Eventually Grey unroots himself from his place on the bank of the river, tearing white eyes away from the reflection he sees. After awhile it had stopped looking like him, though does he truly look like himself anymore at all? The blurriness encompassing the edges of his vision encroaches and then retreats with every step, fluctuating in intensity. The black shadows are beasts, clawing at his skin and begging for his blood. The unicorn thinks he starts to feel a pounding in his head, like a giant bashing down the walls of his mind. Boom, boom, boom.
He follows the river’s winding path through the trees, listless, ears twisting at every sound. Oh, he is still a soldier somewhere deep inside, and though he walks almost aimlessly, he is still too alert of his surroundings. Too aware of the stillness and every sound that breaks it. Part of his expects that there should be more noise in the night, and yet the forest is almost sedate. It unsettles him, a strange pressure settling between his shoulder blades and brushing across his nerves.
Ahead Grey thinks he sees where the river breaks the canopy cover. Perhaps, he thinks, this river will lead him somewhere afterall. Perhaps he might find someone capable of telling him where he is and where he should be headed. His chest expands and then releases and slow, heaving breath, and still his sight swims and dances and still his head pounds and pounds and pounds so that when one of the shadows seems to rear out of nowhere to Grey’s left and he turns to face it, his hoof catches on one of the rocks claiming the edges of the river. His heart crashes and falls as he, too, begins to fall. He throws his legs out in front of him, scraping against stone, in an attempt to catch himself.
God's water, some call it, because it runs down the mountains from the peak they claim is closest to the gods. He likes the ring of those two words-- god's water-- but they're redundant, as is their origin. Everything is god's.
And god is everywhere.
The Rapax runs year-round, but it is always changing. It is very much a living thing, in that way. It is sometimes sweet, sometimes mean. Most of the time, though, it is just minding its own business.
Mateo obviously didn't mean to scare the grey man. He had been trying to make his way home from the library without being seen, since he did not have the recommended number of companions. He's not fond of breaking the rules, or at least getting caught breaking them. All caught up in his thoughts, he hardly realized how close he was to the slow-moving stranger until...
"Oh, uh... shoot."
The man went scrabbling down the river bank, barely finding a foothold in the smooth stones.
It's moments like these that reveal the true nature of a person. In this particular moment, Mateo learns that he is not a hero. For a second or three he just watches. It seems like the man's got this situation under control... he's got two hooves latched on to the river rock, and his head is above water.
Songs and stories fill Mateo's head, tales of heroism and greatness and the start of epic friendships. None of them ever mentioned getting your feathers wet. He hates getting his feathers wet.
"Okay," he breathes in deeply, bracing himself for the coldness of the water. "Alright, then!" The pep talk is purely for himself, not the poor stranger who likely needs it more. Mateo steps carefully down toward the river, past the struggling stallion, and when he is between the stranger and the bulk of the dark water, he leans against the grey with his left shoulder and he pushes. "Up you go, buddy." His right wing flutters out for balance and the tips of it are submerged in the cold river. Heroism sucks.
Grey's footing is quickly losing ground, the rush of the water reaching up for him from the river. He thinks, for a moment, that he is going to fall in. But, he thinks too, that he has already felt once what it would be like to freeze to death. How different can a frozen funeral be? Perhaps only the drowning part. How ironic it would be for Amaranthus to have saved him from death and sent him here only for him to die anyway. Fate is truly a cruel thing.
It seems, however, that fate has not come for him tonight as he feels the press of a shoulder against his own. His vision is filled with darkness, then, but he realizes its not all shadows, but a body. Another equine, and they are speaking. Snapping out of his thoughts Grey manages to scrabble backwards, further onto level ground. His hooves feel dirt and grass and then the world rights itself and he's no longer falling toward a watery grave. For some reason, nothing in him rejoices at this revelation. Regardless, his white gaze settles on the stranger and regards him cooly.
