Chapter: Reminder IV

Yeah, that's right - it was before Eileen's pregnancy. I generally jump around wildly in time, haha, I have the power to do that ... because after all, Orion's memories don't come chronologically and not all at once, but rather little by little and not necessarily in order. You have to do the sorting yourself afterwards, hehe !! Think of it as a big puzzle or something like that ... I hope you like puzzles ?! So, I'm a fan ^^

*****

She looks at me piercingly, but says nothing. I can still hear the slight reproach and it almost drives me crazy, but I just can't talk about it, can't and won't let the pain swell up again that changed my life so decisively back then.
"What do you still remember?" she finally asks, and I am relieved to see that she sounds a little disappointed but no longer angry. She forgave me - albeit reluctantly.
"A lot - and nothing", I answer ambiguously and let myself sink to the floor along the wall, "nothing that I would like to remember ... only the things that I probably suppressed earlier."She nods calmly and looks at me with a kind of interest that one might have in a particularly unique subject of study. "Do you remember .. your brother?"
I turn my head to her wearily. "Brothers," I correct, "actually I have three brothers. One died when I was 10, my twin when I was twelve. And then I had my half-brother."
“Three?” She frowns.
I nod and tilt my head back to stare at the ceiling. "Dorian, Allan and Calvin."

"Stop it, Ryan," says Dorian gruffly and looks at me annoyed, "stop tugging at my jacket - you'll break it!"
Disappointed, I let go of her and draw a curse. He sighs and tousles my hair with his right hand. "I'll be back in a few hours," he says, "and that's how long you've got Allan!"
"Yes," I say defiantly, "but Allan's not you!"
He smiles slightly and kneels in front of me, which puts us at eye level. His white-blonde hair falls gently around his face and frames his brown eyes."But he looks a lot like me, you know," he says teasingly.
I'm grinning crooked. "Hmm", I'm just doing, "he's still not like you."
A low laugh escapes his throat, then he stands up and puts his hand on my shoulder. "I really have to go now."
I nod sadly and stand a little lost while he walks to the door. He opens it and is already halfway out when he turns around again and gives me an encouraging smile. "Hey kid."
I lift my eyes and look at him expectantly.
"Tomorrow we're going to have an ice cream, I promise!"
A beam crosses my face, I nod enthusiastically and watch the door slowly close.
It was the last time I saw him.

"How ... are you ...?" she asks hesitantly, and I take a hard look at my fingernails. It hurts to talk about it - touches places in my heart that I didn't even know existed - and yet it is many times better than talking about Leia.So I start
"Dorian died in a car accident," I say slowly, not because the memory is so fuzzy, but rather because it is an unspeakable effort for me to tell her about him, "he ... he ..." I swallow and close the eyes. Suddenly I realize that I have recently met these brothers - at least two of them - but in a completely different form and without my having recognized them. A cold shiver runs down my spine and unconsciously I clench my fists.Narcissus ...Something like an electric shock flashes through me and paralyzes my senses.Damn it ...
"He...?" she hooks up and I blink a few times to find my way back to reality.
She knows nothing about the three races that unite in me - so far only knows the messenger and the person in me. How am I supposed to suddenly explain that, long before they were born, I was once crown prince of an extinct race, the rose - and maybe I am now?That I killed this brother, whom I so adored as a person, 40 years ago?
Shouldn't I then also tell her about the woman, Molin, who then dominated all my thinking and still haunts me in my dreams now?
And from Can, my teacher and friend, who has since suffered the greatest pain through my fault or has already died, under the agony of torture - just because of me?
I can be more than grateful that she is still there even though she knows about Bathelem.
"He meant a lot to me," I conclude simply and am glad that I trained my face in such a way that you can hardly read my feelings.
She doesn't ask any more, just sinks down on the wall across from me and is silent. A small wave of gratitude floods me - for being willing to give me this moment of memory and for feeling that I don't want to be touched, although she certainly needs to be comforted by her closeness donate.Quite different from Leia, who would always have done the opposite. Who never did what I wanted ... but always only what she said was best for me.
The shadow of a smile crosses my face.

