//* “But once you pass the walls and reach the towering gates,
come back.
Do not be blinded by the lust for battle.”
— Homer, Iliad 16.96–98, trans. Fagles *//
“I’m not the guy you kill. I’m the guy you buy.”
—Michael Clayton (TONY GILROY)
/* Pre-entry Tag */
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// He thinks he is the kind of man others purchase. But I think he’s much more. He is the kind of man meant to be counted on—and those are far too valuable to destroy.
[3 HOURS BEFORE NARRATIVE COLLAPSE]
He watched in his rear-view mirror as she disappeared into the school crowd. Her ponytail bounced once as she closed the trunk. He never understood why she insisted on putting her backpack in the trunk. She said it was so it could be near his briefcase. It didn’t matter how much he told her he kept his files back there to keep them secure; she simply smiled, her cheek dimple popping, and said the bags loved each other, in an infuriatingly cute way. It was the type of personified nonsense his brother would've loved, stuff he’d never really had the patience for, though she and her uncle found it hilarious.
The doors locked automatically in the steel-grey Mercedes as Dorian pulled away from the school drop-off zone. He didn’t really like the vehicle’s finish, because in the early morning light, when these drop-offs occurred, it blended into its surroundings too easily. It was a hue that looked good in glossy brochures, and in the courthouse parking lot, but was impractical when entering spaces where children darted in and out of laneways like a school of fish. The quintessential transport for a high-priced defence attorney was perfect for what it had been purchased for—a status symbol. It was never meant to be used for dropping off Bea at school. That’s what the minivan was for, but he'd given Eleanor that one.
That morning, Bea climbed out of the car again and asked about her uncle. Dorian was sad to see her go, but relieved to have the questions stop. He glanced at the passenger seat, likely still warm. She loved turning on the seat heaters during these morning drives. He checked the button—yep, still on. He flicked it off and shifted into drive.
His car smelled like strawberries, the opposite of the usual sterile leather. It was coming from Bea’s cartoon-themed handkerchief. The one she'd insisted she needed. It had a smell somehow baked into the fabric, which would've been bad enough, except it was also hideously pink. Dorian saw it there, lying crumpled between the seats where she'd tossed it. He smiled, picked it up, gave it a quick sniff before he tucked it into his pocket. A little reminder of his princess for later in the day.
Eleanor had Bea most of the time, Monday-to-Friday. He got her weekends, Saturday and Sunday, but he’d claimed the Monday drop-offs just to squeeze in one more evening. His time with her was already so short, and it hurt to admit, but even before the separation, he hadn’t seen her much. He’d spent most nights at the office, working late, and with golf and client meetings on the weekend, he often only really saw Bea for a few hours a week.
He hated that even now, that hadn’t really changed. Before, it had been his choice. Now, it was just absence, and a much more painful one.
He loved the noise when she was home, and found he missed it even more when she wasn’t; the house was so damn quiet. To fill the emptiness, he’d taken to watching old courtroom dramas at night. He’d never enjoyed reading as much as his brother, but he found these displays of lawyers sparring, fighting, winning, losing strangely comforting. Maybe he liked them because they felt familiar, or maybe because it was easier to watch someone else’s mistakes than face the mess of his own life.
It never really worked for long. You could pause your life, just like a PVR, only for so long before it automatically turned back on.
Dorian slid into heavier traffic, and for a moment the city swallowed his thoughts. A horn blared from somewhere behind, dragging his focus to the road in front of him. The lane opened ahead, steady and slow, and his thoughts followed as he signaled, slid between the two cars, and merged into the slow lane.
His life was like that now—slower. The one benefit of all of this, he figured. He wished he weren’t so busy. Less work meant more to Bea. Even with the weekend schedule, he saw her more. And now, he really focused on making the best of that small window. He made that time count, and guarded his weekend time with Bea zealously. Daddy-daughter time. No more meetings with clients, no more nine holes and cocktails. It was instead popcorn and pajamas, and honestly, he liked it better. Remi had been right; he'd been spending too much time away from her. Dorian had thought that the money would be enough, that if Bea had a good life, it would replace his absences.
It hadn’t been. Not for Bea, and not for Eleanor. He’d just missed so much: birthdays, bedtime stories, dance recitals. Whole pieces of her childhood, and while Bea always forgave him, Eleanor wanted more. It pissed him off that Remi had been right about that too. Not that Dorian would ever tell him. He definitely didn’t need to see his brother’s smug I-told-you-so face. The truth was, however, that Eleanor and her yoga instructor had been fucking. It was an indignity he’d ignored, because who could blame her, really? He was never home. So even though it had been confirmed by the private investigator he'd hired the day after Remi and he'd fought in the mall, and even though he'd kept the pictures in a yellow envelope in his office desk, Dorian had said nothing.
