The young lord Stan · ❀ [ON HIATUS]

Chapter 12

Edel had gone to visit someone.

In the cold, dirty prison, stayed Venion Stan: once a feared noble across the Roan Kingdom for his status and what he did to his older brother.

But now... he's gone mad.

---

Edel remembers. When he was 13, Venion once asked him a simple question:

"Don't you have any greed?" 

His eyes were full of a mix of exhaustion, envy, and fury.

"I do possess this quality, Hyung-nim. My greed is to live peacefully with you and everyone else in this house."

"Heh. Of course. You'd think about useless things like this..."

At that time Venion had already tortured the newly-born dragon for a year.

He is insecure though he hides it well. Venion would never admit that he...cared for his little brother. Their mother never took care of her children. They were raised by maids. Then thrown into a non-ending war to become the future Marquis. 

It was crude, ruthless. Only the strongest would survive. But Venion had no desire to change this cruel family tradition. Perhaps because if he'd been successful...it meant that he fought very dirtily. And at that point, everyone would have been already dead.

Edel was a beaming sun when he was born: always smiling and oddly silent since the first weeks of his life.

How could someone like him survive in this harsh environment?

Sometimes Venion wished that he could die by Edel's hands. Or keep him alive somehow and live happily for eternity. 

There was actually no eternity for them.

Neither for anyone nor anything.

---

"Hyung-nim..." Edel whispered when he saw his brother's condition. No evidence of physical torture yet Venion seems to have crossed the last round of Hell.

"...it's all the dragon's fault..."

When Edel approached cautiously him, Venion suddenly cast a deadly glare at him and then

"YOU! YOU USELESS- IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" Venion started to spout every profanity.

Edel Stan's POV

He berated me to no end.

"YOU JUST HAD TO DIE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!!"

There was nothing reasonable about his abusive words.

But

they struck a bitter chord in my heart.

"I-I shouldn't even have saved you from that foolish woman..."

!!! 

My eyes widened

"Just die already..."

End POV

Right now, Edel's brain was full of sorrow and confusion.

"A dragon...a foolish woman..."

Venion once said: "Weaklings can't pick their way of death."

"Greed..."

If not wanting others to decide how you'll die was greed, Edel would be the greediest.

Edel wished for impossible things: Stan's siblings getting along; curing his crippled brother, and possibly curing every sick person in the whole world. 

But most importantly live as he wishes and possibly dies as he wishes.

"If you are not greedy, are you still a mortal?" 

So Edel won't be a weakling. 

"I won't be weak then, Hyung-nim."

"Heh," it was a laugh full of mockery but it contained a little trace of fondness "So much barking without biting...show me then. And don't go back on your word." 

"Never."

Edel promised, but silently made another vow.

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A.N.

Edel is so Lana-coded :').