"Uhh... five more minutes, okay?" Henry twitched and yawned, "I'll even replenish your stash of Firebeetles... later..." But whatever it was that kept nudging him did not stop. He rolled around begrudgingly, expecting to roll into the wall to his left, and winced as there was no wall.
Henry's eye jolted open and for a moment he stared at the faintly illuminated floor, only then registering the distinct rushing of water closeby, when suddenly something loudly clacked in front of him.
Henry squeezed his eye shut at the wild static in his head and, with how badly his skull ached, it took a moment for him to rekindle his echolocation. When he then could make out his surroundings he froze and slowly raised his gaze to check whether his echolocation was working properly. Whether there really sat a...
"Are you hurt?"
Henry stared at the fiery red, six-feet-long lobster in front of him for a full five seconds before he remembered his echolocation had registered there were two. He twitched around and cried as he spotted the second pincher inches behind him. Its eyes sat on long stakes and it gazed down at the boy with unconcealed curiosity.
"Are you hurt?", the first one repeated, its voice was so distorted and low-pitched Henry could not use it for echolocation. As it stepped closer, it produced the distinct clacking again, and the boy dazedly nodded. "I'm fine... wait", his head shot up and he unbelievingly stared at the gorgeous, orange-glowing lake in front of him. At the loudly rushing waterfall. The waterfall... he blinked, there was something about a...
Henry cautiously attempted to pull himself forward, towards the water, yet winced as a sharp sting shot through his hand. Like in slow motion he turned his gaze down and unbelievingly stared at the violent, scarlet network of lines tearing his skin. The bleeding must have just stopped. His gaze met the spot where he had lied and found it smeared with blood.
Henry's eye darted back to his own hand, he slowly raised it, then his vision fixated on the scenery behind. He frowned. He had been holding... holding onto... The memories cut through the mist that had clouded the boy's mind and drove themselves into his heart like iron nails.
The lake... Henry blinked. The... waterfall. His head shot up and he heaved himself to his feet somehow, staggering forward. "DEATH!"
It took an eternal moment of silence for his brain to process the images his echolocation sent him so much it understood the flier was not here.
"D... Death...?" Henry took another step forward, then twirled around to the pinchers, nearly slipping in his own trail of water and blood. "Where's... there was a flier... here", he vaguely gesticulated in the direction of the lake and attempted to control the frantic beating of his heart. "There was a... where is he?"
If I survived the waterfall, he must have too. Henry swallowed and stared intensely at the pair of pinchers who exchanged glances. Then again... The boy froze mid-movement and stared down at his drenched clothes, for the first time registering he must be badly banged up. His legs barely carried his weight and every inch of his body ached.
He must have fallen down the waterfall too... Henry swallowed again, yet... when and how HAD he even fallen? He did not remember.
"Which flier?", one of the pinchers at last asked and Henry frowned. "W... what do you mean, which flier?" There could only be one flier here, he barely kept himself standing as his head began to spin. "Black, with a white face", he mumbled, "and a scar, here", Henry raised a shaking hand to run it over where his right eye had once been, down to his cheek. "He was here, right?" He must have been here, how else would he –
"Oh that flier", one of them excitedly clicked his enormous claw. "That flier is not here. That flier we saw on our way here. Briefly, but we saw."
The boy frowned. "On your... wait, where was that? And what do you mean, on your way here?" His head spun so badly he thought he would collapse any moment. Why was Thanatos not here? Why was he not here to nudge him awake instead of the pinchers, why was he not...
A sudden reflex to gag overwhelmed him and the boy at last collapsed beside the lake. His vision blurred, his own frantically hammering heart clogged his ears and he gagged again.
You are a parasite. A parasite that has attached itself to me, and will not let go. Why will you not let me go? Let me go. Let me... go.
His fist clenched so hard he soon sensed fresh blood oozing out of the cuts yet at that moment he barely felt it. He leaned forward and threw up. Over and over until his stomach ached with emptiness and the bitterness of bile burned his throat and mouth.
Why was he even surprised? The boy was still leaning over the water, trembling so hard he barely kept himself up. His skull pounded with dull pain. It is what he wanted from the get-go. To rid himself of the parasite. To rid himself of...
Something wet ran down his cheek. It was a dream. The boy squinted furiously and shook his head. A dream. A... nightmare. Just another nightmare. Any moment now I will wake, and I will be back with Kismet, and it will be like before... His mouth opened and out came a nigh-frantic laugh. Like before... Like before... Like...
"Are you alright?"
The boy winced and twirled around as a voice sounded behind him. For a heartbeat he glanced at the concerned pincher, his eyes were narrowed. "I... yeah. Yeah, I am...", he hesitated, then broke into more laughter. The pincher retreated at once, glancing back at his friend helplessly.
