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 Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 6:26 pm
 Closing Ranks
Adonis breathed his first easy breath in five years.
He felt jubilant. He could run, prance, run with unbridled joy and freedom through the preserve that was now fully and completely his. There was no Lightbreaker to worry him now. Sertorius’ plans had all come to nothing!
How he had worried! And how stupidly! The Lightbreaker was little more than a child, a plaything, easily manipulated and played. He’d forgotten his purpose, it seemed like, and made stupid attachments.
Well, of course he did.
Adonis smiled in the darkness and took in another long, sweet breath.
Behind him, Bucephalus did not breathe so easy. His own eyes were dark and clouded.
“You did not have to kill the doe,” he said sternly, his voice low.
Adonis opened his eyes and turned toward the stag. “It was not one of your does. I sacrificed one of my own.”
Bucephalus snorted forcefully. “You have left seven fawns without a mother, and you treat her sacrifice with such ease?” He shook his head. “This was not necessary. The Lightbreaker would have believed the hunter was after us without him shooting that doe. He was already invested.”
“She had shown some… reluctance in the overall plan,” said Adonis easily. He took a step into the light, basking in its glory. “She was soft-hearted and believed the Lightbreaker was too young to be a danger, that he might have been molded to our side. It was better this way.”
Bucephalus said nothing, his eyes narrowing. Adonis ignored his rage in favor of the sunlight’s kiss, its blessing. He felt rejuvenated, his hide brighter today than it had been in the days before. The doe’s death had not made him haggard, but instead more brilliant, as though her light had refocused itself into him when she no longer had need of it.
“You will now send away the hunter.” Bucephalus’ intonation was difficult to decipher, between a question and a command. But Adonis knew it could not be a command, for nobody dared to order him. He turned toward the stag. “There is no need of him now.”
“No, I don’t think I shall…” Adonis said, consideration cold in his voice. “What if there is more unrest? Some of your fawns, Bucephalus, wept when I exiled him. Had they grown fond of him? Did he infect them with the desire to go back out into the world?”
He smiled as Bucephalus lifted his front hoof, then lowered it slowly, thinking better of it.
“Yes… yes, you may want to speak with them,” said Adonis. “The hunter will still roam, after all. It is better to close ranks and be safe.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 5:03 pm
Single Feather
Rhedefre’s eyes split open to a rising sun. The desert air was cool, unheated yet by the tireless, ceaseless heat of the day. His eyes still ached, but less. His back still hurt, but less. He started, looking around himself, remembering the feeling of hands on his face, of the damp cloth on his brow.
The press of lips against his own.
Had it just been part of his dream…?
He blinked and swallowed, his throat still cracked—again, but less.
Who would kiss him in this nothingness? It had to have been some bleed from his dream, although he did not think of the woman he dreamt of in such a way—a motherly kiss, perhaps, is what his brain concocted?
His head ached. He shrugged off the feeling and let it go into the wind.
Rhedefre watched the formation of the dunes, the way the sand tried to envelop him. There was a wearying sameness to the landscape. The dunes only shifted, did not reveal in them any true and lasting change. A snake, a scorpion, rolled across them, but the punishment of the similarity was unblinkingly, mercilessly constant.
He had to die or move.
He’d tried to die. This time, he chose to move.
Cesc tried to rise, but the pain in his back and the lack of wings burst through the tedium with dizzying discomfort. The Sigel dry heaved onto the sand and stretched his hands across his back, trying to reach his wound, to feel if it had closed or scabbed, but it was too far. He groaned. His hand balled into a fist, he tried to slam it against the dirt in frustration, but even that was not cathartic—the sand absorbed. The blow felt pitiful.
He tried something else. Reaching out his hand, he tried to snap off a beam of light for a staff, a crutch, but the light passed through his grasp like, well, light. It did not harden. It did not obey him.
Rhedefre thought of the doe in the forest, the one shot with Azucar’s arrow. How the white of her coat withered into a plain and simple brown before she had fallen. It was his fate now, too, wasn’t it? Somehow, the blow had drained him of power. Of his connection to the light.
The dawn did not whisper to him. Did not grant him calm. He was no longer her son, her subject, her confidante. He was nothing to her.
The feather was still in his hand.
An hour passed before he attended to it. He tried, again and again, to call to the light, to make it obey him, but it was silent and distant and strange. Lightbreaker, they’d called him. A name he could no longer live up to.
He rested against the sand and looked at the feather. He recognized it more than his own dark and dirty hands—strange, faithful thing. It had been his sword when he’d fought the hunter. It hadn’t left him when Adonis took his antlers, when he’d deposited him in this wasteland, when he’d tossed and turned throughout a feverish dream.
A wrecked pinion, half-bare.
And yet, he still couldn’t find it within himself to let it go.
Cesc sighed, pulling himself with his free hand across the sand. He needed something—a stick, even—to help him move while keeping his healing back as still as possible. Without the light to properly fuel his rune, even floating was an impossibility. He could just hover, but articulating forward movement was much harder without the benefit of wings.
He looked around. No trees…
With a miserable sigh, he opened his hand again and looked at the pinion. How had it remained pink, remained tangible, when everything else had drained and been lost? Cesc smoothed it with his cracked fingers, and it allowed itself to be smoothed.
A tiny spark of hope shone in the back of his mind.
He pulled the feather, and it allowed itself to be stretched.
Tears stung Cesc’s eyes and he gasped in a dry, pitched laugh. It was the last remaining vestige of his power. Of all his now-absent feathers, of all the light in the world, it was the only thing that was left to obey him.
It was slow and tedious work, pulling and crafting the feather into something long enough to be a crutch—work that would have once taken him a second’s thought. His power was still draining, still evaporating in the sunlight into nothing, but he worked with what was left of it on the pinion feather.
The sun slinked across the sky as he worked, but at long last—and with more energy than he’d ever expelled on any magic—his toil was done. The feather had become a crooked, odd-looking crutch, rough at its edges, with no beauty. But when Cesc heaved himself off the sand and slid it under his arm, and took his first step in the desert, it became the most precious thing he had ever made.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 7:55 am
Lost
Cesc turned in place. His hair was matted to his head with a sweat he wasn’t sure how he could even still produce. In the distance, he could see shimmering sands, mirages of water, small brushes of plant life. Now and then, he could see stone, or areas that had been dug—people had been there, once. Not now, though.
Horror was settling in on him in slow motion. He began to suspect that morning that something was amiss, but it was not until now, hours later and his focus restored by the creation of his crutch, that a sick realization locked in.
Cesc was lost.
He stood in place, leaning on his crutch, his lips parted. His eyes unfocused. He let that wave crash upon him, allowed himself not to struggle while he drowned in it.
For the first time in his life, he was fully, truly, and undeniably lost.
There was no feeling which way was home. Civilization. His connection to light had been severed, and everything that had made him a white stag was gone.
Gold glittered at the edge of his vision, a swaying figure. Cesc turned in place, squinting at the sand and the mirages. He wanted to sit. He wanted to cry and bury himself underneath his covers. He wanted to pet Guy. Talk to Vivi. Talk to anybody.
He was stuck in the desert, with no way to get home, and no way to die.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 5:38 pm
Fever Dream II
Another dream.
It had to be another dream.
How could it have been anything otherwise? He was floating through a wooden glade, through aspen trees that shivered quietly in a wind that had no bite. It was a path he did not know, a path that was without fear. The animals did not heed him, neither turning their heads nor scurrying away as he floated beside them. There were no hunters. No stags.
Cesc frowned.
It was a dream, wasn't it? His hands were clean when he looked down at them. His jacket was warm. Birds twittered gently to each other from the treetops. Every breath was clear and easy.
Had he died?
No--no, he assured himself. At the edges of his consciousness, he could still feel heat. Still feel pain. It was vivid, and it was peaceful, but it was not his reality.
But who wanted reality? This place was better. There was gentleness in its design. A soft scent he recognized, herbal and floral and just a touch metallic...
He squinted in the dappled light.
White, otherworldly light poured through the canopy of thick trees as if there were no foliage above, highlighting various areas of grove as Cesc floated by. The stillness of the woodland and its air was oddly engulfing.
Beneath the beams of light mere yards from the stag, the full figure of a woman stood and basked. Her back was facing him, long chocolate, wavy tresses reached just above her rear but hardly covered those familiar branches protruding from the figure's back. Her long, silken dress shone between silver and pale green as she moved, almost as if she were dancing in place. Subtle.
Cesc stood in place for a long moment, one hand up to shield his eyes from the light. He recognized her, and yet he didn't, his brain foggy. He took a step forward, his mouth opening to speak, but the hush of the forest seemed to put a finger to his lips.
That scent, the branches...
The sway and curl of her hair. He knew her, didn't he?
