triplets

Part 6

The snow is deceptively white.

Cale knows better than most that beneath the fluffy clouds of frozen water is a dirty landscape stained with blood and death.

He has thoughts like that more and more often lately.

He doesn't care for the pure white substance hiding the solid ground from his line of sight. Lying to him about the ground and making it look like something that it isn't.

He doesn't hate snow. He hates the lie it creates. To the naked eye, it appeared so inviting and innocent, but in truth it was cold.

Cold and just as dirty as the ground hidden beneath.

He'd likely have been more comfortable with the sight if it was stained with blood or viscera, that would certainly feel more honest. Perhaps he would have liked it more if he was within the comfort of his home.

Cale thoughtlessly tapped at the palm of his hand.

There was supposed to be a scar there.

He knew his body ought to be riddled with scars but it was just like the snow. His body lied to him. Presenting smooth baby soft skin that had never been shredded by knife or sword.

It was wrong because he remembered those injuries. Remembered the searing burns as he cauterized his guts so that they wouldn't spill out onto the waiting ground like so many others.

Cale didn't like his body.

He didn't like how his reflection looked like a lie.

And he didn't like the snow that piled up outside the carriage as they rolled along towards their destination.

Penelope and Roksu sat across from him, apparently engrossed in a book as the trio traveled. Their father sat in the carriage just ahead and Cale thought that it was only natural.

His father was busy with important matters. It was already uncharacteristically clingy of him to bring his children with him as he traveled to the capital on official business. Normally the three of them would have been left in the care of the servants while Deruth settled matters as appropriate for a Count.

Cale wondered what he'd thought about the snow last year.

It hadn't annoyed him as much, he was sure. But the hazy memories of being anywhere from two to three years old didn't provide him with very much at all.

Instead of last year his mind provided many years ago and he remembered watching children play in the snow fondly, a bittersweet feeling building up in his gut as he clenched a bottle of alcohol. Their innocent laughing faces growing older and rotting away, like so much gore left to be buried by dancing snowflakes.

He watched them die.

He watched them die because he'd been too weak to protect them.

Because all he would ever be was trash.

Cale looked away from the white horizon and back towards his peaceful siblings.

He knew that Penelope didn't care for the rain but she didn't appear to have any negative feelings towards the snow and Roksu... well, it was getting harder to tell what Roksu felt about anything these days.

He was growing secretive and quiet, even more so than he already was, and it worried Cale.

Something was going on beyond his comprehension and he had just enough sense to know that when things threatened to spiral out of control in such a way, it was the prelude to something far worse.