"We saw you fall", he hesitantly spoke, "fall down the waterfall. Yet you were sleeping. The water is dangerous for one like you if you are sleeping, so we fished you out. Yet we can not stay", one of his eye stakes twitched, "will you be alright?"
The boy's laughter abated and for a moment he remained silent, then leaped to his feet. "Oh yeah, GO!" The pincher winced, yet the boy staggered forward at them, flailing his arms frantically. "GO! LEAVE! GET THE HELL OUT!" His legs nearly gave way and the boy squeezed out a last curse in their direction. They were retreating. They were leaving... leaving...
His gaze darted back at his hand. "You...", his voice was shaking yet he forced the words out, "You... you can't LEAVE ME!", he cried and took a step back. "You CAN'T LEAVE! YOU CAN'T!" His voice echoed from the walls through his ringing ears. He could not leave. He had not the right. He was...
The boy took another step back and barely registered he was standing in ankle-deep water. Our life and death are one. The words filled him up until he thought he would burst with... with... Our life and death are one, we two. He had promised.
The boy at last collapsed where he stood. The outskirt of the pleasantly warm lake gently swayed around him. He had... suddenly the voice speaking the familiar words shifted. Our life and death are one, we two. The boy stared at the drop of blood making its way down the rim of his thumb until it hit the water. The simple drop pierced his ears like a blade.
Ares... had promised.
His mind flashed with an image of the High Hall. Of festive robes and ceremonial, proud faces. Of Luxa doing a little happy dance around him, constantly pleading for him to join. Of Nerissa gazing at the scene with gentle content.
Ares the flier I bound to you.
He had promised. The boy raised his hand and tightened it to a fist until he could barely stand the pain. He had promised. And he had...
His mind flashed with the image of Ares zooming in on the falling shape of Gregor. Of Ares disappearing out of sight, relinquishing him to the looming abyss.
Not dead yet, are we? The boy winced when the second voice then spoke. Sensed the impact, the violent tug when he had been yanked up by his leg. A... slingshot, he thought. An execution. An arena. An... alliance.
Oh, be still, you great master of survival, the stink will at least conceal our presence. Who did you whine to while I was absent? Or did you preserve it all for me?
He watched passively as another drop of blood made its way down the back of his fist. It stretched further than anyone could see, to all sides. The water. It was... water.
We will fly again. He trembled so excessively he could barely see his hand anymore. We will fly, fly over... the waterway, like you wanted. I promise. We will fly together.
A... His hand fell limp and hit the gently swaying water. A... bond.
He frowned and looked up, his eye met the ever-rushing waterfall. Was it not... a bond? He blinked and barely suppressed the rattling of his teeth.
He had already thought this over, had he not? Back at that cave in the Dead Land, he had concluded he and Ares had not been bonds. Not truly. Not as bonds were supposed to be. And he had also...
I've always wondered... The voice dripped with so much contempt the boy squinted. I meant to ask, but I guess now I know why your former bond let you fall... I only wish I would have had the strength to do it too.
"Then... tell me!" He winced at the sound of his own crackling voice. He had not a clue who he had expected to reply, yet each passing silent second drove another nail into his heart. Why would nobody tell him? His eye ran up the waterfall, then over the lake, looking, searching for...
"Why will you not... talk to me?" He had meant to scream yet his voice betrayed him and all that came out was a hoarse cough. It was a bond. The words relentlessly hammered at his skull. A bond. A bond. A real... bond. In life, in death, in war, in strife.
You take, and take, and take. His head jerked up. He had half expected to stare into the so familiar amber, gazing at him with concern... contempt... ice. And I give, because it is all I can do!
"Take...?" A coughing fit overwhelmed the boy and he barely mustered up the strength to raise his head again when it abated. He takes and takes, and it is always I who compromises. It is always I who... is it not supposed to go both ways? He sat still as stone as the voice hesitantly spoke. The voice of... not his second bond. His first. You take, and take, and take.
"T... take?"
Your presence is nothing short of suffocating, did you really not ever catch that? The boy heaved. You take, and take, and take. And I... give.
It was like something struck him in the face. He barely sensed the rest of his body give way, barely perceived the splash of water as the back of his head hit the surface. His eye narrowed and he passively watched the ghastly patterns the water painted on the ceiling.
It had never been the flier, on the other side of the ice. Sharp images dug their way into his heart, clawed away at it relentlessly. Let... go. He had understood it even then. It was never he who stood passively, watching it all crumble between their fingers. It was... me.
He knew not for how long he lied there, the soft waves washing around the outskirts of his hair. He truly was a parasite, the thought burned itself into his heart like hot iron. A parasite who sucked dry of life everyone he touched. Who could only ever take, and take, and take, and take, and take, and take... Why could he only take? Why had he never given?
