I Let Myself Burn

        A curse fled his lips as the mask was kicked away, the sharp scraping making him cringe. It would be scuffed and in desperate need of a polish. He tried to go for it, but he was kicked backward, the impact to his chest pushing the wind from him again. He lie on his back, coughing bubbles of red that burst over his lips, expression twisting into a grimace. 

      “I saw-…” Thomas started, voice weak and catching in his throat. He coughed again, cringing and turning his face, pressing heels against the stone to try and shove himself backward and away from Atticus. He wasn’t fast enough, soon pinned by the weight of the man in his lap. 

       “––Saw you in the void, you’re the bird. The bird that burns in the–” The whispers were telling him to be honest, and he obeyed them, blurry gaze still swimming and unable to focus on the shifting features of the man that grabbed him up. There was no way to finish, teeth stained red bared to Atticus, a hiss forced between them from the agony that made him shiver. 

         The light that filtered in through the glass felt like it stung, surely touching the mangled half of Thomas’ face. “Don’t look. Please.”  He managed to say those words through choppy exhales, head turned, the skeleton-like fingers of his robotic hand placed over the tear in his skin. Stop. 

Blood was smeared across his palm as he made an attempt to grab the intruder’s face, just barely catching a glimpse of the deformity hidden behind metal fingers of thin machinery. It only served to further his interest, and he struck the other man’s hand out of the way before finally cupping his hands over mismatched cheeks.

“Shhh...” he soothed, barely able to understand the mad whispers that left the stranger’s mouth. He was more concerned with the warm sensation of teeth beneath his palm. “Don’t resist me. I hate that.”

Leaning over the other man, as though they were about to share a kiss, Atticus pressed his nails into skin as he tipped the other’s head back, tilting his palm out of the way to see what lay hidden. The other hand pushed at the man’s goggles, forcing them up and out of the way while pale eyes drank in damaged features.

He couldn’t help but smirk.

“How unnerving,” he said, both fascinated and amused by the strange man’s appearance. “Do you know my name, or can you even control what the Void whispers to you?”

         The shadows that clung to him dissipated, vanishing in wisps that fled in a hurry. It was the clashing magic, the bits of the void that brushed and made his ears ache with their dissonance. Thomas’ vision blurred, breath forced from him as a pressure trapped his limbs, making his teeth grind as he lurched forward and was thrown from the rafter. 

        He could not break his fall, movement sluggish and the descent over before the thought of shielding his face was able to reach his arms. Pottery burst and shattered in all directions, dirt and wet blooming across the floor. The brass of his mask was cast away, skittering across the stone and coming to rest against the base of a potted shrub.

       A breath was caught in his throat, leaving in a wheeze, gurling there with bubbles of blood that seeped from his nose and the sides of his tongue bit upon impact. He glared with cracked goggles at the other, slowly fighting his way to his hands and knees, spitting red onto the brick beneath. He kept his head cocked, hiding the tear in his cheek, keeping at least that shrouded in shadow while he tried to crawl toward the face piece. 

        Every part of him screamed in protest, broken bones shifted, radiating with agony that rolled in waves up his body. He reached with robotic fingers for the mask, barely touching it. Curse you. 

The shattering of pots annoyed him greatly, adding onto a list of offences the intruder was currently stacking. He was slow to turn around, observing the damage done to his plants, noting how the stranger reached before his gaze fell upon the object of interest.

Atticus caught it with his heel and kicked the mask away, stepping forward and slamming his heel against the intruder’s chest to shove him backward.

“There had better be a good reason for you to be following me,” he said, stepping over the stranger before promptly seating himself in the short man’s lap. “I don’t take kindly to being stalked, especially by one bathed so deeply in the stench of the Void.”

           From afar, the glow from behind glass that fogged against the cold was muted. It stood out against the sunset, the dying light peering just over the buildings, smudged from its glory and left to dwindle to little more than a burning strip of illumination on the edge of choppy water. Breaths bled from parted lips, soft puffs of steam that fell prey to rain that whipped around him. 

      Thomas wasn’t visible, shadows clinging to him, hiding every line of his shape that perched high above. His hood sheltered his face, trickles of water falling from the crest, dripping in fat droplets that slapped the brick of the column’s top. There he was again, the other, the bird in the darkness. Even now, he could see the man, bright in the gloom of the void. He was like the sun, but his face… Thomas never saw it. 

       As the slender shape vanished behind the glass, the image of the lurker trembled, fading into the shadows, gone from the perch. But he returned within another cut of darkness, swallowed by it but now at the side of the greenhouse, peering into the structure. Fingers touched the glass as he leaned in, hidden behind crossing leaves that swayed with the attention from Atticus. He dared not move, the gift from the outsider keeping him concealed, but he was so close… he could almost see it. The bird’s face.

      Again, the shadows twisted around him, shape gone and now above, moving with silent steps along the structure’s roof. Each foot was carefully placed, weight shifted only on the laced panes that held the glass upright against the winds. He waited there as the rain lashed around him, daring only to slip within the building through a hatch as thunder boomed and hid the noise.

