After putting Fen to bed Laurence traipsed back to his work room. It was a messy area, but he was at ease here. It had been a long time since there had been anyone in the house apart from Fen, but he was happy to have the company. His work was often a lonely path, but he had to walk it. No matter what he did he still felt responsible for the events that led up to Cleo’s death. The thoughts ran through his head, never leaving, never letting up; if he had been stronger then she would have lived. His weakness had caused her death and he had never forgiven himself. He could not.
All he could really do was work until he had found a way to revive her. He would disregard sleep, shun the world and focus on finding a way to bring her back to life through any means possible. His life had ended with hers, and now he had to revive the both of them. Unfortunately bad came with the good, and while he enjoyed the company of someone he had met during his youth, the feelings of loss that had begun to numb over his time had been torn open once more.
He sat in the near pitch-black room with the first object he had ever truly been proud about. In his hand he held his little bag that had been taken through his entire journey. He smiled wistfully while he stared at the white cloth sack before opening it up and looking inside. For the most part, it was empty. There was a limited amount of space within, and he had long since gained the ability to create far more stable and larger storage spaces, but he had never really forgotten about the bag. It was part of his childhood like a precious toy or a much loved story book. However since he had left it behind had emptied out most of the resources inside and all that was left within were mementos of an older time.
The first thing that fell out of the bag was a leather tunic, hooded with bone reinforcement throughout the entire thing. As he inspected the stitching he had used in the process of making the armour he smiled at the memories of the first floor, finding his brother and the battle against the Orik that had ended with him breaking his arm. Glancing at the metal that had replaced his left arm he wondered what made his arms such a prime target for damage through his journey, before he returned to the armour in his hands. This had been his defensive gear of choice for much of his life, but now he was torn between keeping it and throwing it away. The clothes he wore now were thousands of times more valuable and more durable the Orik tunic could ever be, but it was still a memento of an age past. In the end he put it to the side and grabbed the next object, a pair of small wooden boxes.
The boxes were relatively unimportant when he had first made them, they were simply used to tan the leather that became his armour and his notebook, but their concept had become key to everything in his creative style, culminating with his Manifestation. The two boxes creaked in his hands as he held them tighter, thinking how perhaps if he had not made these boxes he might have taken a different path, one like Yun had. There was a cracking sound and then the boxes shattered into bits as he looked at the splintered wood that now filled his palms. Sighing, he took a deep breath and then tried to calm himself down and throw the shards of wood away into a small bin beside his table. He brushed the excess off his hands before he looked at the next item.
The third memento that he found within the bag was a statuette made of salamandrite, of a young girl laughing with her friends. Laurence could not help but smile at this, it was an object he had carved the day after they had reunited from their unwelcome separation. He had been trying to keep himself calm while everyone spoke around him, so he trueformed a small piece of stone within his hand until it depicted the scene he was witnessing. Cleo was so happy back then... he thought. I miss her...
Putting the statue aside he took out a small book from his bag. He frowned. Of all the things in his bag, this was the only one he had no memory of taking. On the cover of the book was the phrase “Algam’s Fables”, which was a name he remembered with fondness. He flicked open the first page and began reading the short stories within. Each of the stories was a lesson for children, to be kinder, to be careful, to not be prideful, but wrapped up in a friendly animal veneer that made it more easily approachable. It had been his favourite book to read and have read to him when he was barely able to remember anything. The memories that were ushered into being by the book were all warm ones, ones that reminded him that he had family outside of the hole he had dug himself into.
He missed his father and his mother dearly, but he was obsessed with finding an answer to bringing Cleo back. He could not take a break from it for more than a day, else he was terrified he would stop. He could not help but feel that if he took more time off than a single day then he would just lose all motivation, all want to continue and just give up on everything; so he charged on, utterly focussed upon his creation, until one day he could find the answer and see the woman he loved alive once more.He continued to flick through the pages of the book until he got about halfway through when he stopped. Between the pages of the book was a letter, sealed and addressed to him in a script that he did not recognise. Turning the letter over, he broke the wax seal and slowly pulled out the letter. It was on thick paper, and the ink was a rich crimson, but none of that was what shocked him. What shocked him was the first sentence; “To my dearest heart, my baby son Laurence. I’m sorry we will never meet”.
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