Soup Writes Stuff

"I just don't think it's that big of a deal, is all."

They'd been having this argument for all of ten minutes, and already, the beginnings of a real fight were brewing.

"Not a big-" Laurie had to stop, taking a deep breath, because if they didn't, they were going to start shouting, and then they'd give themselves a headache on top of the headache they already had. "Tell me, Sydney, were you ever invited to birthday parties, growing up?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I just think you must've been a real treat at parties. A real joy. First on the guest list."

"If we're moving to personal attacks, sweetheart, I can dish them as well as the next person."

"Don't sweetheart me, you aren't even trying to understand why this is important to me."

"I'm trying. I am." Sydney pinched their eyes shut and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "And I'd understand if it was the anniversary of something important-"

"-Not important!-"

"-That's not what I meant. I meant, you don't exactly remember it, do you? You know it happened, but... Listen, if it was our wedding anniversary I'd forgotten, that's one thing. I was there for that. But this wasn't exactly an accomplishment."

"And being married to you is?"

"I think we're getting off topic. Most people don't celebrate these, you know. And you didn't tell me you wanted a party. I don't like celebrating mine, so I thought-"

"Well I do. I like celebrating mine."

"Why?!"

"Because it brought me to you, you idiot. It brought me home."

The last embers of the fight flared, wheezed, settled. They stared at each other, both disbelieving of the words between them. Sydney was the first to blink. "That's the cheesiest thing you've ever said to me."

"Oh, piss off."

"I'm sorry we didn't have a party."

"It's alright. We'll have one next year. Cake. Balloons. Decorative skulls. The whole nine yards."

"I'll make sure of it. Write it on the calendar and everything. Laurie's Death Day, in great big letters."

"Right."

The silence stretched between them, comfortable, familiar. Home. Like a warm blanket after a snowy day. In their kitchen, their haven, their safety. The peace at the end of a journey.

"...Not a big deal?!"

"Fuck's sake, I said I was sorry."

"I died, and that's not a big deal?!"

"You already had a funeral, love, isn't that enough of a Death Day party?"

They chased him out. He didn't leave, he would never just leave, they chased him out. The same people he had loved and trusted and known all of his life, and they turned on him so quickly, and for what? Because he'd helped them? Because he'd cured their sicknesses? Healed their wounds? There was a time that children danced around his heels every time he went outside, and for what?

He scrambled through the undergrowth, night crawling overhead, as the shouts finally faded behind him but echoed forever in his mind. Witch, they called him. Evil and cursed and wicked. Damn them. He'd done nothing, not one thing, saved a life, cured a boy. They'd been lucky. Lucky. He didn't feel lucky, staggering over a fallen tree, crusted with moss and time and mushrooms. They'd chased him out. Burned him out of his house and hunted him into the forest.

The forest swallowed him whole. Lost. He couldn't exactly be lost, since he couldn't be found, he didn't have a direction, he didn't have an escape. All he could do was run. Fall. Get up. Fall. Stay.

The forest did not chase him out.

He wouldn't be able to say how long he lay there, turning dirt into mud with his crying. He was alone. Alone like he'd never been before, cut off from everything he'd known and loved and trusted. He'd trusted them. He wasn't a witch. He wasn't evil. He'd studied plants, studied medicine, not magic. But it hadn't mattered in the end. In the end, they turned on him anyway.

The forest breathed.

For the first time in hours, he looked up, and when he did, a skull grinned back at him.

He wasn't scared. Maybe he should've been, but he wasn't. The skull couldn't help grinning. It looked like maybe deer, though he couldn't be certain. Fungi covered much of the bone. Whatever it was, it wasn't human, and when it spoke, it made no sound.

"You are not the witch they said you were."

He shook his head, cheek pressing further into the dirt in the effort. He wasn't. He'd never been. The skull spoke with a voice full of promise and power, the voice of a long-dead king that had never quite died.