"Nature?"
The infirmary was a separate building from everything else—a small trailer-sized place with a tiny porch where three old women sat in rocking chairs, knitting giant wall hangings. Crim led Elf past the ladies, who didn't even glance up from their knitting, and pushed into the office.
Nature was sitting on top of her desk, her toes wiggling a little and tests she was grading in her lap. There were three beds across the room, one occupied by a sleeping Halfling, an apple core clutched in his hands. An old woman sat near Nature's desk, leaning against the back of her rocking chair and swaying gently, a smile on her weathered face. A flashlight (maybe to compensate for poor night vision) sat in her lap, and her long silver hair was in a big braid that rested on her bosom. A gray robe hid the rest of her from view, save for the gray eyes that rested on the new arrivals.
Nature looked up from her papers, her ears twitching madly, and for a brief moment, her expression showed something like shame and fear. Crim only had to blink before it was gone. It had to have been his imagination.
"Crim? Elf? Hey, sit down and I'll be right with you."
Elf sat down on one of the unoccupied beds, glancing at Halfling. She hadn't seen him since he had gotten Red and the boys in trouble. She wondered what he had suffered because no one had vouched for him.
Crim tried to be discreet in sneaking medical supplies from the shelves, and Nature pretended to not notice, provoking a soft chuckle from the old woman.
Nature seemed to be making the final corrections on the test, writing out the scores at the top. "What's the problem, Elf?"
"She ate a spoiled apple. It made her sick," Crim said quickly, sparing Elf the pain of trying to talk.
"Oh?"
Nature's expression changed imperceptibly and her eyes flicked to the old woman in the rocking chair. "Oh really."
The old woman smiled serenely, rocking gently back and forth. "You'd think for an orchard, this place would have more apples."
"There's not a high demand. We take care of the trees because no one else will," Nature murmured evasively, looking back at the papers.
"Yes, that's regrettable, isn't it? That there's not a demand, I mean." The old woman looked towards Elf, smiling kindly. Her face was ancient, covered with wrinkles and spots, but there was something comforting in that. "Apples are very good for you, you know. More people should eat them."
Elf cocked her head, wondering if she should smile but failing in her confusion. Who was this lady?
"But of course, you're young. You don't have to pay so much attention to health." The woman leaned her head against the back of the chair, rocking again. The rhythmic creak of the chair groaning under her slight weight and the floor grumbling softly in protest was very soothing. It seemed to be affecting everyone else as well, as Nature's eyelids drooped a little, the tension in Crim's ears and shoulders relaxed, and Halfling's sleep seemed to become more peaceful. "Youth. It does things. Some wonderful, and some not so much."
Her wrinkled face creased with a smile, those gray eyes sparkling gently. "They say that children are innocent. Yes, they are. It's a pity that innocence doesn't come hand in hand with kindness, though." She was looking at Elf knowingly, slowly resting a weathered hand in her lap on top of the flashlight. "Children are cruel because they don't suffer, and even when they do, they don't know it. Suffering polishes us. It makes us sympathetic, kind, and wise. Children don't have the luxury of suffering to guide them."
"Some children are kinder as kids than as adults," Nature pointed out softly, not really paying attention to the tests anymore.
"When you let suffering make you jaded and bitter, yes, you become cruel," the woman allowed, her eyes drifting to the teacher with that gentle smile still in place, "but those few are the poor souls worthy of pity."
"Sometimes suffering isn't good. Sometimes it shatters a person," Nature countered again, pulling at the corner of one of the papers.
"When the suffering breaks you, it's no longer a question of kindness or cruelty, but of how much time it would take to put you back together." Her gaze went to Crim. "Or maybe how much love and compassion."
Crim frowned quizzically. What were they talking about?
"Sometimes an adult is beyond hope. Sometimes you have to give them up," Nature said again, blinking to wake herself from the dreamy trance the rocking put everyone in.
"Are they beyond hope, or beyond your hope?" The old woman folded her hands together, resting her chin against her chest. "All this talk of philosophy has put me in a mood for a little nap. Young man, would you be a dear and give me one of those blankets in the cupboard, please? It's getting a little chilly."
