community life bee boy

This nothingness and the stars and their whispers. Violent and cruel, wickedly sharp with mockery.

“You failed to stand as a leader. They all die and they may as well die at your hand.”

“Your stand against the hunt didnt do anything.”

“Your sacrifice was for people who will always leave you. Leave first.”

Each word a slice across his desires and fortitude in the face of hurt and lost. A promise that there would always be a separation between himself and those he deemed beloved. And of course the void would always consume him, sending him bolt right in bed, sweating and crying.

Tonight was no different, sat upright in an underwater home, an offer made out of a shared desperation and acceptance at failure. His chest raised and fell rapidly with panting cries, every bit the terrified animal the void had made him into. Wide eyes flitted about in the room, first on the villager tucked into his own bed then the gates meant to protect, the members of a team not his own, and finally … finally..

Seb. His seb. The only other member he had left.

His hand trembled as it reached out, cupping a fluffy cheek first to feel the heat of his flesh against his own cold hands, then raising to run thin fingers through the shock of purple and green hair. It was soothing, proof that the other was real and alive, that seb hadn't abandoned him and taken flight in the night like aria had.

He hadn't expected to end up caring for the sheep as much as he ultimately did but the fates loved to fuck with him. Seb was easy to talk to and bond with, sweet and quick to protect him without undermining his own attempts to keep the team safe. Many nights ended up with them shuffling into beds close enough that they could both reach out and check the other over should they wake. Mornings spent eating whatever bread and carrots were left over in preparation for the blood that would be spilled. He held so few doubts that if asked, seb would follow him to hell and back, would pursue him into the mountains and warm his cold hands should he flee to the edges of the world.

He let out a shaky breath and finally pulled his hand away, stumbling out of the bed and back up into the hydroponics farm, padding out to the vegetable garden to peer up at the sky blurred by yards and yards of water. The sun was nearly in the sky, a new day would begin soon and deep down, he knew.

A child was once rushed through that doorway, clutched close to his mother's shoulder as she fled from attackers, dark eyes peering over pale skin and Grey hair to watch as loved ones fell as easily as flower petals. He watched, incapable of understanding fully, as a sharp flash of silver sliced easily through his great aunts neck, her head rolling and ears still briefly twitching before nothing, just a splatter of blood unheard over the rushing steps and air.

The doorway had been closed for some odd years before it opened once more, allowing a young man to step out, hair overgrown and unkempt, wings practically juvenile despite his age. He had stumbled through that doorway, stepping past skeletons and carapace pieces and blood splatters to see the world contained outside, a hand raised to block his dark eyes from the sun then falling to touch flower petals and water and metal long ruined by the weather only to take up a set of shears and cut away all the unruly hair he had been burdened with. His first haircut at 18 after many springs and summers had gone past without him and many falls and winters had claimed him in sleep.

A new doorway opened, a home that was basic but made with love, allowing two young to find refuge with him against the storms outside and the monsters that so often sought out the flesh of the living. Come morning, he hadnt told them to flee, instead offering something he only distantly recalled when he watched the sheep tumbling together in fields, family. And thus he had gained siblings, two brilliant siblings, a sister and a brother who helped him build a home better for them all.

But safety is never guaranteed even when the door is closed. Hunting resulted in being hunted, food could be scarce and the nights long and dangerous.

Another doorway opened up, all harsh metals and blood reds and trickery. The young man was desperate, offering himself in exchange for the means to protect his siblings. The doorway yawned open wider, consuming him as soon as he had signed his name in shaky cursive, leaving him sat in the belly of the beast in his own personal capsule, just barely able to make out others before darkness consumed his vision all the same.

The next doorway was with softer Grey's than his home, still sharp against the horizon and yet not all consuming like the blackened stone he spent years staring at. An open room with 8 beds with his tucked in the furthest corner, hidden by the bed of a prince like him, one who wore a proper crown unlike him. That prince had a kingdom afterall, he did not. The room and its doorway eventually shifted into a small dugout in the wall, all pale stone with a single bed in the corner, a chest containing flowers and a diary with only a torch to light the room.

And finally the doorway he was to walk through one last time. Dug out of the cliff face to give way to a plateau with a pond, up a few stairs and there was the beautiful home he had watched be built. All dark deepslate and pink wool and Sakura, a paw decorating the floor with a second story holding his bed and a platform of jingling amethyst. He had taken great care to patch the holes and destroy the ugly cobblestone after his anger had subsided, granted he only had oak or whatever but it was the thought. He turned to greet the others who had come to check on him and then….

Who outside of your team do you most want to win?

Who do you think will win?

He shouldn't have been the last dark green, it never should have been him. And yet, by his hand and the hand of others and the hand of Gods and the world and the self… he had gained the status. The last dark green of the pound, at first 1 of 6 that remained then 5… then 4…. And finally 3.

Him.

Luna.

Fusion.

And the news that came with the fear, left him scrambling like a newborn fawn, struggling to even hold itself upon its legs. His head cranes to see a sky that he knows he will never be able to see again, sat upon the firmness of a beast he had not tamed yet made his own all the same. Argos nipping at the heels for a king he could never be. He would never be.

He was untrustworthy despite his desperate pleas, his begging and near crying. Further proof that he would never be the king meant for the great title of trickster, descendant of Hermes, blessed him by the goddess of binding craft and war. He was a mere boy standing upon the bow of a ship he could never have gained his own.

But he was desperate and he cried like a dying horse, a rabbit caught tight in a trap, a cow… golden blood oozing to act as the crosshair of cruelty. He is whisked away in a boat, taken around back, past the raging waters and the beloved sheep of a blind shepherd and the man eating beasts tucked in a farm, past the floating home of a god and into a lair of eels and dogs and those as desperate as he is.

And he begs. He pleads that he, a coward, was tucked away in the halls of another kingdom with friend and future foe alike. That his company was that of a loyal unknown and a tardy lover and ghosts possessing ghosts, all twisted necks and spilt wine and cut short screams. He sees the doubt on their face, his company once included a gnashing beast afterall, who bound its own jaws for him and yet ran so eagerly at the scent of blood. A siren once bound to him by a promise from a life he can barely recall. And yet he begs.

The cost is one so simple and yet so … cruel. Forgiveness, trust bought through blood. And he is no king of Ithaca. He is barely a soldier.. he is the princess of a fallen kingdom, led stumbling on legs lame with crazed fear to beg for salvation for whoever remains. From a lover once scorned.

“Whats the cost.”

And isnt it so obvious. To believe him in his innocence.

“And whats the cost for you?’

He merely reached to undo the gleaning clasp of the golden emblem that holds his cape, then eases the greying chiton lower, barely getting the fabric to his elbow, the neckline bowing under his ribs and stomach, before a blade digs into his flesh. It is burning hot and leaves him screaming and crying, pleas for a swift death left for only the gods and his audience to hear.

He is no king, even as he wakes sharp in a bed he then gifts. He is no king as he allows his only stead, his only remaining joy to be used and slain in his freshly made allies efforts to save themselves. Ghosts cling heavy to his chiton, new features adjusting slowly as it all crumbles around him, broken necks and shattered legs, bodies blown to nothing and sliced down. And he stands having sacrificed himself for a group dwindling by each breath.

At first 1 of 6…. Then 5….. 4…. And now only 3.

Seb.

Paper.

He blinks in shock before kneeling down to grab the carrot, watching the hole collapse in on itself.