Legacies of light

Arc 1.02

Ten months later

“Do we only exist to suffer?” This is the only thought that goes through my head as I get up from the floor. I can’t keep doing this. It’s been almost two thousand combinations I am about to go insane!

But the worst part is that these fruits are super nutritious. It’s making me healthier. My sense of taste is sharper than it ever was, so I can feel that disgusting aftertaste even more. The only solace I have is the shower I take at times to relieve stress, but the water has no temperature, so it’s just pressure.

Though I have been making some progress on one front, the kid has been staring at me from a closer and closer distance. It’s at the point where the kid can stay in the same room as me, as long as I pretend not to see it.

Still, if I try to start a conversation, it no longer screams but runs away fast, which has stopped any progress beyond this point. It’s almost been a year, and this is all I have to show for it.

Still, with how much healthier I have been getting, I should be able to climb Fimbulwinter for a lot longer, but before that, I would like to figure out what’s going on here and thank the person who saved me.

But all I can do is keep trying. I should finish my daily routine and then head to bed.

-Break-

“Dammit, why is this happening to me,” it’s the middle of the night, and my stomach is grumbling. It seems the food did not sit well today. “I just have to get kicked when I’m down,” I say as I head toward the bathroom as quickly as I can.

When I arrive, I open the door as soon as possible, and I see the child sitting in the toilets, and two thoughts run through my head. First, he’s potty trained.

Honestly, I have been wondering where it’s been reliving itself this entire time, so someone had to teach it. Also, it’s a boy I have been wondering about, but I didn’t feel like stripping a kid.

While these thoughts were true in my mind, the boy was crying, though his hair didn’t turn yellow, so I guess he was not afraid of me. This is an improvement; I think these months have worked on our relationship.

But still, the kid was crying. Then he started saying with tears in his eyes.

“Wolfie, help me!”

Wait, wolfie, “Did you see a wolf? ” I say as I close in on the boy with excitement, but then he starts crying louder with his hair turning yellow.

Crap, I shouldn’t do this. It might make his opinion of me go down, so I say, “Sorry about that, I’ll leave,” but then the food starts coming up. I can’t hold it in, so it all comes out onto the floor.

-Break-

“Well, last night was a disaster”, I say while preparing today’s fruit.

But a new issue has arisen: the boy is further away from me than he was before, so now I have to wow him with my food. So energised by my discoveries, I set out to cook.

1^st Dish taste: piss-covered faeces.

2^nd Dish taste: slime infested by maggots.

“At this rate, I’m about to die from the shock of the taste,” but now, almost dying is commonplace for me.

3^rd dish taste: like a lump of rotting meat leaking snot.

4^th dish taste: it is decent.

It’s decent, it’s decent, it's just fine! The aftertaste is gone. It’s not good, but it’s OK! Average, normal. "WOOOOOOOOOO,” I shout at the top of my lungs.

While I was doing that, the boy also seemed to be jumping with excitement as well, “Finally normal food!” Tears fall from my eyes out of joy as I devour the remains of the food.

“This is what it means to be alive,” I say as I run up and try to hug the kid, but he runs to a safe distance away and looks at me with discontent.

Crap, it seems I overstepped my bounds, but the next step is to woo the kid over with this. But that can wait, time for pleasure. “Time to go to the library!”

-Break-

Now it’s time to start to move on to the next phase of operation- “wait, what the hell did I even call it?” Let’s go with temptation by food, then. I had to get up early to start this before the kid woke up.

So I go to the kitchen and exactly do what I did yesterday and taste it to make sure “yep, it’s average!” There is a part of me that wants to try and improve on the taste, but I will leave that be for now. So now time to lay my trap.

I will leave a bowl of fruit in front of his door, and when he comes out and eats the fruit, stage two will be complete. So when the kid eventually woke up and left his room, the fruit plate was right in front of him.

If there is one thing I have learned from raising children, kids usually don’t think about what they put in their mouths. The boy looks at the food and tries to reach for it, but stops and goes downstairs.

“What the hell? Why is he so cautious? He should’ve stuffed the fruit in his mouth”. Well, to be honest, leaving it is the logical thing to do, but a six-year-old shouldn’t be thinking like that, or does this mean my kids have just lowered my expectations? Nevertheless, I need to figure out a way to get him interested.

The easiest way to tempt people is by showing them how delicious it is. So I set myself up in the kitchen like I’m doing my regular cooking routine, and just as always, the boy comes to watch, then I start.

“Oh, how delicious, I just can’t help myself,” I say as I devour the fruit with a boisterous delight. In the corner of my eye, I can see him drooling with his hair turning cream. I guess cream means hunger, still seeing that I take a piece of the fruit and bring it to the child, saying, “Here, have some.”