A scene tugged at his memory. A girl with her thumbs soaking in tea. A flash of a demure smile. Soft gentleness.
"Et…h?" He heard his voice before he knew he'd spoken the name.
There was a pause in the woman's movement as Cesc called out a name. Could it be Ethiriel? Despite the curtain of the dress, it was obvious that there were hips and legs beneath as she shifted from one foot to another. While the name, or perhaps the stag's voice, caused her to pause, for a brief moment there came no response.
Until she turned around.
With hair pooling down and framing the overly familiar face, vibrant green eyes met Cesc's with warm greetings. Much like his memories, that similar demure smile spread on Ethiriel's lips with instant recognition, herself.
"Rhede," came the voice known to be hers; soft spoken, lovely.
Cesc's lips parted as she turned. She was Ethiriel, wasn't she? Yes--yes, he knew her face, the curve of her cheekbones and the tilt of her smile, the way her hair cascaded around her shoulders. She was her and yet not, fully-formed, her eyes a lush and living green. Her appearance unwound the hard tension in his shoulders, the fear that had tried to make a home in the lines beneath his eyes.
Had she always looked this way? He tried to remember what was right and what was not, but her face did not change. He remembered a time, when he had met her, that she had offered him this sort of calm, this same sort of respite from his misery.
Self-conscious, he ran his fingers through his hair, tugged at his jacket, gently cleared his throat.
"W...what are you doing here?" he breathed. He half-held out a hand to her, afraid to touch her image, lest it dissipate into the wind.
Ethiriel slowly approached at Cesc's confusion, treading softly on the grass between them with no sound. Her movements much suited her name.
"Please," she said coolly, reaching out a hand of her own just as Cesc did. "Rhede, come home."
Cesc felt his throat begin to constrict, his eyes wet. He looked down, taking Ethiriel's hand gently, intertwining their fingers. He could not speak over the lump in his throat, but he nodded silently. His hair fell over his forehead as he bowed his head, his jaw tensing.
"I... I don't know how..." he said, his voice thick. How could he tell her? He was in exile now, unable to return, with no compass to guide him even if he could. His fingers tightened around her, as though trying to keep her as a lifeline. His eyes were red.
Heat was beginning to snake its way through the trees. The voice of the birds were slowly becoming further and further away. The aspens stilled. And Ethiriel, her full and living beauty, was beginning to seem terribly, desperately distant. He held onto her as the world began to beckon him.
These woods were better. He wanted to remain in this angelic glade, in the cool and the quiet, in the protection of Ethiriel.
"It's okay to be scared," Ethiriel said comfortingly. Despite the distance growing between them and Cesc's fingers tight around hers, the woman's grip was gentle and soft. For just a brief moment, she brought them together in a warm embrace -- just for a moment. At their contact, she continued, "We will still be here for you."
With that, save for their entangled fingers, they separated once more.
The dream faded, plastic and translucent. He was laying on hard ground, his skull throbbing with discomfort.
A hand slid beneath his head. Water smoothed his brow.
"Shh," he heard a voice say.
Cesc frowned and murmured and slept.
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 8:25 am
Caught Unawares
Vivi had not been well.
The first night, she had searched for Cesc until Perp had cried and begun to limp, and she was forced to relent and take the dog home, and then to a vet. The second night, she searched until exhaustion threatened to take her, and the third day she spent prostrate in bed, weeping angrily until all the weakness had left her.
The fourth day, Vivi rose, full of calm fury and decision.
She showered. She dressed. She put on her shoes and went to Gertrude’s home with Shepard and told her all.
She was calm as she sat, her hands folded, her ankles crossed. She was calm as she spoke.
“I need to know,” she said, “how to kill a white stag.”
Gertrude and Shepard drew back slightly, and for a moment, nobody spoke. Vivi looked at them both impassively, her dark eyes full, like the heavy clouds of a tempest rolling across the sun.
“If they have killed him,” she said, “I will not forgive them. I will not move on. I will end them. They will live only to regret what it is that they have done to him.”
“Vivi,” said Gertrude gently, “How do you know it is they who have done anything to the boy? Just because one blamed you for it does not mean that they actively caused him harm. They may have spoken out of turn because of their fear of the hunter.”
Vivi shook her head. “You did not see. You did not see the triumph, the smugness, with which he spoke, that one! It was loathing, for me, for Rhedefre. They meant him harm. I know this. I do not know if they have killed him, but I know they did not mean but to do violence upon him.”
She said again, speaking with a simple determination: “If he is dead, they will feel it. They will feel his loss.”
Shepard leaned forward, his hand on her knee.
“We don’t know that he’s dead,” he murmured, his thumb stroking her. She eyed him distantly. Behind the storm clouds, there was lightning, fire, but she kept the grey thick and cloaking.
The Frenchwoman drew in a slow, even breath. “Yes,” she said. “That is the first step. If he needs help, we must find him. If he is alive.” She looked from one to the other. “But I will not be caught unawares if he is not.”
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 7:45 pm
Forgotten Connections
“I’m going to ******** die of boredom,” Cesc announced to nobody as he toiled, hobbling across sand for the millionth hour. The unchanging sights were torture to his mind as well as his eyes. He scrubbed his fast-forming beard with one hand to keep alert, although part of him darkly welcomed the idea of being bitten by a snake or scorpion for some variety.
It was magnificent desolation, like the moon. A cratered nothing, with nobody for miles.
Despair was slowly souring into anger. They mixed, an acidic mixture, in his veins, alternately slowing him and pushing him forward.
Maybe he should just ******** live here, he thought. Just sit here and meditate until he reached nirvana. Where was he even going? Back to Gambino, where Adonis would exact his revenge on Vivi—or Azucar would, he supposed, wherever, whatever he was. What could Rhedefre even do at home? He was a ******** useless deer. He had no power, nothing to offer. All he could do was hide.
What had he ever done, anyway? Without a target to strike, his anger turned inward with poisonous frustration. Look at what he’d done to Lorin. A leshy afraid of a forest—that’s what he’d made him. His own idiocy, taking a boy into a forest he knew might not be safe! Cesc was not blameless. He wasn’t some starry-eyed innocent getting kicked in the teeth. He had a hand in making this happen.
The stags hadn’t sought him out. He’d done that. They hadn’t wanted to know him, he’d forced the connection. He’d set the zealots on himself. For years they’d lived without fear, without knowing them.
Cesc put a hand to his face and exhaled through his teeth. He wanted to scream, but it was awkward and bottled up and difficult to access cleanly—his lungs hurt his back when he breathed too deeply, and even without a soul for miles, he still could not let himself go enough to let everything pour out of him.
It was a powerless, disgusting feeling. <********,” he said instead. His hand clapped against his hip with all the strength his healing body could muster. “Goddamn it.”
He sat in the sand abruptly, letting his crutch fall to the ground.
Maybe he would just sit here. Sit until he found a solution or until he shattered. Or, he thought furiously to himself, until his petulance evaporated in the heat of the sun and he stripped away all the useless layers himself until he could find something good.
A spark of gold pulled his eyes. As he turned, there was no surprise to what he saw: still golden sand and dust and flickering mirage, hot-bright in the sun.
He squinted.
Was there a figure in the sand? A woman? It was difficult to see in the thin air and sunlight of the desert, through the mist of dust. He could see a figure, standing tall, her face toward him.
Cesc scrambled forward and grabbed his crutch, lifting himself with shuddering effort.
“Hey!” he yelled at the figure, hobbling toward her. He pushed against the sand, his back aching, his free arm waving wildly, trying to get her attention, trying to keep his balance as he pushed on his crutch. It was slow but frantic, a ridiculous combination.
The woman turned her head. She seemed disembodied from the landscape, the quicksilver mirage flickering around her. She took a step toward him, then two, then stopped, watching him, hesitating.
“HEY!” Cesc yelled again, his lungs jolting in pain at the exertion. The wind stung the cuts on his arms and face, his dry eyes, but it blew her hair as well, and his heart nearly burst in relief to see that she was real.
As he closed the distance between them, his chest heaving with toiled breath, he began to see how unreal she looked. Her skin was dark as midnight, but her hair was a curtain of braided and draped gold, burnt like autumn leaves at her crown, hanging like a cape to her knees. Her eyes seared into him as he approached, brilliant as the rising sun. Her lips were black, ink-black, and she wore a dress of the same color that fluttered and flew in the wind like a flag.
Rhedefre slowed as he saw her, bewildered. He had had so many dreams lately—was this one? The line between the dreamscape and reality was so thin…
She smiled and lifted a hand to beckon him.
“Are you afraid?” she said, and her voice was soft. “Do not be. Come. Come to me. It is time.”
Cesc swallowed, taking another pulled step forward. The sun reflected off her skin and she glittered, as though the sand had burrowed in her cheeks.
