he giveth and he taketh away; round iii - closed.

He remembers this sort of darkness; the kind that is so thick he could wear it like a second skin. And he has. Once upon a lifetime ago, when he shared a womb with Tytos. For a glorious moment, he feels like he’s back there. For a glorious moment, he wonders if all those lives had just been dreams.

But Tytos isn’t next to him, isn’t kicking away in their shared darkness. And there are stars. There were no stars inside the womb. Still, he lets himself think that’s where he is. Not at the end of the world. Just the womb, and he’s just been dreaming.

If this is a dream, Noah isn’t dead. If it’s a dream, Noah never even existed in the first place. Or maybe he does. Maybe somewhere in Beqanna there’s a Noah waiting for Rhonan. Maybe they will find each other one day, and they will remember their shared dream, and it will be enough.

If this is a dream, Beqanna hasn't burned. His brother and mother aren’t dead, though he feels less sorrow over their loss than the loss of Noah. But he knows that quiet gray boy better than his own family. Maybe it all was just a figment of his imagination. Maybe Rhonan will wake up and find that he’s just been sound asleep in the depth of the jungle.

But he knows this isn’t true. He can feel the demon, creeping its way inside his mind. It hasn’t taken hold, but it will. And Rhonan doesn’t care. Maybe he’ll forget everything when the demon finally claims him. Maybe he’ll forget the crow and the sound of Noah dying. Maybe he’ll forget how Azula turned on them all, how she ripped the flesh right off of Gero’s bones.

If it is a dream, and he wakes up in Beqanna, what would he even do? How does he go back to life as it was? Back to sneaking out at night past his mother and her control of the jungle’s vines. Back to shooting the shit with Tytos. Had that even been his life? Would that ever be his life again? He can’t imagine it, can hardly remember it.

He just wants to stay here, in this place where all his worlds have ended. He wants to stay in a place that he cannot destroy. There is nothing left here to kill. He wants to stay in a place there is no one left to care about. He cannot bring himself to care ever again. What good has caring ever done him? What good did caring do Noah? Or Gero?

But the thing inside of him isn’t going to let him stay. He feels it, no longer creeping, but pushing into his mind with fury. And Rhonan’s own anger rises as it takes over, though not at it. He almost enjoys the anger, enjoys feeling something other than sorrow or nothing.

One by one, he sees the others, and he knows without a shadow of a doubt this is not a dream. He sees their stories. Through the eyes of the demon? Maybe. He doesn’t know how he sees the past, how he knows their names. Perhaps he should feel sorry for them, but he doesn’t even feel sorry for himself. He’s almost angry they are here, breaking into the peace he'd found in the darkness. Rhonan just wants to be alone, just wants to live and die at the end of the world.

But the demon won’t let them have peace.

Instead, he watches as horses scorn Heartworm for her defect. He watches the flesh falling away from her skin every time the sun dips below the horizon. He’s waiting for pitchforks and torches, for the villagers to chase her away. But a gray horse, so unlike Noah and yet so much like Noah, befriends the skeleton mare. The two mares bond with words, where Noah and Rhonan found comfort in silence. But still, he understands that bond. He watches as the gray mare dives into the horde for a daughter already long gone. The screams, the sound of flesh tearing from bone by blunt teeth. Those sounds he knows all too well, and he turns away.

He sees Jaide, can hear her scream. NO, ROUGE!, as it echoes all around him in the darkness. A chestnut dives into the horde, and those screams echo around him as well. Rhonan wants to shut off the screams, wants to shut off the sound. But it wouldn’t matter anyway; he still hears Noah dying in his sleep.

He watches Jaide as she wakes, discovering that her entire herd is dead. His almost envious of her, angry that her friends were spared the horror of the horde. Though he doesn’t know if that anger is the demon or himself. Maybe it's both. Maybe he has always been a demon. Rhonan cannot even muster pity when she finds Noir, head bobbing in the river like a dead fish. He snorts with laughter instead.

Why is that funny? He doesn’t know. It shouldn’t be funny. He knows it shouldn’t be funny. But it is, and he has to turn away before the laughter never stops.

Instead he sees Nadya, realization dawning, blood and guts smeared on her face. Lucky bitch. She had the balls to feed herself at least. Why hadn’t he? Why hadn’t he taken Kav up on that offer? No, instead he wimped out, couldn’t bring himself to do the dirty deed. But he’s starving. Even in space, he’s fucking starving. And in that moment the sight of blood and meat looks more appealing than he cares to admit.

It must be the demon talking. It must. But he cannot tell. He doesn’t know where the demon stops and he begins. He doesn’t know which of his lives were real. He doesn’t know if he's alive.