His chest rose as he took a shaky breath. It had never been the shallow nature of his and Ares' bond. It had not even been how he hadn't truly understood what a bond was, at the time. His fists clenched so hard his nails nearly pierced his skin.
He hadn't understood then, yet... Did he understand now? His eye shut tightly and he didn't attempt to stop the first tear from running down his cheek.
Henry the human I bound to you.
The tears soon turned to streams, relentlessly making their way down his face. It had been a second chance. A second... If only I would have had the strength to see what you were from the get-go. Before you shackled us to each other. Before it was... too late.
And here he was. A wave of violent self-loathing nearly crushed his ribcage like an enormous boulder. Exactly where he had been before. Like he had not learned a single thing. Like he was still the worthless, pathetic boy he had been then. Wallowing in misery over having lost his second bond... for the very same reason he had lost his first one.
Of course he seeks to get as far away from me as he can. Out of all who could have fallen that day, out of all who I could have saved... what have I ever done for the universe to hate me so much it sent me you?
The words burned like acid yet now all he could think was... why indeed? Why couldn't he have died that day? The boy nearly laughed. It would have been so much easier had he died, then and there. As he had been supposed to.
The thought swelled until it permeated his every fiber and rang in his head as a never-ending scream. The boy squinted in pain, only then registered he was digging his nails into the back of his hand. He passively watched them pierce his skin until he sensed hot blood beneath his fingertips.
Maybe it was for the best that he was gone. He would be better off now. The boy nearly smiled. He would be free now. Free of the parasite. Free to find wherever he could be... happy.
The boy had lost all sense for the passage of time. Hours must have passed... perhaps days. He could not care less. It was not like it mattered anymore. Not for him.
Even if he wanted, he knew perfectly well he had not the strength to get up anymore. Not now, not ever again. What for, even? There was nowhere to go, nothing to see, or do. Nothing to fight for. Nothing to... live for.
If he could not learn, if he could not ever be anything but who he had been back then... there was no place for him in this world. No need, no want... not even a right. Some beast may claim him, or he would succumb to blood loss... thirst... hunger... it was all the same.
His eye flickered to the ever-streaming waterfall. Had he the strength to move, he thought he could die here and there, yet his body would not obey him, so all he could do was lie, still as stone. A stone standing firm against the breaking waves. Was it what he would be soon?
Everyone can be broken... all that is needed is a breaking point. He had fought valiantly, the boy thought and his eye fluttered shut. He had struggled, and screamed, and battled the world for every ounce of life in his body... and he had lost. Now he had.
Had his throat obeyed him, the boy would have screamed as something suddenly yanked him up by his arm. His eye flung open again and he meant to protest, meant to cry for whatever it was to leave him, yet not a single sound made its way out of his mouth.
He was loaded on someone's back and his mouth opened again, yet all that escaped him was a strained groan. The last he remembered before his body and brain shut down to release him into the black void of unconsciousness was the fur against his face. Fur so light it shone almost... white.
The boy knew not how much time had passed when he slowly faded back into consciousness. The first thing he registered was that someone had placed a piece of fabric under his head and draped some sort of blanket over him. He meekly tugged at it, his whole body was much too dry and hot.
As he moved his hand out from under it his elbow hit something. The contents of his backpack had been spilled next to him. It was all moist, he registered, and only now his gaze met the steaming crates in the middle of the cave.
"I was beginning to wonder how long it would take you to wake", a voice snarled from his right and the boy's head twitched in its direction despite the striking image his echolocation produced of Kismet.
His gaze locked on her, cowering in the entrance to the cave... her cave, he had recognized it at once. He did not even need to look at the boulder separating the collected cooled water from the steaming spring.
For a second that seemed to stretch into eternity, he stared at her, then seething anger boiled up in his innards. "You should have left me alone", he coughed out and pushed the blanket off. Yet when he meant to rise, his head pulsed with pain, and his vision blackened so he fell back and groaned.
"Easy", the scarred rat stepped closer and the boy glared at her, then raised his hand to pick up the blanket and toss it away, only to find it tightly wrapped in stained bandages.
"W... what..."
"Not only have you a somewhat serious concussion", Kismet walked over to pick up the blanket and fold it, then took it to lie in a corner, "that hand of yours doesn't look well either. It had shown signs of infection yesterday, you even came down with a light fever."
The boy stared up at her and thought she had seldom ever looked so concerned. Instinctively, his left hand shot up and as soon as he placed it on his forehead he sensed the dry heat of his own skin. He released a shaky breath and felt the uncomfortable temperature immediately.
"I could not wake you for more than a day."
The boy shot up on his sheet, despite the immediate spear of pain that pierced his head. "More than..."
