"Alright, is everyone ready?" Beryl called out as she stood by the front door, keys jingling in her hand. Her tone carried that mix of cheer and authority that left no room for argument.
"Yeah!" Jason shouted, practically bouncing in place as he tried to zip up his little backpack. Macht stood behind him, quiet as usual, his expression unreadable while his crimson eyes followed his brother's antics. Thalia gave a small nod and smiled faintly, adjusting the strap of her bag.
"Everyone inside," Beryl said as she opened the car door. Jason shot past her like a lightning bolt, climbing into the backseat. Macht followed, taking his time, and Thalia slid in after them, closing the door gently.
"Thalia, everything for the picnic's in the trunk," Beryl said, leaning over the seat. "If you guys need anything, just grab it."
"Okay, Mom," Thalia replied, glancing at her two brothers. Macht was staring out the window, his reflection tinted faintly red from his eyes, and Jason was already busy making engine noises with two toy cars.
The difference between them was almost comical. Macht looked like he was on his way to a funeral, while Jason acted like they were heading to the best day of his life.
"You're excited for this, huh?" Thalia asked, looking toward Jason.
"Of course!" he said without hesitation. "We never get to go anywhere! And Mom said there's a lake!"
"That's because last time we went to a place with water you almost fell in," Thalia reminded him, though her tone was teasing.
Jason laughed. "I didn't almost fall in! I was testing how cold it was!"
"With both feet?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jason frowned, trying to think of a comeback but giving up after a moment. Macht spoke up quietly before Jason could respond. "You did almost fall in," he said simply, not even looking away from the window.
Jason turned toward him, pretending to look offended. "I did not!"
"You were crying," Macht said flatly.
"I was cold!" Jason shot back, crossing his arms, cheeks puffed in frustration.
Thalia chuckled softly, watching the two. Jason's loud energy filled the car, while Macht's quiet honesty acted like a constant balance, grounding them both in a strange way.
From the driver's seat, Beryl smiled slightly as she started the car. "Boys, let's try not to argue before we even get there, alright?"
Jason huffed, leaning back against the seat. "Fine."
Macht didn't respond, his gaze still on the window. He wasn't annoyed, just content to let the world pass by outside.
Thalia leaned slightly toward him. "Hey," she said quietly so Jason wouldn't hear, "I packed an extra hat and some snacks for you, just in case."
Macht blinked and turned to her, his expression softening just a little. "Thanks."
She smiled. "You'll be fine, okay? We won't stay out too long."
He nodded faintly, eyes flicking toward Jason again, who had started humming loudly while racing his toy cars along the seat.
The drive continued with the hum of the engine and the occasional clatter of Jason's toy cars as he raced them along the seat. Thalia kept glancing toward Macht, her gaze flicking between his reflection in the window and the faint pallor of his face. He looked fine for now, but she knew too much time in the sun could make him feel sick.
Eventually, they reached the picnic site. The moment Beryl parked, Jason was already unbuckling himself, shouting something about being the first one out. Thalia sighed but smiled as she followed him out, stretching her arms after the long drive. Macht climbed out more slowly, squinting at the sudden brightness.
They started unpacking, the process quick but chaotic. Jason was too distracted by the open field to be of any real help, darting from one side to another while Thalia tried to keep track of what was going where. The air smelled faintly of pine and lake water.
"Mom, can we sit under that tree instead?" Thalia asked after seeing Beryl lay out the picnic blanket right in the middle of the sun.
Beryl looked up, one hand shading her eyes. "There? We'll barely get any sunlight, Thalia. It's such a nice day."
Thalia hesitated before answering. "Yeah, but Macht doesn't really do well in direct sunlight. It'll be better if we're in the shade."
Beryl frowned slightly, like she hadn't even considered that. After a pause, she finally sighed. "Fine. Under the tree then. But we're not staying in the dark all day."
Thalia smiled gratefully. "Got it."
They moved everything beneath the tall oak nearby. It wasn't perfect, but the shade was cool and wide enough to make a difference. Once everything was set, Jason suddenly gasped and pointed toward the water. "Ducks!" he yelled before sprinting full speed toward the lake.
"Jason, wait!" Thalia called after him, but he was already halfway down the slope, laughing and waving at the birds. She rubbed her forehead. "Every single time..."
Meanwhile, Macht had done the exact opposite. As soon as everything was settled, he laid down on the blanket beneath the tree, his small body looking even smaller under the vast shadow. His eyes half-closed, his hands resting on his stomach, he looked utterly content to stay still forever.
Thalia walked over and crouched beside him. "You have everything?" she asked, brushing a few leaves off the blanket.
