"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
Feast had deviated from the main path back to Pangea, and in the course of his unknown deviation, he stumbled upon a cleverly hidden treasure: an egg, an overly large egg. He assumed it held something as magical and fantastical as a dragon and what colt wouldn’t want a pet dragon to have for his own? So Feast bumped and rolled the large egg home with both his nose and his front legs. It was slow going, until the egg gained speed and nearly outpaced him! Then he had to slide to a stop in front of it and slow it down, then bump it along easily until he managed to get it over the sandstone lip of Pangea’s putrid puckered border.
He stood there momentarily, proud and puffing from the exertion of having to maintain safe travel for his treasure. His hard black stare scoured the landscape before picking a lesser walked trail through the badlands, and he began bumping his nose against the egg towards a cave he was all too familiar with - Famine’s haunt. Feast supposed that there his egg would be safest, and he might share his prize with his more sickly looking sibling. But Sinew stopped him midway to the cave, her eyes as black as his and sharp as they flicked over him like a pair of whips and he felt flogged and flayed open to the bone - it was such a severe look that he felt like cowering but knew that would only earn him a sharper nip from his mother, so he straightened his spine and regained some of that natural born pride that he’d felt moments earlier.
“What do you have there boy?” Sinew asked him.
“It’s mine!” he said in a heavy boyish pout, as if she was challenging his claim to it.
“I can see that it is yours and whatever is in it will be your responsibility as well.” Certainly not mother of the year, she bared her teeth at him and tsked as she stalked off, presumably in search of their father, the goat-king to tell him of their son’s latest misadventure.
“Mine,” he repeats in a naked harsh whisper as he rolls his egg further on towards Famine’s cave.
Once there, the egg naturally rolls to a stop in a slight crevasse before the cave and Feast ducks his head beneath the shadowy overhang. “Brother!” he calls, assuming that his twin is laying down and miserable as usual. Feast feels a momentary pang of brotherly affection for his sickly twin, thinking of how much time they’ve not spent together spreading terror across the land. “Come Famine, I have something for us.” and the last is drawn out in a sibilant hiss as he goes back to the egg and rolls it forth into the cave. “Behold!” he practically shouts, listening to his voice echo back through the deep cavern blackness.
As if in response, the egg rattles and shakes for a few seconds then subsides into a premade nest of rat droppings, dry grass, and bits of horsehair and fur (from Famine, from Sinew when she checks in on him from time to time, and even from their older half-sister Burnt who has taken to spending time with the sicker colt). Feast even plucks the dirtiest and most ragged of feathers from his broken dragging wing to decorate the egg’s nest with. “There,” he steps back to eyeball his handiwork and thinks it is befitting his prize. “Now we wait.” But the nest is warm, and the cave warmer still from all the body heat trapped inside it. Burnt creeps close, mindful of her own wings that smoke and singe her skin as they lay flush against it, spilling embers that sizzle against the stone floor.
“Did you ever think it might not be something as fantastical as you want it to be?” She remarks snidely to Feast. “Not all eggs carry dragons or basilisks, some carry very large snakes that might be extremely hungry and looking to eat small colts who think themselves indestructible.” Burnt is more cautionary now, and the egg starts to shake again as if amenable to her words. Neither she nor Feast can take their eyes off of it as the shaking grows more agitated until --
Crack!
A tiny crack though, a small seam that opens in the egg’s side and nothing more than that. Feast can hardly contain his excitement and he begins to nose the eggshell in a less than nice way. He pokes at it, trying to get the seam to split even more and give up the dragon he knows is inside but the egg is stubborn - it is not quite ready to hatch and so, he must wait and he pulls back, temporarily defeated.
Flattened on his side, ribs all a-poking, flexing up and down in ragged, fast, shallow respire, his eye staring blankly up at the layered, gritty sandstone roof (the other is fixed closed, tightly, lid pressed against the dusty floor)—he is in his cave. He is predictably in his cave, feeling the dark, clawing creep of his own mortality gnaw at his gutty works. Self pity once mired the dank, echoey placidity of this mausoleum—the muffled, harrowing moans for a belly that would not fill! The groans of pain, kept quiet enough for father not to hear from his fearful, stone precipice.
He has abandoned that, having no more energy to uphold the mighty weight of such a taxing burden. It is better to submit, he supposes, to the reaper. And it comes fast! Recently, he has been knocked wide awake from fast sleep by the strangest images—of hooded skeletons touching his shoulder and neck and grinning (toothy, bony grins that they are) as the skin slides off the muscle and thuds onto the grey, sandy ground; a darkness that leaks through his nostrils and mouth like noxious, thick smoke and settles on his body, sinking deep into his flesh.
He is dying.
He tries to do it peacefully, out of sight of his mother, who would surely be upset. Out of sight of his father, who would surely tell her he told her so; and out of sight of Feast, who would find it such a shame. Today offers him so such quiet. Today, he woke up here, having spent the prior day and night in just this position. Normally, he might have stalked out, pressing across the wasteland to take a futile sip of water. He might find mother, offer her some few last words with him, so that they might console her when he is gone. He might find Feast, even, to offer him the same final memories.
