Rem got into the passenger seat beside his father, He watched the police station shrink in the side mirror as the car drove away.
"Who was that man we met back there?"
His father kept his eyes on the road as he answered. "An old friend."
Rem was taken by a surprise, his father could actually have friends? He was taken aback by that and answered akwardly.
"That's nice."
an odd silence settled into the car, the same silence that his father brought with him wherever he went. Rem thought he understood his father well enough to know it would last the whole ride home, and he would have to pretend like something had happened instead, that they talked or connected in some way, just like he usually does.
But the silence was broken by his father's voice. "Would you be comfortable telling me what your flaw is?"
Rem said nothing. In school, they had hammered it into every student that a Flaw was never to be shared, not with friends, not even with family. No one had at the time understood the severity of it, or why it mattered so much. He only knew the rule had been drilled into each and every single one of them.
And yet this was his father asking.
Oreon respected the silence. He didn't press Rem, didn't repeat himself, and didn't glance over to read his son's face, he didn't need to. He simply drove, and waited for Rem to make his own decision.
The silence stretched until it had stopped being awkward and became something else; nevertheless oreon respected his son's decision, he asked another question this time.
"Can you guess mine?"
When he thought of his father, he saw a mountain, standing tall and mighty. With white clouds that covered it's peak, just like the mountain he saw through the car's window. He had been missing for most of Rem's childhood, and whenenver he was home he felt like a distant stranger. Like he'd built walls around himself to keep other people away. Even through his teens, he'd been gone for most of the years on missions. We never knew whether the next knock on the door would be of him walking in, or a friend of delivering a final will.
Rem had suspected for a few years, ever since he learned a little more about how people awakened. But his father had always avoided the subject of his flaw.
"You can't feel-."
"No." His father cut him off, without hurry or anger in his voice, which was the first time he ever did. "I can feel sadness, joy, relief, happiness. I have always felt them, and I always will. I just can't show it. That's it."
Rem looked at him. At the smooth, blank face of the mannequin sitting behind the wheel, and for the first time he understood what his father felt more than he ever had, now that the face was gone he could look past it.
"I'm physically unable to show that too." Oreon added softly after. "If you ever feel like sharing yours with someone, I'm always ready to listen."
A long silence settled into the car, broken only by Rem a moment later.
"Thanks, Dad."
***
The car Began to slow as their house came into view.
The front door opened before they had finished getting out of the car. His mother and younger brother burst out of it and ran straight at him, hugging him so hard they nearly knocked him to the ground.
His younger brother held on for a while, then quickly pulled away. His mother on the other hand didn't. She buried herself deeper into his chest, sniffling, as she hugged him harder. Rem patted her gently on the back.
"It's fine, Mom. I'm back now."
"Yes. You're home now." She cupped his face in her hands and stroked it. (sounds weird)
Rem finally got a good look at her, and the assumption he had been carrying since they left the police station turned out to be wrong. She hadn't changed. Nothing had happened to her face, as it had to his father's and the stranger's. It was the same face, with the same thick eyebrows and the same brown eyes.
"Why don't you go inside, changes your clothes, and take a shower sweetie? I'll make dinner while you get ready." Tears were running down her cheeks as she said it, and she was smiling anyway.
"Of course!"
Rem went inside, and his brother followed him all the way to his room, holding his nose, looking him up and down, pinching him now and then, and sometimes punching him lightly.
"Did you really awaken? you haven't changed at all! I thought you'd grow huge, or your skin would turn hard like metal, or you'd breath fire or ice. But you look boring!" his brother asked, a tinge of disappointment in his voice.
Rem laughed as he took a towel from his room and made his way to the bathroom.
"How about i tell you about my adventure after I shower? You can help Mom set the table."
His brother broke into a grin. "Really? OKay! I'm going now!"
The moment Rem stepped inside the bathroom, the smile slid off his face. He turned the hot water on and stood beneath it, letting it run down his face and body. He didn't know what to feel about his father's flaw, his first nightmare or his new found powers. Why did everything have to happen at once? couldn't his father have told him about his flaw earlier? And if Rem understood correctly, his father was going to be redeployed in a few days.
With him and his father gone his mother would be all alone.
His mother. She was a soft-hearted one too. Rem still heard her sobbing late at night whenever his father couldn't be reached for a day or two, certain he had died. Next to his father, who looked barely touched by the years, she already had a few strands of white in her hair, and though she was only in her mid-thirties, she looked a decade older.
He let out a long sigh, turned off the water and dried himself with the towel, changing into a new set of fresh clothes afterwards.
When he came down the stairs, the table was already set and his brother was sitting in his chair, waiting. His parents were in the kitchen preparing the food. Rem went straight to help his mother, only to be told to sit and wait for the food like his brother.
"Young man, you can sit beside your brother. Your father and I will take care of the food. Besides, your brother hasn't stopped talking about your adventure, so go on now tell him all about it."