"Drink", she pushed his own water bag at him. "You must hydrate at once, with how long you've been out." The boy slowly looked down at the water bag, then dropped back on his sheet and closed his eye. A surprised cry escaped his mouth when he was yanked up by his uninjured arm. "I said you must drink", Kismet hissed and dropped the water bag in his lap. "Lest I shove this thing down your throat whole!"
He stared at her for a full ten seconds, then silently picked up the bag. The moment he tasted the first drop he could not stop drinking until he had emptied the whole bag.
"Good", she scooped it back up. "And now rest. The concussion should take care of itself shortly if you do not overly strain yourself. About the fever..." Something else hit Henry's leg and he fixated on it, "there's medicine in that thing, I believe. I can not administer anything to you while unconscious, so take the damned stuff yourself."
The boy was much too weakened to protest. Without a word, he unclasped the waterproof container that had once again done its job well enough. She fished it all out of the lake, he thought as he grasped the bottle of antipyretic he had stored at the very bottom. With how useless his right hand was and how much his left one trembled he was surprised he managed to take a sip without dropping the bottle.
Screwing the lid back on. Slowly lowering the medicine into the container. Fiddling the clasps shut. It was all he could do. All he could focus on without leaving his mind time to wander.
With every passing second, his fear Kismet would ask for what had happened to put him into such a state grew, and his mind frantically reeled with possible answers – answers that were close enough to the truth so that she would understand yet far enough from it for him to be able to put them into words without...
"I trust you will tell me in due time... or not at all if you do not want to."
His head jerked up and he caught sight of her crooked yet pained smile.
"It is... a lesson the least of us must ever learn", she sighed, "I told you everyone can be broken, boy, yet a... surprisingly small amount ever are. You can not imagine how fervently I had wished you would not have to be one of us few."
Kismet was looking at him, he sensed it perfectly, yet he could not bring himself to take a bite. He had woken from unconsciousness a few hours ago and every second of it had been agony. He had to... do things now. To move. To ingest things. Kismet would not leave him a single moment of silence, not unless he did whatever she commanded.
His stare locked onto the raw fish in his lap. She had said his torch had dried enough to grill it, but he saw no point in it. Grilled... raw... fish... food... it was all the same. All insufferable.
"It will not be as bad after you have taken the first bite."
His jaw tightened and his finger listlessly poked the fish. Tore off a piece and raised it to his mouth. The boy nearly gagged as he swallowed, yet Kismet had been right. From then on it became easier, though not much.
"How is your fever?"
He moved not a muscle as she approached. Instead of insisting on an answer she leaned in and sniffed first his bandaged hand, then his face. "Your medicine seems to have done its job. It has at least gone down some."
The boy threw her a single, empty gaze, then he slouched to the side until he lied on the floor. The cool surface pressed against his still somewhat flushed cheek and his eye shut.
"Oh no, now is not the time for lying down", she snarled and grabbed him by the collar. The boy attempted to protest yet found himself too weakened.
"We have things to do. I will not have you sit around on your hide lazily, or did you forget?"
"I'm sick", he squeezed out yet Kismet relentlessly dragged him up. "Even when sick you can occupy yourself with something useful." She sat upright and pulled something from a pocket on the broad leather belt she had taken to wearing.
The boy leaned on the wall and felt his eye flutter, it would shut soon. Yet as soon as he closed it, he was taken back to the lake. It was like the water swayed around him gently again, lulling him into a false sense of security, then it suddenly boiled. His mouth opened and his eye jolted back open. "Why did you... why are you...", he struggled to formulate coherent words.
The old tome Kismet had fetched fell into his lap. "I have already told you", she stared at him from a narrowed eye, "I have, at this point, invested so much into you I can not let you give up. And for all I'm aware, dying brings with itself the same result. It would be a waste for all of us."
His jaw clenched. "I don't..."
"You don't, but I do. That is all that matters now." Her gaze suddenly grew softer than he had ever seen it. "Your spirits will rekindle soon, and then you will thank me for saving your life. And even if not", she hesitated, "that hardly matters. Take a look, won't you?"
"Why?"
"Why not? Or do you have anything better to do? Lying motionlessly does not count, by the way."
His jaw clenched harder and the boy slowly lowered his gaze at the book. His hand hovered above the cover, it must be ancient. "Legends of Ancient Greece", he slowly read aloud and swallowed.
"I have been calling you all these names, and only after you had left I realized I had never explained any of them to you. Particularly this one...", she sat before him and flipped through the pages to the latter half of the tome. The boy's gaze was met with a colorful illustration of a boy and a man draped in ancient robes, standing in a ginormous workshop. His left hand slowly raised and for a moment his mind flashed with an image of Teslas and the mysterious material Kismet had left in a corner the nibbler would not get to see now. Yet the arrow of pain that instantly shot through his heart had him quickly chase the image.
