and yet, here we are

In the words of Lou Wilson:

Damn, Gotch.

There is no moral.

The wolf eats you one day,

And until it does,

The forest is beautiful

Enjoy!!

Hardwon is used to small spaces. Hells, he’d probably call himself the foremost expert in small spaces. Life beneath the mountain was a life of ducking his head and hunching his shoulders to fit through fine dwarven doorways; of pulling in his gangly limbs, trying to navigate the mines’ crowded, cramped tunnels; of tugging at clothes always riding up at the waist and ankle; of curling up into a ball in his bunk in the dwarphanage, to keep his feet from dangling over the edge. (And to hide his tear-streaked, smooth-chinned face, to feel arms around his body, if only his own—no, walls up—)

In any case. Hardwon is used to feeling the walls close, the darkness closer.

But lying in a coffin is a new low.

Being stuck alone in a wooden box would be bad enough on its own. But the others had shoved his coffin in the Bag of Holding for ease of transport through dangerous sunlight. In the Bag, Hardwon is surrounded by an endless, engulfing void. The pure silence and darkness are a heavy shroud, suffocating.

He feels dead. Beyond the fangs and the bloodlust and the lungs within him that don’t expand, the heart that doesn’t beat. Beyond even the empty, still coffin.

I want to die real bad, he remembers telling Moonshine, the eternity of a few days ago. Sitting on a little cot side-by-side, in the corner of their boat’s tiny captain’s quarters. The words had fallen from his mouth despite himself, vomited up like an exsanguinated rat, festering on the stained wood at their feet. Hardwon couldn’t bear to look over at her.

Hardwon, I really don’t want you to die, had been Moonshine’s quiet response. I want you to live so much. And I don’t want to be alone in that feeling.

He hated the careful gentleness of her voice. Worse: the undercurrent of desperation. It was utterly selfish of him to be her friend. Because of course he’d end up hurting her; everything he loved turned to death. She and Beverly should have made like Uncle Red and shunted him off their ship the moment they could be rid of him.

I…don’t want to die, Hardwon had backtracked immediately, just to wipe away the pain on Moonshine’s face. I want to live.

It wasn’t a lie, exactly. He’d wanted to rescue his mother, set at least one of his mistakes right. He still wants to finish what they started, their quest to defeat Thiala. He wants his name, Hardwon Surefoot, to finally mean something. To mean anything, to anyone at all.

It just feels…impossibly out of reach, sometimes. Like it’d be easier to just lie down and let the earth swallow him whole.