Macht nodded slightly. "Yeah. Go have fun and stop worrying about me." His voice was quiet, but there was a dry tone to it that made him sound far older than he was supposed to be.
Thalia gave him a playful look. "Don't say it like that, you sound like an old man."
He turned his head just enough to look at her. "Maybe I am."
She smiled and shook her head. "Right. Old man Macht. Fine, I'll leave you to your retirement." She stood, glancing once more toward Jason's distant form at the lake before turning to follow him.
"Yeah, don't worry about Macht. I'll be near him," Beryl said from behind her, adjusting a sunhat as she spread out the last of the food.
"Okay," Thalia said, relieved she wouldn't have to hover too much. With that, she jogged off toward Jason, who was now attempting to feed the ducks a handful of grass.
Once Thalia was out of earshot, Beryl turned her gaze to Macht. She was standing just a few feet away, arms crossed loosely, her expression somewhere between curious and disapproving.
"Aren't you going to go out and feel the sun?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.
Macht didn't even open his eyes. "No."
Her brow furrowed. "You can't just sit in the shade all day. You'll miss out."
"I won't," he said simply. His tone wasn't rude, just final, the kind of answer that left no room for argument.
Beryl exhaled quietly, studying him for a long moment. Macht was always like this too calm, too quiet for a child his age. She'd tried to understand him once, but somewhere along the way, she stopped trying. Now, she just accepted the strangeness as part of who he was.
Macht didn't seem to notice her gaze. His crimson eyes drifted toward the lake where Thalia and Jason were playing. Jason's laughter carried across the water, loud and carefree, while Thalia's voice followed with half-hearted scolding that turned into laughter of her own. They looked so natural together, bathed in sunlight.
He couldn't join them. Not really. He knew what would happen if he did. Either he'd fall asleep halfway through a game, or he'd force himself to stay awake, pretending the heat didn't make his skin prickle and his head grow heavy. It wasn't sadness that filled him, it was more like quiet resignation. He'd already accepted that this was just how things were for him.
He sighed softly and rested his head against the rough bark of the tree, his small fingers absently picking at the edge of the blanket. The air was warm and still, the kind of heat that made the world slow down.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Beryl rise. She brushed the grass off her dress and started walking toward the lake where Thalia and Jason were still playing, her voice carrying faintly as she called out something about not getting too close to the water. Thalia waved back, and Jason responded with an enthusiastic "Okay, Mom!" even though he clearly didn't mean it.
Macht watched them for a moment, expression unreadable. Then, as soon as Beryl stepped away from the tree's shade, something strange rippled through him. A faint tug in his chest, soft but insistent, like a whisper that only he could hear.
He blinked, his eyes shifting toward the tree line beyond the picnic area. The forest loomed there quiet, shaded, and deep. The pull came again, this time clearer. It wasn't a voice exactly, but it felt like someone was calling to him.
His small body tensed. It wasn't curiosity, not really. It was instinct something in him responding to something out there.
Slowly, Macht stood, brushing bits of grass off his pants. He glanced once toward the lake, where the others were too distracted to notice him. Beryl was laughing at something Jason had done, and Thalia was busy trying to wring water out of her shoes.
Macht turned his gaze back to the forest. The shadows there seemed darker than they should have been, shifting faintly even though there was no wind. For a moment, he hesitated. He could still hear Jason's laughter in the distance, Thalia's voice cutting through the sound of water, and his mother's faint words carried on the breeze. Normal things. Ordinary things. But the forest felt like something else entirely.
Something inside him tugged again, soft but impossible to ignore. He took a step forward, then another, his small shoes pressing into the soft grass as the sunlight began to fade behind him. The temperature changed almost instantly once he crossed into the treeline. The air grew heavier, cooler, quieter. Each sound from outside grew muffled, distant, like the world he'd left behind was slowly closing itself off.
He kept walking, though part of him whispered that he shouldn't. The forest seemed to stretch forever, trees bending in strange directions, the roots curling like veins. It wasn't fear that drove him forward, it was something else. Something that wasn't his own feeling at all.
That's when he heard it.
A sound, faint but unmistakable. Weeping.
It was soft at first, almost like the echo of someone crying far away, but it grew clearer the deeper he went. Macht's rational mind told him it was a trap, that he should turn around, but his legs didn't listen. The pull in his chest only grew stronger. Each sob seemed to press against his chest until he couldn't tell if the sound was outside or inside his own head.
Eventually, he reached a small clearing. The air shimmered faintly there, as if light and shadow didn't agree on how to behave. And in the center stood a woman.