His eye flashed to the text beside the picture yet he could not understand a single word. His mouth opened yet before he could voice his concerns, Kismet cut him off – "It is not written in our language, yet I can tell you the story if you want."
The boy said nothing, only looked back at the vivid image.
"In the ancient Overland civilization Greece once lived a wise man named Daedalus", Kismet's claw pointed at the bearded figure of a man at least in his forties. "He was a grand inventor, famous across the whole continent for his skill. It was the King of the isle nation Crete who at last hired him to design and construct a great and inescapable labyrinth to contain a monster that terrorized his people." She turned the page and the boy gazed at the man in front of the entrance to a tunnel leading underground, holding up a plan of an intricate maze. Yet his eye was captured by the depiction of a bright light that shone above the man's head from a blue surface.
"Is that...", he ran his fingers over the fragile paper, "the... sun?"
Kismet smiled. "Indeed. I can show you more illustrations of it later if that is what you would like. Do you want to hear the rest of the tale?"
The boy only nodded, and she resumed – "So he built the labyrinth, and he swore to never share the secret to overcoming it with anyone. Yet when a brave hero named Theseus arrived to slay the monster and asked for his help, he broke his promise to ensure the monster would be killed."
She turned another page and the boy's eye widened at the image of a young man battling a creature with the body of a human and the head of a bull.
"The hero slew the beast and liberated Crete, yet the King became infuriated with Daedalus for he had broken his promise. So he imprisoned him and his son... Icarus in the very same labyrinth, and sealed the entrance."
The next image was of the two men, one the middle-aged Daedalus, one young, around his own age, in an underground room. The only way out was a gaping hole in the ceiling. "They lowered the prisoners' sustenance through there", Kismet remarked. "Yet of course, Daedalus was not contented staying imprisoned for the rest of his life. So, from the feathers of passing-by birds, Daedalus meticulously constructed two pairs of wings, one for himself and one for his son."
Before he could ask what a bird was – or a feather – Kismet turned the page and his jaw dropped. The boy's fingers trembled as he carefully touched the image of a golden shimmering pair of wings on something like a rack. They looked not like flier wings and he squinted, sensing a lump form in his throat. To fly out of... he swallowed. To fly...
"He glued them together with candle wax, and announced to Icarus they could use them to fly to freedom. And the wings worked exactly as they should!"
"You...", he cut her off with a hoarse voice, yet before he could prevent her from turning the page, his eye met the dazzling image of the two men wearing the wings, surrounded by the strange blue, and shone on by a bright sun. His mouth opened like in protest and he drew back until his back hit the wall, yet he could not avert his eye. To fly...
"And even though his invention worked...", Kismet sighed, "he had warned him. Before they had taken to the sky, he had warned his son not to fly too close to the water for drops may dissolve the wax of his wings, and not to fly too close to the sun either. It is hot, you know? It will melt the wax, and you will plummet to your death, he said."
The boy stared at the image, unable to turn. He wanted not to hear any more, his breaths grew rapid. He wanted not to hear this. To fly. To... his arm raised and his lip quivered. To fly... the memory of the sensation rushed back like an overwhelming flood and he gasped for air.
"Henry?"
His head shot up and for a heartbeat, he stared at Kismet with an expression close to panic, then he leaped to his feet. The rat was so surprised she barely caught the book that had slipped from his lap.
The boy stormed out of the cave. He barely watched for where he was going. His head spun and he had to lean on the wall as he nearly blacked out. Yet it was nothing against the searing pain that had torn down the walls of numbness around his heart, threatening to drown him.
He had to get out. The thought clogged his head as he stumbled ahead, his barely functional echolocation illuminated the way only sparsely, yet he cared little. They would... fly together, he had said. The boy gasped. He was not... here. Why was he not here? Despite his condition, he felt himself pick up speed. Where... where was he...?
"D... Death?" Be here, it rang deafeningly in his ears. His uninjured hand found the cool wall and his forehead leaned against it. He was here... he had to be here... he had promised.
"Henry?"
When a voice behind him called he jerked back from the wall. This was not the voice he searched for. He knew the voice, yet it was not the voice he wanted. Not the voice he...
The lake – it flashed in his mind – the lake. He had to get back to the lake. He had been there, at the lake. The pinchers had seen him. They had seen him so he would be there. His feet carried him forward on their own. By this point the boy knew the way so well he barely paid attention to where he stepped. All else he shut out. The cacophony of screaming sounds, the voice that called, and called again.
He had to run. To escape. Was he... being pursued? Or was the voice in his head, like all the others? It was the lake – the image had burned itself onto his inner eye, and the prospect of it made the agony bearable. I will fly, he opened his mouth to scream it out yet no sound escaped him, if only I can reach it. If only I can...