"Your nose is running."
I glare at the girl who gives me this relentless piece of news during school break. "Oh yes?"
"Yes," she says, "and your eyes are all red and fat."
I defiantly stretch my chin forward and demonstratively look in another direction.
"Is everything ok?"
My lips are pressed together into a thin line and I fight against the tears that arise.Not here, I think desperately,not now.
She sits down next to me on the bench and puts her small, dirty and warm hand on my forearm. "You know, you don't have to say it at all," she says and smiles slightly, "I already know that it isn't like that."
The wisdom that resonates in the words of the nine-year-olds is so comprehensive that I can't breathe for a moment and can't say anything.She also falls into silence, and the calm that she exudes slowly but surely spills over me and suppresses the grief.
We sit side by side in silent, peaceful harmony until the break gong sounds and the next hour announces.
I slowly raise my eyes and look into her eyes. They are hazel and I notice that they look like Dorian's eyes.
"My brother died."
She doesn't change her face, just nods knowingly and stands up. "It'll be fine," she promises, and a small miracle happens: I believe her.
"And before I forget, my name is Leia."

"Bathelem," I finally break the silence and force the image of the small, curly-haired creature out of my head, "is my other brother. Was. Is. Whatever."
I nervously run the tip of my tongue over my lips and run through my hair.
She nods in understanding. "Your ... twin?"
"Yes," I reply, "Allan."

"Dorian is not dead!"I wheel around furiously and give him a hard push. "Stop saying that! He's dead! Mouse dead! We saw his body and he's buried! His soul is in heaven!"
Anger flares up in his eyes. "No," he contradicts stubbornly, "I've seen him! He's not dead!"
A shiver runs down my spine involuntarily. The thought of seeing my older brother all over again fills me with wild dread as well as unrestrained joy. But that doesn't matter - because he's dead!
"You didn't see him," I reply, "you couldn't have seen him at all!"
His face becomes impenetrable. We both have mastered this trick of hiding our feelings from the outside world - but it doesn't work from ourselves. I know exactly what he's feeling, as I almost always know - he's angry. And hurt because I don't believe him.
"Yes," he insists stubbornly, "I recognize him when I see him - and he definitely was, even if his eyes were different ..." A small, steep crease appears on his forehead, as always when he did thinks."Oh," I mockingly, "but his eyes were different, yes? Then it wasn't him. It couldn't have been him!"
He looks at me with a strange expression and a second chill runs over me. It's like looking into a rejuvenated face of Dorian's - because they look alike, very much, much more like me than my identical twin, except that Allan's eyes are gray and Dorian's are brown.Were, I improve in my mind,Were brown.
"Red," he replies, and for a moment I don't know what he's talking about, "they were glowing red."
Silence spreads between us like a shroud, and my voice trembles slightly when I finally reply: "You are wrong. Dorian is no longer alive."

"We reported him missing," I say with a dry mouth, "he disappeared one night. And never came back."
Idle to say what happened to him. It is clear to her, as I am now realizing - he was attacked by some vampire and blew his life out in the streets somewhere ... and started a new one."Why did he disappear?" she asks with the open curiosity of the policewoman inside her, which under other circumstances would have made me smile.
In other circumstances. As it is, however, I only answer with the exhausted tone of a person who has to endure more than he actually can: "He was looking for Dorian."
Her eyes widen and she tilts her head to one side. "But wasn't that ...?"
I grimace a little. “No, it wasn't,” I reply weakly, “at least not in the traditional sense. Or it wasn't at the time.” A small, painful pang of guilt goes through me. "But I didn't know that at the time."

"They talk about Allan, Ryan," she remarks casually, dangling her legs as she licks her chocolate ice cream.
I nod and sigh. "I know," I reply and chase away a bee that buzzes around my head, "it is now still outside in the evening when it is already dark."She looks at me with an expression of seriousness that would be comical with any other eleven-year-old, but only seem appropriate to her. "It's dangerous outside," she explains, as if I didn't know, "you should stop him."
I get a little snort. "As if I could," I reply ironically, "you know how stubborn he is!"
"Sure," she says, "he's a lot like you!"
I curl the corners of my mouth dismissively and she starts giggling softly. “Really,” she says when she has recovered, “you have to stop him. What if something happens to him?” She lowers her gaze slightly and gently touches her knee with mine. "You don't want to lose another brother, do you?"
Although the sun is warm from the sky, I suddenly get goose bumps and