"Pride, courage, loyalty. Pride, courage, loyalty. Pride, courage-- loyalty, loyalty, loyalty!"
Harrison Jarsdel shrieked the family's binding traits as he sat on the edge of his luxurious bed. His right hand's fingers dug at the healed brand in the middle of his forehead while tears stung his pale blue eyes and slithered down his cheeks. Almost like snakes strangling his thoughts. Harrison sat in between two mirrors, one hand-held within his left hand's calloused palm and trembling fingers, the other perched against the embroidered wall. His gaze snapped between the 'T' branded into his skin and the brutal scarring from the twenty lashings that found home across his inked back.
The middle-aged man's head drooped forward in tandem with the man who rested inside of the mirror. The man inside of the mirror technically was Mister Harrison Jarsdel, their faces matching, their scars lining up like the stars and the moons. However, it was only when Harrison looked in the mirror did he realize the man staring back at him was never the man he thought himself to be. Only now, did the mirror show to him what he was; a husk, a foul man with selfish intentions dedicated to the well-being of his once wonderful family. Perhaps even a little boy swimming in crashing waves of anguish and disappointment with the scars of a forty-five year old failure.
After a long moment of silence broken by hitched breaths and abrupt sniffles, he stood from his tensed perch. Once standing as tall as one could muster in a bout of self-deprivation, he turned to face the mirror against the wall. Harrison's pale blue eye closed for all but a minute, only to open and imagine a younger Harrison standing within the confinements of the glass with a bright smile and his hands upon his hips. The younger Harrison was proud of who he was, confident and without a single worry. His eyes were filled with joy and success and the hairs atop his head were the deepest of chocolate browns. There wasn't a single gray strand in sight.
Within older Harrison Jarsdel's mind was a cascade of memories passing him by like carriages rushing to get to the next assembly or noble gathering. First, was the memory of his first love being when he was but twenty years of age. He could almost taste the woman's lips and smell her perfume radiating from the behind her ears again. He could almost feel the textures of the back of her dress in his palms and could almost feel the warmth and excitement radiating from her. The memory passed him by almost as soon as it appeared. Alas, she was gone.
The next memory that flooded into his clouded mind was the overwhelming feeling of success after his first proper fight. He could almost smell the sweat just as he could almost feel the cool fall air flowing past his aching, bleeding body. He could almost taste the copper from his busted lip and feel the sting of his knuckles. However most of all he could feel was adrenaline flowing through his protruding veins. Younger Harrison raised his arms above his head and shouted victory words as the smaller crowd cheered and the larger crowd booed. He watched as the medics helped his poor opponent from the damp soil. Alas, the feeling was swept away.
The rest of the memories that weaved through his flooded mind were ones that brought a crawling smile upon Mister Harrison Jarsdel's lips. Which caused his head to tilt back towards the ceiling of his Estate's bedroom, using the gravity of Aloria to sweep the thoughts into the back of his mind. The tears that once evaded his eyes slowly disappeared and his eyelids slowly opened. Harrison's irises directed themselves towards the mirror in front of himself and that was when he realized that the younger Harrison had disappeared long into the flashbacks of his past, once more only leaving the husk of 'once was'.
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