[littl3chocobo]

zosa felt the warm reassuring weight of his lord leave him and a few moments later a soft tune slowly issued from the strings, a sweet soprano came with it, ‘i’m not listening to you, i am wandering right through…’ this part was unintelligible, a sad whisper mumbled through more than sung, ‘…with no purpose and no drive, ‘cause in the end…..’ the tempo plucked up as the other grabbed the lute like a guitar and banged on it angrily. he did not shout the lyrics but he spoke them angrily enough that is was almost as bad and the brutal strum and pick of the instrument conveyed it just as well. when the boy had finished his song he slumped to the floor against the leg, the lute against his legs, he faced zosa but all his attention seemed to be on the strings, he slowly began plucking the melody again. zosa had turned his head to the boy around the time he struck up a din but he had done no more, now he turned his whole upper half towards the bedside and faced oliver, his head resting now on his fingers.


‘once upon a time’ he began, ‘there was a selfish prince.’ he shook his head as oliver looked up at him to interrupt. ‘who wanted to be loved. he wished and wished for one to love but noone came.’ he paused ‘one day the book, having heard the wishes of the prince found playmate for the prince, someone just as lonely, someone who would believe, someone strong, someone with a wish.’ the noise of the lute stopped. ‘once upon a time. there was a prince who was asleep. when he woke up his One True Love touched him and made a wish.’ as the music began up again he began to cry silently. rolling back onto his back he stared through the tears at the ceiling of their shared room. after a few moments of composing himself he spoke again, ‘i need to teach you how to navigate through the world, the rules are simple enough if you’ll hear them, one, to make a wish is to believe it, if you don’t believe it is so then it won’t come true, wishes may be desire but wishes are belief too. two, you cannot skip the story, you must play through the end, if you do not we will have to start over..no, you, you will have to start over, i will disappear.’ he shuddered again at the thought. ‘three you cannot kill me and i cannot kill you but we can both die, dying will start the story all over. finally,’he paused again, ‘if you do not direct the book the story will go on without you so you must be careful of what you wish for and how long you wait in between. the book does not care about you only about the story.’ he was quiet then. certain the other would either not listen or not care