Had he gone mad?
She seemed to sense his thoughts and laughed, a low and thrumming sound.
“Come to me, Sertorius,” she said, taking a step forward. She put her hands on his shoulders. “I see that you are tired. You must be. You have been traveling deeper into the desert for days now. I have tried not to impede—but I see that I must. You have been too much harmed to know yourself.”
Cesc blinked. He held back his words—who did she think he was? With his hair now brown, with his short beard, she must have mistaken him. But how? He was still a Raevan. Was she sun-sick?
That name… where had he heard that name?
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice quiet.
She smiled.
“Sertorius,” she laughed a fondly exasperated laugh, like one humoring a child. “Can you not recognize me? It’s Hart. Your wife.”
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Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 8:22 am
Forgotten Connections II
Cesc slowly drew back, blinking. He shook his head shallowly. “I’m sorry, you must be—“
Hart laughed, her hands on her hips. She tossed her long hair back and the movement rippled down to its edges. She eyed him with amusement. “Sertorius! Is this form displeasing to you? Do you prefer the original?”
She lifted her hands and in a whirling motion, she was gone. Cesc cried out, half-lifting his hand, but in her place, rising from the sand, was a golden doe, with dark wide eyes. She walked on black cloven hooves, her step like a ballerina en pointe.
Cesc staggered backward, his crutch sticking in the sand, and nearly fell.
“s**t!” he gasped, his voice tightening in panic. Adrenaline raced through his veins and he instinctively tried to grab for a beam of sunlight, only to have his hand pass harmlessly through the air. “You’re still spying—“
“Sertorius! Sertorius, calm down!” the doe pleaded, and in a moment she was human again, her long form reaching out to him with concern in her eyes. “Heaven above, is it possible you mistake me for one of Adonis’ bitches? I am not a part of that pig’s herd. Sertorius, it’s me, it’s Hart! Do not you see me?”
Rhedefre stopped, staring at her with wild eyes, his heart still pounding. He wet his lips, his eyes wide and alarmed. But she did not move, and her gaze was earnest. He remembered then the hands on his back as he slept, the water that smoothed his brow. She could have killed him, but she had chosen not to.
And if he was honest with himself, he didn’t have a choice as it was.
“How do I know you don’t mean me harm?” he tested.
Her expression flattened and she drew slightly back, offended. “Really, Sertorius.”
“Why do you keep calling me that? That isn’t my name.”
She threw back her head in challenge. “I see! You go by Lightbreaker now? Is that so?”
“My name is Rhedefre,” he seethed, for what felt like the millionth time.
Like the others he’d met, she rejected the name outright, shaking her head slowly with lowered brows, as though he had asked her to call him something truly absurd. She sighed, putting her fingertips on her brow.
“This is as much difficult for me as it is you, Ser—“ she started the name but did not finish it, frowning over the half-bitten word. “I have given you all the space years could bring to remember, but your memory seems slow. I do not believe you have forgotten me. But to think that you would become the Lightbreaker! I did not believe you then, and I can still hardly believe now.”
She leaned in, curious. “Can you do it now? Would you show me?”
Cesc inhaled slowly. His head felt weak. There was a small part of him that felt fairly convinced, if he was honest, that she was still a mirage, and that he was standing sun-sick in the desert, talking to a slender and naked tree. “I think you know that I can’t.”
Hart lifted her shoulders and shook her head slowly. “No… I did not think you could after the hunter stabbed you with my knife.” She indicated his crutch. “But I also did not think you would be able to do this, either.”
Cesc half-pulled the crutch behind him, as though trying to shield it from her. His grip tightened around it. “Neither did I,” he said. “Stroke of luck.”
He paused, testing. The loneliness of so many days was making words pile on each other, and he held onto the sight of her with as much confusion as hope. Before he knew himself, the questions began to pour: “Where am I? Who—I’m sorry, but who are you? I don’t remember—I don’t know where I am.”
Hart eyed him, her lips pursed, her eyelids half-lowered. The wind disturbed the sand at her feet and her dress floated and she shook her head, slow.
“No,” she said. “I cannot tell you all. It would retard your growth and hurt your memory’s reformation. If it bothers you to hear the name, I will call you Lightbreaker.”
“My name…” sighed Cesc, then held up his free hand to wave the thought away. His shoulders slumped and his head spun. “Forget it.”
“While you heal,” she continued, “I can help you. I am sorry, but you have been heading deeper into the desert—we need to go this way until we reach the city, and then through on to the coast. If, of course, you wish to get home.”
He stayed silent, swallowing over his dry throat, his eyes darting from east to west. He tried to guess if she was being honest, if she was acting for his benefit or to further his exile, but there was nothing to go on. Doubtfully, he tried to find a truth in her face.
She smiled at him, relaxed, earnest. “Come, Lightbreaker. You are no longer alone.”
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Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 5:07 pm
 Getting Help Iorek was ready to start another day kicking butt and taking names. The holidays had been good to him and he was ready to spread some New Year’s cheer to his other little family. So as soon as the sun peeked through his blinds he packed up his gym bag and headed out of the house with a purpose.
It didn’t take too long to arrive at Cesc’s home. In one hand Iorek fiddled with his usual workbag full of towels and arm weights. In his other hand he held a frilly gift bag with tissues and ribbons erupting over the brim. The raevan may have looked goofy as he balanced the two while trying to ring and knock the doorbell but ah well. Who was going to see him at this hour anyways?
Reks was too excited to pass along the presents in his glittery gift bag to care what other’s thought anyways. Every year Lillian got him and Tyson a calendar for New Year’s. This year Iorek made some calendar holders that looked like the people he was giving them to. It had taken him weeks to make them out of wood pieces but in the end they didn’t look too shabby. He’d carved a figure base out of craft wood, made a leaning slot that held the calendar while balancing the figure upright, and carved out different shapes for hairstyles, beards, and antlers. For a guy with big hands he had nimble fingers. It also helped that he treated each one with great care. Who knew he could actually excel in craftsmanship? Iorek even painted little faces and matched their hair colors to the best of his paint mixing abilities.
It was the best gifts he’d ever made and given to anyone. Lillian and Tyson loved theirs so he had high hopes that Cesc, Shep, and Vivi would at least smile when they saw them.
Due to the holidays the boys hadn’t been training so if Iorek had to guess it was probably going to be a rough training day. Iorek would never admit it, and it wasn’t the reason why he made them, but he may have been hoping a little gift before the workout would keep it on the easier side of things.
“You guys gonna open up?” Iorek called as he knocked on the door again. Any second now…but it was unusual he had to wait this long.
s**t.
Shepard heard the side door knock as he wiped down a kitchen counter. He'd gotten a schedule worked out and he'd figured out, down to the minute, how to keep everything running. It had been ******** of a week. He hadn't slept more than five hours at once since Cesc had disappeared, and what time he had asleep he dreamt fitfully and would wake, terrified that Vivi, too, would be gone.
She was a whirlwind, looking for him, turning over stones, letting her rage build. All he had was the opportunity to make sure they didn't lose all their money in the meanwhile by closing the bakery.
He was working double-shifts, not allowing himself any time to think or despair. He'd bake and open and serve and close, and Granny did what she could at the register. But it was a thin way of doing things, and Shepard knew it. Sooner or later, his strength was going to give out.
And a knock on the door wasn't part of his regimented schedule.
With a dark look of annoyance, Shepard swung open the door. His expression popped with surprise as he viewed Iorek, looking ready and raring to go, his hands full of a gym bag and... presents? Presents.
"Geezus, ********, Reks," was the shocked stammer that left the man's mouth.
And that response was not at all what Iorek was expecting. He stared back at Shep, mouth slack in shock. It took a moment for his brain to kick back into action after that surprise. Shep was the last person he expected to look at him like that or to say that to him. Had he done something wrong? Did he interrupt something? Did he forget an important date and made them angry?
In an instant his mind was scrambling to pick up any pieces he’d forgotten about. Was there any instance in which he may have messed up that had left a scorched bridge between them. But Iorek couldn’t think of anything. He’d been a good boy so why was Shep acting this way?
“Um…uh…H-Hey. Sorry, uh…kind of thought we were practicing today.”
It was today, right? He hadn’t scrambled any days together or messed up any scheduling, had he? His whole gift idea revolved around calendars so why couldn’t remember the exact day he was supposed to come over?
Think, Reks! Think!
“I’ll uh…I’ll just go and…check my…um…calendar.” He started to turn away but paused.
No. Wait. That wasn’t the right response. They were friends and this was not how Shep usually acted.
It was time to have some courage and ask the ever-important question. Reks breathed deep and looked back at his old buddy, ol’ pal. “Is something wrong?”
