A/N: I know, I know, I'm running late. I wanted to do this earlier but school happened to both me and LeMas, and then I celebrated being on earth seventeen years which really isn't that great an accomplishment, so I got behind. But a lot of thought has been put into his chapter, and this is why I'm up at 1 30am on a Wednesday night posting it for you now. I swore to myself that I'd get this done within a month and I haven't gone to sleep yet, so to me it's still the 27th and a victory. I know some of you may not like this chapter, but I hope most of you will. Enjoy~
Chapter 26
would you leave me
if I told you what I've become
December 12th, 912
At his command you and your brother spiral from the skies in a dizzying whorl of endless cloud and bitter air that brushes at your tucked wings and dries your open eyes, tumbling through all nine worlds as you must every dawn. The fires of Muspelheim lick at your claws and the frost of Niflheim freezes your hollow bones, but you do not falter as the jotnar raise their massive heads and watch your passing as they do every morn. Hel gives you pretty things and you croak your content as her skeletal fingers smooth down your precious feathers until they gleam and you rise and fall, rise and fall, until only one world remains. This place was once simply a petty world of men and their troubles, but now it is full of intrigue as the primal god touches the earth with new hands and the realm of dream trembles under the weight of their consciousness.
Your wings flare out and you speed across snowy mountains and deep valleys filled with the blizzard that rages even still and covers the blood that has soaked into its structure. Those without a name slumber soundlessly under the white, and you feel their mind that has long left their body yearning for a proper burial—but war is unforgiving and leaves little glory in its wake. The one that truly knows what it is to lose is here in Midgard, the one with the golden glow and sad halo that hangs upon her shoulders like an unwanted shroud.
She is obscured in the flames of the pyres that reach up into the great overcast sky, but you know her as well as your master, her presence calling calling calling until you are helpless to resist. The presence that taken up residence inside your eyes perks at her silhouette, revealed slowly as you alight upon a snowy branch. The weakness in her spirit is strange—not only for the one you cradle now so close to your heart, but the other that stoops over the snow and sweats toxic into her clothing. She is still so fragile, ripped away from her home in the clouds, but her eyes are grim and bitter as her blood's body is placed upon the roaring fires and burned to a breath of air.
She knows he is happy, but she is no longer.
The other in you whispers a desire you have no intention of denying; the broken warrior barely blinks as you and your brother perch twin upon her shoulders, your beak worrying at a strand of loose hair. Her smile is faint and she murmurs her thanks to your master that you will carry back to him on the tides of dusk.
The priestess that guards her side vigilantly looks at you until she must see the reflection of the other in your eyes, for her jaw tightens in disbelief a moment before the two of you vanish once again in search of another.
You rise north and the wind screams past as it wards you away, over the glittering bridge that binds Asgard and Midgard together and through the dense forests that remain forever green despite the eternal winter that settles over the farthest reaches of this world. You and your companion follow the brother lost in his grief and his footsteps that make great gouges in the soft moss of the earth, weighed down by the heavy bones of his charge. Your wings cast shadows, and you burst into open air as you spot his form kneeling upon a glacier, his hand passing over his brother's lax brow.
Death claims many without remorse, but it is rare that such a magnificent being falls without a sound; the one still living cries and it echoes throughout all nine worlds until all are witness to his sorrow, even the gods who take pity and whisper words to allow the glacier to wrap around his deadened limbs. From ice he was born and so too will he return as his flesh melts away into spring water that drip drip drips below, feeding into the mountains and letting the elk ingest his wasted strength. The presence within you mourns in the best way it is able—as a deep and guilty sadness—even as the glacier swells with this offering, groaning and hissing as it spirals up to the sun. The brother watches its peak disappear into the clouds and touches the ice that remains of his kin.
Silently, he turns away. His eyes of blue fire burn resolve in the quiet night as his lonely steps return to Midgard and back to the place where his brother had begun to call home. The mountain of ice watches him go.
December 23th, 912
The presence that lurks within you has established a link between your soul and the one with the haunted eyes. You feel her sorrow weigh on your wings even as you sail to other realms, your mind's eye always watching and waiting, whispering and wondering over every little movement that she does. Her physical strength may slowly be returning to her wasted limbs, but her mental fortitude is still dim, plagued by shadows and visions and strange, unnatural things. She has inherited a different kind of burden; the nightmares that keep her tired mind awake are nothing but blood and steel and sunken, sallow faces of what used to be before her axe erased them entirely.
Those of the village trust her no longer and whisper as she passes. Word of her fall has reached the ears of all and they wish not to touch lest they be damned as she be damned, condemned to wander in search of another death as glorious as the first. Only the priestess opens her arms and the one she had wounded so long ago, the mother with the golden hair. Together they cradle her broken spirit and lift her when her legs fail, feeding and bathing her, gently murmuring. She does not have the energy to care for much at all, but manages a smile.
The slave boy comes sometimes and you see the pain in his face as he touches the husk of his friend, clasping their shaking hands together. Now that the cursed blizzards have stopped howling and left the world in a soundless blanket of white, the men have begun to repair their shattered world in a slow and steady way that only mortals are able, every stroke of their hammer sure. She begs him to search for her other half, but she has disappeared into the void that winter brings.
(You sense their thoughts and desires—those that wish to find the fallen one do not wish her well.)
Her father knows this as he knows many things, but his anger is not something that is easily tamed, nor forgiven. You pull the fury from his expression as more are unearthed from the frozen snow with skulls of grinning white and insides ravaged by blackness, until his spirit is frothing at the mouth from the horrors his people have endured. Death and draugar are not easily forgotten, and he is torn between his family and his duty.
It is the horse men with their glittering armor that search the snows for any traces of the one they knew from moons ago, the weathered one with skin of paper searching through the Unseeable for a hint of the girl left behind. But the Old One is cunning, and though you feel its breath rustle your feathers it remains hidden from her all-seeing eyes, and its laughter echoes in her ears when she sleeps.
You give all this to your master, whose frown wrinkles the lines of his ancient face; he watches the broken one toss in her tortured dreams and sends his spells to soothe her tormented thoughts until she stills in her borrowed bed, curling into the older priestess until all that leave her mouth are soft whimpers of sound. Her blood watches from above with sad, sad eyes, and her mother looks away in mourning for what could have been.
