nathanialroyale | [Novel] Drabble: A Shell (Reply)

Title: A Shell
Prompt: Was there a night when Peter held that dagger over Nathanael while he slept contemplating the murder of his own son? Yes.
Rating: (PG-13)
Content Notes/Warnings: The contemplation of the murder of a minor.
I wanted to have Peter's POV on his understanding of his son being spiritually dead and all that was left behind being a Shell.
Main Character/s: Peter Quele, Nathanael Peter Quele Royale

It was late, past midnight, and Eliana slept in their bed upstairs where he should be sleeping beside her. But instead, Peter stood on the left bedside of his only child, his heir, sweat forcing him to clench harder on the dagger held in his right hand. It held an intricate blade, ceremonial, and meaningful, as the dagger of his Hara.

Peter worked at the lump that sat in his throat, the one that had not left him as long as he starred at what had once been his flesh and blood. Now? No, all that laid before his sight was a shell, the body of the son that struggled to bring in each and every breath in his sleep.

Peter’s lips trembled as he recited the liturgy within his mind one more time, hoping the words would give him the strength he needed to bring down this knife and finish this night.

Reinn Anon,
Oh, Sovereign Angel
Give us the strength,
to make the right choice,
even at the cost of our blood.

Forgive us,
he who freed us,
from our sins.

He who loves us,
have mercy upon us,
mortals of sin.

But it was not enough, and his certainty fails him, and Peter shakes his head. It was a mercy to not only the child but to them all, to rid the world of thissomething, lost to the darkness. Yet, even as a shell, this being had the body of his son, and he knows he will go mad when the deed is done. He already knows his wife, and his consort will never understand, and what little strength he had in this task is sapped from him when he sees himself alone.

A shaking hand claws back through his blonde hair and his blues are clouded by tears as he tries now to leave un-noticed. Not tonight then, but this had to be done, eventually, because all that laid there in that bed was a shell. There was no soul left within it. That spirit had been lost as the boy opened his own flesh, allowing the light that resides within the breast to disperse into darkness.

The blade falls to be lost in the rug by the bedside as Peter stumbles backward, and he braces himself upon the wall. That same wall of tree and cloud that he had painted beside the boy that laid in that bed, sickly. He had failed his God, and now he failed himself because of his inability to imagine life without his wife, and lover both. So the shell continues to sleep and Peter is able to leave the child’s room quiet enough that Nathanael does not awaken.

In the cabin’s hall Peter watches his now empty hands shake, and he catches the sob that tries to escape and break the night’s silence. He looks back, a hand curling around the doorknob and he pulls the door closed upon on the nine year old who continues to sleep, unknowing of what his father had nearly done to him.

There was a scream that was forcing, pushing its way up and through him, gagging the King who tried to remain quiet in his movement as he fled. Out through cutting brush and tangling root, he muzzles himself with clenching fingertips as he falls to his knees.

Reinn Anon
Forgive me,
for my sins.

Forgive me,
my weakness.

Into his hands, the noise is caught, strangled in its shame and agony. Head bent to touch the forest’s floor, Peter wonders what now? What now will he do?He is sorry, but not for himself, no, he is sorry for the child he failed, for the shell he could not kill.

So sorry,
so very,
very sorry.