10 Prayer For Loving Winter
Amongst the jolly souls within the crypt of the damned, rose the fiery flicker, a prayer from the lost for the dead.
Melody of bells tangled with one another, connecting, and bringing the peace of mind to the unholy demons within that night.
"A little bit to the left, Lothair!" the mother shouted from her wheelchair.
"Uuuh!"
The small lothair was held above his father's shoulders.
"Take your time, my boy!"
The dark sky was accompanied with the beaming red moon, gazing upon the joyous offering presented to nobody but the family who erected the pillar of their hopeful future. Yes, the name 'X-mas' doesn't really bear many meaning to the demon, for only the old-age reference and beliefs survived to be preserved as a yearly inherited culture for the participants.
All the demons know is that they must erect a tall medium, decorate them, and be grateful of their past while hoping for a better future that awaits their journey in life. It was a simple event, with a simple yet harmless message.
However, within many Nether Countries in the Baha Continents, this culture tends to be frowned upon as many see it as an unnecessary thing that weakens the mind and body of a demon. Some even showed their bold hatred for it, to the point of razing any town and village that practice this act.
"Papa!" The small Lothair shouted energetically as he pointed his index to the peak of his family pole. "We don't put any starfish?? We put the starfish last year!"
"Ah, you remember the starfish."
"It looks wrong without the starfish!"
"You see, Lothair. The starfish comes from the sea. Usually, we search for one in fall. Now winter has arrived, so we can't search for any starfish."
"Uuuuh."
"Ah!" The mother struck a clap to get their attention. "How about we make our own starfish?"
"Uuooooh!"
"You mean like woodcraft?" The father tilted his head.
"I want to make one! I want to make one!"
"You want to make one, can you even carve wood?"
"If Lothair really wants to do it, why don't we look for a 'Cassipin' flower?" The mother raised his index. "All you need to do is to trim excess hard petals and it to form the shape of a star. Not to mention, there are abundant of them in the woods down south."
"Alright, Lothair, let's find some Cassipin!"
"No!" The small Lothair slinked away from his father's shoulder before walking towards the front of both of his parents with an 'X' gestured arms. "This will be my starfish, I'll search for the Cassavin flower on my own!"
"Uurgh, do you know what a Cassapin looks like?"
"Cassavin remembered! Big beautiful flowers the size of papa's back with many many many stiff scale-like spreading petals!"
"I don't recall you seeing one before…"
"Two years ago! Papa took me for a walk in the forest! The one where mama scolded papa for not notifying first!"
"Wow, our son's memory is incredible." The mother placed her hands in front of her mouth as she gasped in surprise.
"Searching for Cassapin alone, huh."
The father was hesitant as he turned to his wife for opinion. The wife nodded with a smile.
"There weren't any beasts in the woods of the south when the winter took a visit, it might also be a good stimulation of adventure for his age."
"I guess you're right." The father sighed as he caressed the back of his neck, still feeling the weight of worry for his energetic yet vulnerable son. "There will be a day where he will replace me as the leader of the tribe."
The mother gave her son a confirming thumbs up.
"Yay!"
The small Lothair sprinted away across the snow like a storm.
His silver fur winter clothing fluttered by the wind.
A smile so innocent and free.
"The last direction that papa took… is there!"
He had nothing but his connection with his family.
"Wooah! So much snow above the trees!"
And he wanted nothing more.
"Huh, this path looked a little bit different than last time."
It had been, it still was, held tightly dear to him.
"And then left, and then right!"
Why should he begrudge it? Since during the hours when his joy crushed the depths of his pain-
"Uhm, this one is a no-no."
It was seated there beside him?
"This one is too big for me to carry!"
O Winter, he has ended, you see, by respecting you, because he were certain you will never leave him.
"Then again, maybe both of them will be proud if I bring back the bigger one, huehue."
Ah! He should have realized that your beauty lies in the force of your being.
"Mmmh, maybe I should just form it into a star shape right, so that it will be less heavy when I carry it back home!"
You are like those who never left the warmth corner of his poor white heart.
"Done! Now let's go back home."
O his Winter, you are better than a well-beloved.
"Papa! Mama! I have made our starfish!"
Because he knew that on the day of his final agony.
"Papa…? Mama…? Where is my home?
You will be there, warming him in his sheets.
O winter.
"Mr. Watcher! Huff, huff... Mr. Farmer! Aah, ah… Mr. Builder!? Haa, haa… Why is everybody gone?"
So that you might once again attempt to enter his heart.
