Art: 028/100 Themes - Sorrow

“Sororea.” – Sorrow. 28/100 Themes.

This is an immediate, temporal, continuation of the “Breathe Again” picture for this same series.

I think there are some things that might cause readers to question the consistency in my characters’ personality designs, but all I can say is like any human being, Rivek does things that are contradictory, things that he will ask himself later why he did them. Like, instinctively save the life of someone who he feels betrayed him. I want to convey the idea that he’s not an innately “good” or “bad” character and often does good things for selfish reasons or bad things for someone else’s reasons. We all have difficulty making decisions, and I want something more complicated than the standard “good because society says so” hero or the not-so-standard “self-serving but coincidentally good” anti-hero.

I removed the rope situation for continuity – assuming the pair has floated quite a way down the river by now, there’s no way Bohren would be on shore with a rope. That would assume Rivek had been able to swim upstream back to the bridge. Nevertheless, Fenne’s dad is a douche.

Rivek surfaced from the water, lungs raging and gasping for air just as cold as the water itself. The initial shock froze him momentarily before he remembered to lift the prince’s head above water. With one limb incapacitated by the other man’s weight, he struggled to find some patch of underwater ground he could at least walk on. He kicked around for a minute, often losing to the current and winding up a few inches further downriver. Finally, his feet made contact with soft, but stable, earth, and he used the resistance to throw the body over his back. Through the cold, wet, skin and cloth, he had no way to tell the prince was still alive.

As he trudged back toward dry land, he had a thought that sickened him slightly. He found he personally didn’t care in particular whether the prince survived, only that he feared the repercussions – likely, violent – he’d face if he had let a member of the royal family die, no matter how much trouble that family member had been.

He collapsed to his knees and unceremoniously threw the prince off his back. He paused as his body re-accustomed to the weather, causing him to hack blood and water onto the ground. Despite having come from inside a warm, living, body, the mixture exiting his chest was completely frigid, but at least the cold minimized the blood from burning the insides of his trachea. As his eyes and throat cleared, he noticed the prince still hadn’t moved. “Fuck,” he rasped, but the speech caused him to enter another coughing fit.

After recovering again, Rivek crawled over to the still form and put his fingers against Fenne’s neck. Whether he felt a breath, a pulse, or his own shivering, he couldn’t tell. Either way, he wouldn’t take the chance. He pushed down on the prince’s chest, awkwardly forcing some water from his lungs through compression. Fenne’s eyes stayed closed.

“Get away from my son.”

Rivek stood up and backed off on his knees. He crouched, ankles now submerged into the icy river again, and watched as the king and his envoy marched through the nearby trees. The ruler motioned toward his family medic. The healer rapidly placed his hands on the unconscious boy’s chest, and the water flowed steadily out his mouth. As the last bit ran down his cheek, he began to breathe normally again. Shortly after, he sat up and opened his eyes. First, he looked to his father, who only responded with a stony glare, and then to Rivek. He lifted his eyebrows as if to say something, but thought better of it. Instead, he turned away to take the dry towel the healer and offered him.

Rivek knelt on the riverbank, shivering, and watched as Fenne’s father put his arm around his son’s shoulders, and the pair walked away without so much as a glance backwards in return. Sopping and stumbling, Rivek got to his feet. He knew if he wanted dry clothes, he’d have to find them himself.