sometimes I think about the ones that we’ve replaced
all the millions underneath the burnt and waste
The voice in his mind wakes him from a nap, and for a moment he thinks he must still be dreaming, tucked safely against the curve of mothers warm belly. He can feel her sleepy breaths where they warm and fog against his skin, feel the rhythmic rise and fall where her round stomach nudges against his side. But ..that means he is awake, does it not? These are normal waking-up things, and he lifts his head quietly to sniff at her cheek while she dozes beside him. So that means -
Find Rhonen. Kill him. Save us.
He freezes, pins his tiny little ears against an even tinier, scruffier mane as if that will somehow block the gravel of the voice from his thoughts. But it remains, permeates everything until his ears have softened and tipped forward, curious, listening. It is a very convincing voice, you know. It sounds so certain, it must be true! But to kill someone? To be fair, he certainly does not understand death, does not understand the magnitude or the permanence of it. Only understands that when mama had used the word to describe the crumpled, feathered body of the bird beneath the tree, it had been hollow and unmoving, empty.
But he is a good boy, so sweet, so he climbs up on tiny little limbs that carry him so quietly away from his napping mother (to save her, save them, save the little brother or sister growing in her belly). It isn’t too hard to figure out where to go once he’s up and gone from his family - there are others headed that way too, like a tide, though no one pays him any attention. He is just a boy, after all, just a creature plucked from a strange dream with dark eyes and a beak, spiraling horns already tangled with his indigo hair. Oh! And wings! He could fly, he thinks, it would be so much faster! Except that flying is such hard work for little creatures like himself, and he barely flies high enough to keep his little toes from tapping the ears of those he flies past.
It’s such a very long way down, after-all.
He does not realize that mama has since woken, stirred only moments later by that same gravel lodged in her ears, that same voice she knows better than to believe. That she took flight in an instant, searching from the skies while daddy took to the forests and the meadow - that they are both headed in the same direction he is.
It is not until he is already there and landed, walking closer to the chaos with such wide, innocent eyes, not understanding the violence laid so bare before him that he feels a familiar nose push against his neck. It nearly topples him sideways and he turns to gape up at mama’s worried face with even more confusion because she looks mad and worried and did he do something wrong?
Auric. Oh and he wilts a little, those oil-spill wings tucking bashfully against his sides. He can hear so much emotion in her voice, in the way she says his name like he says hers when he wakes terrified from a bad dream. Then daddy is there too and he’s as wild as Auric’s ever seen him, horns lowered and teeth bared at anyone who comes too close to his little family. He presses closer to mama, the message all but forgotten now in the confusion roiling in his chest, the gravel of the words finally shook free. “I’m sorry, mama.” He clicks up at her, the syllables whistling sharply through the edges of his beak as he tries to nuzzle under her chest to hide. “I wanted to keep you safe. Save us.” He repeats, the words still slippery without lips to hold them in place. But he feels less certain now, less sure. More like he doesn’t like any of this, like he wants to go home.
But mama doesn’t seem to have heard him when she says, oh gods, leliana, and then pushes him into daddy’s side, mandan, i have to, she’s my sister. Then mama is gone like a shooting star, arcing across the chaos shedding the faint light Auric has come to recognize as the mated pair to her healing powers. He tries to scurry past daddy to help, but finds his strong, dark body permanently between him and the madness just ahead. In the end he just ducks his horned head low to peer beneath daddy’s belly, bleating softly for mama to come back, too young, too innocent to understand the depth of the violence burning across his aunts skin. He only knows that he loves them, that he wants to be there with them.
But he is resigned to watching from afar, little glimpses around daddy when he’s pulled away to chase someone back. He can see mama pin her ears at someone who is nearly as odd as Auric himself is, bone and dark and seething. Can see the moment he allows her to pass by and she crashes against aunt leli in a frantic, aching way. Mama presses herself against her sisters side, drapes her head over Leliana’s back until they are both tangled in that soft healing light he’s grown to love so much. She is giving everything, emptying herself, though Auric can’t possibly know it from so far away. Can’t know anything except this new feeling blooming inside him, guilt, like this is all somehow his fault for coming here.
He leans into daddy, hiding under his chest so he can see mama more easily, see the whole gruesome scene. He is not the only little one here, he realizes, looking out into the crowd - so carefully avoiding the man who must be Rhonen, because though he cannot fathom this violence, he knows he has no stomach for it. There are two children not far from where he stands, indigo like him, which would have made him so happy any other time. But he feels only quiet in his chest now, only sick. It is easier to focus on them.
The girl flickers and steps forward, suddenly so clear he can see the world beyond her, too - no! Through her. It’s so bewildering he nearly takes a step forward to them. But then the boy is following too and she’s pausing, turning to push him back while he so clearly ignores her with body language nearly shouting-loud. So she stops again, closes her eyes and lays her cheek against his neck, fully corporeal again.
and I get sad because, of course, we’ll be the same
i am so sorry if this is a mess D: forgive me, i mean well. mandan was referred to with permission. the two kids he's watching at the end are atria and decimate, decimate was also referred to with permission. his mama is exist, who ran off to focus her healing on leliana. none of mine are actually attacking anything. :|