Crim jumped a little in surprise, frowning for a moment. There was something strange about the woman's voice. Like the voice of a thousand old souls, all their experience and wisdom and peace molded together. It sounded… nice.
He went to do as she said, kneeling on the floor to take out a nice thick wool blanket from a simple wooden cabinet and carefully laying it on her lap. The woman looked up at him, and for a strange moment, he could swear that he could see the world in her eyes.
"Thank you. There needs to be more gentlemen in this world."
She spread out the blanket over her legs, her smile still on her face, and she left the flashlight between the wool and her gray robe.
Nature put her papers down and hopped off the desk, picking up a cloth folded on one of the shelves and pulling out a tall clay jar from under the table, water sloshing within. "Elf, lie back. A good sleep will probably help you."
Elf frowned, then obediently lay down on the bed, pulling a blanket over her body. The ache in her heart kept throbbing. She felt weight on her stomach, like someone was lying on top of her, and she longed to be able to touch the phantom pressure and stroke its head and shower its face with kisses, but she didn't dare raise her hands to try. If she went to touch it and found that there was nothing there again, she really would break down and cry.
There was no voice in her head telling her to deal with it anymore.
"That's the problem with medicine. It takes away the suffering a child needs to grow up."
Nature looked back at the woman, her face sad, before she dipped her cloth in the jar and squeezed a little excess liquid out, walking to Elf.
"I've found that sometimes…"
She sat down beside the teenage girl, running a hand against her hair before wiping her brow with the wet towel.
"It's best if suffering is forgotten."
Elf closed her eyes dizzily, something painful slipping away from her again, and she fell asleep.
"Wake up, runt."
Patch woke when someone twisted his ear painfully, provoking a yelp of pain, and his eye snapped open to see Ms. Feelgood sitting against him on his bed, her frozen smile replaced by a dark frown.
"Ms. F—"
Her hand clamped on his mouth and she leaned in uncomfortably close, something very wrong with those beady blue eyes. "Where did she hide it?"
His eyebrows shot up and he squirmed, and he realized that his hands and legs were restrained even though he couldn't see why. The door was closed and the shades were down. He was all alone with the teacher, and she looked really, really unhinged at the moment.
"I know you know!"
She slapped him across the face, eliciting a surprised exclamation.
"Tell me or beatings won't be the worst that happens!"
Patch shook his head violently, trying to draw away but unable to. "What are you going on about, you psycho?"
"You know what. She wouldn't be able to destroy it. She's too weak." The teacher's expression twisted in ugly fury, morphing into something not right, and she stood up, going to his desk. "You're not about to say that you don't know. You all have been practically feasting on apples."
"What the hell?" Patch squirmed again, trying and failing to sit up. "Are you nuts?"
"No? Well, I was hoping you would say that." She picked up an apple from his desk that hadn't been there before, skulking towards him like some kind of cougar.
Okay, that was a really bad choice of words. Ew.
"It's more fun this way."
She dug her nails into the apple's flesh, making juice gather in the wound, and forced it to his mouth.
It felt like electricity on his tongue.
"Big Brother?"
His brother stiffened, the red-clothed back straightening up like a board. The crimson was menacing next to the stormy black and green background outside their cave. It looked like his brother was covered in blood. "Little Brother? You should be sleeping. It's really late and rest will help your face heal up."
He uncomfortably pulled at his new eye patch, but he was careful to not touch his wound, because Big Brother had told him that he could get infected that way. He walked forward, his ears twitching, and tried to avoid getting a look at his brother's face. "I… Nightmare."
"Nightmare."
There was a pause while his big brother shifted in a more comfortable position. "Well, come here, rugrat."
He smiled tentatively and quickly crawled into his brother's lap, throwing away his usual boyish cockiness in favor of his brother's comfort. Strong green arms wrapped around him, tight and warm, and his brother leaned back so they both were partially lying down. "Don't make a habit of this. You're heavy."
"I'm not fat!"
"I dunno, Little Brother. You've been eating all the food I can bring back, and it's starting to show," his brother teased gently before touching his head, nothing but love in the gesture. "Sleep, alright? I'm right here. No humans are going to come and hurt you while I'm around."