          The small door was closed behind him as he crept, easing along a rafter above Atticus. In the center, Thomas perched, peering over and beneath at the other as he doted upon the plants. He heard it then, a steady whisper, coming to him from somewhere he wanted to silence. The book, the book. Carefully, he took out a worn notebook, opening it to a blank page. He’d begun to draw when a leaf of it fell, slipped from behind the leather cover.        He moved to lunge for it, fingertips just missing the torn edge. And so the paper floated downward, side to side until it lit upon the damp leaves of one of the other’s precious plants. It was marked with a drawing, scratched in red ink in the likeness of Atticus. Outsider help me. 

The storm growing outside only further calmed him. He tended to his plants, the noise of the rain putting him at ease as he moved around the greenhouse and gently hummed to the plants he watered. The sounds of thunder only caught his attention once, but still he thought nothing was amiss.

Standing upright, Atticus began to care for the more delicate flowers he had lined up along a table. He cleaned their leaves of dust, and then rubbed droplets of water into their stems, humming pleasantly all the while.

It was only when he moved on from them that the page caught his attention, drawing him forward as he reached to take hold of it. For a moment, he’d thought the greenhouse owner had left a message for him and he’d only noticed it now. But seeing the image scratched into the page, it sparked a note of panic into him, and his gaze shot around the room before he looked up.

All that he saw was the shape of a man, and Atticus reacted, his empty hand reaching up to pull at the blood within the intruder- and then he dragged his fist down sharply, like tugging on invisible cords to send the stranger crashing down.

Clutching the paper close, Atticus moved backwards while the intruder began to fall, and he stole another glance at it in the meanwhile, frowning.

The day had been one filled with running errands and returning favors, and when the sun began to set and rain clouds darkened the sky, Atticus made his final stop to a greenhouse situated atop a popular bakery. He was renting it from the owner, who was more than happy to have the space used to house beautiful plants of a strange variety.

Upon entering, Atticus removed his coat and gloves, setting them aside on a chair beside the entrance. He went straight for a watering can beside a spout, filling it in silence before he approached a large plant with budding flowers.

He delicately touched the leaves as he watered it, only letting the soil become just damp enough to darken. He had assumed he was alone, and sensed nothing but the energy of the plants surrounding him.

“You should be blossoming this week,” he said, fingers lightly tapping one heavy bud, a bright orange peeking through tightly closed petals. “If you don’t hurry, you won’t be getting enough sunlight before you start to wither.”

He pressed a kiss to the flower before moving on, kneeling beside a larger pot on the floor, which he had to water more than most of the plants. Wide leaves colored with red veins and dark stripes bounced as he touched them, pushing them aside to check the soil before the watering can was lifted.

“And you’re greedy as always,” he commented to the second plant. “Stealing all the sun from the rest of the floor dwellers. You might need to be moved...”

He had only arrived a few minutes earlier, carefully making his way around the building, gathering up whatever he could find of use. Fox froze as he heard a voice coming from the floor below followed by soft footsteps.

He transversed behind a large covered dresser by the doorway, drawing his sword silently and preparing to attack should this person be a threat. He had already slipped the runes he had uncovered into his coat and had a suspicion that whoever was approaching was seeking them. Why else would they wandered into such a dump?

Fox listened closely as the man slipped into the room, trying to get an exact bearing on his location. If he was quick enough he could probably get the drop on him; he just needed him to come a little bit closer now.

There was no caution in his steps as he traveled upstairs, being only as silent as he felt was necessary to not draw attention in from outside. But his steps drew quiet when he took note of a disturbance of dust, how it rose as if on a breeze in the thin beams of light from the windows.

Atticus stepped back, his gaze sweeping across the open room before he flexed his palm, trying to get a feel for the blood within whoever else was in the building. He hoped it was just a vagrant that posed little threat, but he sincerely doubted it. The promise of runes had to have been spread. First come first serve.

Like hell.

A surprised look crossed the boy’s face as he felt the tap to his shoulder, glancing up briefly before he took it. It looked…. different from what they got down on the streets, less watery than what he was used to. He turned it over a few times in his hands, staring at it, then uncapped it and drank it all down before Atticus had a chance to rethink giving it to him.

“I’ll do whatever you want me to, sir.” He started softly, setting his hands back in his lap as he finished up the haircut, fingers still curled around the empty vial. “As long as you explain how to care for the plants, I can keep them healthy for you, I promise. Thank you, for the opportunity to get off the street and earn my keep, I…… it’s difficult….. living out there. The regular people are often scarier than the rats or the weepers, they’ll eat you alive just as readily as any rat swarm…..”

“I’ll give you instructions, of course,” he said, combing through shorted strands of red a final time before he was finished. “And yes... I’m well aware that in trying times, most turn to being unkind instead of offering the less fortunate their sympathy. You have far more worth to the world than just becoming a skinny corpse on the side of the road.”

Atticus collected his things, the towel and the scissors, the comb... and the hair. He pushed a small mirror into the boy’s hands so he could look himself over while Atticus walked away.

When he returned again, Atticus was checking the time on his pocket-watch.