Shepard watched Iorek's reaction with a sort of detached glumness. He kicked himself inwardly--there was no way for the gargoyle to know what was going on. No reason to treat him like he did. He pulled one hand down his face and looked back toward the kitchen and then back out again. Part of him urged him to just let Iorek leave, to keep him out of this s**t.
The other part of him begged him to unburden himself. Let someone else know.
"Yeah," Shep said at last, his shoulders sagging. "Rhede--Rhede's gone. Missing. Don't know what's happened to him. He--went to that ******** preserve and didn't come back out."
“What?” In that moment Iorek felt like he’d been punched, kicked, and dragged into icy water all in one go.
Missing? Which meant gone. And that meant who knows when he’d be found. Which could actually truly mean he might possibly be gone for good.
Reks didn’t have a stomach but he was experiencing that feeling of wanting to puke. He did his best to shake it off and focus on Shep. Poor Shep. Oh jeez! Poor Vivi. Most of all poor Cesc. What was going on? Why would he just leave and not come back? It wasn’t like him at all. Was he kidnapped? Did he run away? But that made absolute zero sense!
“How long has he been gone for?”
And why didn’t anyone tell me? But obviously that was a selfish question and not one to ask. Iorek buried it deep down to a place he hoped it couldn’t resurface in.
Suddenly his mouth felt dry and his throat increasingly tight. Iorek was in panic mode before even knowing exactly what had happened and how long it had been going on for.
“Are you guys okay? Do you need anything? Can I do anything to help?” It was an onslaught of questions but Iorek had to ask them pronto or he felt like he might explode. Maybe word vomit was the only way he could puke and that meant he was spewing all over Shep. Poor poor Shep.
There it was.
Shep should have been used to it by now, shouldn't he? That mix of expressions, of surprise and shock and upset and all the rest of it, the search for words that didn't really amount to much, the offers to help with something he didn't know how anyone could help with. He saw it in Granny, in Michel, in Zurine, in all their friends and in the Lab acquaintances that he'd managed to tell when they'd reached out to him. Here it was again, in Reks.
"We're not okay," he said bluntly. "Vivi is trying to figure out what happened to him. I'm holdin' down the ******** bakery, and it--it all just ********' sucks, Reks. I don't know what you can do. I don't know what we're doing. Rhede's been gone a bit now, and so's his friend--the one on the police force, Azu. We don't know what the hell happened to them. Vivi says it has something to do with those goddamn stags he was visiting." He shrugged. "Who ********' knows."
“Of course you’re not.” Why was it a reflex to ask a person experiencing s**t if they were okay anyways? “I just, I’m kind of in shock, ya know?”
Iorek jostled his bags while he listened to Shep. The man looked exhausted and almost down for the count. It was horrible to see him this way. Shep had always been a beacon of strength but now Iorek could topple him with one of his pinky fingers.
“So he vanished with that police guy? That’s weird. You don’t think he dragged Cesc into anything shady, right?” But that didn’t sound realistic. Cesc wasn’t the sort. “Is he experiencing a kind of Call of the Wild? With those stags?” Yet again that would be odd. None of this really fit Cesc. He wasn’t the sort to just disappear into the woods. This plot was better suited for a movie, not his friend’s life.
Iorek took another deep breath and nudged Shep back into the store, “Come on, let me in. I want to put these down but I’m not doing it on snowy ground.” It had turned into a s**t-tacular day but he wasn’t going to give damp presents from melting snow.
It was only at that second that Shep noticed the wind around his ankles, ushering drifting snow over the threshold. Shep stood to the side to let Iorek in with a nod and shut the door after him, then waved him into the kitchen where he was doing his work. Almost reflexively, he handed Iorek an apron.
"If you're gonna be in here, take that," he mumbled, going back to his previous task. He checked his schedule--he needed to work and talk if he wanted to make open.
"I don't know what happened. Rhede said he asked Azu for help with a poacher in the preserve. Then Azu went off the rails and Rhede said he knew what happened and went after him and now they're both..." He made a hand gesture, waving his fingers, and looked up as though following a trail of smoke dissipating into the air. "Been making ourselves crazy over it. But the police are lookin' and Vivi's lookin' and holding this place down's all I got right now."
Reks set the bags down where they would be good and out of the way as he made himself comfortable. “Got it.” Swiftly Iorek put the apron on and followed after Shep as he got back to work.
“Dude…seriously? Just like that? What the ********.” The gargoyle shook his head in utter disbelief. He couldn’t get over how absolutely weird this was. Iorek tapped his nails against the counter as he thought back to all the problems that seemed to encompass his breed. “I swear, with all the drama that comes with a raevan you think we’d have a homing beacon installed in us. Just give us some kind of way to easily be found, ya know?”
Without needing to be told, Reks headed over to the sink and washed his hands. He turned to look back at Shep while he dried them on a towel, “There’s no other way for him to contact you guys? And no one else around here who might know?”
But when he thought about it Iorek didn’t really know whom else he would tell something secret to. Everyone who would normally know something was taken by surprise with this.
Shep exhaled roughly, rolling his eyes as he checked the breads in the ovens and took a heavy seat next to the macaron cookies that had cooled on the counter. His voice, his eyes, were tired. "I don't ********' know, Reks. That's all I've got to go on."
A sudden thought jostled him, as he looked up and focused on Iorek's bags, still by the door. "...I don't know when we'll get to training. We don't have any hired help at the bakery. Rhede does a lot, and now..."
He shrugged limply, starting to move the cookies over onto the display trays and into decorative boxes for take-home.
Reks winced when he realized he was asking stupid questions again. Of course Shep wouldn’t know. If he did he’d be out finding Cesc, not stuck here taking care of the shop. “Sorry…” Iorek mumbled as he watched Shep move along his daily grind.
“Hm?” He followed Shep’s gaze and looked over his own things. His big glittery bag really did not fit with the somber mood. The big bag of freshly washed gym stuff wasn’t of much use to them either unless “Oh! Jeez, Shep, don’t worry about it.” Reks quickly shook his head and waved his hands about, “Please. Training is so far in the backseat right now it’s the neglected kid on a road trip. Erm…wait…” That wasn’t the right analogy.
Like a lost pup Iorek followed after Shep but unlike a dog he helped put the desserts on display instead of stuffing them in his mouth. As he moved through the motions an idea bloomed beautifully in Iorek’s head, “Wait…Shep…I can help!” He covered his mouth when he realized just how loud he declared this.
In a quieter but firm tone Iorek continued, “I know I don’t have the skill that Cesc does but I can at least do some stuff around here. Take a load off for you and just be around. I want to help you so please let me.”
Shep's shoulders sank as Iorek waved away those concerns, and he managed a smile at the Frei's joke. The neglected kid on a road trip. He let out a breath, one that might have been a laugh, and then gave a watery chuckle. It was so inappropriate. A kid left behind. A kid that got forgotten. Shep's laugh grew a little stronger, an equally inappropriate reaction to the joke, his shoulders beginning to shake. It was so funny, so weirdly and ridiculously funny. He laughed harder, his mind sinking back in exasperated confusion, as he laughed disproportionately at the joke, laughing until his eyes watered and tears began to streak his face. He put a hand over his eyes and continued to laugh silently, while the heel of his brain came down on his hysteria, calming him down.
Shh now, Shep. It'll be alright, y'beggar. It'll be alright.
He wiped his eyes with his arm, snickering, and looked at Iorek.
"Geezus, ********," he said shakily. "Yeah, Reks. You can come help us. Wouldn't mind it a bit."
Iorek watched Shep’s reaction to his dark little joke with a small smile. Oh thank goodness, he was laughing! That was nice to see. But his relief faded as the laugh grew harsh and heavy. The man’s reaction felt like a scene ripped from Batman with Shep a victim of the Joker’s laughing gas. It seemed almost painful. Iorek looked at him with worry but joined, a bit sheepishly, in laughing.
Was this okay? Iorek would hate himself if he made the situation worse. If Cesc came back and he had broken Shep…well…that would suck.
His laughter died away but Shep continued on to the point Iorek could see tears running down his cheeks. Concerned, Reks reached for Shep not sure whether to gather him into a hug or shake him out of it. Neither felt right so Iorek just rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Sometimes people just needed to let it all out. Releasing whatever was pent up could be done in lots of ways whether that was through crying, laughing, or his particular favorite: breaking things.
“Y-Yeah, I’d be happy to help you guys.” Iorek wasn’t going to comment on the laughing fit. They’ll just leave it as his joke being side splitting funny. “Whatever you need I’m here for you. Lillian and Tyson can help too if you need more hands or anyone for deliveries.”
