He shouldn’t have let him take him with them. He should have went back into the brambles and let them shed his blood as he hid. He should have let himself stay broken and scared instead of letting that small kernel of hope start to glow in his chest. It was hard to extinguish once it was lit and he knew that now, now he would have something to fight for, and something that could be used against him in the two stallions that helped him up, helped him on his way with them.
They hadn’t left him behind. They hadn’t let him curl back up inside himself. And the simple act of caring about him had burned its way into his heart, etching their names there forever. He couldn’t disappoint them now, there was too much love, hesitant and probably buried some, but it was there, thumping loudly in his chest.
He let them fuss, or rather the smaller one fussed as the bigger one made the path.
And then the world imploded around them and fear etched its way through his skin, implanting itself more firmly into his mind. The magician’s touch lingered, even days later as they made their way into one of the safe places to live. They had hurried as much as they could and though Anani had wanted to turn back, let himself fall into the dark without them, he knew that Tithe would follow.
He couldn’t bear to hurt him.
So he followed. He didn’t hesitate.
The Cove was slowly filling, more and more stragglers came in all the time. And if they stayed off by themselves, Tindalos’s wish so none of them accidently got sick, well it only made Anani more aware of himself. He slides into the water with a sharp intake of breath. The water was cold and took his breath away as it touched the bottom of his barrel. He didn’t know if the white would ever come clean again but he was trying to, for them.
Trying to be more than what he had been even. He was trying to be better for them.
For his Tindalos. For his Tithe.
He turned his eyes, softening as they look back at them. “Help me?” he says, wondering if would be willing to bathe in the ice cold water.
It is an easy thing for them, to love and to care: to see the world in a spectrum of color that some have so long ago forgotten; but they are infinite in their patience and so it is not at all a concern for them to inform Anani when the chaos begins that he can and should come with them.
Tithe, of course, is more eager to drag the other stallion in the most maternal of ways- preening and quick to bring him close as they recall the directions given to them by the much larger mare. Tindalos is not lacking, he simply has a different perspective on the matter- a duty that presses him forward and causes him to observe and note every sound and potential danger.
There is fear, however, a burning question in their mind as fever plagues them and blood begins to drip from Tithe’s nose: part of them desperately torn as they hope Anani will be safe- that he will free from this contagion… even in their presence.
With him they travel, and when they get to the Cove- Tindalos turns and looks around. “Mordgeld will be here somewhere,” states plainly to Tithe. “And she will probably be giving birth soon. The child will be safe, and Anani-” he begins to say, to continue.
“Anani will be safe as well.” Tithe cuts him off. Focusing on their black and white companion and his childlike nature, Tithe takes a breath- rubbing away the blood on his own leg and sighing before watching as their newfound ward goes to the water.
They are not taken back by the request, not startled or shocked, and rather Tithe is quick to walk over with his own leg stepping cautiously into the frigid water. It’s like pins and needles on his skin, like a fresh cut: and he shivers at the chill of it. “Of course- come, come. Traveling around can be messy business, especially when there was all that mud around.” had he been a bird his chest might’ve puffed up with some kind of bizarre pride; but instead he simply postures.
Tindalos is less quick to move, more curious about the gathering of horses in the distance: his gaze not really diverting as he listens and watches- waits and considers the fact that they may be like the others: a kingdom moving for safety. In time he does walk to the others, pressing his nose on Anani’s forehead and gently brushing the forelock away.
“Alright, let’s make sure we’re all presentable in case of visitors.” calm, serene, and without issue he- like Tithe, tries to help Anani into the water- more accustomed to the cold and to the sudden bite of it.
It wouldn’t matter to him if he got infected. No, not really. He figured it would be fitting that he once again gets something that he cannot heal fully. For now he doesn’t much think of it. He was content as they tried to clean him off, clearing away many years of mud and dirt until his coat was almost white again. And once he is mostly clean, he goes to working on the other two, helping all of them get clean and-.