As soon as he perceived the first outskirt of orange glow his pace quickened until he ran, shakily yet undauntedly, towards his salvation. It was there, and with it there would be his flier, to assure all was well, all was as before. To carry him far from here, to safety. To carry him... home.
When he at last staggered out into the wide cave and took in the lake, the waterfall, and the ghastly patterns the glowing water threw on the walls, he for the first time stopped.
The boy blinked, to look again. To see if he had been wrong, if he had missed something. He stumbled forward and opened his mouth for a hoarse cry.
The cave was gaping empty.
It was not until he sensed the warm water around his bare legs when he realized he had not stopped walking. The boy stared at the waterfall ahead and his legs failed him then and there. When, an agonizing moment later, a large paw brushed his back, his body was quivering with desperate sobs.
He had no idea how long he had sat there, weeping unlike he had ever wept, yet he only looked up when Kismet spoke. "He... he became too reckless."
He could do nothing but stare at her with a swollen, sunken eye.
"Icarus", she whispered, "he rose higher and higher until the heat of the sun dissolved the wax of his wings and he plummeted into the sea."
The boy swallowed. "I also flew too high", he pressed out, "too recklessly, and... and for as much as I try, I can not swim..."
Log 451208
I have to go back there. Why will she not let me go back there? If he comes back I have to be there, if I'm not there he won't know I'm searching for him. I must be there when he comes back. I don't care what Kismet says, I'm going back. I'm going to check and one day he will be there, and then it'll all be worth it. And then he'll be there and we can go back home, and I can
Why will Kismet not leave me alone? I don't want to do her stupid shit, I don't want to even hear her stories. Are they all designed to be teaching some valuable lesson it's too late to learn because I don't want to hear it. It's only making more noise and I don't want any more noise. I don't want there to be noise anymore. It creeps in on me and I can never shut it out. I want it to go away but I don't know how. If I stab a blade into my ears will it stop?
How do I make this go away? How do I make this all stop? I want to wake up. It's never been hard to... exist. It has always taken care of itself. I don't want to take care of it anymore. I don't want to do anything. Not even write this log. But it's either that or scream until I go deaf, and I tried that. Kismet won't let me. If she forces me to do one more thing I will
"Come down from there, Achilles, will you?"
The boy moved not a muscle as he sensed Kismet beside him, high up on the pillar. He had once passed the threshold here, enthralled by the incredible sounds and images it had painted, yet now all he wished was for the world to be quiet. To leave him. To –
"You have not eaten anything yet today. Aren't you hungry?"
His lips pressed together and he did not look at her as she climbed the pillar. "Besides, since when do you ever take this thing off? Are you not happy I got it back for you from out of that lake?"
The boy winced as he spotted what she held out to him. "No, get it away from me." His hands shot up to cover his face.
"Oh? Was it not once your precious?", she snarled and twirled Mys around, "This tooth you have cut from King Gorger – allegedly – you once told me it was your most prized possession."
His eye shut tighter. He had not even glanced at the dagger, ever since the waterfall. He could not. Not with all the memories that clung to it like invisible weights. Not with how... You are not seriously tying this discarded tissue around the handle of your dagger? It is TISSUE! Oh Henry, what are you even –
"Fine", she settled beside him. "Henry, you...", she sighed, "I... I know you wish to go back to that lake. Yet we both know nothing will come of it. Not if you spend as much time there as you did recently, waiting for... for someone who isn't coming. It has barely been a week and you –"
"Shut up!", he hissed and pressed his hands to his ears. "Shut... don't..." Someone who isn't coming. His throat lumped and he pulled his knees on.
This was how it had gone all day, every day. She would not leave him alone. The world would not leave him alone. If it was not Kismet, it was the agonizing noises. He had cursed himself many times, yet seldom regretted anything as much as having come here at all. Had he not come here, none of this would have happened. He could still be on the island, he could still be running his parkour, he could –
A sting of hot pain shot through his heart and he squinted. No... he did not want to be back on the island. Not with how things had been. With how he had acted. Like a helpless, whiny child.
Bring me this here, and do that for me there. Oh, the pain is unbearable, do something about it! I mean, I know very well you can not do anything, but do it anyway, won't you?
"Don't."
His head jerked up as Kismet touched his still bandaged hand. He stared down at it and forced himself to stop digging his nails into the back of his other hand. There were four marks, still visible against his pale skin. Two from the first time, two from three days ago when he –
"It will not make the other pain any easier." Kismet gazed at him with that look she had taken to wearing. Concern, and sympathy, and... there was something else, something he could not categorize.
"I have been thinking", she gave him an encouraging nudge, "now that you are strong enough again, what would you say if we revived and maybe re-structured that old parkour you used to love so?"
He did not even look up.