"Yeah…" Shep said, his voice still weak and pinched from his laughter. He scrubbed his cheeks with both hands, as though rubbing away any trace of the hysteria that had broken over him. He blinked and opened his eyes wide, then shook his head, as if waking up, and then let out a slow breath. Easy does it, he thought. "Yeah, ********. We might need that. I don't know how much Vivi's gonna work…"
Another breath and Shep went back to work, stacking cookies in the display case, his eyes focusing on the movement of his hands to the case, easy does it, easy does it, over and over. Like it was surgery. He didn't look at Iorek as he continued. "Zurine said she'll help part-time, too. We'll cobble something together."
He'd figure it out. They all would. How to fill in what Rhede did during shop hours, what Vivi did. He wasn't the baker they were, but he'd get her to do something while she still had her head about her. Not too much. Couldn't push her. Just had to get through it, get past it, until Rhede came home.
If Rhede came home.
The tray was empty. Shep walked mechanically back into the kitchen.
"I appreciate this, Reks," he said softly, sitting back down on the stainless steel stool beside the decorating counter. "A lot."
“Yeah. I’m free whenever so I can be here at whatever time you need. I can do morning, noon, or night so I’m wide open to help. Lil can drive and Tyson’s working on getting his license but he also has his bike.” Iorek quickly jumped for the positive when he saw the opportunity. His family was small but they were mighty. As soon as Iorek told them the situation he knew they’d be over in a heartbeat to lend a hand however they could.
Careful not to knock any existing cookie stacks over Iorek did his best to mimic Shep’s motions. He let the quiet rest between them as he focused on dessert organization. When it was time to speak it was only after Shep had. “Perfect. We can figure this out. You have a large network of us so you never have to be on your own. We’ll set up a calendar and follow it. That way everyone can keep track of what their job is and when they’re needed.” It sounded easy enough and depending on how many others jumped to help out Shep’s alone time should be minimal.
When that was done, Iorek followed him back into the kitchen and over to the decorating counter. Unsure about what to do next, the gargoyle straightened out some utensils on the shelf. But fixing the angle of a spoon didn’t really feel like enough so he glided over to the sink.
“Mm hmm, of course.” He turned the faucet on and looked back at Shepard, “I’m here for you no matter what. And I don’t want you holding back on asking me for anything, alright?” If he could give the man the moon he would.
Reks let the quiet sit beside them once more as he tested the water to see if it was cold enough. When it felt right Iorek filled up a cup and floated back to Shep’s side.
“Here.” He handed it to over and got back to fiddling with the assorted sprinkle jar line up.
“Ya know, if you guys ever just need a place to get away from everything you always have our house too.” When you’re feeling overwhelmed and just want to run away from it all. The house may have been cluttered but he was up for emptying out a trophy room so Shep and Vivi could stay. “I know you’ll want some time to yourself but if you ever need us we’re there for you and Vivi. Even coming over for a few hours to a few weeks, you’re always welcome.”
It wouldn’t bring Cesc back but it was better than sitting in the dark all alone.
All alone like ********.
Iorek floated beside Shep as he fought to push away any thought that Cesc might not be coming back. He sunk lower and lower as the weight of his dark imagination pushed him almost to the floor. “This sucks…”
It was such a light complaint for such a soul-crushing event but that was all Iorek could think up as he swallowed down the lump in his throat.
He had to be strong for Shep. It was only a temporary change. They would be the three musketeers again in no time. And in Cesc’s absence Iorek needed to be Shep’s unmovable boulder and boulders don’t cry.
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Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2017 8:00 am
Forgotten Connections III
Hart was looking at him.
They went for the second day, Cesc hobbling on his crutch and Hart all but floating on the sand beside him at a leisurely pace, her hands clasped together behind her. She looked at him often, tracing his face, as they scaled dunes and slid down their backs—dunes Cesc knew he’d taken hours to climb and descend just a day or so before.
“What?” he asked irritably, the sun beating down on their faces.
“I like the brown,” she stated decisively. “It suits you more than the pink did.”
Cesc snorted and shook his head. He hadn’t changed in over a week now, his shirt torn at the back and pungent with odor. His thin beard was unkempt and his hair was uncombed, tangled, crusted with old blood from where his antlers had been snapped from him. He had no mirror to see his own repulsiveness, but he could feel it, like a thick layer on his skin.
“You doubt me, Lightbreaker?” she said, swaying close to him. “If it remains brown, I do not think you have much to despair from.”
“Not from my hair color, at least,” muttered Cesc. His shoulder ached from the crutch, but his back still felt as though it would splinter apart from pain when he didn’t use it.
Hart lifted her shoulders in a shrug. She stayed silent another moment, but her eyes did not leave him, still absorbed in the wreck of his features. It grated on Cesc, the feeling of her gaze trickling through every line of his face. He felt her cool judgment nestling into the hollows of his eyes and the dust in his pores.
”What?” he snapped again, his own gaze locked on the path before them.
“Does it bother you so much?” she murmured. “I have not seen you in many years.”
Cesc exhaled through his nose. “For the last time, I am not who you think I am.”
“You are the Lightbreaker,” said Hart. “I know this to be true.”
“That may have been possible a week ago,” Cesc bit, his jaw clenching in annoyance. “Right now I’m just Rhedefre, whether that’s who you want me to be or it isn’t. Do you really think if I could still break and mold light, I’d be stuck with one goddamn crutch, no shade, no shelter, and no wings? You think I like being this way?”
“I do wonder,” mused Hart, “how it is that you still live. I saw the blow the hunter struck you with. To use my knife upon you! I couldn’t help but cry out, though it put me in danger. I thought… I thought I was witness to your death, Sertorius.”
Cesc paused, turning toward her, his brow lowering. The memory of the night rushed upon him, the biting cold of the air, the color of Azucar’s eyes. The shriek of a woman…
“You were in the woods?” he asked slowly. “You saw what happened?”
Hart’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course I did. How do you think I came to you here? By luck?”
The sand slid beneath them, shifting like the tide. Her dress tangled between her legs.
“What were you doing there?” Cesc’s voice was low and even, but his knuckles were white on his crutch.
“I held hope that you would kill our enemies,” said Hart, her golden eyes meeting the dark brown of his own. She held her head high, her neck long and slender, her bearing queenly. “That Adonis would be no more. It is all I have hoped since your birth, Lightbreaker.”
He frowned.
“Leaving that aside,” said Cesc, managing to be even despite a wave of bitterness crawling up his chest, his throat. “Leaving aside the fact that apparently a lot of people have been spying on me for years—how did I get here? And how did you get here?”
A look of annoyance darkened Hart’s features as he spoke, but with the effort of a slow blink and a curl of her nostrils, it was banished again. She pursed her lips and composed herself, but impatience showed in her eyes.
“You were exiled on the backs of Adonis’ fawns,” she said. “They brought you to where he told them to, a place you were sure to find death after a time that would leave him blameless. He did not kill you. So, if a new Lightbreaker ever came, he would not incur wrath for having brought him about.”
She paused. “As for me, I came because you needed me. I fly to you, Sertorius.”
Hart looked at him, lips parted, her eyes bright, and there was expectation in her gaze. A subtle lean of her body toward him, her clear face turned up at him. Cesc watched her with eyes wide, his pulse quickening.
“I—“ He took a half-step back. “Hart—“
The spell was broken. She turned away, a sigh sinking in her frame.
“Tell me now, Lightbreaker,” she said, and her voice was colder. “I have given you information that you should already know. It is your turn. Tell me, how is it that you are not now dead? Stabbed with my knife, deposited in a desert. I saw you languish and bleed for days before I gave you assistance.”
Cesc opened and closed his mouth. He felt the need to apologize, but frustration was strangling the words.
“I’m—“ he started, his throat dry. “I’m a Raevan.” He stressed the word as he looked at her, trying to force it into her brain, trying to make his difference from whomever she thought him to be clear. “I feed off of light. So I guess… even though they somehow took away my link to it, I still feed off of it. I couldn’t die of thirst or hunger or exposure.”
She looked at him with curiosity, flicking her eyes up and down his form.
“A Raevan,” she repeated carefully.
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Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2017 11:32 pm
Forgotten Connections III
The night air in the desert was terrifically cold. In the shadow of a dune, Cesc curled around his crutch and fell into an exhausted, shallow sleep. The clear night sky littered stars like a child with glitter—so many of them, too many of them, as far as the eye could see. The dunes, silhouetted against the midnight blue of the sky, looked like the humps of camels in one long caravan, one by one by one by one.
The cold air snaked its fingers into Cesc’s hair, onto his warm forehead. His dreams were un-abating. Some nights he dreamt of a woman with frost in her hair. A hyacinth girl.
Lines of poetry Gran made him read.
The dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief/and the dry stone no sound of water
Out of the night that covers me/black as the pit from pole to pole…
They were just wisps. Just slips of information that fluttered through his brain like a cloth on the breeze.
He worried about murmuring their names in the darkness. Were they still watching? Looking for others to exact an imaginary revenge upon?