"I know, Big Brother."
He snuggled close to his brother's chest, careful to keep his tearstained face from view. He didn't want his big brother to see that he had been crying. Only babies cried. Babies and little girls.
He couldn't admit to himself that that wasn't really the reason he didn't look at his brother's face. The real reason was that he knew his brother's cheeks were just as tearstained as his.
He didn't want to see that.
The teacher was groaning, something really disturbing to the sound.
"No, no, not that. Though that's entertaining and deliciously depressing."
Patch was brought back to reality with another sharp twist of his ear and he gasped for air, tears gathering in the back of his eyes without reason and throat closing up on itself.
Big Brother… what happened to make him cry?
"Why don't we fast forward a little, hmm? After your first memory loss. Things before that are useless for anything but entertainment."
The woman's eyes were gleaming hungrily and her chest was heaving. Her face was missing it's usual tightness, the sharp features that made her look so much like a hawk. Everything about her fluffy, loose blond hair, her strangely orange gold eyes (hadn't they been blue a moment before?), and her pale face was flawless, yet there was something there, some subtle thing that he couldn't really distinguish, that made her completely repulsive to look at.
She pressed her hand on his forehead and there was the strangest feeling in his brain, like something was being pulled and unwound like a string, and she forced more apple juice in his mouth.
"Dad, I don't get it. How did this…?"
"I don't have the slightest clue, Ridi."
He grimaced at the wound on his son's arm. It was superficial, but the implications weren't good. "Stay still. I'll bandage it up."
He shifted uncomfortably in the cramped safe house (honestly, it could pass as a closet) trying to take down a first aid kit from the shelves without bringing a avalanche of bottles and cracker boxes on top of them. "Do you think Mom and Little Brother got out?"
"Of course. I saw them run out before we did." He sat back down with a kit in hand, opening it up and pulling out bandages. Wow. He hadn't expected to ever need to use medicine again after he died. With any luck, he had remembered how to do it. "Hold out your arm."
His son did so, still frowning quizzically. "…What were those people who attacked us? They looked human but… not."
"Do you remember what I told you about your uncle's Plan?"
Ridi stiffened, expression darkening. "What about it?"
He looked towards the door, closing his eye as the ground underneath them started to rumble. "I think he's done something we'll all regret."
"Still too early, runt."
Another unwinding. His brain stuttered painfully, a migraine blasting from the base of his head, but then he was pulled back in, less deep this time.
"Why the hell are you helping him? Do you even remember why you stopped speaking with each other?"
"Ali, what do you expect me to do?" He rubbed his temples, tired of having this debate with himself and not eager to have it with his ex-wife. "He's in serious trouble. He tried to kill himself. He gouged out his own eyes, for God's sake!"
"He murdered this whole family!"
"Not any of you," he said sharply, frowning tightly. "This whole family has a grudge against Xykon, but I'm the only one with a reason to have a grudge against him. None of you lost a husband or a father. You were gone when it happened."
Normally, she was a calm and kind-hearted woman, but it wasn't a secret that she loathed his brother, and he was getting a face full of that at the moment as she threw up her hands and spun on her heels, stomping to the sink to start washing heavy pots and pans to keep herself from throwing one at him. "You're not talking about giving him money or something, this is living with him and his girlfriend. I'm shocked you're even thinking about it."
"Who else does he have, Ali?"
"His girlfriend."
It sounded so cold coming from her. Like his brother had just fallen into some bad luck and he had some goblin girl he'd been dating for a bit putting him up. Nothing about that image connected with the memories—the sounds of his brother's shrieking, the gaping holes in his face, the awful grinning slices in his abdomen and neck, an elf with purple hair covered in his blood…
He sighed and shook his head. The awful part about it was that he couldn't shake the feeling that he had done something that he didn't remember to make that happen.
He wouldn't deny his anger, hurt, and betrayal for his brother. It stung, like a hornets' nest in his heart, but no matter how angry he was, he had never wished something so horrible on him.
"No, I mean besides her."
She opened her mouth, then closed it, thinking.