"Why is there 'nothing' here?" Lothair stood in the middle of a large empty space where his village was formerly located. He scratched his head, searching for an idea, a concept he hadn't learned, something to solve his predicament. "Uuuuh, what is happening…"
With a determined face, he then went back to the forest with closed eyes and to the village again, expecting that all the houses and the demons were hiding and would reappear in his sight.
"I'm back!"
Nothing happened.
"Uuuuh, this isn't funny…"
He then remembered what his father was saying.
"That's right!" He struck his other palm with the bottom of his knuckle like a hammer, letting the Cassipin flower fell to the flat snowless soil. "Papa said that he wanted to make a mansion for the three of us to live in! Maybe they are gone somewhere for a vacation, and then come back to build the mansion!"
It was ridiculously overstretched, but to the small Lothair, that dumb revelation was his strongest beacon of hope before his whole soul crushed the depth of his heart.
That undying torch of hope was the main motivation for him to survive alone in the winter, scrapping anything that is edible, moldable, and useable for his daily life.
He waited.
Spring then arrived.
He waited.
Summer then arrived.
He waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Years already went by.
And the whole village still hasn't returned.
"What took them so long, I wonder…"
Lothair, who had just gone up to be 7 years old, began to contemplate his own existence in front of his mini X-mas pole, decorated with only a single wilted star-shaped Cassipin on top of it.
"What if they never come back..."
He remembered how his tired and stressed father became joyous again after he revealed that he could do magic.
He then began to think.
Maybe their parents will 'look' back once more if he did something amazing for them
"Mmmhmm. Maybe mama and papa will be back faster if I'm able to build the mansion for them."
On the seat of his improvised tree house, the small Lothair jumped up and down in excitement, seeing how great it would be when he presented the tall mansion to his parents when they were back.
After his fated Winter took a leave for another reunion in the future, he enacted his 'amazing' plan.
He began building the 'mansion' from the ground up. While repeatedly insisting in his head that both of his parents were still alive, and would return to live in the mansion together. Despite not having the knowledge on how to build a simple ground structure like a house, nor having any proper professional tool, he used his conceptually made-up equipment that he crafted in his tiring day of survival. His rusty tools he uses to build his easily worn-down tree house.
"Hmmhmm, I'll just learn on the way."
He was collecting stone and clay using his own version of wheelbarrow that was once used by the villagers.
Days and night, he began painstakingly stacking them piece by piece.
A normal demon would never think that he would be successful in creating this dream mansion of his, even small Lothair himself sometimes cry alone as he tried to wash he waited for his broken arms and scrapped palm to regenerate back.
He was grateful that he didn't have to rest as his pain and fatigue could be regained by simply consuming the most bland of edibles he could find. His heart and mind however, did become weary twice as quickly, but the optimistic thought of having to see his family again made him steeled his spine to work for more.
Then, in a mere 3 years, after countless setbacks and torture to his mind and body.
He finally completed the roof for his 10 floor mansion-like building.
It was crude, and not even really something that one would call a mansion.
But it was his first mansion, and something that he was very proud of.
Yet, his parents never came back to see it, nor do they ask to live with Lothair together there.
"Huh, I didn't remember that there is this large turd-like structure around this area?"
"You're probably joking, dude. As if something as big as that ugly piece of shit appeared out of nowhere."
"I went to this area three years ago! I fully remember that there is only a wide empty land here!"
"Hey, isn't this one the result of the Overlords conflict that happened four years ago?"
"Yeah, now that you mentioned it, there is that incident where a ton of cities and mountains got completely turned into a flat ground."
"Regardless, let's just steer away from this area. That building gave me the creep."
The group of traveling demons rerouted, leaving the whimpering child near the bush to cry his heart out.
"I trusted you… O Winter."
Even after bawling his eyes for ten hours, his disappointment still lingered like a molten lava. With his heart torn into endless pieces, he ran, and ran into his 'mansion', before taking a piece of sharp bar of wood lying around and aimed it on his chest.
"I trusted you! Give my parents back to me!" His grip tightened, almost cracking the base of the wood with his broken nails. He then put on his widest ever smile, in the hope of reducing the burning ache in his chest. "If, if mama and papa won't come back, I will follow them..."
Before he could pierce his lonely heart, he felt a brute impact on the back of his neck as he fell to the library floor.
It was Terma who did it, coated in the redness of his blood as his left arm was absent in sight.
Surrounded by the messy debris of damaged books and shelves up to the radius of 50 meters.
