Chapter Text
Prologue
A black haired boy sits by a giant window on a rainy day, looking out into a gray world a large book in his tiny hands.
Sighing, he turns his head away from the window to the noisy scene inside. The other kids have gathered around a new admission to the orphanage, broken toys thoughtlessly thrown on the floor in favor of something new. The boy stared at the ratty toys they seldom used, discolored from age and neglect —the toys not unlike himself, abandoned by time and the children he hoped would like him.
The boy observes the children crowded around the new kid’s lanky form, trying to entice him to join their team for hide-and-seek. He recalls not a single one of them having ever shown such a keen interest in him, no matter how hard he tried.
When he first tried sharing his interests, the kids mocked him. When his curious mind had asked his teachers too many questions, they shooed him away. He felt a pang of jealously in his chest and returned his gaze to the wet world beyond the window.
Their aversion to him no longer hurt as much. It still stung, but he would not cry himself to sleep like he used to. The boy learned long ago to quiet himself and began to shrink into his mind, finding comfort in other stories.
His heart hardened a bit for every rejection, and at the tender age of 10, he had come to understand the meaning of loneliness— deep within his soul.
He took a deep breath to steady himself, clutching the book tighter to his chest before opening it to read again.
“The sleeping beast lies still in the wood, its gentle nature often misunderstood...”
Large raindrops pelt the window as he reads, and the boy lets his mind drift to a different life. One where he can defeat monsters twice his size, has more friends than his arms can hold, and he is more than a ruined toy nobody wants.
The child knows that isn’t his life, but a part of him refuses to give up hoping that maybe, just maybe, he has a place in the world, and it's filled with those dreams.
Unknowingly, his heart sends out a desperate wish that not even fate can decline.
“Hey!” a scrawny boy with messy brown hair, the new child, he recognizes, enters his view, squatting in front of the boy— head resting atop his crossed arms. “whatcha readin?”
The dark haired boy puzzled at the bold intrusion but did not reject it; The loneliness in his heart always begging him to try no matter how many times it hurt him.
“Tales from Rosewood. ” He answers, waiting for the brown haired boy to run off or taunt him.
But, to his surprise, the new child remains, large eyes still watching with keen interest. Feeling a bit braver that the intruder hadn’t run off upon hearing the title he offers.
“Would you like to read it with me?”
The brown haired boy flashes a goofy smile and plops down beside him, waiting.
The dark haired boy begins to read the book from the start, feeling sunrays warm his back— the rain halting its barrage without his notice.
“Magic is all around us, hidden in the people that surround us. Try to imagine it if you could—faries all gathered in the wood…”
The boys sat there reading in peace, fate slowly weaving their lives together.
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