#logicallity

He looks to the gold turned black and ignores the older magic, the one that leads back the way he came. Instead, he follows the darkest trail. It isn’t recent, but neither is it ancient, like the gold leading to the Life-Bringer.

He moves silently about the forest, sword in hand, and finds that the path is not nearly so cyclical with magic itself leading him to his destination.

Come to think of it, he should have spotted the magic last night, at least before he stopped. That he did not means that either it was hidden somehow, or he was more tired than he thought.

He was not sure which idea was more likely and that thought scared him more than, perhaps, it should.

He stalked forward, intent on finding the cabin. Still, while his path is straight, it is unfamiliar. An unease builds in him as he walks on and finds no sign of his desperate bid to catch up to Darren. It does not make sense. The path would have to converge eventually, would it not?

Still, the longer he walks, the less it makes sense. It continues to make no sense until he stumbles into a clearing, and even then his mind refuses to understand the information right in front of him.

The clearing is undeniably the same as the one from a few days prior. There’s a sound of a river bubbling in the background, overlaid with sounds of birdsong and the soft pitter patter of small animals in the undergrowth. There’s a dark mark in the earth. Remnants of where Roman had dug his feet in and pushed off, breaking whatever enchantment had held him in place that night.

There’s a set of footsteps, small overlaid with larger ones, leading up to an empty spot where Roman knows there was a cabin.

He blinks and pushes deeper into his gift. He feels his eyes water, with blood or tears he does not know, and gasps as the curse recoils and his vision goes dark. He thinks for a moment that he’s going to pass out, but no. He turns his head and sees the edges of trees.

He blinks and turns his head again and his vision is just black. All color and definition has been leaked from his sight as he looks out to where the cabin was. Only, no, to call it black is a disservice to what he is seeing. Instead, it would be more accurate to call it a void.

It’s as though a part of the world itself is missing. Roman takes a few more steps forward into that missing chunk of earth, but he hits solid ground. He looks down and sees that blank void and his stomach rebels.

He pushes past the nausea, willing his stomach to settle, and keeps walking. One, two, three, four. He keeps walking, more steps than he anticipated. By now, he should have at least hit the front porch, but his feet keep moving, his legs not bumping into anything. He keeps walking even as his vision is nonexistent and the steps he knows he should hear are no longer there.

He walks until he nearly slams into a tree as everything returns at once. His hand shoots out and he steadies himself against the tree. The feeling of bark under his hand is at once comforting and too much. The feeling is rough, warm in that way that is almost startling. He can feel every divot in the bark, little claw marks from squirrels climbing rapidly in a bid to escape the predators of the ground.

He hears whispers in his ears, soft and slow. Hello, sunlight, warm. Old one, fae, gift, protect, hurt? Help, lost, danger, danger, dangerdangerdanger.

With a gasp he yanks his hand back and draws into himself, curling into a ball and leashing the curse deep into himself. His body wracks with silent sobs as he dry heaves into the ground, trying desperately to not throw up. His mind aches, throbbing with voices it is not shaped to hear. Ears burning with pain as they become just that much pointier. Teeth aching as the sharpen just that much more. Blood dripping on the ground as tears run red with strain and heat and his pupils change shape just a little more. His jaw aches, his fingers feel numb, and he heaves and heaves and heaves with pain.

Roman does not know how long he has spent here, trying and failing to gain control over his own body again. He knows it has been a while, though if that means a few minutes or a few hours he does not know. His body aches, but that could simply be the growing pains or it could be from kneeling for so long, or perhaps both. He staggers to his feet and turns back to the empty field behind him and sighs.

He had come in from a different angle this time, even if the start of his path had been the same as it was on that night. He does not know if he really had wandered that much that night, or if it is something else more sinister that caused him to enter from such a different angle, but he is simply too tired to care. 