January 2nd, 913
The sun is bright this morn, and it sets your glossy feathers alight as you follow the deep tracks scored into the powdery snow that lead into the deep forests, reaching to the skies with their skeletal fingers. It has been some time since the broken one had left the accusing eyes of those she used to call friends, and her trail is marred by camps and fires set along the way to ward off the bitter winter chill. You sense her fatigue as you sense all things in her now, her weathered body unwilling to shoulder such strain as she trains it to work once again.
She grows to welcome you now. Your perch on her shoulder is always open, and she does not grumble as you nip at her ear until she gives you a small piece of reindeer meat from her pouch. Little has found its way into her pack save for her own supplies—the trees are quiet and still with no animals to speak of, and you feel the unease in the brush as the Old One murmurs from the void. Its thoughts grow louder and more disjointed as the presence in your chest loosens; you know it is nearing completion, the thing that you feel on the winds and taste in the water.
Those across the fields that shiver in makeshift shelters grow restless with the strange ways of the land. Perhaps they do not know the gods as they should, but they know the earth, and know how their soldiers go cold and hungry in this cruel winter, how their leader broods endlessly over the death of his kin. Many had said they saw demons on the field of likes they had never known; women different but the same, each heralding death of their own. He knows of one but not enough of the other and seeks them both the way a slave seeks freedom only to be denied, denied, his soldiers turning away lest they return to finish the job they had started.
(You hear their thoughts and their dreams, their nightmares plagued by blonde hair and dark hands and blackness that eats straight through the bone.)
The broken one makes tracks that leave the village further and further behind. She does not speak of it, but you know she seeks to find her other in this wasteland that her home has become, searching every nook and every hollow for naught. Their connection stands stagnant, and the loss is almost staggering; your bones bow under the weight of it.
You know but cannot tell of the fallen one in your chest and how she watches the broken one with what little thought she possesses. You know but cannot tell of the distant cave where she is hidden away. You know but cannot tell of the way she floats from you as she stirs from sleep with a new body and mind that will devour sun and stars in its fervor.
Fate has come to pass, and Midgard will fall silent as the one that is Whole wakes once again.
January 4th, 913
A measured exhale followed by the steady draw of a bowstring. Wind rustles the spindly branches of the naked trees and swirls the eddies in the snow, but the single animal nosing about for food pays no mind. Its soft muzzle brushes away the powder in hopes of anything buried underneath, but the snowfall was long and all remains hidden under a thick layer of white.
Too far. Unsure arms tremble under the strain of keeping taut and the string is slowly relaxed, accompanied by a slow, hesitant step forward. The wooden slabs upon the snow glide soundlessly, cutting thin tracks into the ground, propelling their charge forward. Another inhale, another draw. Closer, closer...
The wind howls unexpectedly and a branch snaps from its precarious perch, weighed down by ice and snow. Startled, the animal bolts; moments later an arrow imbeds itself in the trunk where it used to stand.
"Fuck!" Brittany hisses angrily, making her way over and yanking the arrow from the bark. The only game seen all day scared away by the whims of fate.
Sandalio whines in sympathy from where he presses up against her thigh, his damp face rubbing against the thick wool of her trousers. The days have been long and cold in the forests for both of them; his fur, forever damp, fluffs with snow caught in the hairs. His Mistress always makes the Bright-Hot in the night that glows so brightly it warms him to his bones, but she never seems too happy. It has the wrong color, she says. (His world is muted greys and yellows—perhaps they see something else?)
Brittany scratches absently at his ears, her fingers cold inside her rabbit mittens. Her pack is light, absent of game—so far, she's barely been able to catch enough for the both of them. It might have to do with the way her body has not yet returned to its former glory, but she has the suspicion that the silent woods have more to do with her failure. Her breathing echoes amidst the trunks that look too much like corpses, bounding in all directions, coming back until she feels watched by a million empty eyes.
(Sometimes there are figures flitting from one hollow to the next, forever whispering, forever following. She calls to them, but they vanish like smoke puffing out of a tiny flame.)
"Looks like we have to go home, huh?" she mutters sourly, adjusting the bindings on her boots. Home is no longer what it used to mean—those who scarcely tolerated her differences have no qualms about voicing how they really felt all along. Even those who had grown to accept her charm and talent have turned their backs to leave her with nothing at all. She hears the whispers, no matter how much she tries to ignore them: cursed, plagued, damned.
Not for the first time, she wishes Santana had left her to die.
The skis attached to her feet propel her effortlessly through the thick powder as they manoeuver their way through the trees, Sandalio loping at her side. For the past month she had tried calling to Santana time and time again, begging for any response at all. Maria had tried to console her, citing the blizzard for the disconnect, but she can't be fooled. It takes something so much bigger than that to hide her away somewhere even Brittany is unable to sense her heartbeat. (But she knows it's there. Slow, almost non-existent. Sleeping.) Her head is a resounding mix of emotions that beg her to die but demand her to live, screaming and teetering until she's unsure which to obey. She is a phantom in the body of the buried, and surely Santana could make sense of these new voices inside her head, but she's not here and she made her this way, and now—
Brittany shakes her head to dislodge the fury she feels coming, creeping up inside like a disease. She hates being angry; it reminds her of the battlefield and all those people who fell under her impartial blades, spurting arcs of crimson blood like sea spray splashing on her cheeks, but the rage comes so swiftly now. The voices whisper and the ghosts cry and she feels like screaming until her throat rips apart.
But she doesn't, not anymore. Her anger bubbles and seethes but it rarely finds itself escaping the confines of her chest, smouldering through her eyes and ears instead. The first few weeks were the worst, when she'd fall down doing simple things like walking; Maria would pick her up like a child throwing a tantrum and place her back in her bed that was more like a prison, watching until she exhausted herself. Perhaps she feels pity, or some misguided sense of protectiveness—either way, Brittany is grateful for her help. Gods know her father wouldn't do the same.
Her expression darkens and she gives a particularly violent push with her skis, prompting Sandalio to run and catch up. He loves her, she knows, but he too has begun to sense the wrongness within her. She's surprised it took him this long.
One day he'll cave to the villagers and send her away. It's just a matter of when.
