"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
09-03-2016, 04:53 PM (This post was last modified: 09-03-2016, 10:32 PM by Strangelet.
Edit Reason: because tenses...-_-
)
You've been up and down, down, you've been low, low, low.
The changing of the world was not so frightening. Not in and of itself, at least. We have walked so many worlds, felt them all change beneath our feet, that when this one quakes, it meant little to either of us. At least initially.
We followed urging of the fairies through the collapsing world, all the way to the newly forming Mountain. Still, we thought nothing of it. Another catastrophe, another shattering and reshaping of another world, another day alive, though alive has always been fairly arbitrary too.
Truly, it was not until the thinness of the air became too much for our lungs to bear and we were forced to make the rather treacherous climb back down the mountainside that the full impact of what had happened became clear.
The voices left first. The quiet little whispers and the screams that have echoed almost unfiltered through our head since I patched poor Chistery’s brain and somehow unlocked my own latent telepathy. Suddenly, they were gone. Suddenly there was silence, just me and my Noctem.
Oh, and then.
For the first time in my life, the world looked solid and real, uninfluenced by flashes of light, flickering shadows, bright colors and flowing energy and wandering spirits. I felt no phantom pains from walking through someone long-dead and their wounds echoing through my body. I could breathe, and my skin felt...felt real. It felt significant and relevant and actually there, instead of the strange half-presence it had always felt before.
Oh, Noctem! I cried, overjoyed that for once I could finally understand what the others experienced, could finally fit in my skin.
But my twin did not answer me. No matter how I begged and pleaded and screamed, he did not reply. I tried to turn back, to climb back up the mountain and cross the divide that stole him from me, but I could not, try though I did. Until I was exhausted, until I ran out of tears and collapsed in a heap on the ground.
I lay there for...for a very long time. I don’t know how long. I used to be able to watch it flow, to dip into the river of past-present-future and feel the currents, and without that all I had was the rising and falling of the sun.
Eventually I made my way down the mountain, torn in two by the conflict raging in my chest. I could not help but revel in the experience of a mind unfettered by other people’s thoughts, and a firm anchor to...to a body that was suddenly only mine instead of ours. And at the same time...I was so very, very alone. I could not feel my Noctem, nor reach out beyond myself to any of our family. Not even to random strangers I encountered in passing. Whatever had allowed me to reach out and touch them before was gone, as though it had never been.
Desolate elation. I did not even know that was possible until today.
Now? Now I wander through the meadow on restless feet, my head hanging low, my forelock spilling down over my face, blocking a bit of my view and hiding me just a little from a world I have never been prepared to face alone. Once I would have followed a quiet pull to anywhere, to someone significant or to a situation that needed a nudge or to someone who needed to speak with the dead, any number of little fingers beckoning me forward. Now there is no quiet beckoning. Now I am lost.
I look around the meadow, blue eyes scanning strange faces and strange bodies. And I walk closer to the nearest, rather than weaving through to the one who most needed me. There is no longer anything to need of me, and I am no longer able to give it.
I feel oddly blind as I look at the buckskin stallion, trying to see all the wisps and tangles and colors that should be floating around him, tying him to others. I feel deaf, swiveling my ears to catch sounds that should be hissing in hushed little whispers. Nothing. Not a glimpse, not a hint, not a single clue who he iss, aside from the very solid physical presence of his body in front of me. “Hello,” I murmur quietly, and my voice is a little rough from disuse. “My name is Strange. Who are you?”
So many had lost so much in the shake-up while he, seemingly, had lost nothing. He had no gifts to rip from his grasp. He had no home from which to be yanked from beneath him. He had been a vagabond, a wanderer—homeless, for perhaps the first time in his life. All then he had lost were memories. Places where he could still see Joelle and his children, where his memory was anchored. The loss of the Gates and the Jungle were heavy blows—crippling even. It had been difficult to breathe around them.
Guilt had warred in his chest. A certainty that he was somehow responsible for the pain he saw on every one he passed. Hours had passed since the initial trauma, and many had found their way down the mountain, but confusion was still thick in the air around them. Homes no longer existed. Places where they had been born and raised. Where wars had been waged and life had blossomed and love discovered.
All of that had bled away; all of it had left them naked and alone in a seemingly foreign land.
He almost doesn’t see her when she approaches, her voice startling him out of the deep rivers of his own thoughts. “Oh, hello there!” his voice was husky and thick as if from slumber. He tilted his head slightly at her, wondering briefly if ‘strange’ was indeed her name or a descriptor, before he shrugged his scarred shoulders and went with it. “It is nice to meet you, Strange. My name is Magnus.” His smile was crooked, but warm, and he took a second to evaluate her in the manner he had become accustomed in the last few hours, taking inventory to make sure she was unscathed—no blood, no open wounds.
You've been up and down, down, you've been low, low, low.
By this point I’m all too used to the pause and head tilt that is the typical reaction to my introduction. Yes, my name is Strange. Yes, it’s rather appropriate--though suddenly less so than it used to be. I’m comparatively quite...normal now. Blue eyes seeing only one world. No voices in my head that don’t belong to me.
