ARD
Somewhere beyond the thick and heavy veil of disassociation, Ard was vaguely aware of a voice that didn’t belong to his brother. Almost like a song it sang to him, luring and beckoning, soft and melodic and not at all like the cruel, ghostly echoes of Vreis’ hateful whispers and insults. ’I’m sorry,’ it sang, causing a flare of confusion to rise within his tight breast. The voice was sorry? Whatever for? Ard had been the one to not listen. He was the one deserving of punishment.
’You’ll never be free of me,’ Vreis had once whispered, looming over the young warlock like a visceral, hedonistic god of lore, his eyes burning coals of blackness and eternal damnation, ’Even when I am dead and gone, you will never be free.’ A promise, a vow, and one that Ard knew he would never rid himself from… Yet, curiously, the more that he listened to this new voice, the more obvious it became that it was not Vreis at all.
A woman beckoned him, her voice close and closer still. His breath hitched in his throat, vision coming back to his downcast eyes, whisking him away from that terrible place of shadows and painful memories. Weakness stole across his limbs, replacing bone with rubber, a deep tremble coming over him and causing his legs to quiver and quake like a newborn foal. A gasp left his lips, a sharp, dramatic inhale as if he had been held under water, and he wavered, unsteady.
’Come back.’
Immediately Ard could feel Erd pressed up intimately against his side, holding him steady and upright. Bright, wide turquoise eyes blinked slowly as the world shifted back into focus, and what he saw nearly startled him back a step. Were he not feeling so weak and shaky, he probably would have. The woman of crimson flame that they had met by the glowing pool lay before him, her legs tucked close as she stared up at him imploringly with eyes of rich molten gold. She was speaking, he realized, pulling him from the depths of his own mind.
’You’re safe here, you’ll never be hurt like that when I’m here. I’m sorry, little dove.’ Little dove. Dove. The warlock’s heart ached and he swallowed, tears springing unbidden to his eyes. Dove. His breath hitched within his throat, something raw and terrible clawing its way from the deepest part of him. No one, save for his precious brother, had ever called him such a thing with unwarranted tenderness. Dove.
“I-I’m h-here,” he stuttered without thinking, blinking slowly, blearily, feeling lightheaded and weak as though his wobbly legs could do nothing to hold him upright. “I’m s-sorry.” The words that escaped dark, trembling lips were more a whisper, raspy from disuse like he had been drinking gravel. He quaked, shivering, the shock of it all slowly ebbing away and leaving him with every resource drained. “Erd?”
Turning his head just so, Ard caught sight of his twin pressed close against him, Erd’s muzzle only inches away and his expression cast in a terribly uncertain, pinched frown. He stared, catching his brother’s eye, and reached out for that physical confirmation that all was well, that nothing would hurt him, that this woman was telling the truth. Weakness stealing his functions and voice, the younger warlock grew quiet once more, letting his brother speak for him.
After all, they never had needed words to communicate before.
