Our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
CREVAN
“With you gone, there was no other shifter …” Merida tells him.
In her own way, he doubts she meant it negatively. In his mind, though, the words transform themselves to steel knives, each one plunging hungrily through his heart. He knows that what he’s done can’t be forgiven - not by Merida, not by his sister (a filly he’s never even seen, shame, shame on him) and certainly not by his father or twin, wherever they were now. His choice … no, their choice, for it’d been Circinae’s as much as his, had been irrevocably selfish.
He’d had friendship here; Merida was that, if not something more. Purpose; Celest had looked up to him, he realizes that now. Family; Canaan and Jah, Corvus and Nyxa.
Why had he left in the first place?
Chewing, ripping, the reddish-orange female fills in the blanks and draws him out from inside the prison of his thoughts. “Little nests, at the base of trees -” She rambles, I was quicker.”
Her laugh isn’t followed by one of his own. She reminds him too much of the things that hurt, things that mattered. Reminds him exactly why he’d left. This place - Beqanna - had felt too small to house his great bulk, too weak and delicate to withstand his violent nature. (The squirming, fleshy ‘babie’ rabbits, nestled in their spring dens as he devoured them one by one) He swallows, done with his half though Merida now works on a bone.
His tongue flicks out from the shadow of his mouth, running smoothly over the the oily substance covering his lips to clean the final, bloody residue, and Crevan has a feeling they will come around to the subject he wishes they would avoid. Merida, reading his thoughts, asks anyways. His mind drifts:
(They were staying in each new world for short bursts of time, aiming to outrun it. When once they’d been leisurely and involved, working hard to assume new lives and try new things, now they were harbingers of death - unintentional or not.)
“Some … thing.” Is the best answer he can give in regards to the black shit matting his fur. “My dam, Circinae, had the ability to teleport. She was never meant to stay in one place, but she wasn’t exceptionally powerful. I wasn’t meant to be a father, to be a lover, but I couldn’t stop myself from hurting people. So we left.” He explains briefly, before the memory sweeps over:
(In the beginning it was perfect. The first world they’d encountered had perpetually been a Tundra. Wolves ruled, and then he and his mother came to rule them, gods among their own kind. But that space was too small, too limited, so they left. And then, once that new place had become small, they would leave again, and again, and again. Over and over, starting from nothing and together, soon outgrowing every place they’d teleported to.)
“I think her ability was what drew the thing to hunt us. It … hungered for total destruction, ruined everything in its wake.” He frowns, the lines of his immortal face growing tight with anger. “Her gates, our jumps - they were like footprints behind us. No matter where we went, it would tear reality in order to find us.”
(Black death, and so much of it. The fabric of time would shred and it would spill free from the makeshift portal, shapeless and silent in its pursuit of them. Sometimes it would not find them for months, sometimes it was only a few days. Near the end, they had precious hours to plan. That was when Circinae had decided to stop running.)
“We went to a dark place.” Crevan breathes, just above a whisper. His eyes are gone, travelling through space and eternity to see that horrid darkness again, a world so much like the Underneath it was agony to think on it now. “I fought and for the first time, I felt true fear that I would die.” He mouths, remembering the way it had enveloped him completely and begun to drink his gifts away like a man stranded in the desert, lapping up drops of water.
(“It’s me you want!” Circy had screamed, not once but twice. Behind her, the portal that Crevan was supposed to be escaping into was already formed, mouth open and waiting. But the thing had been unsure - tasting Crevan had given it second thoughts, perhaps. The green mare wasn’t deterred - she never was, in the face of impending doom - and had fallen in to attack. That was all it took, all ‘it’ needed in order to free Crevan and turn to the object of its true desires.)
“But I stuck to our plan; I managed to make it through the portal and her move was to take the Creature … nowhere, I guess. A death sentence. To go ‘nowhere’ was to become ‘nothing’, and that was her sacrifice.” He rumbles, blinking softly before jerking his head away from Meridia’s inquisitive stare.
Silence follows. Eventually Crevan rises; one fluid, graceful motion where all his limbs worked in tandem because his thoughts were aligned on one purpose. “I need to run.” He snarls softly, choosing to avoid her gaze still.
@[Merida]
It's a novel
I ain't sorry
#ShesThePBtoHisJ