I'm ready to bleed to make amends And sleep in this dirt we call our bed So tell me your secrets And join me in pieces
To fall and rewrite the bitter end
Whooshing and ringing tormented Aeon as his consciousness was slowly regained. Eyelids squeezed shut, as though keeping himself blind would prevent the reality from manifesting. Pain washed over his entire body. He couldn’t piece much together beyond that he was upside down. The sensation of falling still troubled him, but he was reassured that he had indeed stopped falling by the pain of impact to the ground. Tattered wings splayed on the grass, his 4 legs pointing to the sky. The feeling was somehow soothing, the grass was soft and cool. Aeon had never felt grass this lush against his skin before.
His life this far had been spent picking thin blades from mountain sides and rummaging for nutrition. His herd had the capability of seeking greener grasses with their flying. Aeon’s wings were not ready to support his body weight yet, leaving him grounded for the time being. His Body was not reflective of his potential. Awkwardly long legs and a neck he was growing into showed his age for anyone who observed him.
He was covered in a thick layer of soot. It stuck to his flesh in all the scrapes and cuts from his tumbling and it stung. Nubbly stumps of horns starting to protrude caused the colt to leave with constant headaches. The niggling feeling of an itch started on his lower back. He wiggled trying to scratch it against the grass without much success. He felt dazed and still didn’t dare to observe where he had fallen. The little voice in the back of his head goaded him that maybe he couldn’t open his eyes, and maybe this blackness was due to his death. He snorted to himself at this invasive thought.
He was not surprised that he was alone. He suspected that no one would come looking for him either. The herd had fled when the volcano had begun to erupt. He was no one's treasured child, no one's heir or pride. A pegasus who can't fly is a burden upon a herd of flying creatures. They would likely assume he was consumed by magma and perished. Maybe he was dead already? The intrusive thoughts continued to goad him.
He opened one eye slightly and was flooded by bright light. Immediately he closed it again and groaned. That was enough bravery for now.
Bucky found himself comforted by these fields. This is where he had reunited with Liam — his childhood best friend, his saviour, his everything. During those long days when he found himself at a loss for what to do, he would come here to lose himself to his foggy recollection of memories. More recently he found himself pondering what he could remember about his supposed sister. What little he could bring forward was often accompanied by thoughts of Liam, like the three of them under that old fruit tree, giggling as they stole an apple or two from the well-tended orchard.
He was alarmed to find that he couldn’t remember her name. No matter how long or hard he looked back at those days, the magical tampering of his memories kept those walls in his mind intact. Time, he had been told, was the only solution. It had been years since he freed himself from his unwilling servitude, and yet Bucky found that time was a very slow healer.
There was a part of him that understood that he could just ask Liam about what he was remembering, but he didn’t wish to burden the sovereign anymore than he already was.
A quiet noise of frustration left the scarred stallion as he continued his roaming of the fields. Nothing had changed since he was last here a few days ago, except — he paused, brow furrowing as he realised that something had in fact changed. Rather, that something might actually be a someone. A sooty, ashen looking someone who certainly seemed to be in quite a state. From this distance Bucky couldn’t actually tell if what he was looking at was alive, or if he’d stumbled across some lightly barbecued corpse.
His expression twisted into one of displeasure at such a thought, but he started his approach carefully. Bucky was by no means a stranger to death — his entire existence was filled with violence. Yet as he came close it hit him just how young this someone was. Barely out of childhood from the looks of it, and he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell this boy had encountered to leave him in such a state.
Huffing softly, he wrinkled his nose at the ashy smell as he leaned his head over to take a look down at the soot-covered youth. “Are you still alive? Or should I start digging a grave?” He grumbled his question, “You look like something tried to cook ya.”
I'm ready to bleed to make amends And sleep in this dirt we call our bed So tell me your secrets And join me in pieces
To fall and rewrite the bitter end
The sound of a voice directly over him snapped him from his internal monolog. He opened his eyes and trembled at the sight of the adult above him. He tested one leg at a time, his wings trembling from the effort. “I think….” “I think…I’m alive.”He coughed with a wheeze. “Unless you’re an angel?”He tilted his head to the side, he’d never seen a horse with deep silver blue eyes before. He wheezed further “But I suppose an angel wouldn’t need to bury me; but I don’t think that's necessary just yet”.