But not today. Yesterday he had staggered here and crashed down in some unceremonious corner of his cave, his stomach in a terrible howl, and has not left since. He felt strange—still feels strange, like something has begun to roar in him. A ghastly, aching beast. It rumbles and twists.
‘Come Famine,’ he blinks, listening to his stomach grumble and complain.
He can hear Feast’s voice and Burnt’s joins in, breaking the silence with sharp curiousness, and against his body’s will, he shakes up, commanding his hooves to plant and support him. He burps as he rocks up in a bow, his back legs stretched tall and front legs still curled, it echoes and smells of death escaping his mouth—rot and meat and blood. It takes a moment for his glued eye to open, his lids prying away from each other to invite in sand and unaccustomed darkness.
“Hmm?” he grunts, rambling slowly and stupidly to their side, his wing sliding uselessly at his shoulder, tracing a path in the giving dirt. His flat, filmy black eyes find the egg in the dark, decrepit roost; ears tilting forward, dully, Famine watches with some vague curiosity as it rattles and spreads with a spider’s web of cracks. “What if it’s just a hundred baby vultures in one egg, instead of a hundred eggs with just one baby?” He shakes his head, “the mother must be dead, whatever laid it.” Famine blinks, imagining what that must have looked like. He burps again, taking care not to let the force shake his feeble body into Burnt’s vicious wings. “Bloody,” he concludes, blandly, unwilling to envision something big contained and something even bigger making it.
Without feeling and without knowing—all eyes being so fully commanded by Feast’s strange treasure—a small piece of skin begins to peel away behind Famine’s ear. “Probably turn a vulture inside out, actually...”
He hears Famine creep closer, turns to look at him in a mixture of brotherly love and disgust - god, his twin looked a mess! But he supposed it was because he was quite literally on death’s doorstep and had simply given in to the idea of exhausting his one chance at life and greatness. Really, he should go out in a more fantastical manner than just curling up in a dank dark cave to die like a rat but Feast adores his sicklier twin regardless, touches his sagging cheek briefly and resumes coveting his find as Burnt smolders in the dark behind them.
“A hundred baby vultures…”
The idea appeals to him;
A kettle of vultures in flight -
A committee of vultures in trees -
A wake of vultures feasting on the almost dead corpse of Famine… Surely his brother would not mind feeding the hatchlings if he is so near death already? This way, a piece of Famine will always live on in the vultures that Feast will have at his command. He opens his eyes, nodding to no one and mumbling ‘yes’ a couple of times.
Famine’s burp draws his attention back to them, and to the egg.
“I’m sure, since she wasn’t around and the egg was just laying there.”
He makes no mention of how he didn’t really look or care if a mother was about; the egg, he’s certain, is meant to be his. How else could it have been so carelessly left unattended to be so easily snatched up by him? His smile is very cruel in its look, almost toothy and crocodilian.
Burnt does not know what to think of these two half-brothers of hers’, they are something else altogether but she feels something more for Famine. Even reaches her nose out to steady his hip as he burps and tries to remain from falling into her. He is too sickly to be part of this, and she thinks about ushering him back to his bower of dirt and decay - much like the one the egg sits in. She pities whatever lies inside the cracking shell; it’ll receive no loving reception from any of them in the cavern room.
“No… you think so?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the egg but his head moves towards Famine’s. The idea of a vulture turning inside out is bloody but fun and he grows even more curious as to what could be inside his egg. He takes a step forward and as he does so, Burnt guesses his intent the moment Feast lifts a foreleg --
“No!” she shouts and Feast turns to glare at her, the leg still poised above his treasure.
“Look,” she encourages him as the egg begins to rock and crack some more. It grows more frantic in its motion and a couple pieces of shell flake away, much like Famine’s flesh does, only this is more noticeable than that. Finally, the egg stops moving and the cave is quiet - too quiet, as if they’ve all held their breath in anticipation…
In the quiet, a large piece of shell gives way from as a nose pokes outward.
Burnt cannot swallow a snort of laughter fast enough as Feast gapes at the all too noticeably familiar shape of a horse snout. “What the hell? That’s not a dragon or a vulture!” The little black nose retreats and then a gold eye looks out and rolls away before the rest of the shell breaks apart to reveal a tiny filly. She wears a bit of eggshell on the top of her head like a hat and looks up at the three of them.
“Not a dragon or a vulture at all!” Burnt is openly braying like a donkey now from the hilarity of it. Feast is father to a foal hatched from an egg, what a debacle! She laughs and laughs until she’s hoarse from it and backs off a step to catch her breath.
Feast is incredulous; he hasn’t moved or looked away as the filly stares up at him.
“What the …?” The rest of his sentence is cut off as the thing opens its mouth and squeaks out, “Mama?”
