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A question asked to many children has always been the same thing : What do you want to be in the future? This question is quite heavy to put on these small little beings who barely know who they are at the moment and yet we ask them to think about the future. Luckily the children don’t let it bother them, maybe they just don’t understand the weight behind the question. Or more likely they are much wiser than we believe them to be, they realise that such a silly question demands a silly answer. Little kids want to become powerful wizards who go out adventuring and slay dragons while others merely want to marry one. They mirror themselves to the heroes of the stories they hear. Some listen with their ears pressed to the door of a tavern trying to listen to the latest bard’s tales, while others choose their older siblings, reading from a book they managed to haggle off of the latest travelling merchants. For others the heroes are a little closer to home like the smith who last year saved a lame horse or the cook filling their bellies with a comforting meal.
As children grow older the answers start to change rather than following in the footsteps of others they start to become something a little more practical and their own. They want to become lore bards so they can use their voice to bring joy to others. Or maybe they want to become potion makers bringing the knowledge their mother taught them and using it in an entirely new way that is just their own.
And once they’re grown they look back at those dreams and possible futures they had in front of them. Some realising they were destined to become who they are from the start while just as many have carved a new path that nobody and especially not they themselves had ever been able to imagine. Yet they have never been more happy where they are.
Percy was no different than these children. He too was once small and he too had once dreams. When he was 5 (which is quite young in human years) he wanted to become an angel. He had heard legends from the castle's librarian who placate him by reading him legends from centuries long past. He heard about how noble they were, how they always helped other and never lied nor stole (though he tended to forget that part when telling his
older brother that he did not in fact know who spilled ink over his letters, or what happened to the expensive honey important all the way from wildermount). He wanted to be just as noble and fair (maybe he also wanted to be a little more like his brother but he would never admit that out loud, though luckily enough that wasn’t needed as Lucius realised this more than well enough when his brother snuck in during sword practice to watch him train).
Then just like little kids tend to do too much regret of their parents as they grow older and Percy was no exception. In the past decade he had learned skills of his own, not virtue like the angels he used to look up to or swordsmanship like his brother. No Percy had started to tinker, making little tidbits off his own. When people asked him what he wanted to become
his answer would be a clockmaker. Working the tiny little cogs in a machine that is both useful as it is pretty. Percy did not end up becoming a clockmaker, he did not end up being a noble knight and he certainly did not become an Angel. In the end all he wanted to be is alive the next day.
As Whitestone got invaded by vampires and undead alike the citizens fled and hid from the demons that had down invaded their home. Praying to the dawn father that the ones they loved were safe but knowing deep in their heart that many of them weren’t. Though the royal family didn’t have the time to worry about that, as each of them were swiftly slaughtered. All but of course two children. Percy and his little sister Cassandra.
They did not expect this would happen, and even when it did the truth of the situation didn’t register with them. As Percy was pulled away from the dinner dragged through bloody hallways all he thought of was his first ever clock laying unfinished on his bedroom floor.
It would not be long before the blueprint of the clock was long forgotten. Percy has new things to create now. As tendrils of smoke enter his dreams, so do new ideas. The soft warm orange of brass is replaced by the heavy darkness of blackpowder and steel. And when Percy gives his new creation to the people he resents the most, all he wants to become in the future is the person who will take them down. So when the smoke whispers the promise of revenge he doesn’t turn it down.
When the Briarwoods finally die, so does Percy’s reason to live. As the smoke swirls around him and lifst his gun to his head his friends step in. And by stopping the demon and banishing it they also become something more. The literal tether to which Percy’s soul is connected is the one thing keeping the demons at bay. The ones who he made deals with and the ones residing in his head.
Percy wanted to be a clockmaker, an angel. He was known as a demon making weapons of mass destruction. But these days are behind him now. Right now he’s a husband, a saviour of the world and a dear friend. One day he will be a legend, a father, a man.