"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
He’s not sure how, or why, but Mesec manages to get his legs underneath him enough to move from the spot where his blood has drenched the soil. There’s some vague notion that if he is up and moving he’ll be fine, and maybe he’ll happen across someone that would know how to heal him. He never really did get around to asking whether kingdoms work the same way in this place - if there are jobs and magics associated with them like the ones he grew up in. Where every herd had a healer.
It would be convenient right now.
He had forced himself to stay as quiet as possible during the attack so that the others would be safe and it seems karmic that he crosses no one when he needs them. Once he stumbles his way to the border of Loess, Mesec’s legs start trembling so badly he must stop and he unceremoniously falls back to the earth. It appears to be afternoon though he has no concept of how long he lay where Breach and the ghost boy had left him. How long he had been wandering. Had a day passed since the attack or was this just the same, stretched, neverending day? With the sun bright and mocking overhead while half of Mesec’s face had been chewed and sliced off and his wings are so broken they trail at his shredded sides.
He hasn’t bothered to survey the rest of the damage, he just feels the effects. The sharp and dull pains that dapple his battered body.
The eye that remains rolls around as he lies there, taking in the brilliance of the sky. He’s collapsed where the forest and rocky hills meet and he can see the cool, inviting shadows beneath the trees just out of reach.
It feels wrong, that he should die during the day. He always thought it would happen at night - where the glowing of his body would slowly dim and then go out forever as he lay beneath the star- and moonlight. Although Breach had given him a message and that suggested she had not intended to kill him, he feels a complete certainty that his body is too broken now. Maybe moving had worsened it and if he had just stayed still he would have been fine - but staying still is like he can already feel himself rotting into the ground.
His mind is hazy and thoughts are slipping away from him but this one - about rotting away here beneath the sun - sticks enough that he tries to rise again. And again.
Alaska still prefers to keep to herself, although she thinks of the strange silver man she had met.
She takes to the skies and to the oceans. Finds herself in the tides and the gale, until the heart of the very world seems to swallow her whole within it. But she still finds herself retracing certain steps. She finds herself coming back to the place where she had met Wolfbane, the only surrogate father that she had ever known. She finds herself walking alongside the same paths and remembering when it had been like as a young child to wrestle with him and discover all of the ways that her body could bend and warp.
The fact that it is a kingdom and not hers to command does not occur to her.
That she is trespassing is a fact she gladly ignores.
She nearly is done with her walk when she hears something that sounds like death. Something that whispers of pain and agony—that causes the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end.
Her fine head twists to the side and her eyes flick until she catches the sight of the blood on the ground. Her stomach clenches as she begins to follow along, her nose shifting ever so slightly to better track the metallic scent. Her eyes sharpen, becoming something other, as she follows the pattern.
And her vision nearly doubles when she sees him crumpled on the ground.
“Mesec,” it sounds foreign in her mouth, hollow and echoing. “Mesec,” her throat is dry as she takes a step toward him, trying to take stock of the damage that seems unending. “What—what happened?”
The contrast between the world Mesec is living in at the moment and the sound of Alaska’s voice is significant. It is a cruel thing, that he would see her again when he is in such a state. When he is dying.
But, then, if there was a face in Beqanna he would see with his last - it is not so bad that it is hers. The mare who was the first one to tell him he did not have to try to fit in. And now here he was, bleeding for a kingdom that he had just begun to see as home.
If he had just been as free as Alaska, would he still be in this situation?
Her name comes to his lips in a gurgle of blood but there’s a quirk of a smile for a moment as well. How could he not, as he looks up into the daylight and sees her shining face? “Alaska.” It takes another few moments of ragged breathing for him to get the energy to reply to the question that she asks. “Just a misunderstanding.” Maybe Breach would be mad if he did not carry her message but he wasn’t going to incite further violence by passing on her message. Not when there was a chance the feud could die with him.
He tries to stand, to greet her properly, but is unable to make any real progress. Instead, he lifts his neck off the ground and feels too lightheaded to go any further. With a shuddering breath, he returns his head to the ground.
His eye closes, and somewhere among the pain he asks a question - the words are difficult to get out, but there’s a thin trace of humour there between the shaking, haggard breaths. “This… might be a long shot… but you don’t... have healing magic... by any chance, do you?”
