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.
@Agetta