He watches Nadya lose control, watching her feast on flesh. She tears the windpipe out of a horse, and he finds himself envious and sick all at once. He turns away, and sees Tyrna as she discovers the bodies. Her friends littering the ground around her. He watches as she kicks and screams, throwing a temper tantrum that could almost wake the dead. Almost. But not this time. Blood sprays into the air, coats her silver skin. One by one, she smashes them all to pieces, and now he laughs aloud. Maybe they were all just fucking mad. Smashing dead bodies to pieces just in case the pain wakes them up. Laughing at the sight of it.

He’s not sure the laughter will ever stop. It mixes with his rage, with his hatred for them and for himself, and he cannot stop.

Until the words coming spilling out of his mouth. They are not his words. He did not think them, and yet he speaks them. It is his hoarse voice that he hears, his raw throat that burns at the effort. But they are not his words. Or are they? Has he become the demon completely? But no, he can still feel some tiny part of him that doesn’t care. Some part that just wants to give up.

Pick two of them, it says. They are all there, close enough to touch now. They are all as pathetic and ruined as he. But he’s no longer laughing. They could name him. They could send him with the demon. Rhonan doesn’t hate that option. Part of him wants to name himself, part of him wants to go with the demon and quit this shit. There is nowhere to go. Beqanna burned. At least, he thinks it burned. So where would they go when the demon released them? He’s tired of living so many lives. He’ll take just one, with the demon or not.

But he hates the idea of them choosing him anyway. He just doesn’t want that. Doesn’t want to singled out as deserving to live life with a demon. He’s not a demon. He’s not.

Right?

Maybe he is. He pieced animals together at their own expense. He let his crow die. He let Noah die. He watched Azula tear Gero to pieces. What good had Rhonan ever done? Nothing. He was just a pretty pretty princess with no purpose to this world. In any world. Maybe he belonged with the demon.

Still, he does not want them to be the reason he isn’t freed. He wants to choose that life for himself, but he cannot. He cannot say his own name. The word will not form on his lips. He hates them all in that moment, and he wants to name them all instead if he cannot name himself. But he cannot do that either.

He must choose.

He thinks of Noah, the animal sounds of the horde and the screams of his ghost friend. He thinks of Heartworm, who watched her own gray friend die. And he cannot name her, because Cara reminds him of Noah. He thinks of Nadya, thinks of what it must be like to eat your friends. He had not been able to do it. Not even with his ribs showing through his skin. She doesn’t deserve to live with a demon, doesn’t need anything else to fuck her head up more. And he cannot name her either.

He thinks of Tyrna and Jaide. They may have dreamed of the horde, they may think they know. But they do not know. For that, he hates them the most. For that, he thinks they can survive the demon. They are not beaten and broken in the same way. They were never chased by their dead loved ones. They can survive more hell.

“Tyrna and Jaide,” he says. This time, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt these are his words. He knows that he and he alone is condemning two mares who don’t deserve it. Perhaps the rest of them will say his name. Perhaps in the end, he will never live again. But it doesn’t matter. He hates himself as much as he hates them. He doesn’t care what they think. He doesn’t care what happens. He’s just ready for one life. One in hell, one in the stars, one in Beqanna. He’ll take anything, as long as it’s just one.

rhonan.

Where the voices end, darkness begins.

In one moment, the vultures (or at least she thinks it’s the carrion-eaters) are asking for a number. She obliges - “six,” her voice urgent but also graveled with disuse - and they give her only the blackness of space in return.

It’s not totally dark, of course. Stars twinkle all around her (glinting more like, she thinks, like the dead eyes of the damned). Galaxies swirl and shine, looking so close that she could touch them if she wanted. The old her, that blue girl who used to exist in a too-bright world compared to this one would have made the effort. The Jungle’s daughter would have laughed in delight at the sensation of floating, would have marveled at the universe and all the impossible sights. Because it is impossible - should be impossible. She shouldn’t be up here among the constellations - hovering over a vast, star-dense plane - but she is. Why should little-old-her be privy to such a spectacle? Who was she to gain such privilege in such an unfair world?

Now, she doesn’t even flex a muscle. She’s so desperately tired (and starved and thirsty and bone and heart-weary) that it doesn’t even occur to her. If it had, if she’d been the Jaide she aspired always to be, she would have met with resistance, anyway. A low snort she attempts proves as much. Nothing comes out. No tickle at the back of her throat, no sound is emitted into the still, dark air. Before this entire ordeal (the dream, the fires, Noir) she might have panicked. But now, she is the calm of a stone beneath a pounding, churning river.

Someone’s got me, she thinks. Then immediately after, I don’t want to die.

Maybe she should want to, after everything she’s gone through. Maybe she should want to feel the cold press of Death’s fingers against her forehead, a gentle touch before driving with numbing finality into her skull. Only ash and the charred remains of the life she once knew remain back in Beqanna, after all. She’ll never share the company of the macaws again. She’ll never see the bobbing pink faces of the river dolphins, never become a Sister like she’s dreamed of. Noir will not be there to greet her; the colt will never again snuggle for warmth and companionship against her side at night. Where will she go, the lone survivor of the world? Who will she turn to when it all becomes too much?