Atop a dune, he saw the lithe figure of a man in a red-streaked mask. The hunter sat, easy and relaxed, his shoulders sloped, his yellow-green eyes bright and earnest. There was laughter in his gaze.
“What bothers you, my friend?” he said into the darkness, and his voice was rich and sweet and slow as honey.
Cesc awoke with a start, snapping open his eyes, crying out. He tried to sit up but his back protested painfully, and the Sigel fell back onto the sand with a thud and a cry.
“Lightbreaker!”
Hart’s voice pierced the night, and she was by his side in an instant, her hands atop his wound.
“You’ve split it again,” she scolded, turning him onto his stomach. Let me fetch water—I will clean it for you. Do not move.”
Her hair swirled and again she was the golden doe, and she leapt with a dancer’s grace over the dune and was away.
s**t! Cesc thought, and thought again, over and over, the warmth of his blood slowly soaking back into his saturated shirt, streaking his skin. It was a slow ooze, but painful as the grains of sand in the air embedded themselves in his wound. s**t.
It was not long before Hart returned, human again, with water in a small tin bowl. She kneeled beside him and pulled up his shirt, using the hem of her dress to smooth away the sand and blood.
She worked diligently for some time, as he lay with his forehead on his folded arm, his breath disturbing the dirt.
He counted the seconds he drew in breath, held in breath, exhaled breath. He tried to calm his heart, but there was nothing familiar to grab hold of—just the uncaring expanse of the desert. Cesc closed his eyes tight and tried to imagine, tried to conjure, the idea that it was Vivi cleaning the wound on his back. He begged his mind to fetch her voice, telling him soothingly: It is alright, my little love. My precious one. I am here. I am here.
As thick and tactile as his dreams were, he thought it would have been an easy task. But there was no calling her to this place. She was still as distant as a thousand miles, as distant as water had been in the desert.
…water…
“How did you get the water?” Cesc asked suddenly, lifting his lips from the ground.
“You’re welcome,” she said back with some asperity, both her hands on his back as she gently took stock of his wound.
“Thank you,” Cesc amended, his voice softer than before.
She exhaled hard from her nose, but the gentleness seemed to move her.
“Just because you are hobbled does not mean I am,” she reminded him. “I traveled here for you. I can go to the well at the edge of town in minutes.”
“Can you… take me back to Gambino, as the fawns took me here?” ventured Cesc, his voice halting.
Hart barked a laugh. “I am no fawn, Lightbreaker. I may be able to run for myself, but not carrying another. No—if you wish to go home, you will have to limp there, I am afraid.”
Cesc responded with silence. She continued to gently clean his wound, and then pressed her hem to it.
“You need stitches,” she said, quiet. “But I am not so versed.”
“Thank you,” said Cesc again, his tone more feeling than before. He tried to crane his neck to see her. “I mean it. Thank you for helping me.”
Hart shook her head. Her fingers were slow on his back, the ghosting feeling making the hair lift on the nape of his neck.
“I would not have left you to die,” she murmured. “I cannot.”
“I’m sorry.” Cesc hesitated. He closed his eyes against the tenderness of her fingers, the slow exploration of them up his spine, then, with a shallow breath, continued. “I’m sorry that I’m not who you want me to be. I’m sorry I’m not your husband.”
She remained silent, but her fingers lifted from his skin, and pressed harder into his wound. Pain pulsed from the gash—Cesc stiffened, but did not cry out.
A chilly silence reigned in the air.
“Did you dream of Adonis?” Hart said archly. There was an accusation there that Cesc could feel—cowardice, he supposed. “Is that what woke you?”
“No, not… not Adonis. I dream a lot,” said Cesc in avoidance. “Since I was…exiled. I dream vividly of…”
“A woman?” Her voice was colder still as she prompted. Cesc could feel the slow of her fingertips against him and braced himself.
“Friends… from before,” he said, and his reply was quick, his mind spinning with the expectation of pain. His shoulders tensed in expectation, but Hart’s hands did not move to harm him. He let out his held breath. “It’s nothing. They just encourage me to continue.”
Hart’s voice was amused. “That’s very sweet of your mind, Lightbreaker. Continue to what? Adonis will not be so strategic with his mercy twice. Will you be prepared for him?”
Cesc was silent a long moment. He wondered how much to confide in her: her help so badly needed, her whims so difficult to predict. Harsh as it was, there was still a truth to her words that he had carefully avoided thinking about, covering up those concerns with more immediate ones of survival.
But now they were journeying, and journeys need destinations. He could not wander in the desert, or camp in the streets of a foreign city.
And his heart ached with a homesickness so deep and full it felt as though his heart would burst. No matter his sins, could he have really made himself so unwelcome that he did not deserve to see the bakery again? Vivi, Shepard, Gertrude?
“I don’t… I don’t know what to do if we find a way back,” he admitted. “I know there’s no life—nothing that I can do—to—”
“Can you be serious?” Hart mused. “You will do as you are meant to. You will kill him.”
It was a statement that once would have made him balk or protest. But, tilting his eyes to see the dark dunes, scanning them to see the shape of the hunter perched on their apex, Cesc found nothing within him to recoil at the idea. His heart burned, quietly, searing his ribs inside his chest. She spoke and he felt the desire inside of him.
He was alarmed at his acceptance, but he soothed himself: it’s just desperation, he thought. It’s not true darkness.
It was the only way to protect Vivi. To get back his life.
Yes, he thought. I will.
Another fleeting line of poetry passed through his mind, like a tumbleweed over the desert sand.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2017 1:56 pm
Desire
Hart regarded him as he slept.
Why, she wondered to herself. Why should she bother with him? This strange half-creature, how bizarre he was. And yet, how fitting it should be! He was exactly half of what she desired. His memory was tremendously poor, but his body was strong. If she looked at him in full sunlight, when the rays could penetrate the sheen of old sweat and caked dust, she could almost discern a handsome face. His hands, wrecked as they were, were still pleasing to her.
But he was not quite right. He was young, terrifically young, and not yet strong enough of mind. His conviction was weak. Wobbly, even. She could upend it with a push if she wanted.
And yet she still desired him. That love had not faded so far that she would reject her claim upon him.
She eyed him in the darkness with a critical eye. His chest rose and fell swiftly, his head turning, his lips splitting in a moan. A nightmare—or those vivid dreams he’d confessed to. Did she feature in them? She could try to. She could use that power upon him, if it came to that.
Hart watched the rise and fall of his broad chest and suppressed a smile. Yes, even in this ridiculous form, even without the majesty of antlers, she would still take him. If he’d had a lower body, she would have taken him already.
No—no, she thought to herself. There were parts of him still too vile, too unschooled, too undignified. He had not yet endeavored to deserve her. And after all he’d put her through, she needed him to grovel. And she could not deny that she wanted to cradle him as much as she wanted to put her heel to the back of his head and force him to beg.
He did not deserve her yet, no. But she would help him along.
They would enter the town soon, and she would see what mettle he had then. And certainly, he would have his uses before he ascended, before he would be worth her devotion, her love. He would liberate her. Kill Adonis, retrieve her knife.
Who knew? By that point, he might be ready. There might be enough of Sertorius in him to salvage. Patience was so difficult, so tremendously precarious. She was overwhelmed with despair in some moments. She had never been a patient woman.
She was being tested, she supposed.
The nightmare continued, and she deigned to sit beside him. She put her pristine hand, her manicured fingers, into the damp mess of his disgusting hair. She whispered to him in the darkness, as she had for days before.
“Shh, my love,” she whispered. “That’s enough. That’s enough now.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:13 am
Fighters
The next morning, Cesc awoke with his face in the dirt. It seemed to be his place these days, he thought with annoyance, lifting himself and smearing the dirt on his jaw with the sleeve of his shirt.
Did that help? No—his shirt was equally disgusting, and sand was only burrowing in his beard. He felt more revolting than he could say.
Hart sat beside him, her legs crossed, her face drawn.
“Good morning,” Cesc said to her, leaning back, his hands, brown with dirt, dipping to where his lap would have been.
“Good morning, Lightbreaker,” she said. “Today we approach the town, I think, if your energy holds.”
“Good to know,” he said, half-smiling. “Maybe there’s somewhere I can get medical attention, then. Or a shower.”
Hart did not reply, slowly shaking her head. She was looking at him again, her gaze careful and distant, her eyes tracing his face with a certain veiled desperation and consideration. Her lips pursed, and she sighed.
“Lightbreaker,” she said. “Do you truly remember nothing of me? Nothing at all?”
For the first time, Cesc tried.
He tried to look into her face and see something that would stir him, some small detail of her that awakened a memory he’d long repressed or did not know he had. Her broad cheekbones, the smoothness of her skin, the fade of her hair from auburn to brilliant gold, the bright freckles on her cheeks. He tried to recall the grace of her movements, the taper of her fingers.