Wasn't that what they always wanted, anyway? Many of the elders never truly accepted her past a grudging respect for her skill—once a woman, always a woman—and now her fall from grace gives them the reason they need to show their true faces.
She forces her mind to go blissfully blank for the grueling hours spent gliding through the snow, her empty pack rattling on her back. The forests seem peaceful now with the fight at a stand-still, but the facade simply cloaks the rotten core underneath, pristine white snow shrouding the problem from sight. Massive, ancient trees groan as the darkness within weighs in their veins, dragging down their branches and snapping them from their wide limbs. Animals cry out nervously in the night—those that remain. Almost all life has vanished, seeking asylum from an invisible foe.
Along the way she checks her snares, each one coming up empty until the last. A small bird shrieks as she closes her fist gently around its little body, whispering thanks as her fingers snap its neck with a sharp twist. Her knife opens its belly and she greedily gulps down the liver, still raw and slimy, the warmth of its body steaming into the air. Its strength bleeds into her as she ties its corpse to her belt and sets off against with renewed strength.
It's not too long until she glides into Kaupang, skin slick with sweat, traveling across the roads that so many other feet have followed. The town slowly begins to repair itself from the fires, and warriors wander about with bandages bound all around their bodies, aiding the best they can. A few of the children part when she passes, but apart from that, all she receives as acknowledgement are the eyes that follow her in her father's home.
The longhouse had been deemed a loss and thralls knock down the burnt timbers with great hammers, its charred splinters raining down on their skin. In time another one will be built, but for now resources are being diverted to more important things. She unbinds herself from her skis and nudges open the door until the warmth from the flame envelops her tired body.
Those that were previously talking quite amicably fall silent as she awkwardly places her sodden coat to dry in the quiet, unwrapping her little bird from her belt and placing it on the table. They mutter amongst themselves and vacate until only a select few remain; her father, a few elders, a woman she does not know, and Finngeirr.
The lattermost makes her eyebrows arch in surprise—he looks worse than she does, skin ruddy in some places but pale in others, his eyes muddled and distant. The blow to his head must have done more damage than anticipated, and as he goes to rise his balance wobbles until the woman by his side rights him again.
"What a pleasant surprise," Brittany murmurs placidly, gaze sweeping over the boy who saved her life. Her hand throbs in phantom reminder and she hesitates in taking off her gloves, knowing of the way his eyes narrow in on the thick black seam across her skin.
Betar's stare warns her to be nice but she pays him no mind, delicately picking up the little bird and beginning to pluck its feathers. All is silent for a few minutes as she casts them into the flames where they curl up and wither into nothing, mere specks of black char upon the logs. In an effort to inject some form of cheeriness into the somber scene, her father claps her on the back, nearly sending her pitching into the fire.
"Where is the rest of your game, Bretagne?" he asks, looking around for her pack. The way it droops in on itself bodes no good news.
"This is my game," she sighs, clearing the rest of the feathers from the cut through its stomach. "I saw perhaps a single deer my entire time, and a few rabbits. All of them from a distance."
He frowns at the tiny thing in her hand, no good for more than a couple mouthfuls. "Were you using your skis?"
"I know how to hunt, father," Brittany mutters irritably, pulling the waste from her bird with perhaps a little more force than necessary. "They have all been scared away. The darkness hurts the trees, too."
"I saw what it can do," Finngeirr interrupts, his eyes wide and haunted. "The animals are smart things for leaving as soon as possible."
You were unconscious the entire time, Brittany thinks, but keeps her mouth shut.
"Why am I here?" she asks bluntly. "You only want to talk when it's something important."
Betar cringes and clears his throat. "The war might not be won, but, ah, the battle has been completed. You have a promise to keep."
Brittany pauses mid-pull, frowning. Surely he didn't think she was serious.
But he senses her incredulity. "I know it may not be the best of things in light of recent events, but a wedding could bring cheer back into the village."
"Wait," Finngeirr interjects, his voice rising until it cracks a little. "You still expect me to marry that... that thing?"
"Finn," the woman scolds, but he shrugs her off.
"She's been thrown out of Valhalla! Who knows what other curses she has hanging from her? I mean, just... look at her hand!"
Brittany tucks her hand under her opposite arm with a scowl.
"Maybe whatever that Iberian witch used on her is still there, huh? She might make my dick fall off if I even so much as try to put it in her."
Betar's jaw clenches so hard Brittany fears his teeth will break, and the woman she believes to be his mother sighs heavily, wiping her hand down her brow. He looks at her then, his sneer holding an agitated edge. "Don't you hear things now, Piersson? Is that why you talk to yourself?"
"Right now, I hear nothing but your complete horseshit," she snaps. "I doubt you have any cock to lose in the first place."
"Bretagne!"
She ignores her father's scold, narrowing her eyes at the figure in front of her. "I have seen the Great Hall, I know what kind of warriors lay within its doors. They have no room for boys trying too hard to be men."
He sputters, lunging forward a moment before he wobbles and his mother must catch him. Flustered, he pushes her touch away. "And you are any better? You are worthless now, Bretagne! You should be begging me to wed you."
"Why should I? I never wanted you to begin with."
"Both of you, please." Betar places himself between them, like breaking visual contact will help any with the venom pouring into the room. "You have promises to keep."
"Yes, well," Brittany stands up abruptly, throwing a sardonic half-smile in her father's direction. "Promises are meant to be broken, aren't they?"
She makes it perhaps five paces out the door before a hand grabs her wrist and spins her around, bringing her close with her livid father. "Bretagne, what are you trying to pull here? That boy saved your life."
She yanks her wrist away. "He did nothing of the sort. Stórhríð saved me from that blade, not that it made much difference in the end."
"He gave you enough time for Stórhríð to appear. Show a little gratitude."
"Gratitude for what? Saving me just to have both my ear and part of my hand cut off? Or letting me die impaled on a sword instead of having a swift death? There is nothing to be grateful about in this situation."
"Bretagne, if you talked to him—"
"Has talking given us anything? Has it!?" Her cheeks flush, ruddy with the rage she thought she had sealed away. "I have tried to tell you that I do not consent to this, but you ignore me like I am nothing more than a thrall you can push around! If this... this affliction keeps him far away from me, I will gladly keep the voices and the nightmares and everything else it gives me!"
His expression hardens. "What in the world has Santana done to the Bretagne I know?"