Maybe the vultures will have me, she consoles herself with the thought but she cannot reconcile it with the strange image it conjures. A mad flock, but not alone, she thinks, and chortles in her mind. But it’s not entirely her own thought. Something is in there, too, sharing space with her brain. A void that pulls at all the warmth she has remaining within her (it’s not much). She tries to shake it out, but then…

There are others alongside her, floating in space.

They are just as ragged and threadbare as she, wisps of the stout and sturdy beings they might have been before this all began. She doesn’t recognize them from Before Beqanna Burned; she doesn’t know them from any random meadow bum. But immediately, somehow, she learns everything about them. Images clamor to be seen in her mind, a whirlwind of pictures and voices and memories all foreign. They are similar to her own, but at the same time, wholly different. Jaide sees the fires ravage their homeland from four different sets of eyes. She sees a flash of red as a fox disappears into the undergrowth; watches as the famous falls dry up to nothing at all. The survivors (others she doesn’t know, not like Survivor Mountain's band and Alpha and Rouge) gather on different mountains. They look for food and water, like Jaide and her own group had, with varying degrees of success. They form search parties and gathering groups, alliances and even enemies. She sees the rise of the undead, how they start to gather and hunt in the wastelands below the mountains. It chills her once again. The growth of Judea’s devout group shows in Heartworm’s memories. Jaide counts as a habit (unable to stop herself, though she pauses after the sixth horse for a long spell) as nine survivors come to stand behind the overzealous woman. She wants the skeleton mare given over to the horde, her bones and magic a sacrifice she’s ready and willing to make (it won’t work, Jaide giggles, the stupid cow – nothing will satiate their all-consuming hunger).

Other stories emerge out of the void that has become her mind. Rhonan follows Kav and Gero blindly, rising in the middle of the night at the promise of food. It’s rash and foolhardy, you’ll run out of food soon enough, she thinks. The images move on quickly from there. She watches with little horror as Nadya becomes a monster. The horde welcomes her into the fold as a satellite member, and she pays her dues in the form of flesh. She tears apart a mother, tears apart a Carter. She can hear the soft whistle of the air escaping his trachea, can smell the blood as it pools around his broken head, but she doesn’t care much. Tyrna descends into the darkness, the madness like she had (has). Her herd-mates take the eternal slumber, and here, Jaide wants to sympathize a little. She reads each line of the wolf-girl’s ribs, understands the need for each scab that the grey mare picks at until it becomes fresh once more. She knows how flesh can be such a comfort between teeth that haven’t been used in days, weeks. Tyrna’s struggles make sense to her in a way that the memories of the others don’t.

Still, though, she feels nothing for any of them.

Her heart, once open to all, now feels constricted and leashed by some force she doesn’t understand. She feels like she’s given control of her very soul to someone else, though she doesn’t remember signing it over. There’s a sweetness she tries to ignore in the release, a feeling like freedom she vehemently denies. The presence wants her to so badly, though. It would be all too easy, a match to dry kindling – her soul for an eternal, final rest.
Laughter rattles from her aching chest, bubbling from a well that should have run dry long ago. Words soon follow, slipping and silky on a tongue wetted by her own blood and disease. “Home,” she/it croons into the starlit sky. Home for a price, of course. It’s there, far below her: a splatter of green and blue paint on an overlarge canvas, insignificant in the entire scheme of the universe. She/it talks about a choice, of sending two of their number with the darkness that now nestles into her ventricles. Jaide can feel the poison pumping with each beat of her heart, sickening her mind even further. It’s not a choice she wants to make (she’d sooner send herself). They’ve all suffered enough already – why is he/she/it doing this? Heartworm, Rhonan, Nadya, Tyrna, Jaide. One, two three, four, five -

Six? This demon is six, she decides. He/she/it is there amongst them, the silent sixth. It poisons all of them, pollutes their veins and throats in equal fashion. What will happen to the two it takes? Where will they go that is worse than their scorched lands? The monikers of the other four arrange themselves in her mind as she weighs their suffering. She tries to keep her mouth shut, tries to clamp her black lips down so that the names can’t escape. Unwittingly, they spill out. The demon makes her release them into the blank air. Nonono, she thinks as her tongue forms their names: “Nadya and Tyrna.” I’m sorry, she thinks to them, but cannot say out loud. A deafening silence fills her ears and lungs then. She thinks of Nadya’s eyes as a monster – how easily it could have been Noir she’d eaten (how close the monsters had been to him, anyway). She thinks of Tyrna’s wolf – how if any of them could survive anything else, it would surely be the girl and her canine other half. She has the strength and grit for it, more than the blue girl, anyway. Jaide sobs for all of them, internally, quietly, not even able to mourn out loud.

Jaide

girl of fire and ice