How to Make a Sinner Sleep

110 | elusive; the worth of a smile

In the dimly lit basement where moss and cobwebs lined the filthy walls and humidity thickened the air, two creatures stared at each other. One, a dragon shackled by chains as he sat against a wall, gazing sharply at the other.

And the other, cloaked in intrigue and darkness, the shimmer of his cloak granting a temporary glimpse of the night sky within the windowless cells.

The figure stood deathly still, every breath clinging to the air.

"The worth of a smile. Not everybody can see it." Their voice, airless and faint, distorted and hoarse. "To protect that child, that boy had to become worth something to the visible eye. Or he would be thrust away once more."

Noah's back pressed against the wall, one ear fixed on the measured breathing on the opposite side. Every few minutes he would hear a muffled groan of pain or a body shifting uncomfortably from within.

He interlaced his fingers, pressing deep enough to leave indents in his skin. Inside the cell, there was a small leak in the corner. Tauntingly, a single drop slowly dripped onto the ground.

He waited, but the story did not continue. His slitted eyes flickered over to the cloaked figure observing him with such biting scrutiny, that he felt his body being taken apart. "What happened to the boy?"

A pause. "Not the teenager?"

Noah drew his attention back to the ceiling, closing his eyes briefly. "The teenager chose the boy. The boy chose nobody. I care more for the tale of the one who didn't want to be in the story."

If the teenager was the main character, then what of the boy? The child with equal importance playing the role of a mascot or a shiny gold coin, a role in which he was important, but not important enough.

Not important enough to be a main character.

From beneath the starry cloak, the man—or so Noah assumed—hummed lightly in thought. Noah wondered what fabric it'd been made from, stolen from the night itself.

The figure noticed his train of thought, grasping it easily.

"He always...liked the skies. I thought...this night...would bring comfort."

Noah didn't want to hear the answer, frowning at the discomfort twisting in his chest. He swallowed and looked away. "Continue."

And thus they did.

The teenager had wondered what would help the boy survive. Survival, by his trivial definitions. His father's cruelty or the world's cruelty? He chose the former.

In the blink of an eye, the peaceful laziness of companionship swept away. It transformed into immense studies, carving the child—a boy who knew nothing, not even the clarity of his memories—into something beyond him.

Something that he was not.

The particular issue was that the boy had no particular talents or intelligence, no secret skills that set him off besides sly hands that could steal and fast legs that could run—although even that was merely mediocre.

And yet, if a need to impress was a skill, the boy had it. He studied endlessly under commands until his vision blurred and blood ran down his nose, yet his smile remained tantalizingly bright, although awkward, as it always had.

The teenager, believing his actions to be true, fought against those seeking to ruin the child and cast him away. He fought as best as a powerless teenager could do in a palace where every action was monitored.

For once, he cursed his indifference in all the years prior that doomed him to be lacking.

He banished abusive tutors that had been hidden from his knowing, fired the sadistic maids, and slowly, terrifyingly, the image he transformed into was something akin to his father.