"Exactly." He started rubbing his temples again. "I don't know if I have or will or even can forgive him for what he did. For right now, I'm willing to set it aside. Vaarsuvius can't do this alone. I'm all he has left."
The teacher scowled, glaring at him. "Now that one wasn't even fun. It was just sappy."
More unwinding. He let out a sputter, a garbled sentence swallowed and stuck to his throat, his head spinning.
"Oh yeah, I forgot to warn you: I'm probably giving you brain damage. Forward a little more."
"Oh gods…"
Soft moist skin ran under his palm, heaving with heavy breath and groans, and soft lips seared his own. The guilt of the moment was gone. There was just fire in his gut, consuming him with desire as he touched and kissed like he would never be allowed to again, listening as her breathing hitched and quickened as he let go of anything but the primal hunger pumping through his veins.
"Gods… Adeak…!"
"Whoa, I do not want to see that!" She jerked back in disgust while Patch gasped for air dizzily, unable to sort through the mess of signals and emotions sparking off in his brain. He wanted to break down and cry and go on a furiously violent rampage at the same time. There was an awful ache there, a tangible absence in his head, like he was keeping something from himself. He mentally pawed at it weakly, only to be shocked by a wave of unbearable shame, guilt, and grief. "She really is a whore, isn't she?"
Don't say that, you bitch! You'll never even be half the person Vaarsuvius is!
The inner voice almost turned into an outer voice, but Patch swallowed it back nauseously, trying to stifle the sure sign of insanity as much as possible. Hearing voices was… bad… and antagonizing the crazy lady while he was tied down was probably worse.
"I'll be sure to find more excuses to beat her. Fucking your boyfriend's brother while he's sick?" A disturbing smile crossed her face. "It's so… entertainingly vile. But it's not what I wanted to know. I think you need to go a touch forward in time."
His brain buzzed uncomfortably against his skull and he squirmed weakly, but his eye rolled and he was pulled back in.
His new lover was trancing fitfully as usual, but at least she was trancing. Her face was creased with upsetting memories, the nearly healed scratch on her cheek a gory testament to her troubles. He found himself wishing that he could reach out and wipe away those lines and scars, mental as well as physical. He would take away everything that made her upset and she'd finally be able to genuinely smile again—not that grim smirk she made when steeling herself, not that grimace when she was contemplating the situation, not that weak upturn of the lips she tried to make when clumsily attempting to be gentle towards his brother, but that somewhat manic grin she made before when she was about to unleash a storm of magic on an enemy, or that softer yet happier smile she used to have whenever his brother said something romantic or kissed her or held her hand… but all that was beyond his power. There was only one man who could do that for her.
He wasn't quite sure why, but he felt a pang of something similar to jealousy.
Now that he had a chance to really look at her, without her anger or grief or distance disfiguring her features, it occurred to him that she was beautiful. Certainly not in the traditional goblin sense—for a female, large tusks were a major factor in beauty as well as bust and hip size, since the first implied the ability to protect children and the latter two implied fertility—nor was she even obviously female. Exotic to be sure, which sometimes contributed to one's attractiveness, but she lacked the characteristics normally required for beauty.
Yet she was beautiful.
He tore his eye away to keep himself from focusing on her too hard. He had difficulty sleeping as it was, though he had to admit that finally sharing his bed with a woman during this trying time helped. He and Ali had decided when he died that they would not renew their marriage and see others, as most couples did, and if they found that they didn't really have an interest in anyone else, they would get married again.
They had been very close to deciding on marriage when he left to help his brother, and Ali hadn't spoken to him since.
It occurred to him that he finally had found another woman that interested him, though ironically enough, she was unattainable in every sense besides a physical one.
He sighed softly before pulling away from her, standing up from the bed and picking up a pair of pajama pants. He wasn't very sure what he'd do, but he knew well enough to realize that he wouldn't sleep anytime soon if he didn't do something to take the edge off. Maybe a drink to make it easier? He did that sometimes back when his eldest son had finally stopped crying at all hours of the night, but he still stayed awake in expectation.