"The Bretagne you know is dead, and she is never coming back."
They stare at each other until Betar turns away, his eyes suspiciously wet. "Go to Maria before you say other things you will come to regret."
Recognizing the tone from her youth, Brittany mumbles her assent and stomps away, ignoring her bird now burnt over the fire and her various items still scattered about. She'll get them back soon enough.
Maria's hearth smoulders when she enters—the priestess has taken to sharing a space with Eyja, now that her own room burned to the ground in the fires. The two compliment each other perfectly; unlike her daughter, Maria is nearly as impeccably clean as her host.
(Their bed still lies in disarray from the night before the war. Brittany hasn't found the heart to remove her imprint from the furs.)
The rich smell of cooking meat wafts when she opens the door and she barely notices Maria hunched over the flames, nearly tripping over her crouching form in her haste to peer into the pot. It's not yet ready, but even the sight of the thin broth makes her mouth water in a twin expression with her faithful hound.
Maria chuckles, stirring the vegetables around a little. "Hungry?"
"Starving," she replies, seating herself the long wooden bench that juts out of the wall. "Father made me burn the only game I found."
"He made you, did he?" Maria turns to rummage about, handing Brittany a bowl of scraps from the earlier carcass that she quickly stuffs in her mouth, unmindful of the fat she sucks off the bone. "Do your hands randomly burst into flames too?"
Brittany scowls the best she can around her mouthful, allowing Sandalio to eagerly lick her fingers. "I wish. Many of my problems would be solved if I could just singe the tongue right out of Finngeirr's mouth."
Maria clucks her tongue, lightly bopping Brittany on the nose with her spoon. "You sound like Santana."
"I was around her enough." Suddenly sullen, she stuffs another handful into her mouth. Maria sighs and wipes off the stew residue that lingers on her skin.
"Everything will turn out; you'll see." Wary of the way Brittany's eyes have begun to darken, she instead ladles the stew into her bowl. "Now, what is this business with the boy?"
Uncaring of the way it scalds her tongue, Brittany furiously chews the stringy meat and loses herself for a few moments in the salty stew. It's been a while since she had warm meat, stuck out in the forests as she's been. "'Ather shtill wan'ed me t' marry him," she mumbles out, dribbling a bit of broth onto the floor. She makes a face, but Sandalio is quick to clean up. "We both refused. Him a bit more... um, loudly than me."
"What did he say?"
She pokes at the stew in her bowl. "If he tried to bed me, whatever curse Santana used would make it fall off, just like how I fell from Valhalla. The usual."
"That seems like no true tragedy," Maria mutters, earning a ghost of a smile from her companion. "And remember, you did not fall from Valhalla, you were taken. There is a great difference."
"Not to anyone here. I'm damned all the same."
"Maybe not to them, but you have to believe it yourself. If you do, they might begin to follow."
"But... what if I am damned?" Brittany bites her lip, her eyes shifting to the flickering shadows that could hold any number of phantoms. "Whatever Santana did to me, Maria, it... it broke me. My head is wrong. I hear things like she did, I see things like she did. They follow me everywhere, even outside in the forest."
"Is it just you?"
Brittany steals a glance to her companion. "No, he sees them too. I think."
But the things that followed Santana, taunting and hissing, are not the same that appear to Brittany. Sometimes, when she slept, she could glimpse into her lover's mind, witness the twisted things that invaded her blackened dreams and crept over her cold feet. What appear before Brittany are whispers of a human being that float listlessly and speak in slurred tongues that she was never meant to hear, sparing her nary a glimpse before drifting away.
Perhaps... Maria remembers the restless dead that sometimes roamed the plains of her home, disturbing the horses in the night. Sometimes they simply did not see Ataecina and her open arms, but rarely did they deny her outright, angrily inhabiting the rivers and rocks until their ire was soothed. A flicker of silver passes by her eye, and Maria watches Brittany flinch away from the wisp that brushes a strand of gold hair from her face.
A warrior is simply a spell-caster of the physical, shielded from the harshness of the spiritual through a thick barrier that firmly separates the two worlds in their mind. Only those born with magical affinity can so peer into the void as they please—but the touch of such an old god could disrupt the balance that keeps them apart. Who knows what kind of a hole the Old One tore in its passing?
Maria's pensive expression does not bode well.
"Can you fix me?"
Maria's eyes narrow. "You are not broken, Bretagne."
"Then can you at least, um... can you call me Brittany?"
"Why?"
"I told my father that Bretagne is dead, and... I think I was telling the truth."
January 6th, 913
The first sliver of wakefulness comes, something akin to a gentle wave breaking across a ship's bow.
She feels the coldness all around her, limbs wrapped separately in its embrace. It extends further now, into the depths of herself, freezing her still lungs and slowing her sluggish heart. Her thought is slow and disjointed as she slips back into the realm of dream.
...
The second comes, and with it the taste of the earth, the faintest teasings of air rushing past dry lips and parched tongue. Her vision moves beyond her body and she sees a cave with a heart of darkness, a matrix of black seething and pulsing in its shadowed core. The mass in the center twitches and she watches her own mouth open, the blackness rushing outwards to expose her cheeks to the air.
But the darkness whispers not yet, and she feels herself fading once again, falling under its influence as the blackness swallows her.
...
The third time is the final time.
It creeps from her mouth again, pulling back from her nose and eyes and picking itself from her hair, coursing upwards to expose her torso to the hard ground. The chill of winter licks across her bare skin, and she shudders in her prison.
Her sight returns, and she sees the faint outlines of the rock floor, the dips gathering snow and slush in the shadows. The tendrils gently unwrap themselves from her limbs, curling back into themselves as they lower her slowly to the floor. Her knees touch the damp rock as she kneels, kept upright by their guiding presence around her shoulders. The entrance to the cave is blindingly bright, swirls of almost glowing snow whispering past the mouth and laying in large piles across the land. She frowns, swallowing against her sandpaper throat.
One tendril worms its way into a little puddle of melted snow, swelling as it absorbs the moisture, until it can prod at her lips with the offering. Reluctant, Santana opens her mouth, acquiescing further once it dribbles freezing water across her dry tongue. The process repeats until she can think of something other than her thirst, finally taking a look around.
