[TM] 224: Mad

It's not a question of if, he thinks, nor even one of "when." It's not a question at all, not anymore. It might have been, at one point, up for debate. His plans, his thoughts, his questionable tactics. They all had the epithet thrown at him, hurled into his face with horror and derision both by children who knew no better. He would have said, then, that he was the only one of them not mad, the only one with the clarity of vision needed to do what must be done. But from their oh-so-limited viewpoints, that had pushed him into an inhuman insanity that slipped out of the cracks of his psyche until he could no longer truly be like them. That much, at least, was true. Part of them, one of them, yet always set apart solely by that gap of agelessness that clung to his cells, but showed mostly in his eyes. What he had seen, they could not imagine, not truly. It was words on a page to them, distorted by time and the imposed viewpoint of those that shape the past into the vision they wanted it to bed. He was there; he knew. And he knew that most people didn't want the truth.

Trivial, now. Unimportant to the discussion at hand. Perhaps it had always been so. Perhaps the human mind was not meant to hold the things in his, except that if it was not meant, then what was he? An evolution of body that mind had yet to catch up to? But he would have sworn, then, that it was experience that spoke, words sliding from his mouth in a cold, hard sanity that challenged the delusions that fed the others. Now, caught between pain and death that would not come and everlasting boredom, an animal in a cage with a window facing out and cameras that gave him not even the barest privacy for his most intimate needs, talking to those who came and went with less and less hope of a response, he felt the flickers of doubt enter, twisting in his gut like a frozen hand that reached inside and grabbed hold. For the first time the small thought pushed itself into his consciousness, and though some would say that asking it was the first sign that perhaps he wasn't what he feared, he dismissed that direction and felt the fear of the possible grab hold, four little words echoing around and around in his head.

Perhaps they were right.

[TM] 225: Without words

"Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?" -- Marcel Marceau

1748

He was so small. Tiny and helpless. The midwife placed the bundle in his arms beaming. "You have a son, sir." A son. An heir. Something in this world that was truly his, of him, blood of his blood, for the first time in nearly a century. Helene had borne him no children in their twenty years of marriage. All stillborn or miscarried before they even had form. But this tiny bundle was staring at him with wide eyes, looking like it might scream its fury at being pulled into this world. He couldn't really blame it.

The midwife hovered, clearly not trusting the male with such a precious burden. "Your wife did well, sir, and is resting."

He nodded and moved to the window in the room he'd waited in, listening to her scream, fear slicing through him and horror at the mysteries of the childbirth chamber. Now it was quiet, save for the snuffling sounds. The midwife followed, almost reaching to take the baby back, but he dismissed her with a glance from eyes already too old for his face.

The evening sun filtered through the colored glass of the window in shades of red and orange and green, mottling over the skin of the child. He swallowed, feeling a lump catch in his throat. It felt almost dangerous to hold the babe with one arm, to reach a wondering hand to brush his cheek with a single fingertip. Tiny arms escaped the swaddling, waving in either protest or to catch the finger to bring it closer, without knowing how. He smiled, just a touch, wondering why the child seemed blurry until he realized he was viewing it through a film of tears. He tried to think of something to say, to murmur to the child, to name him, to welcome him, to bless him. Anything at all, but nothing came. Instead he sat down in the window seat, held the small body close to his, and just stared as the sun set and the shadows swept the room.

[EM] April Prompt

We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. -Stephen Vincent Benet

He can look back now and see all the places, the twists and turns where they all got off track. Beyond his ideas, Linderman's, Angela's and Arthur's, the hubris of the entire group of them shines through the shadows of the centuries. Observing the Company, the parts of them that are in the vault, in the files, in the memories of the surviving members, almost hurts. Whatever form it took, they had come together with the best of intentions to save the world. They had power, they were chosen, they were special. All of them, each in their own way. He had chosen them carefully for what they brought, the gifts they had to share. Disciples, children, friends, each. He remembers the early meetings, intense, faces alight with passion as they discussed plans, ideas, tossed around solutions to the world's various problems. Why would they have such power, if not to use it?

Only here they are, now, with this. It doesn't matter, really, what their intentions had been to start or how they had clashed. There is only the result. Thirty years of imprisonment, of torture, for Adam. Only three of the twelve left, and one of those incapacitated, caught in a nightmare of his own making. Reviled by their children, a generation of heroes ready to rise against them. Somewhere they had all gone wrong, and Adam knows he cannot fully take the blame. He was gone, not influencing them for three decades. What the Company has become is nothing he ever envisioned. They fractured themselves and it, and the intentions that had pulled them all to each other.

It hurts in ways he won't admit, to turn on what was his brainchild, the thing he tried to change the world with. But what it has become is not something that can be allowed to remain. It's a hydra with many heads, twisting throughout the world, but his new goal, his new driving force is to see it gone, his mistake wiped clean.

Only then can he really start again.

359 words

[FM] April Topic -- "Simple Kind of Life" -- No Doubt

For a long time I was in love
Not only in love, I was obsessed

It chased him across centuries, always there in the back of his mind. Through wives and lovers and times alone, it lingered. He named it once in a moment of weakness, drunk in a tavern in some port town, spilling out his secrets to the whore on his lap. Named it with a curse, a lash of fury that put fear in her eyes. Perhaps if he'd aged like other men, caught in one time like he was supposed to be, he would have let it go with a bitter regret for a chance lost, a moment betrayed. He tried, with Helene, to build a life, to move on, to be part of the world like anyone else. But the face in the mirror did not change and when it occurred to him that he was not aging, through the fear and the horror came one small thought.

He could see him again.

It flooded back then, bile in his throat, ache in his heart, hatred that could only come when it was the other side of love. Betrayal only scars when the betrayer was beloved, and it was a lesson he learned well as the years pass and the scar deepened with the knowledge that with every breath he was drawing nearer to the time of reckoning. It haunted his dreams. Oh, there were times it would lie dormant, quieted. When he held his sons, when he laughed with his wife. For nearly 70 years, held in Angelica's arms, he barely thought of him at all except as a passing memory. Love healed some wounds, the surface edges.

But the scar remained.

The time drew nearer, years passing by. The man who called him friend, he was sure, was the man who would bring forth the boy who had done the same. And when the father followed in the son's footsteps, he was not truly surprised. Fury flared again, though, wounds reopening and bleeding fresh blood as the circle drew to its close, the completion, the fulfillment of a promise snarled in anger in a burning tent.

Yet, when it came, somehow it still surprised him. Blood on his hands, flooding a street. Shattered eyes, a sword on the floor, a boy in his way, saddened, broken. Past and future collided and crushed the centuries in between. Love and hatred battled fiercely, and he was left bereft, staring, and not knowing if one would ever truly win or if he would ever truly be free.