Of Shattered hands and hidden hearts

CH 1: to have and yet have lost

A/N: I'm sorry in advance to any person who actually has trauma and/or PTSD. I don't, so, this is just my best attempt at showing it. I tried to make it realistic, but it might still be bad.

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Alternate title: Aristle be a sad boy and trauma adds character

The boy woke up with a gasp. His whole body was shaking and he was struggling to breathe. His hand grabbed his neck and an expression of shock came over his face. He looked around the room in wonder and then looked at his own hands. A short understanding passed over his face before he broke down crying.

I did not know what to feel. Was I supposed to feel happy, elated? I had just done the impossible, and came back in time. Or perhaps an alternative reality. But I had escaped my death. I guess I should be overjoyed. However, I did not feel any of those things. After the initial shock had been worn down with my tears I had simply floated in being for a few hours. Eventually, the sun rose behind my curtains. Soon after, a knock sounded on the door. A maid with dark hair bouncing behind her bustled into the room. She stopped short at seeing him awake.

"Young master? Were you already awake?"
Then she saw his tear stained face
"Young master?! What happened?!"
Oh, that was Mira, his nanny/maid when he was younger. There was a strange sort of nostalgia seeing her.

After all, she had already been murdered when he was 15.

"Young master?!" He flinched. Ah, he forgot she was there. Was she even here?

"Are you real, Mira?"

She frowned, "of course I am real, young master."

Understanding dawned on her face a moment later. "Perhaps, did you have a nightmare?" 

He nodded absently. Mira still looked the same. Or maybe she didn't, he couldn't be sure. But he thought that her green eyes still looked the same as they did when he was a child. And her black dress and her brown curls and her face too.

A cloth began to wipe at his face.  Mira had started talking sometime when he was still observing her.

"–if you ever feel the need to, you can talk to me about anything. You don't need to keep your sadness to yourself. Her Grace was your mother and no one would fault you for crying on her death anniversary, even if it's already been 5 years. So please don't be hard on yourself young master."

Oh so he was fourteen. Of course, Mira was wearing black so today must be the day mother died.

A thought struck him, Mother was dead again.
Mother was a special sort of existence to him. Ever since her death, he had wanted to talk to her just one last time. However, she had died and it was impossible to fulfill this wish. And now, even after he has traveled back in time, he wouldn't be able to see her.He accepted this fact with grim understanding. After all, it was just an impossible wish of a selfish child.

Perhaps an hour later, he stood before the mirror, dressed in a dark blue suit with golden trim and wondered how different it felt to the prison clothes he had worn for the past year. The shirt he was wearing was soft and carefully woven, nothing like the patched up blue shirt of prisons. Then again, it would obviously be different, he was no longer a convict, at least not yet. He offhandedly wondered if things would go the way they did earlier.

They started walking.
In the novels he had read in secret, the protagonist who transmigrated back in time, hid themselves, gathered Allied, took revenge and had a heartwarming romance with the male lead.

But he wasn't a protagonist, he was just a stupid, idiotic b–
No, he wasn't going there.
(It didn't make them any less true)

It was only when Mira grabbed him to stop him from hitting the door that he stopped walking. He looked up at the gold encrusted door and then at Mira, who was making an expression mix of sadness and pity.

For a second bitterness rose in him. He did not want her pity. But then mira's brown face turned pale as dust and the red that stained his suit and her gown came into his mind and the fire just vanished. As if it was never there.

It was after looking at her face that he decided that perhaps, just perhaps, he would try once again.

Mira nudged him. "go on, they're all waiting for you."
Aristle walked inside.

Aristle's father was always smiling. Today too, he offered him a smile, just like he used to do every day after his mother died. But now he could see the fragility of that smile, the way it curled too tight on his father's face. 

Duke Archemd Dio charmase was a man of smiles and he won't remove it even in grief. Before,... Before everything (before he was betrayed, before he became the betrayer, before he lost every single happy thing in his life) there was only once that he had seen his father without a smile for long, and it was when mother died.
(He ignored the fact that his father was never seen with a smile after that happened)

He could see now for what it was, a cloak, a cover to hide his weakness and his weapons. It was a cloak to reassure his children and to warn his enemies. He'd always intended for-

–sitle, Aristle?" The voice shocked him out of his thoughts. The warmth caught him off guard. How long had it been since he heard this voice with such warmth instead of the cold and sharpness?

"Ah, my apologies father, I simply got lost in thought." There was a weird expression on his father's face, but he paid it no mind, instead taking his place on his father's left. The seat was larger than he remembered. The table too
Oh, of course, he was younger now.

His gaze caught on the empty seat across him. Mother always used to sit on father's right. Her chair remained empty as long as his life continued.

Something in him ached, like an old wound in the winters. It ached and he couldn't do anything but turn his gaze away and ignore it.

Instead he looked at his elder brother, sitting beside mother's seat. They shared the same ice blue eyes as his father, but that was where the similarities ended. His brother had mother's bright blond hair while he had his father's brown hair. His straight and tame, while his were a straighter mess of curls.

And he was so much better than him.

Pytha was like a fiery fire, he burned so bright and always drew people to him. He was warm but also dangerous for anyone who dared to play with him. He was loud and reckless and so, so much more alive than Aristle. He was everything that Aristle couldn't be but would always want to be.

"Ari? You okay?" Perhaps it was the concern, the softness that his brother only reserves for him, or the nickname that he hadn't heard in years or perhaps it was just the sight of his face, so young, mixed with grief but still so strong that made Aristle breath hitch, a sob breaking through him. He insistedly wiped at his eyes, "i think something went in my eye"

"Oh Aristle" he flinched as his father's arms encircled him and he could feel his brother's hands on his shoulders.

they're hugging him (it's too restricting)
They cared. (They wouldn't if they knew what they had done)
He, He would make it fine, he wouldn't let it end up like that again (He would, he wants to, wants to let it end the same way, instead of trying again)
The hands on him feel too restricting, too much. He struggles in them until they let him go.
He needs to get out
He need to get out
His eyes lock on the window, and he doesn't spare anything a glance as he runs to it and defenestrates himself out of it.

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Sooo *Wiggle eyebrows*
How was it?

Please vote or comment if you wanna cuz they make my whole day

On another note, please tell me if i need to add any TW.

Hope everyone has a great day and night