[Filtered from Known DELILAH Members || Unhackable]It's a very strange thing to think of turning such an age as twenty-one in the City. At least, that's the best I've managed to figure out about it--I think I'm turning twenty-one.
I was seventeen when I arrived in the City for the first time, and I stayed here through my eighteenth birthday. I could have been here through my nineteenth birthday as well, but the City saw fit to show mercy enough to send me home for a fortnight of my time and a week of the City's time. I suppose that was a mercy. So I was seventeen again while I was at home, of course, and I didn't remember anything about the City. And that would mean that I was seventeen again when the City drew me back in--unless, of course, I gained that year back with my memories, but I somehow doubt that. So that meant I turned eighteen for the second time in the City that next year.
I suppose this year I could be turning eighteen, since I suppose I'm still seventeen in my own world, or twenty-one or even twenty-two, if one counts all the time I've spent in the City as a continuous stay as I myself do. But I rather think I'm turning twenty-one. I feel, more or less, as I have every year that I've spent here, even if it is strange to have even one's own age stopped, to some degree, by the City. Time stops in our worlds while we're here, even our own lives. So that must mean that while I'm turning twenty-one here, I'm yet still seventeen at the same time.
Either way, if I were in my world, today I've reached my majority. Not that I haven't already been living independently for years now, of course, and managing my own household. And I've long since inherited both my title and my fortune--if I'm twenty-one, that means I've had both for ten years, for an entire decade, now.
Which, when I do think on it, is a strange thought unto itself. I think in many regards, I never expected that I should--that I should live so long as this. I never thought that my father would defeat and destroy me, and destroy the whole of my world. But, somehow, I think I believed that he and I were bound to destroy one another, that neither of us should live, but that he would, at least, be defeated. I have never doubted that he would fall and all his shadowy empire would fall with him. I know he cannot continue with his wicked games and plans. But I wonder, knowing things as I do now, seeing now how far and wide his poison has spread, if it means that the price of his defeat will be my end as well. I am his son, after all.
But if it means his defeat, if it means that Merry and my uncle Neil and the whole of London and the whole of the world could be safe from him, then I think it's a price I'd pay. It would be the end of the house and name and title and line, but it would be a worthwhile end for an infamous name.
I'm glad Merry isn't here to see me say all this now. Riff knows it all well enough--and has for years. I'll throw it to the winds of the Network because I don't care so much what the Network thinks of all this. Have it, and with my blessings. How unusual is it to think on death at one's birthday?
I'll put the blame for all this on those birds from yesterday.
Perhaps I should have made plans for a celebration, but that seems excessive so close to Christmas. I'll celebrate on my own tonight, I think. I can't recall the last time I visited Pandora's. That seems a good place for a celebration like this, to find oneself turning such a significant age, and to find oneself already carrying the honours of the age for ten years before.
Perhaps it doesn't matter at all, really. After all, the City is a separate thing from home. After all, it also means that I've been here for another year. It was about this time that the City took me back in, after that holiday in my own world.
I should have really learnt from my past years here, as long as I've been here.
Although, I suppose I've learnt enough to only ask about the birds yesterday. And yet, I've also learnt that I really need not ask about those birds at all. I had my own little flock of them all day yesterday and I know well what they said to me. It's the same as any curse of its kind that the City puts on us. I've learnt that much, at least.
And that's just as well.
~C.
[ooc: Happy birthday, Cain♥ May you have many more (alas, alack). For those who are wondering, Cain actually doesn't have a canon birthday, and Kaori Yuki even said she hated choosing things like height and birthdays for her characters. So I chose December 18th because, lmao, it's actually Kaori Yuki's birthday. And Cain does seem like he'd be a winter baby. Happy birthday, Cain...] 
