As the weight of my father's actions moves through my mind, two men start fighting beside us, sprawling their brawl out into the crowd, dragging more and more people in as the crowd starts to collapse in on itself.
Screams, heat, and fear radiate off the mass as people slowly get buried by the movements of the men, and seeing this, I prepare to move, yet all the people in the pile fly into the sky in different directions, and holding up his arm, Siegrund shouts, "CONTROL YOURSELVES YOU IDIOTS, OR I WILL MAKE THIS LAND SPRAWL WITH YOUR BLOOD!"
The sensations felt by everyone quickly get overrun with fear as the strength of Siegrund etches itself in their mind, and due to this, the path around us opens up, making a clear walkway for us to go through.
"What a fucking idiot. Does my brain-rotted father not know of limits? He systematically made it so that this place will burn to the ground while he is still alive."
"Unlike you, he understands responsibility and made an effort to fix the mistakes of his son."
"He has no duty to me."
"You can deny it all you want, the actions caused by your child are always, on some level, your fault. Well, at least that's what men who value blood and family above all think. Principles can be foolish, yet I would rather talk to a man like your father instead of a child like you. Besides, it's not like you have made his situation easier. Haven't you noticed all the buildings around the area? Mansion built by the royal faction across the capital, using the land sales you helped them get so graciously, Captivant.
They built up large buildings to block the sunlight and capture the rain, made it illegal to work on their lands, happily letting it die, and used their geographic advantages to reroute some of the rivers, reducing water availability, massively dropping productivity. Your father didn't plan on passing on all of the land rights to you, but he gave you a more profitable patch, which you so carelessly gave away to people who care not for anyone but themselves. And using the damages they caused, and the overpopulation, they essentially strong-armed your father into making his people work in their newly built factories?"
"Factories? What the hell are you on about? No one builds such things any more."
"It's been over a millennium since the Era of Levav, the stigma put on non-spiritual scientific progression have long since passed, and countries have been dying for a political excuse to use to rapidly industrialise as we had in the Era of Recovery. It seems intercontinental fear has made it so that people no longer have an issue with them, and the products they create are being used to increase Varage's international standing in a way that keeps power with the Royals instead of the people."
"So what? It's my father's fault for reaping what he sowed; no one asked him to take in all these people for his own sense of righteousness. His land is overrun with people he can't take care of, and he should've known the only way out of this would've required stabbing his own people in the back. I feel nothing for him."
"I see, then say it to his face." In an instant, Siegrund lunges forward, and we both move at incomprehensible speeds before we land at an all too familiar sight.
He drops me and says, "Captivant is here!"
My eyes move upwards, where I see the home I once knew, tattered and broken down, as if the very edges that make it up have been struck by lightning again and again. The house always used to take a beaten whether it be by nature or some stray animal randomly deciding to attack it, but my father always pieced things back together, the Nightfall's always have allowing it to stand for as long as it has.
The door to the house opens, and their two feet come out. Domita Nightfall stands in front of me, with her face having visible aged. My mother is only 16 years my elder, yet in this moment I can say for certain this is a woman who has lost her youth.
Her eyes glaze at me, shaking for a moment, as she mutters, "Adrian?"
Like a piece of glass caught in a tremor, her eyes shake like they are about to break, causing me to turn my head and say, "It's Captivant, don't refer to me as such. Can't you remember anything?"
Siegrund's fist slams across my head, knocking it into the ground before it bounces up. As my mind shakes from the blow, my father walks out of the house and says, "Captivant? And is that you, Siegrund?" His back is hunched, making him come off a bit quieter than he originally was. In a way, he could be considered to be around the same height as my mother.
Smiling, Siegrund says, "It's nice to see both of you again. I am sorry for not checking up on you earlier."
"You come to visit us twice a year. If you aren't coming on time, I am sure something is interrupting you."
"Thank you for being so kind and understanding."
Turning to me, father says, "It's nice to see you're still alive and healthy, it makes my soul feel filled."
"I wish I could say the same thing, but it seems like your idiotic policy has drained the life right out of both of you."
Laughing, my father says, "You could say that again," and during the whole time, he pathetically agrees with me, my mother keeps her eyes locked on Siegrund.
Seeing this, Siegrund walks forward and says, "Domita, I am so happy to see you are doing well."
Walking forward, she holds her arm up, making him halt, then beckons him to lower himself, which he does with joy, and in that moment, she wraps both of her arms around him, before giving him a kiss on the cheek and saying, "Everything will be okay. It must have been hard."
