Taking one step after another, I move towards the giant mass of cloth that I called my bed, and run my head deep into it as I enjoy the comfort of my old bed.
Taking a deep breath, I take its smell in. Despite the stink everywhere from the raw odour of all the people within the home pushed together, this area is at least a bit nice. I guess he must've kept the room like this waiting for me, "What an idiot."
Standing up, I look at the other side of the room, and I say, "Did they hire a painter or something? But how would they even know what I look like? Pictures are still a thing of Elpída alone, and I doubt they could have found a Cursed Item."
Feeling around on my bed, I feel a pressure under my hand, which causes me to reach and pull out something from beneath it. In my hands, I stare at a bra, and moments later, I throw it across the room as I quickly start rubbing my hand against my wall in disgust.
"Those bastards! They keep this room like this because they were defiling my bed. What the hell is wrong with those monkeys? I need to go give them a piece of my min-."
"Are you having fun?" I hear Siegrund's voice, causing me to turn and see him with puffy eyes.
"I would be if I didn't have to see the face of the man who kidnapped me. Now, why did you bring me here?"
Walking forward, he says, "So you can apologise to Adrian."
"I forgive Captivant, see now can I go?"
"If you think you can be smart with me, you should know me better."
"I knew you as an orderly man who liked to get the point, not the brute who kills soldiers with a gleeful smile on his face."
"People change in 13 years. Some for the better and some for the worst. Though only one of those types of people happens to be in this room."
Glaring at him, I say, "My patience is running thin, you bitch, I have nothing to say or apologise for? Did you think seeing all these lazy bums would be enough to make me apologise? Anyone with two pairs of eyes could see this is what the world was going to become; all I did was accelerate the process. Or maybe this ungrateful monkey wanted their kids to deal with the problem and not themselves? Passing the legacy of war and suffering down to the young is the greatest achievement of the old, so maybe I am right."
"You can foolishly pretend like there are only two options, but to anyone with a brain, it is clear that it's all a way to protect that fragile ego of yours."
"What was that?"
"Is it hard to hear? That the man who wanted to do battle with the world has fallen to the point where he needs to make up excuses as to why he can no longer control the outcomes. Because the man who once laid in that bed had a word for people who let the world decide their fate, sheep."
Slamming my foot against the ground, I say, "What the fuck did you bring me here for? Like I told you, if you think I care, I don't, and no amount of time you make me waste here will decide that." Smirking I lean back against my bed, and say, "I am a man with a lot of enemies and if I was to leak my name I wonder how many people will come and put out a hit on me, some of the words most dastardly assassins will come and use whatever methods they can even if it means ripping right through the flesh of all the sheep gathered outside."
"As if any of them could beat me."
"Yet killing people as they try isn't something that you can stop now, is it?"
"Are you trying to threaten me, Captivant?"
"I am merely revealing the truth to an utter moron like you, I know with all of that sword training you might not have put enough effort into your intellect," I say with a smile.
I raise my head to the ceiling, and say, "So, Mister Sieg Bisumod, while I know your people often like to dismantle and deescalate cross continental wars as a principle, I can assure you it's pointless, now let me g-."
As my eyes fall down, I see my mother's bra pressed against Siegrund's face, and as our eyes meet, he takes the bra off and places it down his pants as he says, "If you finished with your childish ramble, I will tell you your tas-."
"Hey, fucker, don't skip over that."
"What are you on about?"
"MY MOM'S BRA!"
"Our mom's bra."
"I will kill you!"
He clicks his tongue, then tosses it forward towards me, saying, "I don't really care what a pest like you thinks about what is possible or what your situation is. I want to know what Adrian thinks, so I give you the task to make something that shows me the progress you've made from the man you were when we parted. If you can make something that satisfies me, I will let you go, and more than that, I will aid you on any one task you want as an apology."
"Huh? What kind of test is that? If you want to see my progress, just ask any ruler my name."
"None of that matters to me. If you need systems of man to validate your progress, you are constrained by them, and is that who Captivant is?"
Clicking my tongue, I say, "Am I allowed to use whatever means I want?"
"Of course, as long as I get the point across."
"I see, and just so you know, when this is all over, I am going to make you bend down and lick mud off my foot."
"I hope to see it," he says with a smile before vanishing out of the room.
Stamping my foot against the ground, I say, "You'll see."