He'd been specifically avoiding alcohol since he had come here. He knew well enough how easy it would be to just keep drinking to numb what was happening with his brother, and he'd be of no use to anyone if he became an alcoholic. But this was just to sleep, so it wouldn't matter, would it?
His lover shifted uncomfortably in her trance, face creasing more, and a shiver traveled up her body. It struck him how unhealthy and worryingly thin she had become.
He made a mental note to return to her quickly and make her eat something substantial in the morning.
He leaned down and planted a feather-light kiss on her brow.
He stepped out into the hall and quietly padded towards the kitchen, but as he drew near, he could hear running water.
His ears perked and he grimaced, picking up his pace a little. He had put locks on the silverware drawer and his brother had been complacent about having his claws cut ever since he had hurt his ex, but the elder goblin's ability to find a sharp object wasn't to be underestimated.
It wasn't right that he was constantly afraid that his brother would try to kill himself again.
He came to the kitchen doorway, looking into the small white room. His brother had his back to him, washing something that (for once) wasn't his hands.
"Big Brother?"
His brother turned off the sink and put something on the drying rack, not bothering to turn around to speak. "Yes?"
He had to shift to that his brother had put a glass on the rack, specifically a glass meant for alcohol. "It's really late. You shouldn't be awake."
"Neither should you." His brother turned around, but apparently he smelled something because his nose wrinkled and he recoiled a little, turning his head away. The scent of alcohol was in the air, and not any one kind. "Vaarsuvius is the one who usually wakes up to scold me."
"She's trancing and I was already coming here." He frowned, warily walking forward, half-expecting his brother to lash out. "What are you doing up?"
"I could ask the same question."
He tried to keep his expression neutral, despite the uselessness of the gesture, but he couldn't help but wince inwardly when his eye rested on the solid black band across his brother's face.
"Big Brother, don't be difficult. I'm just trying to help." He came forward a little, but he remembered the scratch on the elf's face. He didn't make a move to touch his brother. "I'm just making sure you're okay."
"Alright. You've made sure I'm okay." His brother seemed to be drawing away from him, sensing where he was from the sound of his voice and reflexively getting further away. "Now go to sleep."
He sighed in exasperation, resisting the urge to snap. "Big Brother, please don't be that way. You know I get uncomfortable when you're in the kitchen without V or me around."
"I'm not going to try to kill myself again. I know that's useless with you two breathing down my neck." His brother drew away again, his nose wrinkling, and he turned his face so no one could see it. "Go back to bed. Vaarsuvius's nightmares always get bad when she's left in the middle of the night."
"She—" He stopped, the blood draining from his face. "…What are you talking about with Vaarsuvius? I don't…"
"Don't get cute, Little Brother," his brother said curtly, keeping his face out of view. "You're good about being quiet, and I probably wouldn't have heard anything if I wasn't blind, but it turns out that it's hard to not hear things when that's all you can do."
"…" Guilt seized his heart, even though he knew it wasn't completely necessary. Vaarsuvius and his brother were apart now. His brother had been the one to make it so. "If you're saying we're sleeping together, then I'm telli—"
"I swear, if you lie to me, then I'm never going to trust you again."
He stopped short, self-consciously crossing his arms across his chest, the phantom of Vaarsuvius's touches burning his skin.
"I smell sex. And I smell her."
The last word had a strange inflection to it. There was emotion there, but he was hiding it.
It sounded like longing.
He backed away from his blind brother, the shame written on his face. "How long have you known?"
"I don't know. I can't tell time. Two or three weeks, I think."
He winced, biting his lip and finally letting go of any attempt to keep from giving any visual cues to his brother. "Big Brother, it's always been you she wanted."
"Oh really?" his brother said, voice dry and devoid of any real emotion.
"Yes! It's you she dotes on, you she thinks about, you who she still loves!" The words stuck a little to his throat, but he forced them out. "I'm there to give her comfort. I'm not the man she loves. I can't make her smile or laugh or even make all her nightmares go away—all that are things only you can do. All I can do is make it less difficult."
"Mm. I'll keep that in mind when I hear you fucking her."
