Some days, Magnus woke up in a cold sweat, his heart hammering in his chest, his breath short. Some days, he woke up with his tongue swollen in a dry mouth, fear clutching at him with claws that dug deep. It was easy, in these moments, to think back to when death had first greeted him. It was easy to think back to when he had known, in that split second before impact, that he was going to die—when Trashlip was lifted over him and Joelle was screaming and the waves were pounding on the shore behind him. It was as vivid as when it had been occurring; it was as real, as tangible. It was so easy to feel that fear.
When she told him that she knew those cold hands, his heart ached and his face fell.
He did not wish that knowledge onto anyone, least of all her.
“I am so sorry to hear that, Hybris,” his voice was low as he nudged her neck. “I would do anything to take that kind of knowledge from you.” She did not deserve to know that kind of heart-shattering fear; she did not deserve to know what it was like to have your soul drip from your veins, your life to leave you.
He laughed softly at her next words, although the sound lacked any humor. “To be honest, I am not sure what I have become.” A leader of a land full of horses he is not sure trust him. A pieced-together scarecrow who had watched the land beneath him shift and change too many times to count. A father of the despondent and the lifeless (would he ever get that little foal’s still body out of his mind’s eye?). A lover of the lost and the broken. “I am not sure that a younger me would know either, or like me much.”
He was not sure that he liked himself very much on most days.
magnus
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