"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
Many years ago, he made a promise to the dark god.
He hadn’t intended to make it to the dark god. He’d intended to find the faeries, to throw himself prostrate before them and beg for Agetta’s memories to be restored. And he had walked up the mountain, but instead of finding any faeries, it had been the dark god waiting for him.
(All I ask, Carnage says, is one thing. Anything, Garbage replies, I will give you anything, just bring her back. I have a dead son, Carnage says, and Garbage almost laughs, because even someone as ignorant as he of Beqanna’s going-ons as him knows Carnage must have a hundred dead sons, but he will not be dead for much longer.
Who?
His name is Cancer, and he once loved you, the dark god says, as if Garbage were the kind of man who would forget the name of the man who had saved him from killing himself, who had made him anew. The man he had served, the father of his first son. You are bound, Carnage continues, and I want to make use of it.
Garbage does not think of the consequences. He thinks only of Agetta. Yes, he says, whatever you want from me.
There is no part of himself he wouldn’t give this dark god to make her whole again.)
He has thought, on occasion, of this vow. He had certainly not seen Cancer in the years since making his promise, nor had he felt anything amiss. He’d certainly assumed he would have felt something, some tug of the bind he shared with Cancer.
It begins with the headaches.
They are faint, throbbing things, but unlike any headache he’s known before. This is a dull pain that seems to zigzag in an odd way down his skull, a pain that zips along his cheeks and nose as well as the head itself. Echoes, he thinks one day, and does not know why.
He does not tell Agetta for several days. He doesn’t think much of the headaches at first, and the pain is faint. But they begin to occur more and more often, until there was always some low constant of pain in his face.
It worsens like this.
He tells Agetta goodnight and sleeps with his back curled against hers. His head barely hurts at all. It always feels best like this, with so much of his skin touching hers, her warmth a balm for any ill, even pains so odd as his. And he sleeps.
And then, he wakes up and he is not in the same place as he was when he went to sleep. And he is alone.
He scrambles frantically to his feet, and the pain in his face worsens. He cries out, partially in shock at the pain of it, but also in shock at the familiarity of it.
He once tore his own eyes out, you see, and had broken most of his skull to pieces in the process (hooves are a dull and unpredictable instrument). This was a very very long time ago, but it was not a sensation one easily forgets, even several iterations later – and this pain felt much like a bone about to break, in the same pattern his own hooves had broken it..
He rubs his cheek against his own leg, ensuring his wholeness, and then he glances around frantically, orange eyes roving for the familiar glimpse of white. But she is not there – for the dark god had thought it much more entertaining to drop Garbage off in the meadow alone for this particular game.
He had loved games once. Not the childish play of youth, but those of fate. The ones where odds tumble in and out of favor and one can never quite be sure of where they’ll land. He had played, believing himself invincible. Then, he had lost.
He remains lost in too many ways, but he won’t bother trying to recount them. Madness lurks on that path. Already the knotted threads of past and future tighten around him, drawing inexorably closer, weaving along the edges of his tattered psyche. His only choice is to ignore it, though it begs him to peek, just once.
His life should have been forfeit the last time he looked. Much like his clarity however, death’s grip on him proved perilously loose. He knew why once. He undoubtedly could again, if he dared but look.
Talons dig into the tender skin below the protruding bone of his armor. When they loosen, the rivulet of blood that follows tickles his skin until it shivers. The pain is a reminder. He tips his head, glaring at the large bird perched on his hip. And there it is, his sanity, glaring right back at him.
A scowl darkening his features, he steps forward and offers a half-hearted buck in response. It’s little more than a crow-hop, considering his under-fed state, but it is enough to draw an indignant shriek and stabilizing wing-flap from the harpy eagle. Ignoring his companion, Reave steps forward into a brisk, all-too-brief, trot. Brief because, only moments later, a dark figure has him skidding to a halt.
He could pretend, even if only to himself, that it had little to do with how quickly he had tired.
Reave eyes the stranger. Though he appears normal enough, something clings to him. The tendrils of it reach towards the armored stallion, begging him to take hold. Imploring him to lose himself to the beckoning madness. The talons prick him again, releasing a fresh trickle of blood.
“That is the face of someone in trouble if ever I’ve seen one,” Reave mutters, mostly to himself, though the stranger could hear if he bothered to listen. He should leave. Immediately. He is in no kind of shape for anything that might prove reckless.
She’d tired of tracking him. Meyer, no longer a scruffy orphan, had grown in body and in power in the few short years he’d spent with them, his spirit indomitable despite the best efforts of a few. Then he had stolen away in the night some months back and when it was clear he had no intention of returning, Dretch had set off herself, tracking and then trailing him. Not to drag him back again. She couldn’t even if she’d wanted to. Someone had taught him how to wield his powers and the lanky bay had grown particularly adept at snitching her shapeshifting. She’d just wanted to know why he had left to do … nothing. Because, as far as she could tell, he did nothing aside from existing, wandering and hiding in the common lands. How boring.
She scowls, running out along the tree branch and leaping to the ground many dozens of squirrels below. Shifting as she falls, red squirrel becomes black mare and she lands easily, bending her knees to absorb the impact before taking off running across the meadow.
Something had happened to her not long ago and much to her delight, she no longer grows tired. Running is the best way to burn off the excess of energy she constantly finds herself worth and she’d quickly learned to be as sure-footed as she is fleet-footed. The cry of pain and shock startles her, though, as unexpected and full of anguish as it is, that causes her to stumble over a hillock in the grass and it’s all she can do to keep her feet underneath her as she skids to a stop. No second cry follows the first but the sound reverberates in her ears, making her skin crawl with empathy. Pinning her ears, she considers a moment before turning and making her way back toward the sound’s source.
It’s a stallion, outwardly unhurt though his orange eyes roll about frantically as if the sky were falling and the dark god himself was coming to get him. As always, on the occasion thoughts of him cross her mind, she takes a moment to look around, as if the very thought might conjure him. She cocks her head, tonguing a fang. She should just leave him to his own devices. She is turning back toward the River again to leave when the eagle-adorned one shows up. He’s too far away to catch what he says, but it’s not likely she would have noticed, anyway. She has eyes only for the harpy eagle at the second stallion’s hip, fresh blood seeping from between gripped talons. “He’s lovely …,” she breathes and maybe they’ll hear her, maybe not. She glances toward the first stallion again, frowning. “What’s with you?” It’s really none of her business but that’s never stopped her before.