He winced, unable to really take the sound of his brother's dry yet deadened voice coupled with that word in stride, and he struggled with himself for a moment. It would be so much easier if his brother just started shouting and throwing things. It'd be so much less torturous than these cold words with hidden bitterness at their core.
"Big Brother, we never meant to hurt you. She just… we just needed something to hold onto. I never had her for one moment; she's always been yours. I was only trying to—"
His brother shook his head, crossing his arms and leaning back as if they were discussing business, the undertone of bitterness gone from his posture. "You don't need to explain yourself, Little Brother. I haven't touched her in months and have no interest to. You both can do what you want."
He frowned in confusion, backing away from his blind brother. "You don't care?"
"No."
He stood in silence for a moment, blinking in shock. "You can't mean that."
"I can and do." His brother turned, his face still hidden, and he turned on the faucet. "Go back to bed. She hates being alone with the nightmares."
He paused, then shook his head, frowning. "I don't believe you. Pushing her away isn't helping her, Big Brother. It's—"
"I'm not pushing her away." His brother started washing his hands again, face still turned so he couldn't see it. The smell of soap quickly overpowered the smell of alcohol. "I don't care about it anymore. I'm sure you two are enjoying each other's company."
He tried to remind himself of the sheer impossibility of that sentiment, but his disbelief was ebbing. His brother had barely reacted to any of part of their relationship, even after hearing them. But that couldn't be because…
"She means the world to you. We both know that."
"I'm not interested anymore. I don't want to touch and kiss her again, I don't want to have any deep conversation, and I don't even want her to stay here, in this nuthouse. She's only staying because I used to help her when she had problems and she feels like she has a debt. She's not the self-sacrificing type."
His jaw fell, the tendons in his neck starting to tighten and his fists clenching. "Why are you saying any of this? Do you know how much you mean to her?"
"I don't mean much. Look how quickly she moved on to me after she broke it off with Inkyrius, or to you after I broke up with her. She's a fascinating woman in the short run, but not a good consistent one. That's fine. I don't care."
"…" He opened his mouth, then closed it, unable to sort through the emotions closing his throat up to identify them, but there was one dominant feeling that rose above the rest. It was rage.
"…She loves you."
His brother started scrubbing his skin until it was raw, keeping his face turned away.
"I don't love her."
He didn't know what he was doing until his brother had been slammed into the wall by the force of his punch. "You cold-hearted BASTARD!"
His brother slumped to the floor with a pained groan, rubbing his bruising jaw.
"Do you have any idea how much you're killing her? She doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep, and she hasn't taken one step outside all because of you! For every time you go to wash your damn hands again or you wake up screaming from a nightmare, she agonizes over it! I have to hold her back to keep her from running off to you to get hit again! All of her nightmares? They're not about soldiers or warfare or dragons anymore. They're about YOU!"
His brother, having straightened out a little, was thrown against the wall by another punch.
"You have no idea how much you've hurt her."
He stood there, chest heaving, glaring at his brother with the kind of fury he hadn't felt since his death, and not even the sight of the macabre grinning scar on his brother's throat made him stop. The blind one straightened up once more, still rubbing the forming bruises, but he didn't make a movement to face him.
"Vaarsuvius isn't the type to agonize over others," he said quietly, an infuriating lack of emotion there. "She'll be over it soon enough. I'm sure you'll make her happy."
The younger one clenched his fists and teeth furiously, visions of Vaarsuvius's progressively worse health running through his head. "You've made her cry."
That provoked a pause.
"Vaarsuvius doesn't cry. Especially not over people. She gets angry and blasts things with spells."
His glare was so intense that he was sure his brother could feel the burn on his cheek. "Not when she's lost hope."
"…" His brother put his hand on the edge of the counter and felt his way back to the still-running sink, picking up soap and washing his hands.
"Now don't tell me you don't love her anymore, because if you don't, then I will tell her to leave and stop torturing herself over helping you. I won't let her sacrifice her life for your miserable sake."
His brother was still washing his hands, his face out of view.
"She's the reason I gouged out my eyes. She's the reason I won't let anyone heal them."
He stiffened in surprise, ears twitching. "What?"