“Tithe, you are bleeding.” He says, pressing his nose to the other male’s nose, automatically pushing some of his limited healing into Tithe’s body. “Are you okay?” A low grade sense of panic starts to thrum through his body. He presses his nose along his shoulder and his neck, then along his barrel checking all the spots that he could and pressing his healing into his body. He then turns to Tindalos and does the same thing, pushing as much of his healing ability into their bodies.
It wouldn’t be enough, never was and he almost lets the panic overcome him. But he manages to keep it buried somewhat, even if his breathing had picked up and he had settled his nose against Tithe again, pressing it against his shoulder. He leans his forehead there, closing his eyes to shut out those horrible memories.
He tries to be an adult about it, tries to just let it slide away. But when he pulls back to meet Tithe’s eyes, it’s simmer there. “Mordgeld, we should find Mordgeld and your baby right?” He turns to look at Tindalos, that same almost panic in his eyes.
He tries to bury it, tries to just push it away into the back of his mind. He tried to reason that blood was just blood sometimes and just because it was a little trickle didn’t mean it was bad. He tried to reason all of this out as they stood there, with the cold water still lapping around their legs.
Even if they never admit it, even if they choose to push it back: both Tindalos and Tithe worried, both felt a fear and uncertainty in their being and person- and there is panic inside themselves when they see blood on noses and feel the shivering of their bodies. Sickness is a thing they cannot truly push away, an evil they cannot simply defeat with hooves and teeth; but rather it is an invasive and dangerous thing that both lack the ability to simply make it go. They are not the only ones, however, and they have heard rumor that the illness yet exists- unconquerable, without a cure: only treatment.
Still, they strive to carry on, to help brush away mud and dried blood- the nettles and burrs stuck within the hair. Silent in such a manner Tindalos says nothing as Anani takes to fretting over Tithe’s nose and there is a moment suddenly where Tithe himself is forced to chuckle- playfully laugh, and feign the smile he longs to genuinely have. “I will be fine.” he asserts to the pair, the softness in his voice remains and he seems to sense the change in Anani.
“No, really, I will be fine. As I understand this contagion so far hasn’t killed anyone, it is merely a tool of fear and one that is working. Have hope, trust in my word that I will make it out.” he nods, and Tindalos looks away: frowning with concern, but, facing them with a smile as if to go along with the gentle words of his lover. The comments about Mordgeld and the baby remains and Tithe nods his head to agree; but Tindalos is the one to truly speak on the matter.
With attentions focused he brushes his nose against Anani’s forehead: as if to try and offer comfort or consoling. “She’s very hard to miss, but, yes- I should probably try to look for her soon. We, rather, but still- for now its better to consider the world in front of us. I saw a gathering of people not far, and I believe they are the ones from Hyaline come to flee the contagion.” shrugging, he notes the panic: sees the fear.
Tithe is not ignorant of it either, and he takes a breath before speaking with a relaxed voice. “Anani, sshh, come now. Have hope.”
He almost breaks down as they press soothing touches to his skin, as they try to reassure him to keep him from worrying. It does not work, but their warmth, even their excess warmth, soothes some jagged edge inside of him. He was nothing but broken pieces anyways, smashed together and rubbing open wounds every time he moved. But their love, and their tenderness to care about him when they were the ones that were sick were a bit of a balm to one of those ripped, bleeding pieces.
He sighs, closes his eyes as their lips touch him and he leans briefly into their touch. Something inside him clicks, shifting into the right place. When he opens his eyes the panic is almost gone, the worry is still there, thick and heavy inside him.
Have hope.
Sure for them he would do practically anything they asked him to. So he tried. He tried to listen to the words, tried to make them stick soundly in his brain but it seemed as if he was always what his sister had told him he was, stupid, good for nothing.
“Yes. Ok. I’ll try.” He says, his voice wavering with each word. For a moment he is no longer a grown stallion but a child trying to please. He nods slightly, touching them again, pushing some healing into their bodies as he subtly nudges them back out of the water. “Still, you shouldn’t be in the water. It’s cold. It will not help.” He is dripping water everywhere and takes a few extra steps away from them to shake the excess off. His body was cleaner, maybe even his soul too.