She scarcely remembers the month before and certainly not where she is now, fractures of a dream presented as a memory coming to her from the eyes of another. She remembers the nine worlds, and Hel's skeletal fingers brushing a body not her own, those eyes seeking out Stórhríð who mourns even now for his brother in the reaches of Utgard. Her head pounds and her body shivers from a cold it does not yet feel.
Her fingers touch fabric and then flesh upon the floor, cold and stiff, waxy for the days spent exposed. There is another with her whom death has already claimed, its skin as crackly as old vellum. In the darkness her eyes cut away she sees the gape of the body's belly, guts torn and strewn across the floor, desiccated and dry. No animals have dared venture into her home to gnaw at the tough remnants.
She runs her touch over his tunic and tugs at the fabric in an attempt to pull it over his head, the white linen rustling ever so slightly. With a grunt of exasperation she tugs again and instead pulls a strip of it straight from the seam, clutching the ruined portion in her fist. Pain dances ever so lightly over her hand, and she realizes she has cut herself on the claws she has grown in her mind's absence, pushing into the tender flesh of her hand. She pulls them from herself, and the skin knits anew once more, leaving her with nothing but a ragged scrap of fabric.
Overwhelmed, she feels the tendrils take it from her and drape it over her hips so that the fabric turns into a ragged skirt that brushes against the backs of her thighs as she rises to her feet, the rest of his tunic torn and unusable. The tendrils give her the staff that had been resting in the shadowed dip of the cave, her beads illuminating the space in an eerie black light.
What happened? she asks the Old One, but receives no answer save the echo of her words. Its presence is ever-reaching and all-encompassing but it is... not gone, no. She feels it around her lungs and heart and eyes. Hiding? No, not that either. Dormant, perhaps. It still sounds wrong, but her addled brain whispers for nourishment that she cannot deny, and she loses the thought entirely.
Her bare feet crunch along the snow as she sinks to her knees in the untouched powder, running her hands along the frozen bark of guardian trees. Her new nails leave deep scores but she pays them no mind, eyes flickering about the empty forests in an attempt to find her next meal. Each heartbeat pounds in her ears, and she knows which tree holds the little squirrel cowering from the cold or the bird caught in the storm, but it is not those she wants, no—a louder heartbeat calls to her, hidden in the copse of skinny firs. A wolf, separated and alone, its howl speaking of questions and confusion. She hears it as clearly as she would those who speak the human tongue, and hears her stomach rumble its answering call. Her mouth waters as she feels its heat on the cold winds.
Her foot breaks the crust of snow and its howl cuts off at the sound, hackles rising, anxious and alert. Santana growls under her breath, and the tendrils that have not yet retracted wind themselves into the trees and lift her aloft, her feet leaving the snow as she travels closer to her prey. A flash of fur is seen between the trees before it spots her, and a rumbling laugh spills from her open lips as the fear blooms in those majestic amber eyes.
Her new limbs grasp the cowering trees and she surges forward as the wolf turns to run, one hand raising until a tendril erupts from her palm and curls around its prey. The animal yelps, panicked, and she hoists it in the air as one would trapped wildfowl.
"Not fast enough, little dog," she breathes softly, tentacles wrapping around the wolf in such a constricting embrace it can do little other than struggle. She sees the last glimpse of its terrified eyes before the darkness courses over like water and devours it, squeezing so tight she feels the vibration of its cracking ribs reverberate through the tendril and into herself, its blood coming from its ears and mouth that is soaked in and greedily absorbed. As its heart goes still Santana takes the red life from its veins and pulls it into her own, feels the warmth flush through her frozen body until the world snaps into such clarity that the few minutes prior felt like she was underwater. Snared in her dark web, even the heartbeat of the earth bows to her power.
She brings its body closer, running her fingers through the snarled knots of its fur. A youngling, no more than a winter old. Its coat reminds her of the robe she used to wear before it got ripped away.
Her tendrils writhe and she touches the point of its fangs frozen into an eternal snarl—she's seen that expression once before on another, cowering in a dark corner of a room with eyes like a stranger. Her memory floods back in the month spent trapped in the body of another, watching her faithful companion mourn just as his mistress mourns, pressing warm and comforting into her lonely side. She remembers—
Brittany.
Santana throws her mind outwards, uncaring of how the world trembles at the explosion of power. She soars over the cover of the trees and spirals through the ether, chasing the thread that she still feels despite their distance. Her eyes run over healing Kaupang; the crippled enemy; the lonely giant making his way back to fight; even the centaurs, Quinn's armour glinting in the sun. But they are not the one she wants, no, and as she descends upon her destination, her heart catches heavy in her throat.
Brittany, form wavering only slightly through her disjointed eyes, laughs as she throws the stick high into the air, clapping when Sandalio catches it with a flourish. Her eyes crease into a smile and the whites of her teeth shine a beacon in the coming dusk of the Endless Night, her companion sprinting over to drop his prize by the other figure who stoops to pick it up. Hood fallen from her shoulders, she sees the smile in her mother's expression as readily as if she was wearing it herself, taking the given stick and whipping it away for the dog to catch. They grin at each other, content, and the sight makes Santana burn.
Already found a replacement, I see.
Does Brittany not see all she's sacrificed for her? Her body, her mind, her soul—all sent to die for this one girl who can still be happy while Santana herself aches for just the phantom of her touch? It's selfish to assume she would be weeping for her to return, mourning her as she mourns her grandfather, but surely she could be looking, searching for her? Winter has sunk its teeth into the land and she knows at least a moon has passed—where was she all this time?
She hovers closer, almost as if intent to ask her just that. Darkness casts where she floats and the shadows of the trees warp upon themselves until they become demons of another place, twisted and gnarled with cackling mouths and spindly fingers. One strokes at Sandalio's fur and he stiffens until every part of his body vibrates and shakes with tension, his pearly white teeth bared into a snarl so familiar. Brittany falters and looks to him and his foaming mouth in concern, speaking something Santana cannot hear - the boom of Brittany's heart is a cannon in her ears and she knows she can sense the same, their conjoined pulse thudding in time once again like a clash of swords wrapped in felt. Yet she does not look to Santana and where she waits but instead to the dog, his barks cutting through the still evening air, his terror radiating until it poisons all around it.