Look at me giving away my food, look at this generosity. Aren’t I so completely trustworthy? But still, the kid runs away. Attempt two has failed. All the failures at cooking have made me impatient; I am ending this with the next attempt, do or die.”

“Even doubt it’s late in the night, it doesn’t seem any colder than usual,” I say as I pluck the fruits out. My 3^rd attempt will be to take and hide all the fruits, because without these, the kid will have no other option but to eat my food.

It’s a dishonest strategy, but I don’t feel like being stagnant anymore. I will take the seeds out of them and plant new ones, but those will at least take two weeks to grow, though this plan has one significant issue if I can’t get him to eat my food soon, all this fruit will expire in 5 days since it been plucked, and I can’t refrigerate it since the kid will find it he’s been watching me use it for the past eleven months. So, it’s do or die.

Now it’s morning. He has just woken as he is exiting his room, so let me get on; as usual, I go to do my daily reading, though I guess I don’t have to limit myself anymore since I have nothing else to do, and as always the kid is watching me from a distance like before. This goes on for a while until I hear a large grumble sound. The kid gets up from where he was and runs to what I assume is the back garden.

Usually, the boy would pass out from the aftertaste, and I would go to get him and return him to his bed, but he ran back in as expected, and then he went to the kitchen to check the fridge.

I suspect, “it’s time to go,” I say as I get the plate of fruit I hid, which I had already prepared this morning and head to the kitchen. I see the kid down on his knees holding his stomach while crying. Shit now I feel bad.

But regardless of my feelings, I need to continue forward. So, like a benevolent angel, I bring the plate to the boy and offer it to him. He looks like he is about to pounce on me to get the plate, but then he hesitates.

After seeing this, I set the plate down, took a little piece of the fruit and offered it to the kid with a compassionate smile. Then, after I heard another large grumble, the boy seemed to have given in to his hunger and then took one bite out of my hand; then, his face lit up with his hair turning bright pink, and he began devouring it.

When he finished the little piece I gave him, he started staring at the rest of the bowl and then jumped for it quickly. I took the bowl and moved it over my head. He then tries to climb onto my body. This is the closest he’s ever gotten to me.

It seems the food has made him forget his discomfort. The food I made was just average; has he been this deprived of good food? But I like this result. With this, I can proceed to the next stage of the plan.

“Hey kid, listen if you want more,” I say to him, but he keeps trying to reach for the food, so I repeat it, but he continues, then I say, “LISTEN, OR I WILL EAT IT”, then he stops but his hair turns red, and he stares fiercely at me. As a test, I lower the plate, but his hair changes to lime.

He then tries to jump for the plate, but he’s too slow; I was able to move it away in time, “too slow, brat!”

His hair turns back to white, and he starts crying loudly. “I am feeling extreme nostalgia for when I raised kids,” I say wistfully.

Then I bring the food towards him, hand him a piece of fruit, which causes him to stop crying, since he is busy devouring it.

While this was happening, I told him, “I will give you as much food as you want every day; so come to me when you’re hungry”. Then, after he finished, I got up and used the bowl to lure him to the library so I could read.

Then I give him another piece and repeat this process until he finishes all the fruit. After he finishes eating, he goes back to his usual distance and continues to watch me like always. I have laid the seeds, so I guess now I am back to waiting.

One week later

The process is the same as always, but he has gotten a little closer than usual when reading, and his hair no longer turns yellow when I approach him, so I guess no more fear. I think food did wonders for us.

One week later

When he finishes eating beside me, he doesn’t leave to gain some distance. He stays there looking at me, reading, but if I stare at him, he tries to hide his face, so conversation is still out of the question, but this is progress.

One week later

For the last few days, his hair has been brown. I’ve been wondering what emotion could last for that many days, but I decided to leave it be since he won’t talk. I can’t do anything about it, so I continue our schedule like always.

I wake up, get dressed, prepare the food before the kid wakes up to read, and feed the child the fruit one by one like always, just another day.

While reading, I suddenly got the urge to shit and get up to go, but while walking to the door, I felt two hands on my leg. The boy grabbed me, saying “Whuhtz yohr naim”. He was asking for my name.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I was about to cry; the boy had a panicked look as if I had surprised him. Damn it, I thought to myself I should respond instead of calling, but after all those garbage dishes, all that cooking, all the almost dying, and a year I was so happy to get this far, it seems me and my darling will be having fun until we are both buried by snow, but I should respond to the boy before he gets to spooked. So, I repeat the words he kept rejecting: “Hello, I’m Captivant. What’s your name?”