His instincts were yelling at him to roll over, to get the right way up, to get back on his feet. Everything hurt, his skin was thin and covered in scrapes and bruises. The effort of trying to roll side to side to get himself rolled over resulted in another wave of shaking. He sighed softly “The mountain exploded with fiery anger; it’s my fault really”. He felt ashamed to admit it, but he knew that his herd blamed the eruption on his failure to take off.
Trembling further he heaved himself to his side, pieces of his skin peeled and stuck to the grass. He coughed and wheezed, with rapid sharp breaths. His entire body felt raw and hot. He coughed again and a cloud of soot went flying from his nostrils. His family had spoken of an afterlife at times - but to reach it, one had to be able to fly. It was said that any in the herd that died would fly upwards into the sun to escape their worldly bodies. Being unable to fly Aeon was very much grounded in this life and the next.
This stallion was as tall as many of the winged ones he grew up with. The blackened face and lack of wings made Aeon draw some conclusions. “Did you lose your wings and get burnt by something too?” maybe this was the land where those who failed to thrive were ejected to. It seemed the stallion had survived something of his own trial, Aeon's eyes looking over the scars on his legs.
An angel? The mere thought of that had an amused huff escaping Bucky as he shuffled a step back to give the boy some space. “Afraid not,” he rumbled, nose wrinkling. He couldn’t have been any farther from being angelic-like even if he tried. So whatever afterlife this youth was thinking of, this sure as hell wasn’t it. Still, that left Bucky with more questions than answers and he kept a careful eye on the younger male as he tried to right himself.
A task that seemed to be proving difficult, if the way he was struggling was anything to go off of. Bucky gave him a quick once over, taking in the scrapes, the bruises, and the painful way the youths skin looked. He nearly winced at the thought of how uncomfortable all of that must have been. A mountain exploding with fiery anger would certainly explain the sooty state, along with the injuries. What Bucky didn’t understand is how that could have possibly been this boy's fault.
He still looked so young. Of course, Bucky knew he and Liam hadn’t been much older when their own lives started to go south. “Careful,” he cautioned, stepping in closer again. He hesitated as he almost reached down to try and help steady the younger male, but he stopped, uncertain as to how he would react at a stranger's touch.
“No, no — I’ve never had wings,” Bucky explained, knowing some things in his life would have ended very differently if he had the ability to fly. As it was, the simple thought of being so high almost left Bucky queasy. He had no fondness for heights, and as he caught the way the colt was looking at the scars on his leg, he couldn’t help but shift his leg back just slightly. “No burns, either. S’from — something else,” he continued, “Take it easy gettin’ up. I can help if you need it, but don’t push yourself. Go slow.”
I'm ready to bleed to make amends And sleep in this dirt we call our bed So tell me your secrets And join me in pieces
To fall and rewrite the bitter end
Well, that confirmed it then. He had survived. Not a ghost, not a corpse. Just a very badly burnt and injured Sooty colt. Aeon’s charred flesh was malodorous, the stench wafting with each movement he made. The constant pain he experienced threatened to push him back to that state of nothingness. There had almost certainly been a time where he had been laying here, unconscious - it took mental will to keep his focus. His instincts would not let him lay vulnerable and exposed.
Groaning, he pulled himself up, sitting on his back hunches. Feathers falling from his wings, surrounding him. He did not mourn his feathers, they had not been of great use up to this moment. If he was able to fly he wouldn’t be in this mess, and he wouldn’t have angered the Mountain. This was not a natural position either, he did not feel safe. He swayed trying to keep himself upright. He splayed his front legs to give himself better support, knowing that he would have to regain use of his legs if he was to survive.
His mind flipped in a circle acknowledging this new information that not all creatures here had wings. There were others that were also grounded. Maybe this land would be more suitable to a grounded being such as himself. If he didn’t survive; the suitability of this new world would be irrelevant.
Sweat dripped down across his back and neck; causing a thick lather on his burns. His breaths remained labored. He had never known such suffering and pain in his short existence. The other stallions' words settled in his mind. He could get him help if he needed it. Another bubble of shame welled in his chest. “I think…I need”, he panted. He was unable to find the words to phrase his desires. It was evident that he would need something. Logic was hard to reach in the crevices of a broken mind when overwhelmed by such agony.
He opened his eyes wider and sighed, collecting broken fragments of thoughts together. “Aeon.” he said in one word. “I need help, I will not be a burden if only I can survive.” he vocalized with the burden of shame.