"Come on", she nudged him again, "you will be out of shape in a heartbeat if you do not exercise. Besides, there are other things to exercise other than your body."
"Go away..."
She pretended to not have heard. "You have become excellent at echolocation as is, yet your training can continue. Even a master can always learn something, you know? And I told you, there is an even more advanced way of utilizing the skill I like to call level three. You'll love it."
"I wish I'd never come here."
"Because then things would be as they were?"
He opened his mouth to reply, yet out came not a single sound.
"The thing with regrets is...", she sighed, "it is so easy to succumb to them. Yet the truly strong will grow from every mistake they make."
"I'm not STRONG THEN, OKAY?!", he blurted out and pulled his knees to his chest tighter. "I'm not..." Suddenly he felt as if a heavy boulder pressed on his chest, crushing his ribs, taking his breath away. "I wanted to... be strong", he could not prevent a sniff, "I would have done anything to be strong. But I don't want to be strong", he buried his face in his knees for her not to see his tears. "I want... want..."
His mind reeled and he found himself unable to finish the sentence. I want... he thought, and as it became apparent he had no clue as to what he wanted, apart from being rid of the relentless pain, he began sobbing.
He barely registered it at first. Though when the soft melody then crept into his ears and permeated his every fiber as the most pleasant sound he had perceived in ages, his sobs abated.
He knew not how much time had passed, all he focused on was the soft melody Kismet hummed, distinct yet unfamiliar. He wanted to ask for it, for what it was, for how a rat could even hum... but all he could do was sit, curled up tightly, and listen.
He felt younger than he had in a long time, and a part of him wanted to lean his head on her shoulder and cry until all his tears had run out, until all this wretched, unfamiliar, frightening emotion would go away. Until he could feel like himself again. Like... himself.
What was there left of him, even? All the thought of his own name made him feel was confusion. He felt not like "Henry" anymore. Not like what he had always associated with "Henry", at least. He was not... "Henry". Yet if he was not "Henry"... who was he then?
"Tell me... who was Achilles?"
Kismet stopped humming at once and gazed at him with confusion. "I thought you wanted not to hear any more stories?"
When he did not reply, she sighed. "If you insist...", she hesitated, then pulled the familiar tome from her belt pocket. He could not help but ask himself if she had secretly waited for this moment.
"Achilles...", she flipped through the book, "was allegedly the greatest warrior of Greece. Back then", she turned the page and he gazed at the fantastic illustration of a towering city, "Paris, the Prince of the city Troy, had kidnapped the wife of a Greek king. So he assembled all his allies to recapture her, which led to the ten-year-long Trojan War. Achilles was also drafted."
She turned another page and the boy peeked at the dazzling illustration of a muscular man in ancient armor, raising a golden shimmering sword.
"For a while, all went well, yet soon Achilles grew tired of fighting. He had little respect for orders or duty, he much more cared for his own entertainment."
"And that is why you compare me to him?"
"It... was the reason I first started calling you Achilles, that is correct."
He pressed his lips together and averted his gaze back to the book.
"Yet I have a feeling...", Kismet pondered and flipped another page, "I... well, in any case, without Achilles to fight for the Greek, the Trojans became bolder and soon dominated the battlefields. All attempts to convince Achilles to resume fighting failed, so... Achilles' best friend Patroclus, who had been drafted alongside him, devised a plan. He would don Achilles' own armor, for which he was widely known, and assume his identity, seeking to intimidate the Trojans. And so it was done."
A strange knot suddenly formed in the boy's stomach. "Stop!" He nearly tore the page Kismet had attempted to turn. "Please... stop."
Kismet gazed at him with a strange expression, yet remained silent. His lip had begun to quiver again and he could not avert his eye from the book.
"Fine. I can... tell the story another day", Kismet hesitated, then shut the book. "Yet you asked why I call you Achilles. His name. Do you know what it means?" The boy stared at her silently and she shook her head. "It means "he who is in pain"."
He would come. The boy stared out onto the glistening lake and dared not move a muscle as to not cause any unnecessary sound that would obstruct his ability to hear. He had to come. If he was here for long enough, he would... his eye squinted and he chased the rising doubts. Kismet could not command him. She knew not what he needed. That he... needed this. That he needed to be here. As often as possible. He needed no old tomes, or stories, or parkours... all he needed was to be here, to wait. He would come. Soon.
He had no feel for the passage of time. It was like he was in his own bubble in which time passed not normally. In which time... stood still. The boy smiled. He disregarded the tears that persistently welled up in his eye and smiled. Any moment now... any...
If he comes I will tell him. His smile widened. I will say all I couldn't say before. Like how I'm sorry for being selfish. For being childish. For being... a parasite. For being... me.