But there was nothing to befriend him there.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. Hart blinked rapidly, her gaze dropping, then exhaled slowly. “Not me—not me as I am before you. But nothing of my makeup, or what I am?”
“I really am sorry,” Cesc stressed. He opened his palms to the sky, helpless. “I don’t.”
“If you remembered me,” she said, her hands smoothing across her forearms and covering her shoulders, “you would stay in this desert with me. This barren nothing, you would choose it over those you associate with in Gambino. I have been so patient, Lightbreaker. I allowed you flirtations and—and even—even other women. I allowed you to form ridiculous connections—and all the while I waited for you to awaken. Do you try to reject me? Could you, truly, rebuff me so wholly?”
Stricken, Cesc watched her speak, and her words sapped him. He sagged against his crutch. Frustration gave a strangled yell in his brain, and he tried not to speak, to interrupt her. Her own sorrow consumed her; his own was not an object.
“I’m sorry,” Cesc said again. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not him.”
A darkness came over Hart’s expression, and her hands dropped onto her knees.
“You don’t even try,” she accused.
“I have nothing else to try,” he said. “I’m not hypnotized. I don’t know you.”
She stood abruptly, her long form making an imposing shadow across the dunes.
“Well! I suppose we have to meet again, then, Lightbreaker!” she said, her chin determined. “I am Hart, your wife, whether you remember your vows to me or you do not. Whether you know it or you do not, you are bound to me, you belong to me, body and soul.”
He stared at her with alarm in his eyes, and she snorted angrily, stomping one foot. “And I am a golden hind about to enter a city of man. Do you know what that is, or do I need to tell you?”
Cesc frowned, her imperiousness turning his anxiety into irritation. His voice was rougher than he intended when he spoke. “I know what a golden hind is. The creature whose blood can kill a god. Whose blood killed Hercules.”
“We are not all my sister,” she sneered. “But close enough, Lightbreaker! Do you remember too the curse of the hind? You weep for your exile, but mine is much more lasting than yours. Men will come for me, in this form or the hind’s, in a city. Any city, anywhere in the world. If I am detected, I am never safe. I once had a protector. I do not know as much now. But you are helpless without me, so I will take myself into peril for you. Can you understand this? I will lead you through, but we will be in danger.”
She eyed him, an eyebrow raised.
“Can you still fight? You held your own before the hunter…” Hart trailed off, turning her gaze away from him.
Cesc tried to straighten himself with difficulty with his crutch. Discouraged with the pain that squeezed his muscles, he leaned back against it, frowning. His pride, wounded, would not allow himself to look directly at Hart. “I’m not really sure that’s my forte right now.”
She put a hand to her face, pressing her fingers to a closed eye, and sighed into her palm. “This is stupid,” she said, partly to herself and partly to Cesc. “I hold hope that you will return to yourself before you dispatch Adonis, but we may be dispatched ourselves well before.”
“I take it you don’t fight,” said Cesc.
Hart snapped her gaze toward him.
“You’re disgusting,” she seethed, and stalked forward into their final day of hiking in the desert.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 9:55 pm
Fighters
The arrow sang as it flew threw the air, thudding into a distant target. It was nothing but paper mounted atop a bale of hay, but Vivi shot at it again and again with certain satisfaction, her gaze cold.
Weeks had gone by now with no sign of Cesc or Azucar. The police were combing every inch of the preserve, and yet somehow no news came of it. She told them, over and over, where they had gone off-trail, where they had seen the hunter, where she had found the dog. But no matter how they walked through the forest, no matter how many times they tried to find markers, there was no sign of either of them.
The police were giving up hope.
Vivi wasn’t giving hers away so easily.
Yes, she realized that the chances of finding either of them alive were dwindling into single-digits. Yes, she realized that the air was cold and the nights were inhospitable and that the rangers could only do so much. Yes, she realized all of that.
But she also realized that the stags were crafty, that they were born to elude detection, and that they were trying to punish her.
Well, she would not be punished. She would not be left with nothing. If they tried to take away Rhedefre, she would punish them. She let her hope stew and boil and reduce and become bitter and angry and vengeful. She would not give her hope away—she would trade it for fury and coldness and power.
She was not friendless. And neither was Rhedefre. They would see that, the stags. They would know how powerful the Raevans could be, how powerful she could be, in anger. She would not ask it of them yet, no, but it would come. If need be, Zurine would freeze them. Iorek would crush them. Zul would obliterate them.
And she, she would shoot them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
“The woman is angry with us,” said Bucephalus, nosing his fawns gently as they explored the forest floor. Beyond, Adonis watched, his eyes scanning the treetops above them. He did not react, and Bucephalus repeated the phrase until Adonis snapped his neck toward him, his expression annoyed.
“Who cares about the woman?” he sneered. “She can do nothing.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said Bucephalus. “She has the lineage of demons. She could be ruthless if that is awakened in her. I fear, too, she may have powerful allies.”
“We have dealt with demonkind before,” murmured Adonis.
“She is not evil,” pressed Bucephalus. “I have watched her many years now. The darkness does not need to be awakened in her. And Ser—“
He bit off he name just in time, as Adonis’s eyes widened and his fawns gazed up at him, their tails tucking and their mouths open.
“Who?” Adonis spat. “Who did what?”
“She was trusted, is all I mean,” said Bucephalus carefully. “That is all I meant to say.”
“Trusted by whom?” hissed Adonis, taking an agitated step forward. “The one who meant to bring about the end of our breed? The one who desired nothing more but to be the Lightbreaker? Trusted by HIM? BY THAT ONE?”
Bucephalus did not reply, eyeing Adonis with alarm, watching in his peripheral vision as his fawns began to creep behind him.
“You be careful whose name you invoke,” said Adonis. “Or you may know well what fate he eluded by taking his own life.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2017 8:09 am
The Outskirts
It was the most beautiful thing Cesc had ever seen in his life.
A shack with a tin roof, without windows. More than one. There were tons of them, makeshift buildings meant for a nomadic lifestyle, semi-permanent, heavy on the semi. They sat on the shifting sand and shifted with it. There were goats that bleated around them, white bearded faces in the garbage, chewing thoughtfully on anything their teeth could bite into.
It was civilization. People.
Beyond those structures, Cesc could see a paved road, road signs in two languages he couldn't understand pointing in both directions. And farther beyond were taller structures still. People. People! There would be a hospital and bathrooms and food, real food that wasn’t the scant feeding on sunshine that overfilled him and yet did not sustain him. Cesc felt hollowed, with all the light that made him scooped out, and dawn just barely trying to make up the difference.
He stared as though he had never seen the sight before, his eyes bright.
“Are you alright?” Hart’s voice was at his shoulder. She was standing half behind him, although her voice seemed steady.
“I’m alright,” Cesc replied, catching a breath in his chest. “It’s good to see.”
“Is it?” she challenged. She prodded his back and he winced pre-emptively, although her fingers were not near his wound.
“We need to find you a place to change,” she said. “Your ears, or your smell… will attract more attention to me.”
To that, Cesc submitted without much argument, although he eyed her with a straight-faced expression, motioning to her long golden tresses and billowing skirts. “You’re worried about me attracting attention?”
A faint smile worked its way onto Hart’s face, and as her eyes flicked to him again, he saw a spark of fondness.
“You are very, very out of touch with the stags, aren’t you?” she laughed. “Oh, Lightbreaker! I should have taken you away from your guardian when you were still young. You have not been taught.” She shimmied her shoulders gently, pleased with herself. “My appearance will draw no undue attention. I shall hide myself. I have learned how to hide—or I would have died at the hands of my hunters long ago. All of us, the hinds, the stags, the fawns, the does—we may look flamboyant, but we are creatures of stealth.” She turned her smirk toward him. “You, Lightbreaker… you have not yet learned. And so, yes. Your face. Your smell. Your lack of legs. Will be our misfortune.”
With his eyebrows raised, Cesc raised his hands, dark with mud. He sniffed himself gingerly and wrinkled his nose.
“Fair,” he said.
Hart threw back her head and laughed, and she touched Cesc’s elbow gently. “We’ll find you a place to wash. Somewhere abandoned. I will steal clothing for you, to replace… this.”
She plucked at his shirt with two fingers, smiling.
Cesc opened his mouth, about to protest. Theft was not, he thought, the best possible way to get him clothing—but when he considered his state, his face, and his general inability to do a goddamn ******** thing, he reconsidered his stance.
Beggars can’t be choosers, he thought grimly.
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Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2017 7:32 pm
Brawl
They skirted the town like fugitives. The first night, they slept on a hidden side street and Cesc realized, truly realized, how much more degrading sleeping outside in a city was to sleeping outside in nature. The next day, they crept along alleys, the smell of garbage in the hot sun making Cesc reassess his hatred of the desert. They scurried like so many cockroaches, from shadow to shadow, until the night fell and gave them extra curtain.