Even if it weren't dark, he is sure the obsidian of the stranger's coat is so consuming that he would not look wet but for the water dripping off the feathers of his wings and down the length of his legs. “Thank you,” he manages to say, shortly but not entirely unkindly. He knows he would have ended up in the river without the younger man's help, but then again if he didn't go around startling others in the middle of the night then it likely wouldn't have happened. Or maybe it was all the magic's fault, for it had cursed him and left him unable to easily discern between what is real and what is simply shaodws of the night.
A frown deepens on Grey's lips. Perhaps he could at least get some vaulable information from this winged stranger. He still doesn't know where he has ended up, of course, and to be in a new land with such a bane inflicted upon him, he probably should not continue to wander around hoping to stumble into something other than a frigid autumn river. “Can you tell me where it is I am? I have been traveling for some time, trying to locate a place called Novus.” It is, he thinks, has good a place as any to start. He wonders how much longer he will have to journey. From this land to yet another? Hopefully this stranger can point him in the right direction
Three and the stranger is up and away from the river's embrace. Mateo follows shortly and quickly shakes himself dry like a dog, which is to say with more drama than necessary for some wet feathers and legs. "You're welcome," the young stallion says graciously, although he did not miss the stranger's shortness.
When the man asks about a place called Novus, Mateo laughs in surprised delight. "Well it's your lucky evening," he says brightly, the smile on his face freezing as he recalls that the man had very nearly fallen into the river just moments ago. "Except for, you know, the incident we just had, which I'm very sorry about." He moves onward quickly. "You're standing in Novus. Specifically, the fine kingdom of Delumine, home of the Dawn Court." He bows extravagantly, extending his great wings with a grace that is lost to the darkness of the night. "I'm Mateo, scholar and songwriter."
The black straightens and peers at the stranger. The man is tall (aren't they all though?) and has a strange silvery sheen in the moonlight. Through the thick darkness Mateo does not notice the man's scars or the runes along his neck or even the strange whiteness of his eyes-- it is all for the best, though. The man just survived a possibly fatal swim in the Rapax, it would be a shame to so quickly drown in Mateo's questions.
"You must be tired from your travels? Come along, we'll find you a warm room and a good meal at the court proper." He confidently leads the way, damp wings tucked close to keep the chill night at bay. When he's certain the grey stallion is following, he unleashes the question he's been waiting to ask. "So what's your story?" It isn't every day that a traveller shows up in search of the very land he stands upon.
Grey grunts noncommittally at the younger man's exclamations of luck. Their definitions of luck are quite different, he assumes, for the unicorn does not feel very lucky at all. Cursed by this damned land's bizarre magic that makes glowing pools in the middle of nowhere. Nearly landing himself in a rushing, freezing river. If this is luck, then Grey has been lucky all his life and he doesn't like it all. Perhaps if he had been born unlucky his lot in life would be different.
None of the places that the pegasus speaks of mean anything to the older equine. Only Novus, and even then it is the only name Amaranthus gave him to go off of. So. Now he is here, but what is he meant to do? A frown turns down the corners of his lips. Clearly it is too much to hope the answer to that question will come easy. “A pleasure, Mateo,” but there is nothing particularly warm about him that says it is indeed a pleasure, “I am Grey.”
“Just Grey,” for while his companion might be a scholar and a songwriter, the unicorn is nothing. Not a warrior, not a brother, not a friend. Perhaps he had been these things in the past, but now he was a broken man, with a whole world of regrets inside and behind him.
Mateo turns away from Grey and begins to lead him, he can only assume, to this court proper. The Dawn Court, he had called it. Oh, but Grey is so unprepared for the question that the younger man asks that he nearly stumbles and stops walking. If Mateo were to look at him he might see a shadow pass over his expression, not unlike the ones still lurking at the edges of his vision. He frowns again, and when he speaks his voice says he is decidedly not interested in continuing this line of conversation.
“I am merely searching for something that a… friend said I would find here.” He thinks of Amaranthus and the emptiness inside him grows ever deeper and wider, a chasm impossible to cross. He thinks of the way the god has held him and loved him and knows he never deserved any of it. Still, he has let so many down in his life that he cannot bear to do it again to the man who had tried so hard to warm his long-frozen heart.