His chest tightened with this particular emotion he had felt so much of, over the last... what was it? A week? More? His gaze met his right hand. It was still bandaged though it hurt less now. It wouldn't hurt at all soon.
His own heartbeat pounded in his ears and he chased it angrily. That was not the sound he wanted to hear. The boy squinted and sat still. As still as when he had passed the threshold. For the first time in forever, he allowed the sounds of his surroundings to truly permeate him, vibrate his innards like the strings of an instrument. What... could he hear?
The volcano, of course. He blocked that out too. It was meaningless. Then beetles. Firebeetles. There were at least ten scattered in the cave and the surrounding areas. Also meaningless.
He squinted harder. There was... his brow furrowed and for a second his heart leaped with joy for he thought he heard something foreign... something that did not belong here. But his heart sank again when he understood it was not the sound of a flier. His eye darted open. What... had that been? His head twitched in the direction the sound seemed to come from.
His feet carried him to the exit nearly on their own. He had not told Kismet where he had gone, but he could not afford to care about that. If this was a source of danger he had to identify it. For Kismet. If she was in peril, if she would be attacked and killed because of him... he shuddered, then he would not be able to live with himself at all anymore.
It was a strange razor's edge he found himself walking now. He knew perfectly well there was nothing left worth living for. Yet... there was no imminent reason to die either. Where he existed was somewhere in between. In between life and death, heaven and hell. Purgatory, he almost smiled.
The boy strayed further and further, for nearly half an hour, and the sound he had faintly registered before grew and grew in intensity the longer he walked. Soon there was no doubt about what it was anymore and he instinctively drew his sword. If this was what he thought it was he stood no chance, yet he would have to defend himself to get away. To go and warn Kismet. To –
He stopped so abruptly his sole produced an uncomfortable scraping on the stone floor and stared at what lied ahead. In front of him stretched an enormous cave yet what caught his attention was the large sinkhole at the bottom of the path leading from his tunnel.
Stone bleachers. Bright braziers. He squinted and unbelievingly gazed at... a roaring, frantic audience. His grip on the hilt of his sword tightened and he took a step back, yet it was too late. Six of them he counted, guards who had been positioned nearby, all widely grinning, spiteful rats. They now encircled the opening of the tunnel he stood in and blocked his path. His knuckles shone white as he carefully raised his blade. He could never take six rats. Then again... a strange calmness smothered him. If he died by their claws now, he would not have to live with a guilty conscience. He would not have to live at all.
The first two he killed swiftly, before they could properly assess what deadly opponent they were facing. Yet as he watched the blood drip from his blade and took in the deathly silence he understood he was as good as dead. They had all spotted him now. All hundred or so of them he made out squatting around the sandy arena stared at him, eyes widened, amused, shocked...
He swallowed and fell into guard, attempting to keep his focus on the remaining four in front of him. Yet as he registered the first cowered down to leap at him, his eye he had shut to focus jolted open again.
"Oh no, no, no – you will not attack him!" His eye flashed over to the giant mass of brown fur that now strolled past the others, pushing the one who had cowered down away with force. "Have you not watched just now?"
The boy's grip on his sword tightened and all his attention focused on the rat. He did not like it, but he had to raise his head considerably to see him with his eye. The shine of the familiarly distinct braziers revealed a nearly seven-foot-tall, vicious-looking rat and, the boy squinted, what could have ever caused such a scar? It tore the entire length of his chest and sullied the otherwise shiny and neat brown fur.
"So", the gnawer eyed him up and down, then glanced at the corpses at his feet. "A human. Here. And he even knows how to fight. A rare sight indeed. And what brings you to this establishment of mine, if I may ask?"
Yet the boy's gaze was not on the rat. The... arena master. It was on the scene behind him. A corpse lied sprawled in the white sand, sullied with blood. Over it cowered a small, nigh pitch-black rat, its bloodied talons dug into the lifeless body of its opponent.
"Just... Curiosity." Instead of retreating, he took a step forward.
"Ah!", the arena master laughed. "Well then, know that I guarantee you will not be disappointed. After all, everyone knows Longclaw always hosts the most exciting of battles, does he not?"
A round of cheering followed his words and the boy gazed at him with a narrowed eye. "Is that so... Longclaw?" Perhaps if he played along, he let his sword hang limp without losing focus, he could still get away.
"Yes, yes, it is I, the great Longclaw", his grin widened and as he stepped forth, the boy couldn't help but notice the claws of his front paws seemed strangely damaged. Most grew crookedly, and some seemed to have seized growing at all. They were but useless, dull stumps.
"And...", Longclaw halted right in front of him, "if I may ask... who do I have before me, in that case?"
The boy blinked up at his looming figure and swallowed. He was... he... Then suddenly a name surfaced from the murky depths of his mind and he straightened out his back. "You have before yourself he who is called... Achilles."