She was beautiful, though not in a way a child could fully describe. Her long white hair glowed faintly under the filtered light, falling like silk around her shoulders. Her eyes, pink with pupils shaped like stars, were filled with tears that ran down her cheeks endlessly. Two long curved horns extended from her head, sharp yet elegant, glowing faintly as if alive.
Macht froze. He couldn't move, couldn't even breathe properly.
Then it hit him, the emotion.
It wasn't his. It was hers. Sadness, longing, loneliness, all of it slammed into him like a wave, suffocating in its intensity. His chest tightened painfully, his small hands clenching at his sides. For someone like him, who spent every day suppressing what he felt, this was unbearable. His vision blurred, and before he even realized it, tears spilled down his cheeks.
The woman slowly lifted her head. Her gaze met his, and for a moment, the world seemed to still.
There was recognition in her eyes. Something deep and wordless. Macht didn't understand it, but a single thought crossed his mind, one that wasn't entirely his own.
Mother.
The word echoed through him like it had always been there.
She reached her arms toward him, her hands trembling, and though part of his mind screamed that this was wrong, that this was something he couldn't explain, his feet moved on their own.
He walked to her.
When he reached her, she knelt and gathered him into her arms. Her body was warm, so impossibly warm that it made his chest ache. The sensation wasn't like the heat of the sun, which tired and drained him. This warmth was something entirely different. It wrapped around him, gentle and protective, as if nothing in the world could hurt him anymore.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Macht didn't feel weak or tired. He didn't feel the heaviness that always followed him. He just felt safe.
Her tears continued to fall, landing softly in his hair as she held him close, whispering something he couldn't quite hear. It wasn't words, it was emotion, raw and overwhelming, and though he didn't understand it, his body relaxed completely. For the first time in a long while, Macht felt safe.
"Thalia, I think I forgot the picnic basket. Do you mind grabbing it from the car?" Beryl asked while gently tossing a small ball back to Jason.
Thalia nodded, brushing dirt from her shorts as she stood. "Okay," she said casually before heading toward the car. But as she turned her head toward where Macht had been sitting, her steps faltered.
The spot under the tree where their blanket lay was empty. Macht was gone.
Her stomach dropped. She scanned the area, half expecting him to pop out from behind the tree or call her name as a joke but nothing. Her heart started pounding as she looked back at Beryl and Jason. They were still laughing, unaware.
Something was wrong.
Without thinking, Thalia started walking toward the edge of the forest. She could feel it, the air growing heavier, colder, as though the woods themselves were holding their breath. The deeper she went, the denser it became. Every step made her skin prickle, her instincts screaming danger.
Then she saw him.
Macht stood in a small clearing, still and silent in the arms of a woman who wasn't human. Her presence was suffocatingly immense. White hair spilled down her back, her pink eyes shimmered like fractured stars, and two long horns curved from her head in a way that felt both regal and wrong.
"Macht!" Thalia called out, her voice breaking with panic.
He didn't move. Didn't even flinch.
The woman's head turned toward her. Her expression wasn't angry, it was sorrowful, almost heartbreakingly so. "Do you reject me too?" she asked softly, her voice trembling with something mournful. "Like all the others?"
Thalia froze, her hand tightening into a fist. "Let him go," she demanded, her voice shaking between fear and anger. "Whatever you are, stay away from him."
The woman's gaze softened, and she looked down at the boy in her arms, brushing a strand of his hair away as if he were her own. "I know I cannot stay here," she said quietly, not to Thalia, but to something else, something unseen. "But to hold one of my children for only a bit, only a bit until I am free, can I do that?"
Her words carried weight that made the air itself tremble. Thalia didn't know who she was talking to, but she could feel it, an immense, silent force in the forest, something that answered not with words but with stillness.
Macht's small hand twitched against the woman's arm, and Thalia's breath caught. She took a step forward, torn between the instinct to protect her brother and the overwhelming aura that warned her not to interfere.
The woman looked up again, and for a brief moment, Thalia could see the loneliness in her eyes, an eternity of it.
Then, almost as if sensing the end, the woman whispered something into Macht's ear, her voice too soft to hear, and a faint light began to spread from her body, dissolving her form into motes that drifted like starlight.
When it was over, Macht was standing there alone, looking up at where she had been.
"Thalia?" he said quietly, his voice distant.
Thalia ran to him, dropping to her knees and wrapping her arms around him. "You idiot," she said, her voice trembling. "Don't scare me like that again."
He didn't respond. He just stood there, staring at the fading light.
"I wasn't scared," he murmured.
Thalia didn't argue. She just held him tighter.