weird because he would go blind if he stared directly at the sun, but shocked it up to a Hero quirk and nothing more.
However, the promise he made Cael make and his warning to his sister put all those odd scenes together.
If Arlen could foresee events it would make sense.
And so the gears inside of Cael's mind started turning, why didn't he try t o do anything to change his fate? Did he try and fail? Or was this the best possible outcome? An endless number of questions clouded his mind in the time Isolde spent silent.
"Do you know why the High Priest is given the title of Seer?"
"What's up with this roundabout way of speaking?"
'She could've just said yes or no…'
"Just answer my question!" Her cheeks turned slightly pink from embarrassment.
"Sure… They have visions of future events. Are you saying that Arlen is actually a High Priest?"
"Well, yes basically." She tilted her head to the side, a strand of her golden hair falling over her face.
"But I just saw the current High Priestess yesterday, could there be two of them at the same time?"
"While Solenne is called a seer it's because she sees souls not the future. The sun grants a myriad of powers, the ones that get the powers aren't limited to just one–it's actually more likely for someone that already possesses one to get another."
This made sense for Cael as he thought of all the High Priests that healed and foretold.
"You seem to be very knowledgeable."
"The royal library is practically abandoned so I can spend as much time there as I want." She shrugged.
"If Arlen can see the future and even saw his own death why didn't he do anything to change it?"
"Tampering with fate isn't so simple." Her voice turned cold, "Arlen got his first vision when he was a child. He woke up crying one day saying that he saw our father getting sick and everyone surrounding his bed as he slept. We naturally assumed it was just a nightmare but a month later he contracted an unknown illness and his health rapidly declined…"
***
The walls of the mansion had deep cracks all over them, it had been a long time since any attention was paid to them. But little Arlen did not think anything wrong of them because they always looked like that to him.
However something was wrong today.
All the people that he would see moving around the house had suddenly come up to his father's room and all their faces had a sad expression on them.
Even his strong older sister that always smiled had tears well up in her eyes.
The air around him was heavy and the smell was not pleasant, it made it hard for his little lungs to get enough air.
Getting closer to his sister's side, he looked where she was looking. It was his father.
His usually bright face was purple and his green eyes bloodshot, the wrinkles on his face made it seem as if he was double his actual age and the golden hair that was supposed to sit on his head and chin fell on the bed sheets.
It was a picture that he had seen before.
His nightmare became reality.
His eyes clouded and he started crying as he saw his father die for the second time.
Arlen had another dream.
He found himself in a church–the one that he would visit with his father–living there with his sister and some kids around his own age.
Not long after he had that dream, strange men came to the mansion and took both him and his sister to the orphanage.
The kids in the orphanage were nice to Arlen and he made quite a few friends, two of them he had grown very close to Tommy and Ren.
Arlen had another dream.
Tommy was in charge of cleaning the dishes so when Arlen wanted to play with him he would usually go to the kitchen and help him finish his work so they could play faster.
Yet in this dream Tommy wasn't in the kitchen.
Arlen searched for him in any place he could've gone to, but the church wasn't big and before long he had searched everywhere.
And he woke up.
Quickly getting up and running to his bed, he couldn't find him sleeping.
So he searched again, and just like the dream he was nowhere to be found.
Tommy had gone missing.
The dreams didn't stop.
Ren was a troublesome child, getting him to do his share of the shores wasn't easy to do and the sisters had a hard time getting him to follow their instructions.
One sister in particular had a short temper and would always snap at him yelling and cursing him until he would cave in and do what she wanted.
Ren had told Arlen that he didn't like the orphanage and mentioned that the sister would sometimes beat him when no one was looking.
He showed him the bruises on his body and offered for him to join his plan, but Arlen refused.
A day later, he couldn't find Ren and never heard anything about him again.
Finally awake, Arlen went about his day as normal and when Ren gave him the same offer he refused again. But this time he kept an eye on Ren the entire time.
Deep in the dead of night, he heard the rustling of bed sheets coming from Ren's bunk bed.
He sunk out through the window.
Keeping his steps silent Arlen followed him from afar.
"What do you think you're doing little shit?" The sister's voice made both of them freeze.
"N-nothing…" Ren trembled under her fearsome glare.
"I was jus—Ugh!" She punched him in the stomach.
