"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
He keeps thinking of the sunset.
He had believed it for the best, to keep what he learned a secret. He did not want to burden her with remembering him, he would rather be a kind stranger in her mind than someone who was as broken as he was. He had told himself this over and over as the sun sank into the water and she touched him lightly, her body remembering even if she didn’t, and he hadn’t said a word about them, and he had said goodbye, and walked into the darkness without her.
It was the right thing to do. He believed it then, and he believed it now.
But as much as he wants to be selfless, he finds he cannot. The days and weeks and months pass and he thinks of little else but her, wondering how she is, what she’s doing, if she’s happy. If she has found someone who loves her, someone uncomplicated and unburdened. He hopes for this, or tells himself he does, but then his heart aches in a way so sharp, so distinct, and he knows he is a liar.
The first time he breaks he goes to Beyza, that pale magician who had restored his memories and taken Agettas’ out of her kindness. Just to ask about Agetta, he tells himself. To make sure she’s okay.
It’s when Beyza says she hasn’t heard from her in months that Garbage feels the missing ache for her turn from selfish desire into fear. It’s irrational, probably, but he can’t stop wondering why she hasn’t spoken to her. Agetta, unlike him, is a good parent, one who keeps in touch with her children.
He begins to ask anyone he sees, and some know her name, but most don’t. No one really seems to know. Beqanna shudders and there is word of another kingdom, another world full of undersea creatures. Garbage doesn’t care. He keeps looking.
And so finally, in a parallel that he isn’t aware of, he goes to the mountain, to ask for answers. To ask for her.
He has not been to the mountain before, not like this. Garbage has never wanted magic, finds the notion of such power unnerving. He doesn’t deserve such things, anyway. But he walks the trail to the top and instead of a fairy he finds the dark god, the same one who had fathered his child, and he asks.
And gets his answer.
The dark god relays the tale, savoring every grain of salt in Garbage’s wound. This is your fault, he says, you lied to her and so she came to me for the truth, and oh, I was honest with her.
Garbage thinks he will be sick. He does not think he can live with this knowledge, thinking about her trapped in the darkness, in the nothingness, all her memories and all her pain returned to her as companions in the void.
He begs. He doesn’t hesitate to beg. Anything, he says, I will give you anything, just bring her back.
They make a bargain. The dark god says he will bring her back, but doesn’t specify where. He says only at the water’s edge.
Garbage goes to the beach first. He doesn’t know the dark god well, but he doesn’t need to to know his terrible idea of humor. But she isn’t there.
So next, he goes to the river. He walks the edge until he is close to where he himself once washed ashore, reborn.
She isn’t there, either. But something in him says, wait.
And so he does.
She could not say how long she had been there, suspended in the darkness. Long enough for her to give herself some well-needed therapy, not having anything else better to do. The guilt that had been dragging her down had been released and she had made her peace with everything.
And long enough for all of that guilt to come back around again and clog up her heart with its rot.
This cycle continued over and over.
Until, suddenly, it wasn’t emptiness all around her. It was still dark, though of a different kind, and a moment of confusion had water pouring into her lungs. Limbs that had not been used in countless days ached to strike towards the faint light only to lose consciousness close to the surface.
And so she washes up on the riverbank, white starlight blood marking where the rocks had been unkind.
She is back in the world, and that healing ability she cursed so much takes power from the sun and the light of her own blood and knits those wounds back together, easing the soreness in her limbs, and reversing the burning of her lungs until she is gasping for air.
Garbage is nearby and it doesn’t surprise her in the least.
What foolish thing had he done to get her out?
But that thought requires a hope she doesn’t dare focus on in case it collapses. The memories of their last meeting have a shine to them and even though she believes they are true memories, she knows too that she was not really herself. Her life had so much horror in it but it was mixed with so much good. And maybe she had been happier, but she wouldn’t want to be parted from even her worst memories if it meant losing some of the best.
If it meant losing him.
Agetta doesn’t rise, just twists into a more comfortable position with her legs beneath her and her midnight blue gaze can lock on him. The brightness is too much, the presence of the water and the mud she is sitting in, and the nearby grass and plants is suffocating in their intensity after only having nothing for company, but she does not dare close her eyes for too long.
And she knows that if she stands she will go to him and there’s something she needs to know first. “Tell me right now if you know who I am.” She intends for it to be blunt but the effect is somewhat lost in the softness of her voice, the words raspy and weary.