Santana's presence reaches now, grasps for Brittany with needy hands, but her lover remains frozen in indecision between the creeping sense of wrong curling up her spine and her companion putting himself into an untameable frenzy. Her hesitancy stirs the flames smouldering in Santana's belly - a mutt takes precedence over her? A mutt that she kept and loved and cherished, a mutt that turned against her when she needed it the most? She knows Brittany can sense it; there is a shifting at the back of her mind, a scraping of something wounded and festering, something impossible to ignore.
Her anger dims the already setting sun, and her warrior stalls for a moment to look around, stick held limply in her hand. No sound comes to her ears, but she feels Brittany's disbelief as their minds touch for the first time in what feels like eternities, the electric brush still there after weeks of silence. But her hurt burns bright and Brittany's message is deflected, her celestial fists that batter against her shield harmless. She turns from her former companion with a heavy swallow and falls back into herself, still feeling Brittany's desperation hammering against her bruised consciousness. Other voices join the cacophony—Eyja and Maria and even Sophias, calling to her, but she closes her eyes and erases them all.
A temporary bandage placed over a sucking wound, but it will hold for now. The echoes of their cries speak softly to her, but she ignores them, stumbling as she falls from her web. The wolf thumps lifelessly at her side and she dares not look into those glassy eyes lest she find something else that seeks to harm her.
The wind chills, but she hardly feels the sting across her bare skin as she slogs her way through the thick snow. Her tendrils have retracted for now, resting heavy in the cavity of her back, and she feels them coil under her skin like invasive serpents. Their weight should be unsettling, but their cold warmth gives her a degree of comfort in this world gone awry.
Somewhere in her head she can feel Brittany screaming, throwing herself at the barrier she has raised, but she refuses to cave. She remembers all the things she said and the hurt comes back, searing hot, not allowing her to crumple first. Let her be the one that holds the power for once.
Her feet touch a path and she spies horse tracks, stark and deep in the new snow. They lead into the thinning forest, and in the distance she spies a smoking hearth that spews white smoke into the sky.
(She remembers another town with smoke for an entirely different reason, and how they screamed as she ripped their limbs from their bodies, her smile sincere as she held aloft their shuddering hearts and—no, it's best she forget. No good will come of remembrance.
But try as she might she cannot forget the way she was held in the nights after, how Brittany smothered her screams with her lips and grounded her with the burning weight of her body until she remembered nothing at all.)
Santana's forearm brushes her bare chest as the wind bites at her being, swallowing as she remembers the phantom touch of Brittany's lips upon her skin, sucking and licking, her blue eyes deep and dark. If only she had the courage to slide her hand between her thighs like she so wished, to part her open and feel her gasp against her. The chance is lost, and with it the fantasy.
If you just apologize... whispers the part of her that aches to be with her warrior, but the rest of her is stronger, refusing to succumb to the chances of what could have been. In time, when the clouds clear, they will return to each other—they are endless and eternal as the void is deep—but she is not the only one that has wronged. She is not the monster she has been cast as, and neither is Brittany, but the flames of betrayal must first be turned to ash, and they burn too cruelly to entertain the thought of being smothered.
Her steps take her past a few heads of spooked cattle who skitter from her and towards the first longhouse seen along the path. In the vague distance she spots a larger building, presumably a town hall of some sort, shimmering with invisible heat from its open chimney. A meeting of some sort, then. It would account for the fewer heartbeats she hears in this home.
Her knuckles rap against the wooden door and she smirks to herself. Surely she could barge in and take what she wants, but... she blames Brittany and the manners she attempted to hammer into her brain. The Norse people are welcoming to strangers in the cold, and will gladly lend her some warm clothing to help her blend in.
But then again, as the door swings open and a woman's startled face comes into view, perhaps that may not be the case this time.
"Good eve," Santana begins as pleasantly as she can, discreetly looking further inside in an effort to find anything of use. "I find myself a bit lost... can I escape the cold for a moment?"
The woman gapes for a few moments, eyes darting from her bare breasts to her hips scarcely covered in cloth and back up to her face before shaking her head furiously, making to slam the door in her face. Santana's hand goes out and stops it in its path, her nails gouging so deep they almost break through the other side.
"That would not be wise."
Nonchalantly she swings the door open and steps into the threshold, the heat from the fire almost smothering in contrast to the earlier cold. Two children huddle in the back and watch her with wide eyes as she scans the bare walls and wooden furniture, the scent of cooking stew invading her senses. Strange... she feels no need to eat.
"All I want is some clothing. Are you going to be difficult about that, too?"
The woman swallows and she sees her hands shake so hard they drop the wooden spoon she was holding. "P-please... we have so little. Do not hurt the children."
Her eyebrow arches. "Who said I was going to do that?"
Her host stutters, but the sweat beading at the base of her neck tells no lies.
"Who said," she takes a step forward, "I was going to do that?"
"Nobody," she mutters back, taking a few paces towards her children. They cower from her as her presence seems to fill the space, seeping into every crack and hollow. Santana tilts her head, a smirk playing on her lips.
"Why do you look so scared? I just wish for a tunic, perhaps a cloak. I seem to have... misplaced mine."
"Of course, I, ah... I have one. Just... wait a moment."
Santana watches her rummage in the oak chest by the side of their sleep bench, eventually drawing out a neatly wrapped bundle of wool dyed in modest colours. She smiles shakily, her gaze darting to her children who have shuffled to the far wall. Santana's eyes narrow.
"Here—" her voice cuts off as she lunges with the bundle, the fabric drooping to reveal a wooden club tucked underneath. Santana simply raises her hand and catches the weapon as it descends, the shockwave reverberating down her hardened bone.
"Now, see... that was not wise."
One of her tendrils unfurls and holds the woman by the throat as she is hoisted in the air, her legs dangling uselessly below her. A rustle of sound reveals that her children have darted through a loose board in the wall, their crunching feet fading into the distance. Another tentacle punches through the wall and snares one of the boys by the head—his brother's scream is shrill as he evades her seeking grasp, scrambling away and towards the town hall. She sighs as she drags his sibling through the snow, trying to force his little body through the hole her limbs have made. There is a whimper and a crunch that shakes down to her core, followed by the absence of a heartbeat. His little body is finally pulled through the wall, his neck twisted unnaturally to stare at her in the dirt.
