5 years later

<p>I hadnt actually changed that much. You expect everything to be different after a period of time, as if you're suddenly some messiah figure, or you're unrecognisable. I found that not to be true. I looked in the mirror, and still saw amber eyes that were at home in a honey pot, staring out at me, like I was a stranger to my own self. I hated it. Hated my eyes. Hated how every time I saw myself I looked the same, but it didn't feel like I was looking at Me. Everyone told me "Oh, you look nice today Moscow!" or some shit like that, but I dont know how they know its even me, because sometimes even I can't tell. My reflection felt empty, and incomplete, and why did everyone else have eyes that they could love, could feel something in, but my eyes were a honeypot. Full of sweetness, but get deep enough, all you're touching is brown ceramic and nothing, holes in the fractured and twisted painting that was me. A steel pole ripped through a work of incredible detail, hastily repaired for a show. And it made me look off. It made me look pathetic, and too difficult to read. I could be sobbing, but if I opened my eyes, people would loudly proclaim what a cheerful lad I was. Why couldn't those broken gaps just have been unrepaired. That way at least I wouldn't have to look at myself everyday.<br/> <br/>But I'm always smiling. I don't want to, don't want to smile, have to though. Why the smiling. Why for 1 minute, can I just not be sad. Genuinely sad, and just be left fucking ALONE, and not have people practically begging to be kind, and help me. What if I don't need help, what if all I need is to just feel how alone, and terrified, and anxious I a-<br/><br/>Old Morson still complained about the perpetual grin on my face. Said I always looked like I'd done something wrong so he could never tell when I actually had. Eventually, he'd had to resort to just assuming that I was perpetually off and up to no good. Most of the time, he was right. <br/><br/>My aura as a troublemaker was thoroughly worsened when I received my baton, promptly named "Biscuit". Morson grumbled about that one for a good week, wanted me to name it something cool, I think, but it's not as embarrassing to be killed by Doomson the hammer, as it is to be killed by Biscuit the baton. Morson liked grumbling as well, did it perpetually, about one thing or another, and grumbled about me, especially. But if there was one thing that had changed about me, they were my arms, or more truthfully, the number of them. I had gained an additional 2 arms the first time I used my Qeychain, which weirded me the fuck out, as one moment you're getting taught by a mad old man how to get into the best position for a diagonal sweep with a baton, and the next thing you know you're on the floor with a new pair of arms and said old man looking at you like you just screwed his dog. It didn't even hurt, which was a weird thing. In hindsight, growing new limbs in about 2 minutes should be a bitch, but I didn't even wake up, and when I eventually did it just felt like I had dead arms. Took me about a year to be able to use them as well as my first two arms, but they've served me bloody well. Oh yeah. I'm a Qey now, by the way. Apparently that shit was there the whole time, just waiting for me to kick it into action. And very sudden action it was. But if you think I'm telling you what it was now... Well then you have another thing coming. <br/><br/>"JAC LOVETT YOU WILL GET OUT OF THAT HOUSE THIS VERY INSTANT YOU LAZY BASTARD!" screeched Horrow. I grinned at myself in the mirror one last time, and winked coyly. Go get some ass, handsome. I turned away, and skipped out of my room, making sure to hit every single creaky floorboard in an attempt to piss off Horrow, I looked like a giraffe doing a headstand on springs, it must be said. My room was coated in the thickest books I could steal from the nearby towns library, because even though I couldn't read, it sure impressed the girls I brought round if they thought that I was a prodigy and genius. In accompaniment to my seductive display of what was apparently philosophy, were hand carved quotes by Horrow that I had commissioned by the carpenter. I'd made it my lifes work to actually read those sentences, purely for pleasures sake, and to annoy Horrow by constantly repeating them back to him. They read as such, "Do you want to keep training, or do you want a sock in the face, and a soak in horse shit?", "You spend so much time sitting on that rock you'd think it were giving you anal.", and my personal favourite "STOP GETTING MY FUCKING QUOTES UP ON THAT WALL!" Just to name a few. But now, back to work. Pounding down the hardwood stairs 3 at a time, I grabbed my satchel lying on the table, swung it around my wrist a few times, and clipped it around my waist until it was just tight enough to act as a belt. I'd woken up too late to actually eat breakfast, and couldn't be bothered to make it for myself now. So I bolted for the door, and using all my strength, I raised my leg, tightened it into a badass pose so I felt like one of those cool guys from the east who hit stuff a lot, and kicked that motherfucker down. <br/><br/>Instantly, a wash of white light hit me like a charging rhino, forcing me into a stumbling retreat with a pounding headache. After 10 seconds of blinking and leaning against the wall, I finally felt prepared to go out into the open world, and not almost vomit doing it. I took a confident stride out, and was immediately knocked down, yet again, by a punch in the face. "That was a perfectly good door you nutter!" seethed Horrow, a few droplets of spittle flying from his mouth to my cheek, as I was sat on my arse like a baby in trouble for getting in the way of Mam's work. "Why in Joseph's name did you kick it down? Another one of those'll cost 20 coin!" And the door had become unhinged, it was true. It looked like a sad twig in a sad wind in a sad little forest, all being eaten by sad termites. But the surroundings of the splintered door were actually quite lovely. A squat miners shack with small gaps to look out of, sat halfway buried into a cliff face, a 40 metre tall chalk behemoth that covered everything in shade in the morning. The garden area looked unkempt and straggly, covered in weeds and tiny outrocps of rocks too small to see but just big enough to trip on in a sparring session. It was meant to "train my awareness" because no fight would ever be on totally flat ground. All it actually did is give me an intense dislike of pebbles, and all the mischief they could cause. There was a small stable, with just enough for two good horses, my Clydesdale named Beef, and Horrow's Friesan called Gally, even though the stable was almost never used. Beef and Gally never left the forest because of the sheer number of apples in the trees for them to eat, so we always found them soon enough. A huge tree sat slap bang in the centre of our clearing, disqualifying it in the dictionary as an actual clearing, but we still called it that for ease of use. The tree was apparently a Sessile Oak, and the oldest recorded tree in the area since Church records started around 700 years ago.<br/><br/>"Horrow, come now, the boy was just joking around, there's no need to beat him up about it, right?" Came a soothing voice. <br/>"I can always pay for the new one anyway, so no need to worry old friend." A low, guttural growl came from Horrows gut as he slowly turned away from me. "Oh no, Aaron. I couldn't possibly take money from a gentleman like you. No." He turned to grin at me. "I'll be taking it from this shitwads account in Hurlew." Oh. Well that was all my savings from the last five years gone. A slap in the face, yes, but it wasn't that big of a deal. I wasn't planning on going back anyway. Because today was the day. Today was my day. Today I finally got to find out what I had been training for, and if there were women there. "Hi Aaron." I waved at the guest. "Hey Espin." He grinned back at me. Aaron was fully clothed in a 3 piece suit, and had a moustache all would be jealous of, with so many twirls in it I was almost hypnotised. He wore a purple scarf around his neck, draping down to his waist in flamboyant fashion, and a bowler hat that he had removed to reveal slicked back black hair, with a few silver streaks mixed in."So then Mr Aaron...?" I implored. "Kelly." He answered simply. <br/>"Mr Aaron Kelly, then. Where do we go now, friend?"</p>