Alaska has seen death before, but never like this. It has always been a clean death. The kind of death that comes from predator and prey. It is fast and it is merciful and it is just. But she has never seen this kind. The kind of savagery that would leave a man with his face mauled and his throat nearly torn out. The kind of hate that would carry a man to death’s doorstep and not bother to kick him across the threshold.
It steals the air from her lungs, tightens her chest until she feels as though she may burst.
She takes another shaking step forward, doing her best to keep her fear from taking over her features, but she has no practice with lying, and she feels that her lack of practice fails her now. “What—what kind of misunderstanding?” she finally manages, her voice strange and echoing in her hollow mouth. She can’t imagine what kind of misunderstanding someone could have with someone like Mesec.
When he begins to move, she stumbles forward again and before she knows it, she is next to him on the ground, making soft noises in the back of her throat. “Shh. Shh. Don’t move,” she gets out, feeling lightheaded and terrified for perhaps the first time in her life. She isn’t sure if it is better or worse that she touches him, but it is the only comfort that she can think to give him. So she stretches her body until she can wrap gingerly around him, larger and longer than usual, and she presses a soft kiss to his temple.
“I don’t,” she admits, because she can’t lie to him, not now.
Which is the same thing that keeps her from telling him it’ll be okay.
Instead, a single tear falls down her cheek.
“I wish I had more time to know you,” and this is the only truth she knows how to give him.
Mesec doesn’t reply to her question about the misunderstanding, just offers half of a sad smile with what is left of his face. He’s not sure he has the energy left to explain and, besides - it does not matter. He’s busy looking at her, this mare who has already made such an impact on his life. Who is free in a way he has never known, who he had hoped to see again - but under better circumstances. He had wanted her in his life, wanted the hope that she might want to see him again too.
When he cannot stand, she moves to him. Though it hurts to have her touch him, Mesec holds in any winces or gasps - because the hurt is not important. Not compared to the rush of happiness he can still feel, this close to death, at this act of kindness from the last friend he’ll ever make.
It’s the first time they’ve ever touched.
And he thinks he’ll remember it for the rest of his life even as he takes in a ragged, fluid-filled breath and knows how truly little time he has left to cherish her presence. At least he has this - at least he has her. She speaks the thoughts that are in his head about wanting more time and Mesec feels a soft sob escape him. It’s not dignified, and maybe he should be more stoic, but he thinks he’s earned the right to cry.
For the pain and for what could have been.
“It’s not fair.” He whispers back in a careful and slow voice, taking his time with each syllable. “Alaska…” He doesn’t know what he wants to say to her. Beyond all sense, apologies rise up. He wants to apologize for being in this state, for being the cause of that fear he saw in her beautiful golden gaze, for surely bleeding all over her. The flow is ebbing and he can feel his head grow lighter with each breath.
It will not be long now.
“I’m... glad you’re here. If there was a face in Beqanna I would choose to be the last I saw.” And his silver eye closes then. Keeping the memory of her to himself. “It would have been yours.”
In another time, he would be embarrassed about feeling this much - about being this truthful with her when they had only known each other such a short time. Those feelings are distant echoes now and even the pain seems far away, it fades from his battered and broken body and leaves him in peace.
He opens his mouth to say something else to her but all that escapes is his last breath.
It is not easy to cradle death like this, and although she had not supposed that it would be, there is a piece of her that is still surprised. That is nearly shocked at the way it tries to cleave her into two. How she can feel such piercing agony over someone she barely knew—someone she recognized regardless. It goes against everything she knows and believes to be holding him like this now. To let herself cry over him. It goes against the way that she lived her life—the fast and easy way that she let things pass her by.
But she doesn’t care.
She stays with him, cries over him, regardless.
“Mesec,” his name hurts to say, if only because she did not get the chance to say it often. Should she tell him how she had planned to come find him? How she had been so interested to know him more? How she had wanted to hear all of his stories? Would it matter now? The words don’t come and she dips her head a little, her body shimmering as it begins to fold and bend. The white and gold and crimson bleed away to be replaced with his black and silver. Overlarge wings sprout from her shoulders. A crooked horn grows.
She does not resemble him exactly, but she dons that which makes him him.
Holds close to these pieces of him.
“I’m right here,” is all she says through a tight throat. “I’m right here,” she whispers even as his eye closes and even as she feels his labored breathing begin to slow. She presses another kiss to his mangled face, feeling the blood on her lips, and when he stops breathing, she finally loses all sense of control.
She drops her head to him, drapes her neck over him, and for the first time in her life, she sobs.