His mother makes a pained groan and kicks to free herself; Santana simply swivels her sight so she can't stare at her boy laying warm on the ground.
"That was unfortunate," she sighs, biting her tongue to swallow the creeping guilt of the little boy's spirit leaving his open lips. The snap of his spine still echoes in her bones, and she resists the urge to do the same to his mother, to crush her throat and feel the life leave her body. Such an addictive thing is death.
The woman chokes something unheard and Santana retracts her new limbs, bringing her closer. "What was that?"
So close, her prey takes that opportunity to spit in her face.
With an infuriated roar Santana whips her into the closest wall, catching her before she falls to the ground. "You think you can be defiant?" Another crash, bones cracking and blood dripping. "You think you can do that?" She snarls, loosening her hold to drop her to the ground. "You think you can—" Before the woman hits, another tendril shoots from behind and impales through her chest cavity, slamming into the wall and pinning her there. A wet, ripping sound enters the space and moments later she simply... tears apart, her body bursting in all directions as the tentacle swells and gorges on her blood.
Santana watches numbly as bits of her flesh fly out to decorate the space, blood painting her in a bright crimson swath that flows sticky into her hair. Even the little boy's body is not unscathed, his mother's blood spraying over his tunic.
Seemingly satisfied, the tendril retracts, gently brushing a strand of hair from Santana's eyes. Her gaze travel around the space in the dream, glancing at the shattered remnants of what used to be a human hung about the space.
"Why did you..." The tendril dances along her outstretched fingers, soaking up the blood on her skin. The warmth fills her with contentment, though that little voice that sounds suspiciously like Brittany tells her to be afraid, to be disgusted.
She deserved it, she thinks, she deserved it, and it is that mantra that follows her outside.
In the distance she sees the form of the one who got away—she could take him as she took his brother, drag him back by his hair where her new limbs will rebel and tear him apart, but perhaps it would be better to give him a chance to get help. More of a... challenge.
She frowns, shaking the thought from her head.
As the boy runs into the town hall she senses the scrape of weapons at their sides, the thud of rising feet as he screams incoherencies and babbles of dark things come in the setting sun. Night falls as she enters the square, but the shadows yield to her—the hall falls silent from the chaos as she swings open the door and lets herself in.
Bristling weapons greet her and she cracks a half-smile.
"Is that really necessary?" she asks, but the blood upon her front tells no lies.
"What do you want, witch?" growls the man at the front, his axe brandished imposingly by his side. The flash of metal brings no fear to Santana.
"All I wanted was some clothes," she sighs, lifting her shoulders and letting her tendrils unfurl around her, streaming in all directions. "But she spat on me instead. It was simply a... misunderstanding."
Another who had been tending to the little boy raises his head, face caught in a snarl. "You killed my wife?"
"She sealed her own fate."
He roars and lunges at her, spear drawn, but she simply sidesteps and lets his momentum carry him away. She has seen that expression only once before; her own lover, whirling through enemy ranks in a hurricane of bloodshed. The face of grief.
"No one else has to die today," she warns him, deflecting a jab with her tentacles. They wrap around his spear and yank it away to leave him weaponless. "Be smart for once in your life and walk away."
Her words fall on deaf ears and she has no choice but to raise him high up in the air like his wife, the corrosive slime eating at his skin. He spits insults and curses, foaming, writhing and kicking in the air, damning the ground she walks upon. Santana's expression darkens.
"So be it."
The constrictive grasp around him tightens until his ribcage cracks in his chest, puncturing his useless lungs, blood gushing out of his mouth and ears and eyes. Skin bursts and his innards squirt from the tear, splattering his comrades, draping over his son. The whole space explodes into rioting, a bristling thicket of spears and swords, charging men scrambling over screaming children as they try to cower or flee. Santana lets her fire burn up her naked arms and relishes in the forgotten sting.
One man goes up in a pillar of flame as another is thrown across the room, his spine snapping as he hits the wooden beams. Santana laughs as a warrior gets close enough for her to see the whites of his eyes before a sucking tendril attaches to his face and wears away the skin from his bone, his body shrinking and deflating with the absence of blood until she casts him aside, dead and depleted.
A group of children scramble for the doors, but the floor goes soft and black; gnarled tendrils the size of oaken trunks crawl and cross over themselves to block entry, coursing along the walls and devouring the ceiling. The fleshy covering extends until all light is sucked from the room save for a single beacon of light—Santana's arms, burning hot and bright in the darkness. She grins, the blackness of her eyes reflecting like liquid slate.
The ground writhes under her bare feet as she takes a few languid steps forward, wiping the blood from her nails. Those still alive have regrouped in a semi-circle, shielding the young ones behind them—the space is a mess of screaming and crying, and she soaks in the sound, a dark shiver travelling down her spine. There is nothing in her mind save for the void of death and the suffering that fills it.
"Going somewhere?" she asks softly, allowing her influence to run outside the hall, her dark limbs spearing those resting in their homes. The farms tilt and splinter apart as she chases down those who try to run, snaring them and breaking their brittle bones.
I never knew how fragile mortals are...
The man with the axe swallows and wavers, shuffling back. She tilts her head at the tremble of his weapon and her mouth splits into an unforgiving smile.
"If you would have kept him on a leash, none of this would have happened."
A little boy whimpers and clutches at his leg, covered in gore. His guardian growls.
"You're a monster."
Damned! Look what you did! We're both monsters now!
The world shakes and cracks open as Santana's roar turns into a scream, tendrils coming from every direction and driving their way through their tender human flesh. The children cry before the darkness invades their veins and they disintegrate into nothingness, the adults being lifted by their heads or legs and devoured entirely. Some are twisted like the champion on the battlefield, their torsos detaching from their hips and spraying bodily fluid all over the space until the fleshy walls seethe with power. The man is wrapped up and brought so close she can smell the fear on his breath, the blood of his comrades mixed with the sweat from his skin travelling down his temple.
"Perhaps," she hisses, clutching at a fistful of his hair. "But did your father never tell you not to disturb the monster in the dark?"