Who was he to shatter Bea’s life? He could handle a few knocks to his pride to preserve Bea’s innocence. Eleanor was a better mother that he was a father, so why not maintain the facade? It seemed selfish to upend her existence because of his mistakes.
God, he wished it had been that simple. That the illusion could've held. Maybe then he'd not be here, late for work on a Monday, having to do his weekly drop-off. But in the end, Eleanor had left him no choice. Dorian had not been the one to shatter Bea’s illusions; that had been her mother. She was careless. So damn sloppy that she'd gotten caught. Bea had walked in on her and the instructor during a ‘private training session.’ Dorian could still see the tears on Bea’s face when she told him. Her shaking shoulders, which his tight hug couldn't help calm.
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Rage flooded through Dorian, hot and bitter. How could she have done that while Bea was home? In some ways, that was his fault too. If Remi and he hadn’t fought that day, she'd have been with him instead of left alone in her room. Maybe together, he and Remi could've—.
Dorian cut the thought short. Thinking about that could only make everything worse. That was courtroom logic, not real life. A type of rhetorical argumentation might work on a jury, but he knew better. He’d get nowhere with what-ifs. Instead, he needed to focus on what is, the real world, the road, and getting his late ass to work.
He flipped the turn signal on, shifted into drive and eased onto the main road by the school. The turn caused the frame that hung from his rearview mirror to flash in the sun as it swung, but he looked away.
A few minutes later, he was on the freeway, cutting through traffic towards the courthouse.
As he drove, he quickly ran through his arguments for his case. He was fighting a landlord trying to evict a family—slumlord was actually a better description.
They’d complained for months about mold in the bathroom, bedbugs, and a faulty heater—conditions that made living there untenable. The owner had refused to fix any of it. Since the apartment was currently a low-cost housing unit, it was one of the few remaining in the building. The community had gentrified over the last decade, and so the owner wanted to flip the unit. He couldn’t evict the tenants, but he could make their lives miserable until they left. Dorian’s client, in desperation, had withheld rent, hoping it would motivate the owner to make the needed repairs. Sadly, it only gave the landlord what he’d wanted—a reason to evict. Hence, these proceedings today.
This type of case wasn’t the kind of thing that old Dorian would've even bothered with. In fact, it wasn’t the sort of work he’d even consider making time for before the separation, as this sort of pro bono work fell way below his pay grade. Dorian was an expert in getting high-paying, guilty assholes off for the shit that they actually did. He was more likely to have defended the landlord than the tenant, and his father’s firm would happily have accepted the high billables. But that was another benefit of his recent lifestyle change. In order to make the weekend’s work with Bea, Dorian had needed to step back a bit. Take clients who demanded less of his time.
When Eleanor and he'd split, he'd asked his dad if he could run the firm’s pro bono work. It was good PR for them and gave Dorian way more time with Bea. He’d been trying to attend more of her events, school plays and dance recitals. Everything and anything she invited him to.
His father had been visibly pissed, but had finally relented at Dorian’s mom’s prodding. So now Dorian got to defend the little guy. It felt way better, simpler and cleaner, to stand for something real, even if it meant standing with Remi in the shadows.
It was stupid really. The older he got, the more he realized his brother had only been trying to protect him. It was easier to see that now that he was living the life Remi tried to save him from, having waded hip-deep into the ocean of his parents’ disappointment. It was ironic, really. After all those years trying to escape Remi’s shadow, he’d ended up standing right beside him in it. He wished he could tell Remi that. He finally understood, but there was no easy way to start the conversation.
Remi and he hadn’t talked since the fight. His brother had reached out a few times, but Dorian had ignored the overtures. He’d been too hurt at the time. He really wanted to fix it, but some bridges only exist in dreams. Remi and he were like that. Just so far apart now, and nothing to span that gap.
It pained him to think about it really, especially given how much Bea wanted them to fix things. She felt deep down that they’d forgive each other. The other day, she'd even said to him that family forgives family. She’d announced it as she clipped the tiny frame to his rearview mirror. Dorian again refused to look at it. Even though he knew what was there. On one side there was a picture of Remi that Bea had drawn herself. He stood tall with the scarf she'd given him on his neck. It had a large question mark on it.
Dorian knew his thirteen-year-old did not intend it to be an indictment. It was merely a drawing of the last thing she'd given him, but it certainly felt like one. It was her last gift, on their last day together, and the punctuation seemed to mark the question he hadn’t been able to answer satisfactorily: why not? Because it’s too damn hard!
The rest of the drawing was as you would expect a drawing of an English teacher would look. She’d done a great job of capturing Remi’s inquisitive face. His clothes were standard teacher gear, all except the large pen that dominated most of the right third of the panel. It had been drawn to resemble a sword. When Dorian had asked her about it, she said it was because Remi always kiddingly told her how the pen was always mightier. Uncle Remi had even once told her, while admiring blades at a knife shop in the mall, never to bring a knife to a pen fight. It was ridiculous. He was ridiculous, and Dorian missed him greatly.