"That's right, the adventure. It almost slipped my mind!"
"What kind of adventure was it?" His brother leaned over the table, eager to know. "Did you explore an abandoned cave? an overgrown jungle, like the one around Bastion? Or a freezing mountain with ice and snow?"
"You guessed right!?" Rem tapped his fork against his plate, and it rang. "It was a cave, almost like a maze. My friends and i got lost in it, and it took us hours to find the right way."
"Friends? You explored the cave with other people? were they strong, too?"
"Super strong! There was Valdo, the strongest and fastest of us. Doran, who was huge and had a deep scar across his face. He carried a shield so big it covered his whole body. And then Cathan, Niall and Bruinn, who killed a monster with every swing of their blades."
"Wow, so cool! What monsters did you fight? Wolves? Hawks? Rhi...rhinoc...rhinocerouses?" he struggled over the word.
Rem laughed. "No, unfortunately. We fought huge, disgusting worms, each one as big as the couch in the living room. They had a mouthful of vicious teeth that could tear metal apart."
His brother's face went a shade paler.
"Rem! You're scaring him!" His mother called from behind, she wasn't angry. She was just happy to have him back.
"Well, you don't need to be scared, because we got rid of all of them. And their angry father, too."
"They had a father?"
"Yes! he was huge and strong. one of his strikes knocked Doran to the ground, and no matter how fast Valdo and the others swung their blades, they couldn't leave a single scratch on its skin."
His parents had stopped what they were doing. they turned around and listened carefully, unsure which parts of the story were true and which were false.
"How did you beat it then?" his brother was practically bouncing in his chair unable to hold himself back.
"It was thanks to my genius, of course! If we couldn't hurt it, we just had to make it disappear! So I convinced my friends to push it off a cliff!"
Rem thought of everything he couldn't say. That he had thrown himself into the monster's maw to kill it. That its jaws had closed on his right arm and eaten it. That his comrades had died one by one in the final battle, Or that he had almost mentioned to Valdo to kill Doran and his gang instead of fighting the monster.
Guilt rose in him, sadness, and something else that he couldn't put a name to. He pushed them all down before they could reach his face and ruin the mood. He kept smiling as he went on.
"After that, we got out of the cave. Valdo went back home, and the rest kept exploring the cave, except for Cathan. I'm not sure what he decided to do in the end." He paused. "But I'm sure they're doing well now."
A sudden silence fell over the room. Even his younger brother, who never knew when to stop talking, had gone quiet.
His mother crossed the room slowly and hugged him from behind.
Rem knew whatever she was feeling couldn't be put into words, so she had chosen to act instead. His father stood straight beside the kitchen counter, his mannequin face making his thoughts as hard to read as ever.
***
After dinner, Rem went to his room to rest, while the rest of the family got busy preparing for the party. It was a fairly recent custom; whenever a family member successfully awakened, a party was held in celebration.
He tossed and turned in bed, unable to rest, probably because of the party looming ahead. All he wanted was to spend the time training and preparing for the Winter Solstice. He had about Two months left to familiarize himself with his abilites and his new body.
He decided to give his runes another read. Maybe now that he'd rested, he could understand exactly what they meant.
Name: Rem.
True Name: —
Rank: Dreamer.
Soul Core: Dormant.
Soul Fragments: [6/1000].
Memories: [Shrouded Cloak].
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Faint instinct].
Aspect: [Ashen Scholar].
Aspect Rank: Awakened.
Aspect ability: [Stray Spark]
That's when Rem remembered the memory he had received in the Nightmare. He couldn't recall when he'd actually gotten it, but it must have been when he killed that abominable monster. What was it called again? The shrouded Larva?
He noticed that, true to his Aspect's name, his mind had become much sharper and faster. He had spun a story on the spot, enough that even his parents couldn't tell which parts of it were true. His memory seemed to have slightly improved too. He could swear that he only hear the Spell whisper into his ears while the pain was too much to bear, yet now he remembered the name of the monster.
He pulled up the runes for the cloak and took a closer look at them.
Memory: [Shrouded Cloak]
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Tier: III
Memory type: Armor.
Memory description: [Among the worms and maggots, a frail girl harvested pale silk, stitching cloaks against the freezing cold, praying, That her craft would keep her kin warm, and safe.]
Memory Enhancements: [Hardened threads], [False Care].
[Hardened threads]
Enhancement Description: [increased Durability]
[False Care]
Enhancement Description: [Provide mild environmental protection against the elemnts by feeding off a tiny trace of the user's essence.]
'That's one good cloak.' Rem thought to himself.
The monsters inhabiting the dream realm were its greatest threath, but its weather was by means something to scoff at. Most of the books on Rem's shelf described how often new Sleepers struggled to survive the elements when they got there.
Rem let the runes fade as he felt himself sinking into the bed, sleep creeping over him.
only to be woken by his mother's muffled shouting from below.