Maybe some of those ragged, broken, bleeding, pieces inside of him were cleaner to.
His lips find Tithe and then they find Tindalos. “I should tell you…” His body shifting closer, pressing Tithe between the two of them, his eyes looking at the gathering of others in the distance. “I should tell you why I’m afraid all the time, of why you found me hiding….”
He doesn’t know why he feels the urge, only that he should, and so he does. He launches into sad tale of a boy that had never felt like enough. And a twin that took advantage of him, using him for all of her dark and twisted ideas. Bleeding and breaking him until he was nothing more than a shadow of what he could have been. He wonders sometimes if maybe she broke him in the womb and that was way he could only heal some and not everything. He wonders if maybe she stole it from him and turned it into something else.
He tells them of how when finally she had let her disgust rule her and she had killed their mother right in front of him. The horror had made him run, and then it was the fear that had kept him running. She had never liked it when he ran, when she had to take extra time to find him. The thought itself was pleasing, that she was so terrifying he wanted to hide, but to actually take the time to find him? Well, it always made things worse.
And he kept hiding, unwilling to live completely without the fear that had breathed it’s cold breath down his neck for so long. He didn’t know how to let go of it. How to stop feeling like he wasn’t enough.
All of this spills out in the quiet between them, but he never quite makes eye contact until the end. Until his throat is hoarse from speaking and he finally turns to look at them, albeit rather shyly and slightly worried that they wouldn’t want him anymore now that they saw how broken he was on the inside.
“And it scares me to know I cannot do anything to stop it again this time. That you could be just like our mother and watch as I can do nothing to stop the tragedy barreling towards us.”
In a way, they have both been ripped to pieces: both shredded and torn apart- both of them made less than whole. Tindalos, especially, knows this feeling: knows the burning pain of a soul cracked apart and wounds so deep that the healing is unfinished. Such is that, they listen- and they hear him… they feel it in a way that perhaps no one else can and the resonation experiences between both is something that shatters a part of them further.
“Cold isn’t so bad,” Tindalos tries his best to soothe- to reassure, but tithe finishes for him with the same gentle and exactingly maternal voice. “Helps chill the fever. It’s really not that bad- it’s warm water you need to be careful of… can overheart.” still, they do not fight it: nor do they argue terribly with Anani as the three drag themselves from the water.
The tale is, something that prompts Tindalos to brush his nose just against Anani’s forehead in comfort, and Tithe presses close for warmth, his neck laying across the shoulders as he rests and listens. They consider all things, all angles- all parts and pieces: they worry and yet? They find themselves growing only more needy in a way: a desire to protect and help- to nurture where it is needed. So it is when he finishes that Tindalos find more voice than previous- deep and baritone with a sense of worry and yet? Warmth, with sentiment.
“Anani,” he sighs, a heaviness in his breast. “None of that is your fault, you can’t stop the natural cycle of life and death: sure, you can heal and help where you can but? In the end, fate and the world around us has its way with the cycle it chooses. You are scarred, and we all are; but none of that is anything you could be blamed for. You could no more save your mother from the inevitable than I could stop my own from passing.” he is aware of these things, of Ilyena’s corpse on the beach: of the ripped flesh and blood.
Tithe too, is quick to speak, to shake his head in slow motions. “These are things as large a scale as trying to prevent the earth from turning or the moon from rising. Death is as natural as life, and both hurt but in different ways: still, none of this is your fault. Tindalos is right, and no matter- even if we worsen… I know that in the end we will survive. I can feel that much.”
Mortality is a topic neither truly enjoy discussing, but, one they embrace without issue or fight: it is a thing that experience with the knowledge of inevitability. So there is smile, soft assurances, and a sense of love and warmth that only deepens as they consider the other and his fight ahead.
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