August used to feel like he was lucky.
Maybe that’s a strange way to be, for a boy who lost his father when he was barely weaned and his mother not long after. But it seemed all that generation was born to bloodshed - certainly his Scarab family was, little cadre of orphans and unwanteds that they were. And youth are always resilient, too busy thinking of fucking and fighting to spend time worrying at scabs that eventually became scars.
By the age of four he had all he wanted - respect and prestige, a home and a steady sword hand, and as many drinks and card games as he wanted (always on the house, of course). He always held the winning card, and everything was as golden as the sheen of his coat.
He still can’t put his proverbial finger to the place where it all began to crumble. Some time around Raum, and the island. When Senna returned and Aghavni left. When he decided that the ocean must be the answer to the endless hunger in his heart. In the end, of course, it was only more saltwater.
He should feel lucky now - he’s alive, after all, at least as far as he can tell. No small feat, when the last thing he clearly remembered was collapsing against a tree sixty yards from a dead snow griffin. Everything after that felt like the hazy dreams of fever; Isra, slash-mouthed, no doubt disappointed. She must have been as good a healer as he’d always heard, another of her innumerable talents. Then the gleaming water, the biting cold of it, how good it felt to drink. And then - and then -
August groans, eyes still closed. His head is throbbing; it feels full of dark beating wings, a conspiracy of ravens being none too gentle with his skull. There had been terrible things in the half-conscious dark, things with shark’s teeth and gleaming wolves-eyes, things resurfaced from the grim dreams after the island. Whispers that felt so near they raised gooseflesh on his skin. He runs his tongue around his mouth, which feels at once sickly sweet and cotton dry. HIs pulse feels too thin and too quick, but the pain - the pain is background noise, a fog around the edges of his consciousness.
Isra? he thinks. But it is not Isra who speaks.
It’s a pleasant voice, low and sonorous, nothing that jars his fragile consciousness. Yet at once August goes tense and wary as a fox (or perhaps more precisely a hare). One at a time he peels open his eyes, and feels his pulse kick up again when there is only darkness, and then blurry, dim light. It takes him a moment to realize that he isn’t going blind, is just in a dark room - one that smells cool, and dusty, and complex over the scents of his own blood and bandages. Carefully he lifts his head, begins to roll to his knees - then settles back with a grunt when the wound on his shoulder reminds him searingly that it exists.
A few breaths later he tries again, only enough to peer around the room and find at first - nothing. Only on the second pass does he see the figure, cloaked in shadow, faint light glimmering off the ridges of his spiraling horns and catching in crescents in his eyes. That’s as far as August gets before he lays his head down again. Trying to force his mind to think is like trying to catch a night-market dragon of every color without getting scratched.
If he were going to be killed, he supposes, he never would have woken at all. It’s enough optimist to begin with, although the setting is not…encouraging.
“Do I have you to thank for that?” His voice is ugly, a hoarse rasp, but he’s amazed his tongue formed words at all, the way it felt like nothing more than a slab of meat. Encouraged, he tries a few more. "Where am I?" August watches shadows flicker on the ceiling, stretching and recoiling with the flickering light on the oil wicks, but the rest of his attention is trained on the man waiting in the dark.
@Erasmus
Maybe that’s a strange way to be, for a boy who lost his father when he was barely weaned and his mother not long after. But it seemed all that generation was born to bloodshed - certainly his Scarab family was, little cadre of orphans and unwanteds that they were. And youth are always resilient, too busy thinking of fucking and fighting to spend time worrying at scabs that eventually became scars.
By the age of four he had all he wanted - respect and prestige, a home and a steady sword hand, and as many drinks and card games as he wanted (always on the house, of course). He always held the winning card, and everything was as golden as the sheen of his coat.
He still can’t put his proverbial finger to the place where it all began to crumble. Some time around Raum, and the island. When Senna returned and Aghavni left. When he decided that the ocean must be the answer to the endless hunger in his heart. In the end, of course, it was only more saltwater.
He should feel lucky now - he’s alive, after all, at least as far as he can tell. No small feat, when the last thing he clearly remembered was collapsing against a tree sixty yards from a dead snow griffin. Everything after that felt like the hazy dreams of fever; Isra, slash-mouthed, no doubt disappointed. She must have been as good a healer as he’d always heard, another of her innumerable talents. Then the gleaming water, the biting cold of it, how good it felt to drink. And then - and then -
August groans, eyes still closed. His head is throbbing; it feels full of dark beating wings, a conspiracy of ravens being none too gentle with his skull. There had been terrible things in the half-conscious dark, things with shark’s teeth and gleaming wolves-eyes, things resurfaced from the grim dreams after the island. Whispers that felt so near they raised gooseflesh on his skin. He runs his tongue around his mouth, which feels at once sickly sweet and cotton dry. HIs pulse feels too thin and too quick, but the pain - the pain is background noise, a fog around the edges of his consciousness.
Isra? he thinks. But it is not Isra who speaks.
It’s a pleasant voice, low and sonorous, nothing that jars his fragile consciousness. Yet at once August goes tense and wary as a fox (or perhaps more precisely a hare). One at a time he peels open his eyes, and feels his pulse kick up again when there is only darkness, and then blurry, dim light. It takes him a moment to realize that he isn’t going blind, is just in a dark room - one that smells cool, and dusty, and complex over the scents of his own blood and bandages. Carefully he lifts his head, begins to roll to his knees - then settles back with a grunt when the wound on his shoulder reminds him searingly that it exists.
A few breaths later he tries again, only enough to peer around the room and find at first - nothing. Only on the second pass does he see the figure, cloaked in shadow, faint light glimmering off the ridges of his spiraling horns and catching in crescents in his eyes. That’s as far as August gets before he lays his head down again. Trying to force his mind to think is like trying to catch a night-market dragon of every color without getting scratched.
If he were going to be killed, he supposes, he never would have woken at all. It’s enough optimist to begin with, although the setting is not…encouraging.
“Do I have you to thank for that?” His voice is ugly, a hoarse rasp, but he’s amazed his tongue formed words at all, the way it felt like nothing more than a slab of meat. Encouraged, he tries a few more. "Where am I?" August watches shadows flicker on the ceiling, stretching and recoiling with the flickering light on the oil wicks, but the rest of his attention is trained on the man waiting in the dark.
@Erasmus
August - -
there's a lover in the story
but the story's still the same
but the story's still the same