Only then, did they take to the actual streets of the city. Hart’s dress transformed at her bidding, covering her face with a veil and her hair with a scarf that fluttered gently behind her feet. They tied a bolt of her skirt around him to forge the appearance of legs, to keep him from being as outright eye-catching.
More than once, Cesc saw eyes turn toward her, some dark consideration crossing the faces of the men who beheld her, and then saw their eyes turn back away to their own business when something else came to distract them. It was a momentary entrancement that did not complete itself, like the passing of a plate of food to a dog standing at attention.
How much stranger, he thought, would it have been if he had still had his antlers, his pink hair? He held his ears down to keep them from being noticed; they faded better into his dark brown hair than they ever would have with the pink.
They stopped by a small café and bar that stood in a yellowing building in their seedy area. There was a sign proudly proclaiming the serving of Coca-Cola, and stickers that showed packaged food products that could be purchased within. A neon sign, long out of order, hung atop the bar, confusedly proclaiming it either constantly open or closed, depending on the reader’s choice.
The door was half-open, and inside Cesc could smell the scent of fried food, of rice. More than that, he could see beverages—water, beer, soft drinks—on small tables. His throat burned. How long had it been since he drank? How often would he have died of thirst in these past days? His body craved it, and he restrained himself from diving into the café and stealing all the drinks, guzzling them with gluttony and crying relief.
“Lightbreaker,” Hart said, snapping his attention away.
She nodded to the upstairs of the building beside the café. She squinted at the dark and barred window. “There is nobody within the apartment upstairs. I think we can hide there for the evening with relative safety.”
“How do you know?”
Hart sighed. “I have my own ways. I have had to keep myself safe without a guardian for some time now.” She said the last sentence pointedly, her eyes slitted.
Ignoring the expression, Cesc turned to the café again. He swallowed over the dryness of his throat.
“Drink from the faucet,” Hart scoffed. “We don’t have time.”
A group of men passed them, speaking so low that Cesc did not understand, although Hart seemed to. She paled and took a half-step in front of Cesc. Their voices grew louder, and there was jeering in their tone.
English.
They were speaking English?
They certainly did not look like natives to the area, their skin pale and their clothing too warm for the climate. Tourists? Cesc half-turned to them, and they seemed to notice him abruptly, looking down at his disheveled face and the lack of shoes beneath his makeshift skirt.
Their jeering turned into whispers.
“Go inside,” hissed Hart, pulling him toward the café. “Let’s go inside.”
They stepped within and quickly seated themselves at a table. Hart sat with her face toward the door, and Cesc angled his seat so that he was closer to her, his periphery looking back at the group. They did not advance, but neither did they leave, standing in a huddle, looking with a strange fascination at them both.
The server, a woman in black and a half-apron, walked beside their table. She spoke again in the language Cesc did not know; Hart looked up to her and responded in the same.
The server looked at him expectantly and he smiled dumbly. She squinted at his head, trying to discern his ears. Interrupting, Hart replied again and the woman started, nodded and left.
“I ordered you water,” Hart said, looking back over the threshold at the men. Her fingertips tapped an anxious beat on the tabletop. Cesc could not see her lips, but he could see the fear that sparked in her eyes.
Still, he felt a surge of joy as she pronounced the words, and when the server returned with a glass of water, served at room-temperature and from the tap, Cesc could barely wait until the bottom of the glass hit wood to begin drinking.
It was the most crystalline, beautiful, clear, awe-inspiring experience Cesc had ever had. He drank and drank deeply, and he felt the tracing of the water down his parched throat, the dampening of tissue that had cracked and shrank like dirt in a drought. Life! That’s what was in the cup, life, brilliant, beautiful life.
He drained the cup and without thought, he took Hart’s, drinking hers as well.
He could have had fifty glasses. But when he set the second cup down, he saw Hart’s white face, and her fingers reach out and grab his forearm.
“They are coming,” she gasped. “They are coming for me.”
Turning his head, Cesc saw the group of men enter. Their eyes were burning with what Cesc could only describe as hunger, like predators meeting prey on a wide and naked expanse. There was nowhere for them to hide.
Not the both of them, at least.
Cesc’s breath was starting to shorten. His eyes scanned the small restaurant furtively, looking for escape routes, for help, for anything that could be used as a weapon. Part of him tried hard to wrestle with the adrenaline: maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe Hart had exaggerated. Lied.
But she hadn’t as of yet, to his knowledge. And the fear on her face was impossible to manufacture.
s**t.
The men spoke to the server and Cesc rose, pulling Hart up with him. The server waved them to an empty table and took her tray to the back of the restaurant, leaving them.
“Go into the bathroom,” Cesc ordered, shortly. “The one in the back. Bar yourself in there, and take the server with you. Do not come out until I come to take you out.”
“You?” Hart whispered hotly. “You can barely drag yourself down a street!”
“Just get the ******** in there,” replied Cesc in a hiss, letting her arm go.
The men sat at their table, their eyes watching Hart as she went to the back bathroom. She beckoned the server girl and spoke to her; she turned around to look at the men and frowned in confusion. They continued to speak, their voices hushed, until Hart convinced her of something—the server girl excused herself to the back, and Hart went into the bathroom.
The men waited, patient, and Cesc sat in his seat across from them, his hand on his crutch, his heart beating a steady rhythm.
Could he fight? He wasn’t sure that he could.
C’mon. Would it even come to that, anyway? He eyed the men. There were four of them, and they each looked at the bathroom door with the bestial expression still reigning in their eyes.
Another group of patrons left bills on their table and rose, and, talking in obliviousness to each other, exited the building.
There was only one other café-goer now, a young dark-eyed man with a goatee and a knit sweater, who seemed more absorbed with his phone than with the others.
The men rose, their chairs grating across the floor. Cesc’s heartbeat quickened, and he pulled himself up on his crutch.
They looked at him, the unholy light behind their eyes bright.
One of them spoke.
“Are you with the woman?” he said. His eyes dropped to Cesc’s rune, still duly flickering behind the skirt, and back up again.
“Yes,” managed Cesc.
“Leave her to us,” he ordered.
Cesc’s chest rose and fell. “No.”
The man turned to his companions, switching languages, and a thought dawned on Cesc. They were eyeing him murderously, fingers clenching at their sides.
A memory of Professor Estoc, an old vampire swordsman a*****e ranting, entered his thoughts, and although his exact words didn’t, his message did.
Fight dirty.
Without warning or further speech, Cesc swung his crutch and hit the first man squarely in the ear. With a sickening thwack, the man staggered left and went down like a felled tree, half-grabbing onto a chair for support as he went down. Cesc’s heart slammed into his ribcage, and he gritted his teeth as he pushed himself forward, sucker-punching the next man in the mouth.
A brawl exploded.
Pain shot up Cesc’s knuckles as he hit teeth, blood from the man’s mouth and from the scraping sharpness on his knuckles. Cesc had never seen so much motion suddenly created in his life. A third man dove at him, tackling him around the waist. He was thrust into the wall, the back of his head cracking against the drywall. He let out a cry and elbowed the man in the back of the head. He swung his crutch again, catching the end of the table and upending it, sending the glasses up into the air. The table hit the man he’d punched in the mouth, sending him forward and into an askew chair. His head snapped back and his eyes rolled back into his head.
Cesc’s crutch fell out of his grasp and Cesc snarled in annoyance as he went down without it, the man below him grappling with him to gain the upper hand. Not for the first time, Cesc wished he had legs, especially as the fourth man in their party reared up and kicked him in the stomach, yelling at the top of his lungs.
With a roar, Cesc doubled over with pain, but in that blind pain he reached out and grabbed the man’s foot with an iron grip, twisting his leg until he fell into the next table, sending a four place setting to every corner of the café. The man holding him was trying to stagger to his feet and Cesc sprawled to a bottle, grabbing it and smashing it cleanly over his head.
In the resulting silence, the stag crawled to his crutch, pulling himself up to standing, looking down at the four bodies below him. They were alive—two were still conscious, groaning and rolling on the ground.
Cesc stared, adrenaline coursing in his veins. He turned his head.
The bystander, the man who’d been unfortunate enough to be there for the fight—he, too, was still there, his hands cupped around his nose, his eyes wild and terrified as they found Cesc. The debris of glass and wood from the brawl had caught him, and Cesc saw blood between his fingers. He was ranting in a frightened tone, and he flattened against the wall as their eyes met.
The stag said nothing.
He had no apologies, no offers of help to give. That part of him had died in despair in the desert.
The back bathroom door was open. Hart looked at him with her lips parted and her eyes wide and approving.
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