In an instant, the face that was filled with no emotions falls onto my short mother's shoulders, as his tears start to wet her dress, and seeing this, my father turns to me and says, "Let's give them some privacy, follow me."
Walking forward, my eyes stare at them before I click my tongue and enter my childhood home.
Entering, I am hit by an instant heat wave that makes the calm and chilly memories I have of the pleasant air and aroma that emanated from my mother's botany vanish. Yet before my mind can fully take it all in it starts to readjust my movements to avoid the mass of people the clog every single corner of the home. They lay on the floors, up against the walls and even under the furniture as they all try to gain whatever little space they can from the home, but at the very least, they're all incredibly quiet, with the exceptions of their groans of pain.
"Not how you remember it," my father says, slowly stepping over past the bodies around.
Following his lead, I say, "Why are all these people here?"
"We are running low on space for housing. We need to maintain a certain amount of food production as its value has skyrocketed, but we can't cut down any more trees due to the abundance of them the Royalists have already cut down, any more and we'll permanently destroy the ecosystems around here, which is a non-starter for residents of Zaad Ziener and the surrounding villages' farmers."
"I don't recognise any of these people."
"I am surprised you remembered the faces of the people from the village in the first place."
"Keep your snark father, it doesn't suit you," I say, annoyed, as I start walking over the bodies, intentionally moving forward unabated.
"Adrian, it isn't kind to be walking over people like that."
Flipping him off, I say, "Then fucking stop me." As I walk, my father lets out the same kind of nervous laugh he always let out whenever my mother and I were fighting, a pathetic surrender to whatever comes his way. Exactly the type of behaviour I would expect from a sheep.
Reaching the stairs, I ascend all the way to the second floor, where I am greeted by another mass of people who stand in my way. Causing my rage to grow even more, and as I prepare to walk forward, my father says, "Wait."
Turning my head, I see my father's hands against the staircase moments before he is pulled up, by his own strength, and as he lands beside me, he says, "You don't have to do such a thing."
"Have to? I want to; it's my home, and a bunch of strangers don't have some kind of right to block my way."
"It isn't your home actually; it is mine."
Staring at his back, I say, "It's going to be mine in a couple of hours with the way you look."
Laughing, he says, "Your sense of humour never degrades, my boy. Reminds me of when you were a boy, you always used to ask me for uppies. You know I can give you some to guide you across my people."
Walking forward, I step on the crowds of people, as I move towards my room, saying, "I already have a quicker way."
As I move, my father follows behind me, saying, "Oh, sorry about that. Uh, I didn't mean to step on you there. Please forgive my son, he is having a bad day and all."
My rage only builds as I move closer and closer towards my door, yet as the people in front of me vanish as I approach it, I quickly move over to the handle and grab it, yet before I open the door, I feel my father's hand grab onto me, stopping me.
Turning my head, I say, "Spirit Arts?"
"Siegrund taught me, allows me to manoeuvre around better."
"What an amazing son he is."
"I haven't replaced you, Captivant. Why are you so angry? Is it because I called you Adrian by mistake? If that's the reason, I apologise."
"It's the reason that an idiot like you has decided that mom needs to live her elder years surrounded by a bunch of strangers? What the hell is this?"
"It's my responsibility as the man who accepted them to take care of them. I can't live in a pristine tower when I have changed everyone's lives to such an extent. Your mother was okay with this."
"Okay with this? That bitch never talks, she barely even talks to you, the only time she opens her mouth is when she is trying to give out to me, or spite me, just like earlier."
"Do not refer to your mother as a bitch."
He says, gripping my arm tighter. I quickly pick him up by the collar, overpowering him, then I say, "Unlike you, I am not a fucking farmer in the ass crack of nowhere, I actually had to live in the world and learn skills for survival. If you think you can ever beat me your delusional. Just like in everything, a pathetic man like you decides to do it poorly thought out."
Throwing my father onto the ground, I say, "Don't bother me while I am here, and I won't bother you."
Grabbing the handle, I hear my father say, "Please leave that room as you find it."
My door opens wide, and inside I see my room almost exactly as I left it that day so long ago, pristine and clean without any of the bugs moving through it at all, yet that is only half of it, the over half is a couple different colour filled with drawing, and painting of our family all around it along with a series of wooden sculptures of our family.