"I couldn't stand the sight of her." The scabbing sores on his skin began to open again with the ferocity of his washing. "Tell her to go. She'll only be hurt if she keeps trying to take care of me."
"…" He backed away, glaring, and walked out the door. "Go to hell, Redcloak."
His footsteps were the only thing to tell his brother that he was leaving.
There was a tense pause where only the sound of the faucet reigned.
His brother's hands were trembling hard under the jet of water, and finally, he broke down and cried, but only the water was privy to his heartbreak.
It was the best for her. It had to be.
He couldn't make her happy anymore.
He felt like he would throw up.
In fact…
Ms. Feelgood recoiled and forced him on his side, his restraints apparently having disappeared, and he threw up on the floor, filling the room with a sour, sickly smell, and the migraine was bursting in his brain, making the light itself hurt, and whatever she was doing to him, he knew that it wasn't right. It was breaking something inside his head.
"Big Brother!"
"Almost there."
"Vaarsuvius…"
He stopped talking. There wasn't anything he could say to make it better.
She was cradling something to her chest, though her body was angled so he couldn't get a good look at it. Tears were running down her cheeks, making some kind of grieving mask, but not a sound came from her lips and not so much as a shudder ran through her frame.
"I could have stopped it."
Whatever she was holding, she stroked it and began rocking it with tenderness rarely associated with her. He was a little scared that the memories combined with his brother's trauma had broken her. It was unsettling to see her like this—the only sign of grief being tears and nothing else, barely even an expression.
"…I think that, if you could have stopped it, you would have."
There was an unbearable silence as she continued to stare at the river roaring past. There was something to her uncharacteristic quiet and passivity that deeply frightened him.
"What are you going to do?"
This silence was somehow much more terrifying than the last.
"I mean, do you want to talk it over with Big Brother? He has a right to decide with you."
He silently prayed that she would step away from the edge of the river.
"I'm going to make sure that the gods cannot prolong this suffering anymore. No more power plays. No more pettiness. No more cruelty." She nudged a stone into the water. "I see now why Red forsook the Dark One. I see why he hates him."
She finally looked back at him, and past the layer of tearstains, her eyes were the hardest he'd ever seen them.
"We have a responsibility to destroy the horrors we released on the world, no matter how painful the decision is."
With that little declaration, she closed her eyes. One final tear gathered at the her lashes, glittering by the divine starlight, before splashing into the river.
"What?"
Patch slumped, drenched in sweat and migraine so painful his eye watered, tears of exhaustion and agony rolling without any notice from him, but the teacher didn't pay mind. Ms. Feelgood pulled away, her apple falling to the floor and rolling away.
"She… she actually considered…" She let out a laugh, shaking her head. "No way she went through with it. No way."
The fumes from his own sick was only making his stomach churn again and his head let out another seismic wave, doubled when the teacher grabbed his ear and pulled his head back painfully, provoking only a moan. The room spun. He tried to grapple with himself, attempting to remember how this torture started and who it was that was holding his head, but everything in his head was fluid. What was her name?
There was warmth in his ear. Blood was oozing sluggishly from within it down his neck.
"Now we'll see what she really did with it, hmm?"
Something was crawling under his skin. His only eye lulled down, rolling a little in the socket, to see that a lump was forming on his arm. The lump burst open and a thousand spiders scurried out, crawling all over his arm, then his chest, then legs, then face. He dropped his jaw a little to say something, but his head pounded again and he deemed it too painful to scream.
"You may die soon, but I'm sure you won't mind. It's for a good cause." Her laugh felt like a thousand ice shards. The spiders were everywhere. "Well, my cause."
Her hand went to his head again.
"What are you doing here?"
Sharp was standing at the doorway, but he was blurred, like Patch's vision had been a painting that had been inside a flood of smudging water. The spiders exploded, sending tingles of electricity through his flesh, and they floated up in shiny red bubbles.
Red.
So red.
Crimson.
The bubbles popped and their red liquid was falling to the ground again.
The hand on his head tightened, then was gone.
"What do you mean, Sharp?"
