#didn't edit this im rawdogging aphtober what the fuck ever <3

[zenixromeave]

APHTOBER DAY 1: Old and New

Garroth thinks about the 16 years he missed- specifically, Zenix, and the new, young Ro'meave heir.

Garroth gets nauseous thinking about the sixteen years he missed. What comes to mind most of all is Zenix, just a boy– though nearly a man– the last time he had seen him, and now– what?

He would be older than him, now.

Before, he had been too hesitant to call him his son. Too scared– of what, he wasn’t sure– but now, gods above, he would do anything to be able to call him his son. He would do anything to be the father he needed, but now would be too late. Far too late. He wonders if he would even be able to recognize him. He dreams, he prays, that he would– that a father, however distant and reluctant, would always recognize his son.

Garroth had perhaps done a great service to the world by disappearing, by holding his brother back, but he would undo it in a heartbeat, if only to have a second chance– if only to see his son, to be there for him, to not have left him alone.

The second topic to haunt his mind comes too in the form of family.

He was relieved to know his parents had not passed in the time he had been trapped beyond realms, but the other news had let slip accidentally, carelessly.

Garra.

The prefix had associations with the divine– with royalty, with prestige, with gold. It was one he had been gifted with. Many over the years had copied it to pay homage to the throne, but hearing of the young child, endowed with his and his fathers namesake, tore his spirit from his flesh. It embodied the lost time like nothing else.

Garroth and his brothers had been discarded, replaced, forgotten. All their children presumed dead, the rulers of O'khasis had no choice but to produce a new heir.

It was visceral. His parents had started anew. The name bestowed to their firstborn reused, repurposed. He had never imagined the sanctity of his very own name disrupted. Garroth was no longer the name of the Ro’meave son, heir to the throne, firstborn– it was believed he had passed, but still, the name had not been given away. But in his absence, his father had taken his name back, and gifted it to another.

He couldn’t even begin to understand the feeling caused by knowing that he would never be needed again. His mother, in the grief of losing all of her children, year by year, had let him go. She had moved on. She had let him be replaced.

The new child had pale hair with dark, dark roots. The ritual was one he still practiced to this day– staining his hair golden blonde. His father had once shown him how, though he had been unsure then if he was brave enough to take the step forward to look so much like him.

He heard the new heir was a golden, perfect child.