Word Count: 1272
He has not returned to the Rift since he has escaped it, but the year is new and the anniversary of the date he crawled out of the bowels is approaching.
Labyrinthite has recovered, mostly, but some of the scars run deep; foundationally deep enough to shake his core and nearly make him into something he is not. It is something that must actively resist, the call and twisting of the demons and monsters that rattle within the confines of the cage that settles in the core of him. Their claws rake the ground, create grooves in the once harsh and formidable stone beneath the tips but the foundation is shaking, weakening.
Some days they grow stronger, the bars of their cage rattling as their voices rasp, harsh and vibrating like the first time a chime is struck.
Ding.
It’s like a warning bell, one that makes his head lift and his body still, chaos thrumming bright and alive in his veins. It tingles, the way it moves beneath his skin, not quite in his bloodstream but not just beneath the top layer of skin. It’s woven into the strands of his muscles, enhancing his strength and weaving itself into his frame until he can no longer distinguish where he begins and it ends.
Let us out, the voices rasp, the sound of sharp claws tapping against metal bars ringing too loudly in his ears.
Not yet, he says, stilling before the door that leads him into the Hall of Shadows. Something in him shivers, urges him to turn back and away. It is the reason he pushes on, pink spats carrying him forward with the echo of his heels clicking against the stone.
Tap, tap, tap.
The creatures trapped behind the veil reach for him as they always do, desperate grabbing hands of creatures once whole only to be shattered and broken until they’re nothing more than a shell of what they once were. Dark fingers catch a hold of his cloak, wrapping around the tattered fabric like they have the power to pull him back and coax him to join them in their angry sorrow.
They cannot have him, just like the monsters in his head can’t have him either.
.
Instinct carries him forward, as it always does, stone trading itself for dusty, hardened sand that’s been packed by years of youma and agents tromping over it. There is rattling he can hear, faint and distant, another warning sound that reminds him that he is never alone. Not here, not in the city, not anywhere.
The rattling vibrates in his spine, fingers flexing at his side as he walks, ever aware that he could be attacked at any given moment. Tension is a taut string that keeps him rigid, the steady flow of air in through his nose and out his mouth keeps him centered.
He should not have come alone, but he is a stubborn man and the ones he would invite are the same he would hurt, risk, if they ventured with him as he is now.
(There is still so much work to be done, restraint that must be retaught after months of undoing.)
The tree is as it always is, a lone dot in the expanse of nothingness who’s skeleton crawls from the ground like the undead, reaching towards the sky for something it cannot hold. Like every time before this, Labyrinthite wonders how it came into existence.
Calloused fingers reach to touch the spine trunk, the texture smooth beneath his rough fingers weathered down by a lifetime of desert storms-- except he thinks it’s more than that.
What he imagines he cannot place, only that it is something that burns brightly in his thoughts, a flash of something that imbues him with false power, much like the youma mount he rode into battle. He stays like that, until the sound of cawing over head has him lift his head.
The bone-branches creak beneath the weight of the bird too massive for them and he feels the tree shudder beneath his hand before his touch is gone and he is moving back. Whiskey-gold watchesthe bird youma with the same intensity that it’s six red eyes stare back at him.
They shudder in sequence but one is always open, always watching.
“Are you stronger for it?” The bird asks and Labyrinthite blinks in response.
“Stronger for what?” He asks in kind, straightening as if the bird, who is always watching and waiting, following, might strike.
“For the suffering, Reaper, the suffering,” the raven preens, beak tipping up to let out a caw of laughter. It threatens to unnerve him, but the general refuses to shake. “Or do you suffer still?”
The question is a chilling one and Labyrinthite finds that he cannot answer.
(Of course he suffers, survivors always suffer.)
His voice is hoarse, a rasp like the voices of the creatures rattling the cage that shakes his core. “And if I am?”
“Then it is time.”
“Time for--” His words are swallowed beneath the screech that brings him to his knees. His entire body feels as if it shifts, knees colliding with the hard packed ground beneath him in a jarring way that makes his heart stop, then sputter to life again.
Dazed, he cannot stop the raven from flying at him and swallowing him in darkness.
.
When he wakes, he is laying before the trunk of the bone tree and his head is ringing. Above him, he can hear the creaking of the bones as they bend, but do not break, beneath the weight of the bird large enough to take up the size of three men. His mouth tastes of ash and there is a new sensation humming beneath his skin, a connection…a bond.
“What did you do?” He snarls, something hot and molten flashing in the gold of his eyes.
The beak shifts and he thinks the raven is attempting to smile when it leans forward, all four wings nestled against it’s body. “What you always do.” It answers with a laugh, bouncing off the branch and shooting into the air.
“The bond!” It caws, twisting up and up and up until he thinks he’ll lose sight of it. “Foraged the bond Reaper!” The raven shrieks, continuing until it is gone
.
Labyrinthite does not understand until he’s made it back out of the Rift and back into the city.
The rooftop is familiar beneath his feet and his heart pounds in his chest in a manner that assures him he is alive and breathing, back on the surface world and not trapped in an endless cage he had to barter to escape from.
It is a taut thing, the string that tethers him to something he doesn’t quite understand but it vibrates all the same way chaos tends to. He can feel it calling to him, demanding that he allow it access, whatever this is it is different than the demons that rattle their cage.
Let us out, they say.
But this--
This demands something else.
Summon me, it says.
The moon sits high above when he tips his head back, the hood that obscures his face falling and pooling against his shoulders. A hand extends and his mouth opens, the order spilling as surely the commands he gives his wolves.
“Come.”
From his shadow, something bursts free, shooting high into the sky in all of it’s six-eyed, four-winged glory. It’s caw is loud, shakes the building beneath him-- or he imagines it does, but a few windows shatter all the same.
“Reeeeaaaper,” his youma sings. “You called?”