Even if it means there’s one missing that always has belonged to me. Or with me, at least.
At any rate, the stranger shrugs and smiles and greets me in return, so I smile back. “It’s nice to meet you too, Magnus. Though I do wish it had been under less...apocalyptic circumstances. Are you...that is, Noctem, my twin, he told me about meeting a man named Magnus once. A very long time ago. Years and years, really. I don’t suppose that was you? If so, we’ve almost met already, in a manner of speaking.”
That would have been early in our days sharing this body, when he was the only one wearing it really. I’d been with our mother for a bit there, hiding from the way the body hurt so badly sometimes to inhabit, the way it felt so heavy and sharp and jagged and…felt, though. Now...now it just is.
“Ah. Yes, that’s...that’s a bit of an understatement. I’m...well, Magnus, I’ve been better. And I suppose I’ve been worse. I…” I sigh, looking away as another wave of loneliness hits. “I miss my brother. My whole family, really. I can’t reach them like I used to, and…” And it hurts. Almost as much as it used to hurt just being in this body. Still, there’s nothing he can do to fix that, so I shrug. “How are you?”
Her words come like a torrential downpour, and he found that he was slightly overwhelmed by it at first, watching her with wide gold-flecked eyes and a quiet smile. He was not quite sure that he followed her story, but he did his best to keep up with the twists and the turns. When she mentioned her twin, he frowned slightly, racking his memory for the name before it sparked something distant.
“Ah, yes,” he murmured, his frown flicking upward in one corner. “I do believe I remember him, although I will say that the memory is hazy. It was a very long time ago.” Short when he considered the full breadth of his time in Beqanna, but long nonetheless. So much had happened since that encounter and Magnus met so many different faces. He did his best to keep them all sorted, but it was never his strength to remember his every single person he had ever met, no matter how hard he tried to do so.
“I hope that he is well,” he offered gently, not understanding the strange bond that the two shared. He certainly would never guess that the body he met that day was this body.
His words, however, died in his throat at her next statement, face falling slightly. “I am so sorry to hear that, Strange.” How many families had been torn apart by this latest turn of events? How many people found themselves lost—alone? It made him sick to think of all the people wandering around Beqanna with no way to find their loved ones and no way to find their way home. Home did not exist any longer.
“I’m doing okay,” he said absentmindedly, brushing off the thought of his own well-being with his concern about hers. “Could I help you find them?” he glanced around, at a loss.
You've been up and down, down, you've been low, low, low.
So he is the same Magnus. I nod once, smile briefly, just a creeping upwards of the edge of my lips. “It was a long time ago. I’m impressed you remember him at all. He was still pretty exuberant over every encounter then, and went into great detail. I don’t remember most of it, but...well. Enough to ask.” And somehow it makes me feel just a tiny bit less alone, knowing I’m talking to someone who talked to my Noctem once.
“Oh. Well, I mean. He’s dead. But he was dead then too. It’s just we can’t reach each other anymore is all.” There’s no way to explain any of that without sounding mad, not really. I just sigh and shrug and glance back toward the Mountain. Directions have never been my strong suit, but this one’s kind of impossible to forget. My heart aches without him here, and I feel almost like...like I’m magnetized to always point toward home, where the rest of my heart lies waiting for me to find a way back to him.
Magnus’s offer of aid is a generous one, of course. But I shrug. “I doubt it. Though I appreciate the thought. I felt...just before the world changed, I felt my mother...not die, exactly. But almost stop existing, maybe? I didn’t exactly have time to parse it out, to wade through the power to try to figure out what was going on. “Felt brothers dragged away to other worlds. One died. I don’t know what’s become of the other two; they’ve always been the hardest to reach. It’s just me left, or as good as. Thank you for offering, but I don’t know that there’s much of anything left to find.”
Then I look him over again, pausing to focus on something other than myself and my plight for once. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He was looking a little ragged around the edges, which come to think of it made plenty of sense. It had, as he’d said, been a tense day.
The longer this conversation goes, the more certain Magnus is that there are core elements that he is just not understanding. His frown deepens when she tells him that he is dead—that he has been dead, and he cocks his head to the side, one ear flicking forward. “He was dead?” he asked carefully, trying to weigh his words and sort through the details of what seemed like a hopelessly complex situation.
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure that I fully understand. He seemed perfectly alive.”
His smile remained, but it was puzzled, even more so when she continued. He shook his head and gave a small, helpless laugh. “I am not sure that my help would be much help in this situation.” Magic had played a substantial role in his life, dipping in and out of it; particularly when it came to death. His family was just particularly difficult to kill off. Atrox had risen from the grave twice. He had been pulled back from the saltwater grave. Makai had been brought back, although Magnus was as of now unaware of it.
So he chalked it up to that—the strange, enigmatic magic surrounding death.