“Nonononononono!” Feast shouts, also starting to back away but for other reasons than the ones Burnt had. He can hear her erupt in another bout of hoarse gut-shaking laughter and he spins around to bare his teeth at her. “Shut up! It’s not funny!” His sides heave in anger and frustration. This was supposed to be something scary and awesome to show his father! To parade around between Famine and him, to make them see how terrible they really were. Not some mutant of a foal that dared to call him mama! He runs to the mouth of the cave and yells for Sinew.
The mare hadn’t gone far, awaiting to hear more of the adventure with the egg. She crowds them, and looks down as the filly sitting on her rump amidst the pieces of shell. “Well now, that’s interesting.” she murmurs, ignoring them all as she lowers her nose to the filly’s and bumps it. “Get up little one,” and Sinew effectively claims Feast’s treasure for her own.
He stands in her way and she stares him down; “You are not capable of handling this.”
“She’s mine,” he growls and takes a menacing step forward.
“Look after your brother, you’ve nothing to offer her for the time being.” and she shoulders past him with the filly in tow.
“She took my prize,” he mopes to Famine and Burnt, going back to the ugly nest and and stomping the rest of the shell to miniscule pieces. He finally goes over to Famine and smooths the greasy stringy strands of forelock down his face. “You’re falling apart,” he observes nonchalantly, just now noticing the curl of skin that has peeled back from behind Famine’s ear.
Burnt has finally stopped laughing and regained her ability to breathe normally again.
“Oh. Definitely,” he mutters, blandly. Matter-of-factly. As if he has had the distinct pleasure of seeing a vulture excrete a gigantic egg and come out the other end a strange, eviscerate, gleaming mess. “The force of that thing coming out of a vulture? Right inside out. I’m telling you.” He consider, for a second, finding her to examine the aftermath like Pangea’s own coroner.
But he is too sick.
Death does not offer opportunity for adventure or exploration – it takes, takes, takes.
No. He’ll never get the chance to see anything like that in his short, cruel lifetime, poor Famine.
If he’s lucky, he’ll get the chance to see at least one hundred small, bald vultures blinking out from within this cracking, shaking tomb. And, indeed, if need be, they may have him as a feast – meager and bony, it would be. But at least it would be something. It matters little to him – father would probably have him dragged out to the ritual grounds to fall apart in a slow, more deliberate way.
Would that it could be a dragon contained in the egg! – scaly and black, perhaps with a slit-pupil eye bright as hellfire, probably with horns and big leathery wings – so that perhaps he could be spared the unholy scent of whatever wakes up in his bowels.
He’d throw up, but he can’t, so he only shifts uncomfortably as the evil marches onward.
And outward.
Famine watches, half-fascinated, mostly-moribund, as Feast creeps possessively towards his treasure, foot poised. That vessel is so delicate; it cracks with fine lines and larger, prime clefts, like nothing. He is patient, Famine, because each moment is a precious final grain of sand slipping down glass. But whatever lingers within in is taking its sweet time – it is teasing and flirting with the dank, smelly world around it. Don’t be scared. His sickly, rotty heart picks up pace, his mopey head pressing forward through the darkness to get a better look before Burnt’s authoritative ‘No!’sends him back, staggering against her hip, pressing his cold muzzle there.
He swallows hard, running his tongue over his dry lips, catching on a loosening flap of grey muzzle-skin.
Anticipation builds, the quiet filled by the soft splitting of shell and the whoosy sound of Burnt’s wings in the stale, still air – and the entirely inappropriate, muffled expulsion of gas from Famine’s face.
Everything leans towards it – A hundred. Baby. Vultures.
He gapes as she finally breaches her crust, head tilting as the dark nose – nostrils a-flare for air and scent of mother – peeks out at them. “Oh.” Burnt’s laughter echos devilishly off the crooked walls of the grotto, not joined by Famine, who simply stares at the filly with equal measures of apathy and nausea. “I don’t think that’s how it works,” he mutters quietly to himself as Feast rides the tide of his indignation to the opening and calls for mother. “Bloody, all the same, I imagine.”
He feels sorry for Feast, as mother takes the girl carefully from her odious nest, and into the waste.
He wonder, for a moment, if she will take her to father – he wonders what father will make of her: goopy puddle or horror-struck basket case for life. “Sorry,” he say, finally, “I think you would have been a fine mother, Feast.” He tries a smile, shaky and toothy, before letting it droop again.
The ribbon of skin behind his ear pulls away, peeling back down his neck towards his shoulder. “Hmm?’ he cranes his neck, trying to get a look at it, his nostrils flare, catching she sharp scent of decay from the frayed edges. All over his body, more skin begins to curdle, loosening from his muscles, which are now slimy and greening modestly out of sight. For now. “That’s weird.” He glances from Feast to Burnt, puzzled.
But, of course, it’s not.
They are just too young to remember, really.
Plus, he had been much fresher as a newborn.
