Halcyon

Robert Spring, 22-year-old retired veteran, was going to the beach. Lacking an arm was tough sometimes, but considering he was right-handed it didn’t matter too much. Having the excessive paranoia of a near-man who had his left forearm blown off by shrapnel was also unideal. Spring enjoyed the water, the cold front of earlier in the year melting into salty seas, the sun finally coming out in early September. He was Spring, after all. The warm weather would do him good.

Arlecchino-like Ever Knight splashed Spring playfully and rushed into the sea, letting the water cover her feet.

“Race you to The Drop!” She called out, laughing as she raced through knee-high currents deepening. Spring chuckled and started running, water closing in.

“Noo, I’m disabled, unfair!” Spring complained back, fighting to catch up.

“See you, sucker,” came the snarky reply, slightly muted by the crashing waves.

It was familiar, this, Spring thought. Laughing and being carefree, just- playing. It was-

And then there was nothing.

The last thing Robert heard was Ever’s scream.

‘Is this where being happy gets you?’ He thought. He couldn’t feel, but he could think.

His arm was healed and whole, he noticed. Another good thing about being dead.

His obituary read: ‘Robert John Spring, 22 years. Honest veteran and dedicated son. Drowned in Spark Beach undertow.’ His life, altogether so short, condensed further into a sentence, a small paragraph read by a high-born priest who had never known Spring a day. Ever Knight, weeping daughter of a seamstress and a dead man, would have said far more. She lay shorn hair tenderly in his hands, and cursed water with every breath. His arm, the wooden one, lay next to him. It could have been firewood with what use it was.

Knight never got over the death of Robert Spring. She married up from his death day, a year exactly. It was some general in this kingdom of peasants, last name Halcyon. It seemed in him she saw a bit of Spring, as they looked very much alike, all steely eyes and solid statures, except Spring had the youthful glint, the ability to have a good time. Children are killed with heavy books.The general never smiled, which matched New Ever perfectly. The rumour was she had never smiled since the day Robert died. Though that was exaggerated, it wasn’t by much. She was as still as a windless day, rather than the ever-moving autumn leaves swirling in the wind she once was. And rather than marry for love, as she once might have done, she married for past love, in a desperate attempt to preserve whatever was left of Spring, a whispered love that was never meant to be.

Knight and Halcyon had a child, a boy dark and handsome as his father. James Halcyon, after his paternal grandfather. It was inevitable, the townsfolk decided, that the boy would grow up to be resembling his father, serious and intelligent, and quick with the sword, mirroring the skill, subtlety and sternness that it took to be a general of this land. But Halcyon Jr. always preferred being in the forest than the barracks, and sunlight to glory, and who can judge a man who lives his best life? James did join the army, but left as soon as his service finished, unaccomplished and unknown, his serenity and obscurity tarnished only by the stain of the glory in his father’s name.

‘Halcyon?’ they’d say. ‘Are you perhaps the wayward son of the general?’

Whispers of rebellions followed, mutinies led by said son of the general, destined to be glorious. He hated being called ‘wayward’ or ‘twisting’. Made it seem like James had done something wrong, objecting against becoming a hired gun, a trained killer, a monster. He was really just straightforward. Their peering, prying eyes would search him, looking for a glimpse of his father in him, something to praise and kindle, finding only his mother in the shape of his face, his eyes.

‘You’ve got something in you,’ they’d say. They’d make something up about seeing the same glint that was in his father’s eye, maybe the same freckle. That was a lie, his father’s face was—flawless. Smooth and clear. And Halci (as he preferred to be known as) did not want to be like his father, no. He wanted all the scars and features life would offer him, and life would a great deal.

His father would thunder, scream like all the rain in the sky would crash down, shattering the silence with fierceness, demanding to be heard.

Halci would be destined to be that rain too. Harsh and demanding, beating down on all around them.

He shuddered at the thought, snapping out of his trance as James watched his father carefully. He was young, only about 14, but he hated being treated as anything other than his age.

“Are you okay, baby?” Ever Halcyon (formally Knight, but Halcyon insisted on her changing it) appeared next to him, patting his shoulder. “You want to go home?”

Case in point, Halci thought. “No, I’m fine. The air here is… different.” He mutters, but he really did want to go home. He glances pointedly at his watch, a family heirloom. humming a tune he didn’t know the name of but knew from somewhere.

“Stop that,” came Halcyon’s stern voice, and the shuffling of papers. Halci’s eyes remained firmly on the floor, but he stopped humming. The watch had always been precious to his father, passed down to Halci after he joined the army.

“And how long will your stay be, Mr Halcyon?”

“It’s General Halcyon, and I intend to stay with my family for at least a month.”

“Ah, staying for pheasant season then, General? I hear they are very good shoot-ups up north.” came the quipped reply.

“Yes, in a way.” My father smiled grimly.

“I’m sorry, sir. There is no booking under the name Halcyon.”

“Two suites have been reserved. That was the booking. You have got it wrong.” Halcyon’s voice was getting tight, and he gave a smile, all gritted teeth.

My mother smoothly stepped forward. “I sent a messenger one week ago. The booking is under the name Knight.”

Halci immediately looked down, fiddling with his watch. It was a nervous habit, and it had been hastily repaired many times as a result.

“Knight?” Halcyon grit, turning with a measured expression to Ever. “I thought you changed it.”

“It appears I forgot.” Ever huffed, hiding the thinly masked sarcastic snark that was buried not so deep after all. But the look on Halci’s father’s face told them that this was not over.

The receptionist’s tight smiled apology doesn’t register with Halci until he’s led by men in white gloves into splendour, a whole room just for him. He trailed a finger across silky white couches, the rare dyes and candlesticks on oak tables. Luxury he had known and will know again. Picking detachedly at his supper, Halci leant against the tragically thin walls of the hotel. He heard shouting, then silence. The screeching, deafening silence terrified him more than the yelling. His father and his mother. The perfect couple.

Everyone knows that Halcyon was a revolt, a revolutionary man, against the laws of society. But he still wanted his son to be a perfect weapon, everything Halcyon was and everything Halcyon wanted to be. Everyone knows he married Ever because of her mother’s place in the royal court. To get closer to the king he wanted to be.

Everyone, everyone, everyone.

Halci felt something snap.

He pushed his plate to the side and knelt down to tend to the room’s hearth.

“Master Halcyon, please. I will do that for you.”

James turned away, from the maid, brushing off his hands smudged with coal-dust from tossing his watch in the flames.

“Please, call me Halci. I am not my father.”