Still, Agetta does not intend to wait around to discover whether this wound will re-open and if they are destined to just continue missing each other. Going to Beyza to die had been a mistake, clearly, and if Garbage repeats those words he had said to her on this very shore - if she is still nothing to him - she will find someone else to do the job and make it permanent.
At the water’s edge, the dark god had said, and in this, at least, he was honest.
Garbage had not fully allowed himself to hope – why should he trust such a god, anyway? – but he had listened and walked various water edges, looking, praying.
And then, like a vision, she comes from the water, onto the edge, dazed but there. He almost falls running to her, helpless in this moment to control himself, overcome with the desire to be closer to her, to touch her. His throat feels choked with apologies but before he reaches her she’s looking at him, speaking - tell me right now if you know who I am - and it is enough to knock a small bit of sense into him, so instead of throwing himself on the ground next to her he stands, close but not touching, and replies.
“You’re Agetta,” he says, then, in a clumsy attempt to undo the horrible words he’d spoken when he hadn’t known, when he’d washed up blank, an empty canvas, “and you’re everything to me.”
It’s too much, probably, to throw at her. Carnage told him the story gleefully enough and Garbage has not stopped imaging it, the horror of such a thing. She’s still recovering and she’s tired and wet from the river and here he is, trying helplessly to undo one of his worst mistakes.
“I’m sorry,” he says. This, at least, is familiar. He is very good at apologizing.
“I’m just so glad you’re back,” he says. His own knees are weak and shaking and he wonders if he will collapse soon enough on the rocks beside her from the sheer relief of this, but as long as it’s beside her, he thinks, he doesn’t mind at all.
She had allowed herself to hope even though it seemed dangerous but even that hope had not prepared her for hearing his voice again, for hearing her name on his tongue like she had so many times before.
It’s overwhelming and yet she doesn’t dare close her eyes to steady herself. Even that temporary darkness feels like too much.
When he apologizes, a small laugh escapes her.
Agetta doesn’t want any of the next words to be unkind ones, she does not want this reunion to have any more shadows hanging over it than the ones that already exist. So she doesn’t point out that she can’t be everything to him, not when she clearly hadn’t been enough for him to say something that day they’d watched a tropical sunset.
Or any day after that.
The heartbreak he had dealt her, first in his ignorance and lack of memory and then in not saving her from her own, was what she deserved, wasn’t it? And didn’t that mean she had no right to feel hurt? Whatever forgiveness and kindness she had allowed herself in that vast emptiness has a hard time finding traction here in the world again.
“Garbage.” She had never liked his name, never thought it appropriate for the kind, haunted stallion she had fallen for - but it is a selfish pleasure to get to whisper it where it will not be swallowed up by the dark or echo around to taunt her.
Her dark eyes are sad as she looks up to him and then she is reaching out, beckoning him to come close enough to touch. Both needing and wanting the reassurance of his solid form. It feels as though she is rooted to this spot, her legs unsure and heavy, so she does not test them just yet and must rely on him to close the gap.
“Next time, can you do the selfish thing and just tell me you love me?”
It could be a teasing joke if she wasn't so bone-deep exhausted over it all. Even the idea of this happening again causes despair to rise up in her but she fights it away, holding onto this moment in case it is all she gets.
He had done a horrible thing. This is not a surprise, for his life is mostly a long procession of horrible things. He should not be surprised at it, not anymore. Leopards can’t change their spots, and Garbage is damned to hurt the ones he loves. Even when he tried to spare her, when he tried to fall on his own sword to keep her from the knife-blade of loving him, that had failed too, hadn’t it?
If he’d spoken up when the memories first returned, would she have ended up in the void?
Either way, damned to hurt her.
He will not forgive himself, but this is not a surprise, either. Forgiveness comes easy to him when it’s for others, but comes rarely when it’s to himself.
But his own despair is set to the wayside because she says his name, reaches out to him, and he lets himself touch her, drops to his knees to touch more of her, her cheek, her neck, anything of her. He is desperate, in this way, the way a starving man doesn’t realize the extent of his hunger until the first bite.
He lets himself fully settle beside her, still touching her – maybe he won’t ever stop touching her – and does not answer her question for a moment. She has surprised him again, see – he’d expected more fury, more disappointment.
Maybe she’s too tired.
Maybe forgiveness comes easy to her, too.
“Agetta,” he says her name, first, maybe because he needs to say it again. To remind her that he knows who she is.
“I promise,” he says, though he hopes desperately there will not be a next time. Lips to her mane, he speaks again.