That day, he gave me a strange task, one that I thought would be easier to complete. So I started writing day in, and day out, moving through all the experiences I have had to try and dredge up whatever emotions I could to slam them against Siegrund and make him bow to the power I had within me. I strung up all I could to write, and created as much as I could.
-1 Month later-
I wrote about my conquests as I stood with people like Fu and Wèilái, the stories of the grandeur I felt when I saw them, and how I illuminated the path towards their victory. A grand story, rising all the emotions I used on those days to crush his soul, yet.
Flying through the pages, he raises his eyes and says, "Not good enough. Try again." Before planting the pages on the ground.
-2 Months Later-
I wrote about my times scourging through the wild waves of Molstoria, highlighting the efforts I took to calm the craziness of the Kings, and reignited the souls of justice in the military, pushing them forward against the evils happening that. A righteous story, weaponising the inane levels of detail and descriptions that I learnt from Ai, yet.
Waving the pages in the air, Siegrund says, "Crap, I don't need anything like this. Try again."
-3 Months Later-
I wrote about the trials I had faced when running from assassins through the land, as they came to silence my glory, the pain, the despair I felt when I thought my hands were damaged, and the efforts I made to rebuild myself, even the love I had with the ungrateful one. A rebellious story that took the frustrations I had felt against the world, and how I upturned even the deadliest of those who wished to crush me, yet.
"The worst one yet, am I supposed to feel anything other than disgust at reading about your necromancy? I can search through my memories if I wish to see the man here, try and create something new!"
Slamming my fist against the ground, I say, "What the hell are you doing! My Regalia should be affecting you? You are cheating!"
"I see so your Regalia is supposed to affect emotions in some way. But at the end of the day, it's not like the emotions of thoughts from such a hollow man could ever touch me."
"BULLSHIT! You're using some kind of item or technique to void my Regalia; it must be due to the Sieg Bisumods."
"Is that what you really think?"
"OF COURSE, MY WORDS MOVE COUNTRIES, THEY MOVE THE RULER OF THE WORLD, AND SOMEHOW YOU STAND THERE UNIMPRESSED, MY REGALIA SHOULD WORK BEYOND ANYTHING THAT YOU COULD DO AGAINST THIS."
"I see if you're that in denial, I will stay here and not leave this room until you do. As proof, I am not doing anything." Stepping to the wall, he lies down and says, "Go ahead."
-Break-
I couldn't accept it, I couldn't accept his denial of the power that made me take the world by its throat.
So, I wrote more, and more, I wrote stories about everything I ever gained, the great glories, the unimaginable peaks, the monsters my words slew again, and again as I grew beyond the sheep I once was. Yet it didn't move him at all.
So, I wrote stories that would appeal to him, stories about warriors I've met, about blades I've seen, about the legends I had once heard, about the greatness of even the Sieg Bisumods. Yet it only disgusted him more.
So, I wrote stories about the greatness of the common man, the strength of his soul, the vileness of war, the vileness of selfishness, the vileness of ego, the horrors of hatred, anything I thought he would want, yet in the face of it all, he could only say, "How far you've fallen."
-4 Months Later-
Rubbing my head against my messy hair, I stare at the pages in front of me with my frustration only growing. Why? Why is this happening to me? I am Captivant. I am someone who should be able to overcome a silly challenge like this instantly, yet I cannot. Why won't his soul burn? Why won't his heart break? Why can he just take in all of this? He just sits there sleeping away as if he has no care in the world, while the legacy I had built breaks down each day.
I have no idea how the world is, I have no idea how people think about me, I have no idea what is even happening throughout the area around me, and I don't know when I will. Because at this rate, I might never leave here.
No, I cannot allow that. I cannot allow this shame from this beast to continue on. I will crush him, I will beat him, I will escape from here. So I will bear it all, I will do whatever I need to leave. I will write a story, so personal, so heartfelt that anyone who tries to ignore my emotions seeping from it will fail. Something that I haven't shared before, something that means the world to me. The very face she has will always allow me to break free from the cages that try to bind me.
-Age 28-
Dropping the pages onto the floor, Siegrund says, "A story bout a lover? Judging from the emotions, the things you wrote here actually seem to be true and heartfelt. Unlike the rest of your nonsense."
Shaking, as I feel the emotions within my heart turn against me, I say, "So now will you finally let me go?"
Laughing, he says, "As if this was even slightly enough."