Prince of The Abyss

Entering his room, Aether instantly jumped onto his bed, headfirst into his pillow. He had missed it... a lot; having a bed had not been something he had the pleasure of experiencing a lot of times. He was either sleeping on the ground or on some rags; the best he’d had were the beds in the inns he went to, but even those were bad.

He was also lucky that a lot of these people inside the Wonderland used a favour system, instead of currency for people from other books, which was really nice, since he didn’t have to worry about making money, but rather just helping someone milk a cow or something like that.

And he wasn’t joking; he had actually done that. He wasn’t the best at it.

Turning around in his bed, he stared at the ceiling for a second... There was a lot on his mind, a lot of questions... and he had no one to talk to. He could go back to A., but the boy had work to do as a King, even if his Kingdom was hollow and soulless, so he didn’t want to talk to him that much.

...

Plus, there was someone who was here whenever he needed, and knew a lot more; the bad part was that it wasn’t really the type of person to talk all that much about what they knew, but rather the type who kept most of their knowledge to themselves.

’I guess a small visit can’t hurt.’ Aether said, sighing, while closing his eyes and holding his blade tight in his hand.

...

...

Opening them yet again, he found himself on top of the summit he was quite used to, one that he had seen quite a lot of times now. And he had no idea about it, really. All he knew was that this was where the mark was born. But nothing else, really.

Voidpiercer rested at the edge of the mountain, just staring at the distant sky. Lifting his hand in front of him, as if trying to catch the sky with it. Aether slowly walked over to him; he had no fear of scaring him. After all, he knew well that Voidpiercer was fully aware of his presence; it just knew that he was here for an answer, so it was waiting for him to come and ask.

”Who is A.?” Aether asked, standing behind the blade. It chuckled, slowly turning its head to face him. ”You’ve met him; he’s quite the great guy if you spend more time with him. He is just... a bit crazy. But that’s because he is pretty isolated.”

Aether rolled his eyes. ”Don’t really care about that, and you know I don’t, which is specifically why you said it. So come on, can you tell me anything or not, so I can move to the next subject.”

”Hm,” Voidpiercer said, almost teasingly. ”All I can say is that from my position, this situation is really ironic.”

Aether stared into the blade’s eyes, trying to see if it was serious, but it was; he was sure of it. He also had no reason to lie, nor did he believe the blade had lied to him; at least, he didn’t have any proof that it did.

”Just forget about him.” He said, sitting down near the blade, staring into the distance. ”I’ve heard from A. that before there wasn’t the Codex. Is that true?” Voidpiercer nodded, which surprised him, since he hadn’t expected the blade to actually respond to one of his questions, but at the same time, it was probably one that he basically knew, and that wasn’t very important, nor hard to figure out when A. had just said it.

”So then I’m interested, is Frozen Crown before or after this Kingdom and A. have lived?”

Voidpiercer scoffed. ”This one is far beyond Frozen Crown.”

He had... expected it to be that way, but at the same time, he was surprised by the blade’s reaction, which could only mean that the distance between the two really was gigantic.

”So then where exactly is Frozen Crown in the timeline? I’ve been trying to figure it out for ages.”

The blade chuckled. ”Quite annoying, huh? It really seems like it has no place in the past.”

’And what is that supposed to mean?’ He had gotten so skeptical that he had started to question everything the blade said, trying to see if they were a secret hint or just... some stupid thing, and this one was probably the latter, just an annoying joke.

It couldn’t be anything else.

”I do have to say.” The blade suddenly said, instantly catching Aether’s attention back to it. ”This might be a bit dangerous for you; even without the normal events leading up to it happening, I’m sure it will happen. Which won’t be easy to survive. But you will figure it out.”

’It?’ Why did it talk so weirdly about it... and what specifically was it, and why was it so dangerous... and more importantly, the thing that caught his attention the most: how was it going to happen no matter what happened. If he were to destroy the whole village, which he had no plans on doing, would it still happen?

”That’s all you have to say... no, why should I worry, or any advice on what I should do? Nothing?” Aether asked with a tired frown on his face. This was the usual talk with Voidpiercer, so he was pretty used to it, but it didn’t mean he liked it.

”Your instinct will guide you... Now come on, leave. I need my alone time, and I won’t ever answer any of your questions again if you don’t.”

Aether sighed, getting up on his feet. He should have expected to gain almost nothing from his whole talk when he decided to come inside this place, but still, it was disappointing every time it happened, because he always had way bigger expectations.

But at the same time, recently he has started to figure things out even without that blade.