"Just Grey," he says, with a voice to match his name. Mateo does not know if the man's mother was terribly creative, or a genius. It does not seem polite to ask at this moment in time. Just Grey. He grins.
"Okay," Mateo continues without a beat, a smile in his voice. He's sure the tall stranger is a lot of things, even if he doesn't say what they are. Everyone is a lot of things, even if those things are a lack of things. Capiche? "Nice to meet you, Mr. Grey, and I'm sorry again about earlier." It's clear he has a wealth of experience with apologies. Wings clasped respectfully at his sides, tone earnest, almost reverent. The perfect sound and picture of a good boy.
Some day his skin might crawl with the pictures he's painted of himself, the unattainable image drawn from song and story.
Today his manners are the only things holding him and his many, many questions together by the seams. As the two walk together through the field, serenaded by grasshoppers, Mateo can barely contain his intrigue. If the man's tone was just a sliver more inviting, the boy would have bravely pressed on. But Grey's single sentence ends like the closing of a book, and Mateo's unanswered questions lie pressed between all those unread pages.
"Okay," he says again, but this time his cheerful tone sounds a little hollow. He was never talented at pretending to feel something he did not. He had too many wild, vivid, real emotions to feel. Fake emotions just didn't seem worth the effort. "Well..." he scrambles to reinflate himself. "Well... what..." he steals a glance at Mr. Grey, "exactly is it... that you're looking for?" His voice has the effect of tip-toeing across a squeaky wooden floor, trying not to make a sound. As though with enough delicacy he could sneak a question past the stony stallion's defense.
And the pain Grey feels at that moment is so acute he forgets to breathe and his chest stutters and stumbles and his lungs are tightening and choking him. His failures are here in this world, nipping mercilessly at his heels, flooding poisom through his veins.
The unicorn is not his father, could never stand tall to that title. Could never shoulder it with pride and strength and honor. And Grey is grateful for the chill constantly there in his skin, as the racing of his heart cannot betray him with a sheen of sweat.
Mateo is young but proper, respectable and respectful both. Things Grey has never been, not even in his own youth. But his brother, ah, how he had been. The man grits his teeth until his jaw aches. "I don't know, exactly," he says, finally filling his lungs with breath. "He only told me to find Novus, that I would know when I found it."
Did Amaranthus know, and simply not tell him? Could Amaranthus have known what would happen to him once he arrived here, how this world would threaten to bring him to his knees on the very first night.
Grey wonders if Amaranthus would be waiting for him if he chooses to return back to that mountain seemingly in the sky. "And no, I don't think I've found it yet," he says preemptively, shooting a look at the young pegasus.
Mateo senses a tension in the man and he is desperate to ease it but he just can't figure out how. Everything he says seems to have the opposite effect of his intent, and the silence is almost worse than his failed attempts at friendliness.
Silence is not, by its nature, a bad thing. It balances the world, and without it all song would become a stale and two-bit trifle. But Mr. Grey's silence is a loathsome, anguished one. It fills the air with a stale heaviness that the young pegasus has no taste for. It is the dark sort of silence that wants to strip sound of all its feathers and leave nothing but hollow bones in its wake.
And yet- it is an almost addictive sort of silence, and the boy is unusually quiet as he thinks. He has been presented with next to no information on this man, his origins, or his goals. And his feathers are still a bit wet. He wants to just give up an walk the resst of the way to the court in silence, but eventually his optimism starts to rise through that dark, silty blanket of quiet.
"Best meet with Somnus, then. The sovereign of Dawn. He'll know what to do." His voice deflates a little at this last sentence, and he knows it sounds like a lie. "If he doesn't, maybe you could go to the mountain and ask the gods." This would naturally sound like lunacy to the nonbeliever, but Mateo is devout as they come. There are some things that only the gods know, whether or not you believe in them.