"Do you–Umh! Know–Huu! How musch–Urg! Headaches you caused!?" She punched and kicked the boy as she complained.
Ren's mouth was covered by her hand and his screams could be barely heard.
The sister never stopped.
The complaints lessened with each strike.
But the abuse continued.
And continued.
And continued for a long time…
Arlen's legs shook. His eyes were unfocused as he saw his friend get mercilessly beaten.
Flinching at each of her grunts.
Her arms never stopped until Ren got quiet.
And when he did, the sister simply stood up and dragged him off.
Ren was nowhere to be found after that.
The nightmares never ceased.
They have gotten so numerous that he couldn't get himself to tell his sister about every one of them and started keeping most of them to himself.
He tried to change what happened on his own.
But it didn't work.
He got his sister to help him.
It didn't work.
He even had the sisters get involved.
And nothing seemed to work.
No matter what he tried to do the same event would play out.
Every single time.
Thus he did the only thing he could think of, He didn't sleep.
The bags under his eyes grew and he became paler with each passing day.
His sister pleaded with him to sleep and he listened at first but the nightmares had gotten worse. So he stayed up for as long as he could.
A sister had to step in and cast sleep spells on him every night.
Arlen noticed that dreams only affected the people he was close to, so he had another idea.
To completely isolate himself.
He became cold to the friends he made at the orphanage, even to his sister.
Slowly but surely they grew apart and he thought about less and less.
And to his surprise the nightmares lessened.
***
Isolde's expression changed many times while she told Cael about Arlen's childhood.
"...I couldn't bear seeing him like that, and after many tries I managed to get through to him. And for a long time I was the only person he was close to. He found solace in the fleeting interactions with the cityfolk and kept everyone he had to speak to at arms length." She clutched on her red robe.
"That is until he met you." Turning to him, her green eyes glistened.
"Huh?"
'Why would I be different?'
"No matter how coldly he acted with people he would still have some visions of them. Yet no matter how close you two got, he never had a vision of your future. Moreover, some of his visions changed when you got involved…"
"Why though?" It didn't make sense to Cael.
"I don't know, neither does Arlen. But that didn't matter to him, he found someone he could get close to and even a way to change the outcome of his visions. I think that's why he took you with him to the Worldwound."
"But it ended up the same way regardless…"
'So he took me with him so he could live but I couldn't do anything to save him.'
"Don't make that face, Cael. Arlen wouldn't blame you for not being able to do the impossible."
'I wonder…'
"Anyway, what do you want me to do for you?" Changing the topic, Cael wanted to fulfil his end of the deal.
"I always wanted to meet Cael yet he's hiding his face from me." A mischievous smile appeared on her face.
"..." He turned his face away from hers, "I don't really look like a human, let alone myself."
Isolde shook her head, "It's okay. You shouldn't say such bad things about your face."
His fingers hesitated on the mask's edge.
How many times did he do this? Too many times.
Every time, the same story; shock, disgust, pity.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," he muttered.
Isolde's gentle expression didn't waver as she looked at his charred face. Her smile was as warm as it was when he first saw her.
"Arlen would come home with wounds so bad I fainted the first few times I saw him… He would feel bad then he started hiding them from me and leaving them without treatment. When I found this out I hardened myself and made sure to welcome him home with a smile, no matter how battered and bruised he was." Her smile widened.
"I think it made him feel better. I wonder if it would work for you too?"
"...I don't know about that." Putting the mask back on he stood up.
"You're leaving?" She raised a brow.
"Yeah, but before that Isolde. What would happen to you if the Hero was found to be dead?"
"Ah… Although I'm supposed to be the future queen, I don't think I'm actually considered. I've been married to the prince for more than nine years now, but I only met him thrice."
"What?" Cael knew that their marriage was political but he's treating her as if she doesn't exist.
"I honestly prefer being treated this way. However, not being important to the royal family means that if our link–The Hero–is severed then I would naturally be discarded." Her smile was replaced with a forced one, "You needn't worry. If you get found out, I will figure something out."
"I won't let it happen. And if I somehow fail, I won't let you be."
Dispelling the wind barrier, Cael left the garden.
"...What a peculiar way to show care. Haha…"
The laughter faded, but the warmth it carried stayed.
For a brief moment, it almost felt like Arlen was still alive.