“I love you,” he says. He fights the urge to keep apologizing. Instead, he asks that heavy question, the one weighing him as he thinks of his own stupidity and an endless, aching void.
“Can you ever forgive me?”
Part of Agetta is surprised that he actually comes towards her - that his touch is real and physical and she loses the fight against tears as he drops near her and does not break contact. That part had expected him to still keep distance between them, even if she did mean everything to him. She had expected some confirmation that what they had was not enough.
It feels like enough now as she leans into every touch and returns them when and wherever she can. It has to be enough, she doesn’t think she could handle any other option.
“Yes.” She doesn’t need to think about her answer to his question - because they are the same. She will always forgive others without hesitation and then spend decades berating herself over every little thing. And forgiveness for Garbage comes without hesitation. Even if she is angry, even if she is hurt - both of these things pale in comparison to how much she loves him.
Although the very act of loving him has spawned other things for her to hate herself for - she cannot bring herself to regret it or to wish it away. Not when his touch on her neck makes her believe that this time, everything is going to be fine.
So she doesn’t elaborate or speak about her fears. She focuses as she always does on trying to make sure there are none in his mind. “You know I love you too, right?” Though she wants to pull away enough to look clearly into those beautiful eyes, she doesn’t move her mouth from his cheek - doesn’t dare break contact and risk the chance of either of them being lost. “I have meant it every time I’ve said it. I meant it before I said it and meant it even when I didn’t know who you were.”
Agetta remembers how her body had seemed to know even when her mind hadn't.
She breathes him in, deep and slow breaths. Her eyes wish to close but every time they do she forces them open - still unwilling to confine herself to another darkness, and unwilling to miss a second of him. “I want to know what you did to get me out, but that can wait.” At least she hopes it can be a future worry - one that, with luck, they can face together.
It is a strange kind of difficult, to accept her forgiveness. He, of course, wants to pick that wound, ask over and over again are you sure? because of course he knows that he does not deserve her forgiveness, he knows that she is too good for him.
He also knows trying to save her from that made everything worse.
So he does not prod, only closes his eyes for a moment and swallows, as if the forgiveness was communion placed on his tongue.
“Thank you,” he says, the words murmured into the skin. He can say that much.
(He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. He doesn’t deserve any of the things she’s given him; just as she did not deserve what he did to her. And yet, here they are, still.)
“I missed you too,” he says, briefly ignoring her other comment. It’s easier to lay here beside her and drink in every piece of her, the scents and textures and radiating warmth. He wants to ignore it entirely, but his mind, never his strongest ally, drifts back to what he had done. Yet he finds the memory smudged, hazy – he knows he went to Carnage, begged, offered himself, offered anything. And Carnage had agreed – but why? What had Garbage promised him, in the end?
He can no longer recall. Anything, he had said. But what had they agreed on?
Carnage had taken that memory, too.
“I went to the mountain,” he says, finally, because he will be nothing but honest now, he doesn’t want to deceive her in any way, not even by omission.
“I found Carnage there. I asked – begged. But…” he pauses, trying again to conjure the memory, “I can’t recall what I promised him. Everything gets fuzzy after I said I would give him anything. I think he…buried that memory. Or did something to hide it. I don’t care what it was, it was worth it.”
This once, she would not have prodded for answers if he was not willing to give them. She had meant it when she said it could wait. But how can she be anything other than happy when he actually tells her what he knows instead of keeping it a secret?
If Agetta went another hundred years without hearing Carnage’s name or seeing him, it would still be too soon. Anger floods through her on Garbage’s behalf, though she knows there’s little point to it. How can anyone compete with someone who can move through dimensions and seemingly do anything he wishes? It doesn’t stop her from wanting to kick him in his face, but it will stop her from trying it. Probably.
She inhales a deep, steadying breath - made steadying for the familiar scent that it brings into her nose. She supposes she should be grateful that the memory Carnage took wasn’t one pertaining to her, that one of the chief menaces of her life hadn’t trapped them in the same horrid cycle of taking turns forgetting the other. “Carnage is who helped me get my memories back too. And the price I paid was being trapped in that… void.” She didn’t regret it - especially if it meant Ryatah had been free - but it had been a steep price.
“We’ll deal with it together, whatever it is.” Agetta states as firmly as she is capable of when every part of her is happy and soft, her night-deep eyes locked on the sunset-bright ones in this face she loves so much.
![[Image: Agetta-by-Star-smaller.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/bvb9bQBR/Agetta-by-Star-smaller.png)