He blinks awake, sleep passing on instead of clinging. It’s still dim outside, the light shining through the window is a muted blue. His window doesn’t catch the sunrise nor the sunset, it catches the colour change but not much else.
His blanket is tangled around him and he’s curled halfway into a ball. His wings are the only part of him not tucked in or away, they rest lightly on top of his blankets, stretching out. His tail is curled around his wrist, and his bones ache as he shifts.
He doesn’t usually get stuck in one position when he sleeps, but then again he doesn’t always dream of home. When he does, it drags him into a dead sleep, rather than a light one. It’s not a bad thing, he likes not blinking awake when his dog moves in his sleep.
He likes dreaming of home anyway. Well, not quite dreaming.
He misses being home, but he hasn’t ever left home. It’s impossible to truly leave, no matter how far away he’s wandered, no matter how lost he’s gotten. He’ll always have home when he falls asleep or when he flies high enough in the sky where entropy pulls at him.
Enough of the sleepy thoughts, he doesn’t want to spend the next hour in bed. His tail uncurls from his wrist, and his wings lift from the bed to allow him movement. All of his limbs feel heavy and ache from the held positions. He stretches as far as he can go and it aches a lot, but the contentment in him urges him to ignore it.
The wall of blankets he’s formed around him gets smushed as he leverages himself into a sitting position. After a moment, he stands up. His legs tremble for a moment, pins and needles passing through. He bends down to pet Redwood, curled up beside the bed. Undoubtedly, he’s already been up for a while, he needs less sleep than he does.
They head down to breakfast together, Redwood shaking himself off, brushing away the lazy morning. Well, not together, Redwood heads to the left of the room to take the stairs down and Jenski heads to the right to glide down.
His room is on the second floor, it is the second floor. To the right of the room, there is a tower that houses a spiral staircase down, it has a puddle of water at the bottom in case a trident needs to be powered. There is a trapdoor at the bottom of the puddle leading to The Caverns. Going up the staircase leads to the roof, usually, he leaves through the front or back entrance but this is another exit.
To the right of the room is a small staircase down to a small ledge. There is a small drop down to the ground floor in the central room. The glass floor isn’t a problem when dropping down, the glass is a lot thicker than you would expect. There are only a few fish in the aquarium, he doesn’t really keep fish as pets. The few he does are for his axolotls and are kept in the pond in the kitchen. There’s a skylight, bringing natural light onto the ground floor.
He jumps down the ledge, his wings flaring to slow his descent. He takes care of his health only so his knees don’t give out on him when he lands. The impact hurts a little but it’s nothing to worry about, he does this all the time, he prefers this over going down the stairs.
He leaves the central room, hardly more than a small aquarium with doorways on all four sides. He heads to the corridor that holds his storage room and kitchen. There is another tower at the end of the corridor, opened up to create an exit. It holds his enchanting table and bookshelves, along with a small pond covered in plants, there is a hole near the top of the tower so that the pond may be used to power a trident out. To its left is his storage room, built with Blackstone bricks. Light spills from the carpet laid on the floor, sources obscured. The water elevators at both ends of the rectangular-shaped room, and the chests on either side of the cleared aisle splitting the room in two.
He heads towards the storage room instead of the kitchen opposite it. He stores nothing in the kitchen, everything lives in the storage room. He’s long since memorized where he keeps everything, he heads for the right chest for food immediately. He retrieves his breakfast ingredients, an uncooked potato and butter, and retrieves some already cooked meat from the chest above it. He avoids eating meat when he can, and so stores it in the chest above, reserved for Redwood.
There’s too much food in there for just one dog.
He misses his daughter. It’s too soon, she was supposed to help raise her brother. And just as he thinks about him, he appears, padding into the room. He turns to hand him his porkchop and moves to the kitchen. He should make his breakfast already.
Usually, his breakfast consists of just potatoes, he grows them himself. Lately, he’s been eating other things for meals rather than just snacks. His crops have been struggling for a while and while he isn’t concerned about how much food he has, it’s still better to be cautious. He still produces enough to eat, more than enough to last him until the next batch of potatoes grows, but the struggle is still worrying. He grows carrots too, he usually eats potato and carrot soup for dinner, but he prefers to eat plain potatoes.
Whatever, he’ll deal with it. He tosses the potato into the oven and lights it. He likes just plain potato, although he does need other nutrients so he usually begrudgingly tosses other stuff on it. Today seems like a plain butter day.
Redwood waits with him as it cooks, breakfast held in his mouth. They eat breakfast together. They didn’t use to, but after Vodka passed, they just couldn’t stand living at the same distance they used to. It was less of a familial bond back then before she was gone. He had never called Redwood son before that, but now he feels like he has to. He was always his son, but he didn’t mind living like roommates.
His breakfast is done. He takes it out and slathers butter on it and that’s breakfast. He grabs water from the brewing side of the kitchen, pours a bottle into a bowl for Redwood.
He sits down on the floor by the doorway, staring at the floor in the corridor. It’s endstone. This entire castle was meant to remind him of home, but lately, it’s just made him a little sad. This is home. Neither of his homes invalidate each other, But both are equally inaccessible now. It’s just not home without his daughter.
He tries to just focus on his breakfast, petting Redwood with his other hand. He has things to do today, chores to complete, housekeeping to do. It’s never good to wallow in sadness.
He’ll take a moment to eat breakfast with his son right now, but after it’s over he’ll get moving again. He has to.