At her concern for him, he rolled his scarred shoulders. He was not used to dealing with concerns of his own well-being; it was always secondary. “I’m doing alright,” his voice was whiskey and smoke, and it did not show the true extent of his exhaustion. “It’s been a long day, so I’m a little tired, but I have felt worse before.” He had felt his skull crushed, his own life bleeding it out on a beach. He had felt the rigors of war and the pain of watching someone you loved walk away. What was a long day in comparison?
You've been up and down, down, you've been low, low, low.
Ah. Yes. I’ve sort of done it again, haven’t I? The more I speak, the more puzzled Magnus looks, though at least he is polite about it. I pause, regroup, and try again. “Mm. My body used to be able to take on his shape. Or the one he would have had, if he’d lived beyond a few moments after birth. And I used to be able to...hmm, let him borrow it. We shared. Sometimes trading off, sometimes both here. Right up until today, anyhow. Odd gifts from my mothers. It’s...rather a long story, I suppose.” Not exactly a solid explanation, but at least it was more of one than he’d had a moment ago.
“So he was alive in a manner of speaking, and dead in another. It’s just now...well.” I shrug. Now he’s just dead, basically. Just as he used to be for everyone else, before we figured out that rather clever trick, a quirk of our heritage blending with a delightful twist of fate and my desperate need to not be in this body for a while.
“Well, I’m glad you’re well enough. Though I suspect ‘a little tired’ is a bit of an understatement.” Before, I could have looked deeper, seen the depth of exhaustion in his body, sought out weariness in his soul. Now all I have is his body language, the tone of his voice, the way it all weighed on his shoulders. Still, no matter how tired he may be, he does not...god, it’s hard to read people like this. But he does not seem broken, or damaged, or devastated. His body at least shows no signs of trauma. “You look okay, at least.”
As she explains, he begins to feel his comprehension growing, and he nods in understanding. “I think that I understand,” he offers before he laughs lightly, shaking his golden head. “Although most likely only a small fraction of it. I understand magic but have never known it intimately—not like so many of you.” He was, instead, a simple stallion of the salt and the earth. He did not command elements or play with the fabrics of fate between his fingers; he could not pull the heavens down, dive into minds as one might dive into the ocean. He could not transform his body, heal his wounds, or even change the color of his coat.
He was one of the last ones—the normal ones. The ones not affected so personally by Beqanna pulling back her gifts because he had no gifts to give. He had never resented his lack of gifts though. Even when mast had given him wings for those years, they had fit him awkwardly. He had eventually gotten a hang of the eagle feathers, finding them a useful tool in patrolling the border, looking after Minette, and shortening the trip from kingdom to field, but they had never been a part of him—not really. So when he had awoken from that magic bubble and they had dissolved from his shoulders, he had not missed them.
“I am sorry to hear about him though. I hope you can find your way back to him.”
He did not pry any further though, knowing that such subjects were often ripe with emotion and hurt. He wanted to make himself available should she want to talk, but not to the point of causing discomfort.
“Physical exertion had always been a familiar companion of mine—and the tired that follows, as well.” He knew that his coat was darkened with sweat that his nostrils still flared slightly, but it was a good, honest tired. One that rung in his bones as a way of telling him that he had done well. “And it is a welcome ache in my bones if it means I have been able to help at least one soul today.”
You've been up and down, down, you've been low, low, low.
Magnus’s quiet laugh draws a smile out of me, coaxing my lips to curve upwards despite the lingering sorrow weighing me down. “If it were not for Noctem, I think I would envy you that. It is...difficult, to tread the line between worlds. To have so many others’ thoughts echoing so loudly in your head. This is the first time I feel...comfortable in my skin. It’s always been so dissonant, painful even, and now…” I look around, giving myself a moment to process the vast difference in how my senses function.
“It’s odd. I feel...as though I’m missing senses. But at the same time, the ones that work feel...more concrete. More tangible. For the first time, I only see what is physically here in front of me, only hear the sounds audible to my ears instead of picking up all sorts of static and extra noise. So it’s...it’s nice. But at the same time, so...naked. So stark, missing all the nuance, and of course there’s...well, Noctem. I think if it weren’t for missing him, I might even prefer this.” To be able to function normally in this world, that’s something I never thought I’d experience.
At the same time...it hurts to be without him. Magnus’s softly spoken wish that I find my way back to him has my heart aching with a fierce yearning that it could be so. Oh, someday soon, if only. “I hope so too,” I murmur quietly, letting that ache wash over me instead of drowning me. “Well you have certainly helped me today, Magnus. And I am very grateful for it.”
If he were family, I would curl up against him, rub my cheek against his shoulder, let out a quiet sigh against his skin, and expect him to wrap me up in an embrace. I’m not so familiar with the social rules for new acquaintances, and don’t have the quiet tug of intuition guiding me to tell me how much of that fits the situation. So I step closer and just brush the velvet softness of my nose against his shoulder in quiet gratitude. Hopefully that is at least not overstepping too far. “Thank you for your kindness.”
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