They are (finally!) drawing close to the court and the lanterns on the walls wash the two stallions in a gentle orange light. Mateo is relieved to be here, and he shoots a guilty glance to his sullen grey companion. He feels bad that he's home, with all the relief and comfort that home provides, and Mr. Grey is only just beginning his mysterious and seemingly blind and ill-fated journey.
"Evening Gunther!" Mateo calls to the guard they pass, raising a wing in greeting. He stops once they're behind the tall stone walls, uncertain how far to extend hospitality to the stranger. "We're here." He announces (uselessly) and it almost sounds like a question.
They walk in silence for a time. Blessed, sweet silence, despite its blanket heaviness draping around their shoulders. It does not last for long, however, as the young pegasus speaks again. ‘Best meet with Somnus, then. The sovereign of Dawn. He'll know what to do.’ Grey nearly stumbles, nearly comes hard to his knees there on the dirt and the grass. Somnus. It couldn’t be, could it? A coincidence, it had to be.
But then... had Amaranthus known?
Somnus, Somnus, Somnus.
His heart cannot breathe and his lungs cannot beat, and all he can hear is a man sentencing himself to death and the smell of burning and blood and damp. He thinks the shadows in his vision aren’t just shadows but ghosts. Ghosts of the dead and demons of hell, coming to drag him down to his death for all the wrongs he has made in his life. And Somnus is there, a bright beam of light, knowing, judging. Whatever is there of the unicorn’s heart wrenches, and he grinds his teeth against the wave of pain rising inside of him.
It cannot be, no, it must be a coincidence. He has not come all this way just to be faced with a reminder of his past. His continued existence is already enough, that he lives while so many he loved had died, and many more gone, abandoning everything. They stop inside the walls of the court and Grey’s hooves chink against the cobblestone streets like they are made of ice.
He doesn’t pay attention to Mateo’s greeting of the guard, doesn’t even look at the young man. His white white eyes are swimming in shadows and hauntings. He is drowning but desperately clinging to some preserver, hoping above all things that his worst fears are not true.
Somnus cannot be here.
“There is no god on your mountain that I want,” he says, swimming, struggling, and he wants to go back to his own mountain and find Amaranthus and never come down again. He wants to scream until his god comes back to him, and explains everything. He wants to fall back into that wintery embrace and just let go, at last. “I will find my way from here,” Grey mutters, and takes his first steps further into the streets.
Oh, he will wander for hours in the night, until he cannot see straight and his legs are as exhausted as his lungs. He will wander until the sun comes up, lost, floundering, aching, but he will not be anyone’s problem but his own, as he leaves the young pegasus behind.
The other man's grief is internal. All Mateo senses is a tension in the air, a coldness that on any other night he would attribute to the weather and his impromptu dip in the river. It is a relief, then, when they cross the threshold into Dawn Court and Mateo has something familiar and comforting to act as a buffer between himself and the chill. He is home, and it is hard for him to not feel better when he's behind those tall stone walls.
When Mateo attempts to bring up a conversation again, he is apalled at the man's rude dismissal of the gods. The black was a man of god and those words hurt as surely as a kick to the stomach. He stops walking and stands in shocked silence. A blessing, no doubt, to the man of ice. His cheeks flush with a rare surge of anger.
"I will find my way from here," the grey stallion mutters, and without a goodbye he shoulders off down the dimly lit streets.
Mateo frowns, wrestling internally with the impossibility of helping someone who does not want to be helped. It is not a situation he's ever been in before. He briefly follows the icy man, far enough behind to not be noticed, stopping when he reaches Tilly's tavern. It doesn't feel right to let the stranger go off on his own into an unfamiliar place... but it is cold out, and his wings are still wet, and Mr. Grey clearly doesn't want his help, much less his company.
With a shrug and a sigh he turns and steps into the tavern. Someone yells a greeting at him from across the room and he grins before retorting cheekily. The world is once again warm and familiar and friendly. And dry. The golden boy is once again in his place, and as the night wears on his worry will slowly melt away.
By the time he falls asleep, his encounter with the grey man will seem as far away as a story read in a book.
