"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
What was it that his family had told him? Thorn would know if his ears were not constantly ringing with the sharp echoes of their curses. He’d been spit from the leviathan’s mouth some months later. Time had little meaning in the old god’s body, a fact that has made Thorn’s readjustment to this reality an even harsher one.
Nevermind the gaping the hole in his chest.
“They’re dead,” he whispered to himself every few hours. At night, he tossed and turned as nightmare after nightmare plagued him. Thorn would do anything to clear his mind of each echoing murmur, every word articulated with such care that they feel like whispered secrets; and that is exactly what finally brings him back to Tephra.
Through the haze of exhaustion and delirium, Thorn treks from his hallucinogenic wanderings in the Common Lands to the border of Tephra. It’s a trip that lasts a couple of weeks while in his state, arduous and tiring in ways he won’t be able to describe if he ever recovers. Every one of his steps is dragging, from the pain of others and his own unmatched dread. He knows what awaits him in Tephra: the looming presence of his dead family and one plunge over a cheerily colored tropical cliff.
At least in the crashing ocean he won’t be able to hear so many others mindless suffering.
Thorn doesn’t hesitate like one might think he will when he crashes over the Tephran border. Blood drips from the wound in his chest, painting morbidities over the yellow and orange undergrowth. Parrots and toucans call from the jungle’s canopy above, adding cacophony to Thorn’s already clustered brain.
They’re part of the reason Thorn knows himself to be hallucinating when Nightlock’s form lingers between the puzzling array of trees. Above the birds swoop and call, panicked enough by the pair’s presence that their flybys become aggressive enough to pull Thorn’s gaze from his father’s distant form. He droops his head and continues weaving between the foliage away from Nightlock.
thorn
under your skin, over the moon
don't let me in, I don't know what I'd do
roses are fallin', roses from fallin' for you, ooh
In a rare moment of solitude, he winds through the thick foliage and brush of Tephra. It was quieter now, with the oldest four of their children now grown, though it was not uncommon for them to come and go from the family’s nearly private area of the territory. Rosine was less and less frequent, but he did not find that surprising; she had always been prone to wandering away from her siblings, and he didn’t think it was likely that she would plant her roots in Tephra. Tamlin and Bea did not seem to stray far, and accompanied by the twins it was easy to forget there was a world that existed outside of their own.
It was almost chaotic enough that the absence of Thorn could have gone unnoticed, if it was not something that gnawed relentlessly at the back of Nightlock’s mind. He would hardly claim to be a good father; he was still too stoic for his own good, and all of his love for his children was still frequently trapped beneath layers of hardened indifference that he likely would never shed. But, it was there. Buried or not, it existed, and his subconscious would not let him forget it.
Up ahead his gaze narrows onto a familiar form, and even though the young stallion’s back is to him, he recognizes him instantly. He lengthens the stride of his walk just enough to slowly begin to close the gap between them, though there is no rush to his pace. He tracks him long enough to try and decipher if he was purposely avoiding him, or if he truly did not see him. “Thorn,” and the strength of his voice in the silence sends more birds fluttering for higher branches, giving his son no choice but to turn and face him.
04-25-2020, 10:56 PM (This post was last modified: 04-25-2020, 10:58 PM by thorn.)
"Why are you following me?" Thorn asks, exhausted, as he turns around to face his hallucination of Nightlock. They don't usually follow him if he doesn't give them attention; and even when they did follow him, their presences were accompanied by frenzied whispering. This Nightlock is quiet. Cool. Lacking the feverish pitch of the rest of Thorn's life.
Soft white light emanating from Thorn's body sprawls vibrantly across Nightlock's face. The sabino thinks it odd that he looks real, that the light turns him into something so solid Thorn can nearly pick apart each individual hair. He isn't convinced this is his father, though - not yet. There's a distinct emptiness in his chest. While Thorn's own suffering is amplified enough to be worth several lives of suffering, his curse always leaves room for the pain of others. The darkest parts of other's lives are simply a part of him, too.
And this Nightlock, he doesn't have pain.
Thorn is sure his father would have pain right now.
Nightlock does have pain, though. Thorn just hasn't felt it yet. The sabino stares, mouth set, dull eyes glassy behind weakly fluttering lids. He begins to lose interest when the pain does hit him.
It takes his breath away.
Thorn falls to his knees, incapable of making noise, incapable of taking another breath. Nightlock's suffering is an army, with soldier after soldier taking a bayonet to the wound in Thorn's chest. It pulses as they tear (he can't hear anything over their warcries, over his own laboring heartbeat).
"You're real?" is all he manages to gasp out. Blood drip, drip, drips onto the forest floor, seeping into the already near-black tropical soil. Thorn's back legs crumple and now he lays on the bouncy earth, nose outstretched in front of Nightlock's hooves. He's exhausted, eyes fluttering and fluttering against finally shutting. "You're real?" he rasps again, though this time it is barely a whisper.
thorn
under your skin, over the moon
don't let me in, I don't know what I'd do
roses are fallin', roses from fallin' for you, ooh
05-25-2020, 12:59 PM (This post was last modified: 05-25-2020, 01:28 PM by Nightlock.)
— I'll break you a hundred different ways —
“Because I can,” is Nightlock’s dry response to his son’s somewhat accusatory question, though nothing in his face implies that he is irritated. There is little that any of his children can do to rouse the sleeping beast within him; the one that eventually snaps, the one that would rather hear the crack of bones than any kind of excuse or explanation. He has not touched on that hidden anger in years; not since he chose to stay with Wonder. Though outwardly he was similar to the way he had been back then – stoic and quiet, with smiles few and far between – the corners of his soul did not feel quite so dark. It did not mean he found it any easier to express concern or love, but, it did mean anger was becoming more and more of a stranger to him.
But the sight of Thorn’s chest inspires something – something like anger, something like fear. The young boy turns towards him with what Nightlock expects to be a wounded glare and instead he is met with that gaping, bleeding hole in his chest, and he is sure the look that crosses his face is one he’s never worn before; the storm-clouds briefly chased away by a flash of lighting – concern and alarm but then, of course, anger.
“What the hell happened to you?” The words sound sharper than he had intended, and in a matter of strides he is before him just as he folds to the ground. He can’t deny that his own father is the first thought that flashes across his mind – he can’t think of anyone else in this land that would set someone loose with a gaping, unhealable wound across their heart. But Thorn’s quiet gasps draws him back, and he looks down at the boy and the pool of blood. “I’m real,” and though his voice is still rough it has lost all of its edge, and he lowers his head to brush his nose across the top of Thorn’s neck. “Why wouldn’t I be real?”
Thorn doesn't want to explain himself, not now. He only wants to lay at his imagined father's feet, eyelids blinking with a sleep so plagued by nightmares he'll awake even more exhausted. Nightlock will stand above him, watching, a guardian. It'd be easy, he thinks. To just sleep here. To not wake up.
"I did something stupid, Dad," Thorn grumbles on heavy lips. It was incredibly stupid, and now (too exhausted to hold his tongue), he can admit that to himself. "Something really stupid. I should have known better. I -" he pauses, draws in a loud, painful breath, "I deserved this." The last sentence is the lowest whisper a creature can muster.
Nightlock's breath against Thorn's neck only serves to make his eyes heavier. The briefest flash of a warm childhood memory seals him into his position.
"You all told me you hated me. When I see you, you're never real." It doesn't make sense, this response. Thorn knows it but he can't find the words to elaborate.
"I'm cursed."
thorn
under your skin, over the moon
don't let me in, I don't know what I'd do
roses are fallin', roses from fallin' for you, ooh