Her voice was honey again. Nothing like the dry, sardonic tone she had briefly taken. Her lips were moving and sound was coming out, but he didn't have any idea how to string the noises together in his head and understand them, and he no longer had the ability to appreciate the difference in that. Her skin stretched out, those gold eyes turned blue, and she became humanly homely again.
That awful frozen smile was back.
"You…" The man furrowed his brow, as if he were having difficulty remembering what he was going to say. "You're not supposed to be here. It's a boy's dorm. That boy looks like he needs a doctor."
She stood up, the blue eyes narrowing into beady slits. "I think you should go and watch the boys, Sharp. You don't know when they'll start taking advantage of all the whores in this school."
"No."
The woman stiffened, smile tightening.
Sharp frowned and came forward quickly, whatever invisible force keeping him away straining until it started coming apart, and he cupped Patch's face gently, those steel gray eyes searching his own, unable to find anything but fog. "What's eight times seven?"
The crimson sprinkled his face, his clothes, his hands… Howls from all around…
rows and rows of dying soldiers, many coughing and wheezing, trying to breathe past the blood pouring from their noses, yellow blisters covering their entire bodies, wide blind eyes staring up as they convulsed and not even the clerics could do a thing for it
"Soon… yer… killed Sister…"
The lady with the frozen smile was gone. Sharp's expression creased with concern and he slipped his arms under the boy, trying his best to not put pressure on the sore lash and glass wounds.
"You need to see a medic."
skin torn from their bones by blasts and shrapnel sticking out of convulsing men, women, and children, their mouths wide with pleas to end the pain but the pain will never end because death doesn't save anyone anymore no it doesn't the afterlives are all gone and Hades has died
"'Suvius ah Redcl goin' to bring 'er back. 'Ris tryin' t…"
"What happened to you?"
The man cradled the teenager a little closer, his urgency, numbed by whatever the previous teacher had done, was starting to surface as he carefully stepped out of the room and called behind him.
"Serpent, watch the dorm!"
A red-haired teacher with a purple serpentine dragon tattooed on his face stuck his head out of a door, opening his mouth to speak, but his glare morphed into surprise and horror quickly. "By the gods!"
"I don't know what happened, but he's very ill."
"you're reddy's brother?" different colored eyes scowling at him from twitching elf with half its face and an arm blasted off and blood spattered on her and pooled and that one little orange eye wide with fear and pain and the mouth opened and closed but no sound came out because those vocal cords had been destroyed and it was dying so so fast
"Trickin'… tryin'… find 'er… promise to save her!"
The lights were stars, moving along the ceiling, giggling, before crawling down the wall and becoming a grinning assortment of black snakes with bloodied knives curled in their tails, tiny white foals galloping down with ruthlessness in their big gray eyes, and gray wolf-like dogs padding with the slowness that only came with a certainty that they had their prey.
The light hurt. He could hear his own heartbeat.
He glared at the animals, his eye rolling in its socket as they cackled and burst apart into a thousand gold and red apples.
"I'll watch the dorm. Just get that kid to Nature!"
"Goin' t' kill 'er… save 'er… only… thing 'll 'ver ask… Girard… Soon…"
There wasn't even a flicker of recognition in the mens' faces.
The gold apples hit the ground first. They shattered into a million glimmering pieces, and in each reflection, he saw bodies and blood and red-soaked sheets and purple eyes.
their faces were like patchwork like someone broke a glass and put it together wrong like two jigsaw puzzles in one box but there wasnt anything real to make him see that way and there wasnt any rhyme or reason to the masks they strapped on before all the awful blistering gas flooded and raw hate radiated from their eyes and he wondered why were they doing this the Dark One said they were going to destroy the world but that made no sense how many lies were the gods telling and oh god the gas was burning
His mouth was moving. He didn't know what he was saying. He registered that someone else had taken control, but he had lost the ability to understand that.
"I love… love… her… always have… no matt'r what she did, save 'er… save 'er from the gods… from the Dark One…"
The red apples finally hit the floor.
"Please…"
The apples exploded in foul-smelling crimson.
A/N: Like last time, I spent a lot of time revamping this chapter, so I'm not sure how well I edited. With any luck, I got everything across properly. Hope you enjoyed it! :)