She pulls at his hair until she hears the distinct snapping of his spine, tendons popping and releasing as the bone drives through his throat and into the open. There is only a modicum of satisfaction at his wheeze before the light leaves his eyes, overshadowed by the carnage around her and the rapidly fading excitement. The slow drip of blood dribbles from every corner of the room, some corpses even hanging from the large wooden beams that make up the ceiling. Everywhere she turns she sees bodies, accusing eyes glaring outwards from lifeless faces.
Here, trapped in a room that looks akin to a belly of a monstrous beast, Santana feels no greater than the carnage she has created.
Her mind goes outwards, searching, yearning for a pulse—all lays still and silent in the wreckage, people choking on their own blood in their homes. She slowly retracts her tendrils, their slickness upsetting in the hollow of her back, until they rest still and silent once again. Her flesh heals swiftly where the fire has eaten it away.
A small shuffle catches her attention and she spins, hand open and ready to strangle, but she falters as she becomes aware of the lone figure. A girl soaked in blood sniffles in the corner, clutching the remnants of what must be her father's arm. She mustn't be anything more than a few winters younger than Santana... fourteen, at the least. Her age is not what concerns Santana—she twitches in her desire to run her fingers through the hair that looks so close to what she used to know, smooth and gold even bloodied as it is. Her sea-storm eyes fill with tears as she looks into the gaze of the thing that killed her village and accepts her fate; a blow that never comes.
Wordlessly, Santana opens the door of the hall, letting the night spread out before them.
"You will not last until morn," she says softly, but makes no move to pursue.
The girl's vision darts around for the other voices that speak with her assailant; finding none, she carefully inches her way to the door before taking off at a sprint, dropping the arm as she runs. The scent of blood follows her out into the darkness.
With the crisp night air once again licking at her skin, she remembers her original purpose. How foolish it seems now, how... pointless. She requires no clothing at all. Still, she stoops down to the first corpse she can find, tugging at the tunic it sports with her hand. A small strip comes away, soaked in blood, and with it the thoughts of the man before she tore him apart. She flinches and almost drops it entirely, but the terror in his thoughts as he died makes a thought of her own dawn, resigned.
Brittany deserves better than this.
She kneels on the fleshy ground and bows her head, allowing her mind to touch at the patchwork barrier she had created to keep the voices away. Brittany's aura hovers anxiously, vigilant, waiting and watching for the slightest crack in her resolve. Even through the blockage she feels her worry, and it tears her between guilt and pleasure.
She places her hand on her barrier and feels Brittany do the same, her warmth seeping through her left palm. Glimpses of memories from moons past flood her mind; calmer times. She swallows hard and allows herself to let the darkness pour outwards, solidifying that bandaged barrier.
In the time it takes for her to complete the seal she finds herself sucked into another realm, staggering for a moment before gaining her bearings. A quick glance around reveals the sky split in two between moon and sun, straddling the barrier between life and death. She stands on the coarse, desecrated ground, her feet pressing over bones of the slain, the gentle breeze licking at strands of her hair. Brittany stands opposite, her booted feet crushing the emerald grasses, sun reflecting off her beautiful hair. They smile but the gesture is full of nothing but longing.
"Why are you doing this, San?" Brittany asks softly, touching the invisible barrier that keeps them separated. Santana does the same, fitting her palm against the impression.
"I have to," she replies, feeling the phantom embrace of blood on her skin. "For you."
"Please, sweetheart... I didn't mean the things I said. Just come back, we can sort this out."
"You did, though." Santana smiles sadly. "I understand now... at least, more than I did before. You deserve better."
"Damn it, Santana, I don't care what I deserve! I just want you!"
But she remembers the dying and the screaming, the people being torn apart and the joy as their blood rained down upon her, the fulfilment and the utter lack of control.
The image of Brittany being the one caught in her grasp is enough to make her stomach churn.
"I want you to be safe! I want you to not have to look over your shoulder all the time, or watch me as I sleep so that I don't strangle you. Britt, whatever happened, it changed me. I'm not the person I used to be."
Brittany's smile is soft, but she sees the edges of desperation underneath.
"Neither am I, San. We can be changed together."
The thought is so tempting that she almost raises her fist to shatter the divide between them and take Brittany in her arms, to cradle her close and never let go. But this new darkness she feels in the pit of her chest is not convinced nor swayed by the notion of happily ever after, and it craves something Brittany would never wish to give.
"You know I love you, right?"
She sees the hope bloom on Brittany' face, vibrant as the spring flowers of Yggdrasil.
"I love you too. So, so much."
Her vision blurs with tears as the allows the darkness to spread from her hand and across the barrier, darkening it, phasing Brittany from sight. The Old One is gone but not forgotten, always lurking around the next hidden corner - if a single touch wounded her warrior so, she has no intention of knowing what its embrace disguised as her own could do.
(Or is their touch the same now? Could she hurt as much as she wants to heal?)
"Even if you forget everything else... never forget that."
Brittany runs along the separation, banging her fists uselessly against the wall holding them apart. Stop it, her mouth says, but the sound has been silenced. I love you, stop it, and Santana's lips return the sentiment even as her hand remains anchored.
Fitting, that this is the only time I decide not to be selfish. The thought gives her no comfort as the barrier finishes its metamorphosis and becomes a looming black mountain that hides the sun from sight. Their connection severs and Brittany is gone from her thoughts, just the vague echo of her heartbeat pounding in her chest that Santana cannot erase.
She shakes on the ground and wills herself not to break the barrier that has now been set in stone, desperately aching for her lover's touch. For her, she keeps repeating, for her soul, but the reasoning makes it hurt no less. With another sob she grips the piece of torn tunic so hard her own blood joins the mix, tainting the cloth. His memories swirl with her own and an idea forms.
Getting up on wobbling legs, Santana staggers about the space and slowly gathers a strip of clothing from each of the fallen, draping it over her shoulders. The darkness fuses the pieces together tenderly so that they do not fall from her body; wrapping around her torso, embracing her legs, dangling from her arms. Each and every farm is visited, their walls still wet with dripping blood, and she gingerly pulls part of a pant leg from the little boy's trousers that she curls around her forearm, running up her bicep until it sticks, her power melding the fabric together. Eventually, she wears a strip from each and every corpse, their memories clashing and screaming where it touches her skin.
Every time she falters in destroying their connection, all she has to do is remind herself of who she wears.
With a deep sigh, Santana spins her shadowed web and closes her eyes for the night.