Chapter Text
Harry wakes up with his legs curled to his chest, the harsh light of the sun making his eyelids red and angry, and he cannot say that he doesn’t feel the same. It’s early in the morning, but it’s always early, too early, on the planet where it is perpetually sun.
Life begins when Harry declares it to; it’s one of the few privileges of being the oldest resident, and the only living descendant of the planet’s goddess, that he actually finds pleasure in. He is the only one with experience for the duty, though, so he must bear it for the better of his people.
Experience.
The word experience has become tainted in his years of life. Experience is only to be gained through age, and thus, Harry has earned his position- according to the laws of the planet, not to him. Never according to him.
It was inevitable that Harry would be the one, from the dozens of offspring branching to other offspring, continuing down since before time existed, to remain alone forever. Inevitable in some sick, twisted sense of the word that cannot be redefined. Inevitable in the way that the planet must rotate on its axis, that the sun will rise, that Harry will never love.
Unchangeable, unalterable, unvarying.
A predetermined course of events.
Harry is the Chosen One to rule forever, because he is the only person of Venus to never fall in love, and until he does- which he wouldn’t- he would remain twenty six years old forever.
Two, the number that the planet resided in the order of the solar system.
Six, the number of the goddess that damned him to this living underworld.
Age is wrapped up in a pretty bow on Venus, so partners can grow old together, rather than waste away their youth alone.
Harry is youth. The creaking in his bones is merely the memory of the elderly rising from a kneel in reverence for their leader. The weariness in his step is only the echo of his boots against the handmade tiles. The exhaustion in his flesh resides solely in his memory and in his musings in tangled sheets, alone.
Harry is youth, yet he has never felt older. Harry is youth, yet he has never wished that his great-great-someone had allowed him to age, more than in the mornings when his pillowcase is wet and his bed is too large for one occupant.
Harry is youth, because his ancestor has declared him to be.
Harry is youth, because his parents were destined to have one child, the last to carry the blood of Venus, and live until the end of time. Harry is eternally young.
But, despite all this, he gets up.
Harry gets up from his king bed for one, because he has a planet to run, and, in the hundreds of years of being twenty six, he has since decided that self-pity has never made for a good ruler.