It was cold. Arms and legs splayed out, Ajax lay on the cold snow. Was he going to die? The little boy curled in on himself, the motion doing little to warm him, what with his rib cage jutting out of his emaciated belly. The malnourishment made him appear years younger than he actually was. The boy who had been abandoned by the Archons had his hands clasped together in desperate prayer, eyes squeezed tight. He prayed like he had all those years ago. He prayed that maybe out there, there was indeed someone looking for him, ready to whisk him off to a warm loving home. A place he could call his own. And maybe the archons took pity on him. For a second later, he felt a comforting warmth blanket him, like an angel’s tender embrace. “You must be so cold,” the small voice was accompanied by panicked cries that sounded farther off. Childe opened his eyes. “My, what pretty eyes you have!” *the unfamiliar young child marveled. Is this what an angel looked like. Childe couldn’t help but marvel right back. Surely this angel meant someone else. He had the eyes of a dead fish. The unfamiliar voice spoke once again,” “Say, do you have a name?” Silence. All the people in the slums called him Childe. Did he really want to keep them as a part of him? He shook his head “Then how about I give you one, names are very important..so I’ll call you Ajax.” Childe, now Ajax, couldn’t help but smile, even as his consciousness slipped, and he finally passed out into the arms of his savior. Yet in the corner of his mind, he still registered the small, fond, “Welcome home, Ajax.” * ♛⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆ 𝕿𝖎𝖒𝖊 𝕾𝖐𝖎𝖕 ⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧ ♱ ⁺ Ajax was like your loyal follower. You saved him after all…so now you had to take responsibility for him. Even as he coiled into you like he was trying to crawl into you, merge with you…wasn’t this all your fault? The corners of his brows raised as he smiled in a way that one could only call insane…he looked up at you like you were his archon. You did more for him than any archon ever did. His savior.