I initially posted this over on my tumblr first, with both the prologue and the first chapter. It's only fair I do the same over here. Future updates are going to be a lot slower than this though!
1.
And when the lark, 'tween light and dark,
Blythe waukens by the daisy's side,
and mounts and sings on flittering wings,
A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide
- Composed in Spring, Robert Burns
Piotr Danao does not awake from his thirteen year coma like one would awake from natural sleep, not as though a peaceful awakening nor as though a nightmare.
Rather, Piotr awakes almost as though he was never gone. One instant, his body is still, almost lifeless. The next, golden eyes snap open and a heaving, shuddering breath is sucked down his throat, fighting downwards against the scream still surging up it.
His eyes flicker around the room, almost unseeing, a years old panic burrowed deep into his bones awake before the rest of his mind.
He has but one coherent thought. A continuous, looping rote, echoing against his mind and his heart alike.
where is he he's in danger I have to find him where is he he's in danger I have to find him where is he he's in danger I have to find him where is he he's in danger I have to-
This thought is what drives him to attempt to get up, only to quickly discover the effect that a thirteen year long coma, even a thirteen year long magical coma, will have on one's body.
He feels it the moment that the support of his limbs gives out and gravity takes holds. With a yelp, he flings his weakened arms up to shield his head and waits for impact.
Impact never comes.
Instead, he feels a sudden jerk against his chest, the fabric of his shirt going suddenly, sharply taut against it, as though someone has grabbed the back of it. Through the gap in his arms, he could almost swear that he sees a faint purple glow outlining his shadow on the floor.
But then the door is opening and the strange force holding him upright vanishes and gravity grabs hold of his again.
The impact doesn't come this time either. There is a flash of light that his bleary mind recognises as a soulblink and instead of his face meeting hard wooden floor, he finds himself caught and bundled back up into his bed by strong, firm arms.
He blinks up at the person who caught him, sees locks of red hair framing blue eyes in an unfamiliar face that he feels like he should know, and then temporary dam that concern for his own safety built bursts and the panic floods back.
Where is he he tries to ask, his throat clenching and refusing to let him speak where is he is he safe I need to know where is he
He only barely hears the person holding him shouting for someone else, yelling for help, only barely hears the following rushing footsteps, only barely registers being shifted from one pair of arms to another, because his worry is a whirlwind, and whirlpool, and he is so deep down in it.
It is a voice that pulls him back. A familiar, familiar, important voice, reciting a choked but solid, unending litany of "it's okay, Piotr, it's alright sweetheart, I'm here, I've got you, it's okay," slowly but surely draws all the lingering parts of him fully into the world of the living, of the waking.
Things are beginning to slot into place, memories beginning to return and give his bleary, foggy mind clarity. His eyes flicker to the unfamiliar-and-yet-familiar face of the person who caught him before, and his mind layers the image of a giggling two year old over the teary eyes – the exact same face, oh-so-many years apart.
His heart aches to realise such a truth.
He looks upwards, up to the face of his mother, and his heart aches all the more seeing the lines on her face, the grey in her hair.
But there is something more important than missing years.
He reaches up with a trembling hand, holds onto her arm with a grip that is feeble but all the strength he can draw on right now.
"Mum," he chokes out, tears filling his own eyes, his voice rusty and cranky from years of disuse. He swallows despite his dry mouth and tries again to voice the question burning in his mind, his heart, his soul, seeking the answer he so desperately needs...
"Mum, where's Tomix?"
He doesn't believe it.
Doesn't. Mustn't. Can't.
He doesn't get an answer the first time he asks, or the second, or the third.
Mum and Katia don't seem to want to answer, keep changing the subject, insist he should eat, drink, there's plenty of time for other things later, it's been a long time- thirteen years Piotr, take time to recover, but there's a look on their faces that tells him he needs to know the answer.
When they say he should rest he snaps that he's had enough rest to last another thirteen years and things go very, very quiet. In the wake of that silence, feeling a little guilty, he asks the question one more time.
"Where's Tomix?"
And.
And they tell him.
And.
He doesn't. Doesn't believe it. Can't believe it because.
No.
It's not true.
It. It can't be true...but...
He remembers the feeling like his soul ripping in half and thinks. Maybe. Maybe it's true.
He scrunches his fists in the fabric of his bedcovers and asks quietly "why's he not here then? Does he have a soulweaver? Is he on a mission or something?" because death is death but death means something different to soulweavers and his brother might – might – be dead but he's not. he can't be. he's not gone.
But his mother and his sister share a stricken Look and somehow he knows.
"No," he says, voice breaking almost as much as his heart. "No no don't don't say it no don't he's not-"
"Piotr," his mother says, her hold around him tightening just a little bit. "Piotr, he... Tomix didn't become an elemental spirit,"
He heaves, rips one hand from clutching the fabric beneath him and grabs the fabric of his shirt, right over his heart. He grabs hold of his mother with the other hand and hot, wet tears flow uninhibited down his face.
He feels her arms wrap around him even more tightly, even more securely, and he heaves and sobs and he wants to scream but he can barely even breathe enough to gasp and-
No.
No. It's not. It can't be true. It's not.
He doesn't mustn't can't believe it.
Tomix isn't-
He can't be-
It's not-
He heaves and he sobs and he just. Let's himself fall apart in his mother's arms, whimpering when he wants to scream to the stars and feeling so much more pain than any child, any person, should ever have to.
"Where's Tomix?" he asks, again and again, knowing he needs the answer.
"He's gone," is the answer that he gets.
But.
But. He remembers that purple glow. Remembers not falling and striking the ground when he should've.
"Tomix is gone," they answer his question with.
No says his heart, his soul, even as his mind and body weep and grieve. No.
That is the wrong answer.
