#hws hre
Happy Valentine’s day!!
Decided to share the piece I made for the HetaCalendar! Even though it was a drawing for last month,,, but eh, better late than ever to share it xd
Anyway, hope you all enjoy it! If you wanna check out the calendar, do it here
(the life, death and afterlife of Holy Rome. content warning: death mention, some body horror)
return
Did you hear, the first rumours went, what happened to Holy Rome?
Many of the old world empires had initially scoffed over their wine glasses. This was all old news. The boy who could not grow, who was not eternally youthful but stagnant? Of course, it was their lot to live long lives—childhood could, maddeningly, stretch out over the centuries. But, as the others grew into an awkward adolescence, Holy Rome had remained a small, pale figure. The face of a child with the eyes of an old, haunted man, lacking even the grim, spiteful vitality that sustained the elder nations who counted their lives in millennia. And then, he had finally tired of life, as so many of their kind had—but without ever surmounting the summit of adulthood.
His end varied based on who you heard it from. It was peaceful: once he had put his affairs in order, he simply lay down on his bed and gave up his life. No, it had been a violent, terrible struggle with a final illness before he passed. Whichever it was, it was the end of the boy who had lived for so long without living. Ultimately, this was of little concern to most. It was the destiny of some of their kind to die now and then, of course.
But then, the rumours become more specific.
Gilbert had done something terrible. Unholy. Depraved. He had somehow, brought Holy Rome back—had returned him to this world without the world-weariness and sickliness that had always tinged the boy-emperor’s smiles with bitterness. Worst of all, Gilbert had brought him back without memory.
When they see him again, he is a small boy shyly clutching the hand of the man he believes to be his elder brother. Pink-cheeked instead of pale and drawn, his blue eyes wide and bright with curiosity, paging through his picture books and playing with his toy trains, staring up at the frozen, stiff smiles of the dignified, important-looking strangers paying call. Who are they, brother?
Yes, Gilbert had transgressed the laws of nature, they whispered. For the years flow by, and with each, the boy is a little taller, the childish softness slowly melting into the angles of the young man that Holy Rome never got to be. To be allowed to return in this way, to be free of the responsibility of bearing the weight of centuries? What price had been paid?