The back of the frame didn’t have a backing; instead, it housed another picture. A drawing of Dorian himself, wearing his power suit; the one Bea said made him look handsome. He also had a piece of fantasy armament, but his was a large shield, on which Bea had written ‘My protector. Always!’
Dorian had done a shit job of that for most of her life. He didn’t deserve the picture, nor the love that motivated it. But he was finally trying.
Honestly, neither he nor Remi deserved how much that kid loved them both. If anything could build that bridge, it was her.
She thought it was about the fight at the mall. She thought a simple sorry fixed it all. But their chasm had been built over a history of brotherhood. Over arguments in restaurants. Some about him becoming a lawyer. Others about Remi’s decisions. Many hurtful words spilled like wine on a tablecloth, a small blotch that spread, turning everything that was once white into a red haze. She thought it was fixable. ‘Family forgives.’ Maybe it was?
But not now.
He didn’t have the time, or the words, or the courage to start that kind of trial now in his life. He needed to focus on Bea. And maybe in time, there might be room for Remi again. That’s if he could stop being such a sanctimonious asshole.
The frame spun as Dorian made a left into the courthouse parkade. In circles, flipping like an animation between the two of them. Remi and Dorian. Brothers going around and around. As he parked, the car finally came to a rest. The spinning slowly stopped, finally settling on the image of Dorian with his shield.
Get yourself together, Dorian. You have a case to win!
Dorian gripped the wheel of his Mercedes, eyes squeezed shut. He needed to let go—of the anger always tightening his chest, of the fear of failing her, even of this damned steering wheel.
With a slow exhalation of breath, he took a moment to ground himself. He just needed a reset.
The clicking of the blinker grounded him. On, off, on, off. Click, click, click. Suddenly it froze, its pattern interrupted, the light locked into the on position. Dorian had always thought of the light on as being his car saying, move. The light, a gentle reminder to himself and the world that something was about to change.
Apparently its status was stuck in the ‘time to get moving, buddy’ position. Weird! But it wasn’t the prospect of a broken blinker that upset him the most. Rather, it was the sound of his car door opening that truly shocked him. He was certain that he'd locked it when dropping off Bea. But that didn’t seem to matter as a man in a blue suit filled the empty passenger seat beside him. He didn’t appear to be all there; it was like a hologram in a neon Armani. The door slammed shut, and the lock clicked. Dorian could still feel the hum of the engine. He’d been preparing to turn it off, but that wasn’t going to happen now. The slam had thrust the car into an eerie silence. He placed his hand on the gearshift. If needed, he could throw it into forward, floor the gas and slam into the concrete wall twenty feet in front of him. He was belted in; whoever the hell this was, wasn’t.
He turned to look at the stranger, and as the man made eye contact, a solemn expression hung on his face.
“Dodo,” the man said evenly, “my name is Archie.”
Dorian blinked in shock as he registered the name. No one other than Remi should know that name, and even Remi hadn’t used it in years. Dorian found it hard to imagine any reason his brother would tell another living soul that name, but that knowledge, and the connection it implied, bought the man a slight reprieve.
He turned the engine off, not sure what would happen next, but he was prepared for anything. “Don’t call me that. I won’t let him call me that, and I actually fucking know him.” His hand curled into a fist, the one farthest from Archie and hidden by his torso. He didn’t want a fight. But if this man made the wrong move, he’d be ready to throw the first punch.
“I’m a friend of your brother. I know you have an important court case in just a few minutes. Actually, you have one more important than you even understand. Your brother is in danger and needs your help. Before we get to all that, we need to talk.”
Dorian didn’t know how to respond. Should he laugh or call security? The man’s eyes flashed and held. His pupils were now locked onto the colour of Dorian’s signal. Those weren’t human eyes.
In the end, he did neither.
The lawyer in him wanted to object, but the driver in him told him he needed the shoulder check, as he was about to change lanes.
Broken Equinox
Graphic Violence
In the quiet village of Priscilla, a child is born with a dragon’s eye—marked by a curse that watches back. In a world where old sins rot beneath bright chapels, some chase purity, others bargain with the dark, and a few learn to wield it.
From the ashes of forgotten myths to the fall of kingdoms, fate binds the broken and the brave— and dares them to decide what it means to be human.
- dark fantasy ? psychological ? character-driven
- gradually expanding world ? interwoven mystery
- 2 chapters per week (≥ 1500 words)
- no harem ? heavy themes ? slow-burn growth
“When the sun breaks even with the night, monsters look most like men.”
In Priscilla, the equinox comes like a held breath. Curses stir, saints choose, and the dragon’s eye sees what the living pretend not to. Some will kneel. Some will burn. A few will learn to smile with fangs.