His body feels like one giant bruise and he feels as though he needs to sleep for at least a week. He is hungry and thirsty and confused and frustrated and angry. So, so angry. At the curse in his veins, the beast for not attacking him, the cabin for not being here. For the deaths of the hunters before him. For the missing children and their parents. At the forest for being more twisted than that of his memory.

At Virgil for dying and leaving him alone, full of this grief that will not leave him no matter how much he wants it to.

As quickly as the anger floods his system, it leaves. When it does, he is just left feeling empty and in pain. He can not tell what hurts more, his body or his mind, but at this point it does not matter. He starts trudging his way towards the village, and tries to quiet the ache in his heart. 

He does not succeed.

Roman makes it back to the village just before sundown. On the way back he did manage to summon up some bravado to cover the aching gap in his heart. He was almost able to convince himself it was real.

Almost.

The grief sometimes just hit him out of nowhere. Thoughts and memories of him coming back unbidden. The fight they had before Virgil had left for the forest and Roman to drink at Patton’s pub. The last time Roman had seen him. 

Being here has brought those memories back to the surface so much faster than he could have anticipated. He left for a reason. He chose to not come back for a reason. But he does not want to leave again. Roman can not leave here like that again, can not do that to Patton and Logan again. He can tell that they are waiting for him to disappear again and the guilt is like a knife to the gut. It feels like being sliced open shoulder to hip and left to die on a forest floor far from any town or city.

He can not do that to them, but he can not live with this grief in his chest. Sometimes, when he was far away and had just slain a creature, saved a damsel, he could almost tell himself he was over it. But being back, it is clear to him that he has not healed at all. Not really.

Still, it is not Patton’s fault, he reminds himself as he pushes into the pub and is greeted with Patton’s cheerful smile. No matter how ugly Roman feels inside, he will not lash out at his friends, and he will not leave.

“Find anything?” Patton asks, smile not dimming, but twisting with concern. Not as much as it would have, had Roman not cleaned the blood off of him in a creek, but some concern nonetheless. Patton was good like that.

“No. Yes. I do not-” Roman’s tone was more frazzled and frustrated than he wanted it to be, but he was too tired to care. One question from Patton and Roman was already starting to fray. Pathetic.

He would not lash out. He would not.

“I’ll figure something out,” Roman said, forcing a grin on his face that felt like it was cracking his face in two. Patton’s mouth curved down, more concern painting his face, but Patton accepted it nonetheless.

“Okay, kiddo. Why don’t you go wash up a bit and I’ll get you some food. Maybe we can talk about it over dinner?”

Roman went to answer, but it was busier at the little pub than Roman first realized and Patton was called away to deal with his patrons. With a reassuring glance over his shoulder, Patton turned to take care of them.

Roman nodded and trudged up the staircase. The silence as he crossed the ward was a blessing to his aching head, and his shoulders dropped without him even thinking of it. A quick wash had him feeling more human, though a glance in the mirror had him wincing.

His eyes were getting closer and closer to gold each day. His ears sharper, losing the rounded shape of humanity. He grinned, but it looked more like a snarl with the way his teeth were looking. Still subtle enough to pass as human, of course, but Roman noted the differences and worried regardless.

What would he do when Patton and Logan noticed and asked? What could he do? Tell them the truth?

The thought of spilling that particular story left him feeling nauseous. His time in the land of the Fae left him with scars that penetrated deeper than skin. They went deeper even than the curse that altered his body every time he indulged in it. It stained his mind, settled deep into his bones and he felt them creak anytime he even tried to remember his time there. How was he to tell his closest friends, his family, the depths of the despair that his time left him with? At least with Virgil they were there. At least they could understand.

This, though. This he doubted they would. He was fast losing grip on his humanity and he was desperate to hang on tight to the last shreds he still had. 

Roman shook his head and threw a shirt over the mirror. He had gone to his old home and grabbed what he thought might still fit, not lingering there any longer than he had to. That left him with plenty to spare, more than he had since he left. He would leave the shirt there, over the mirror, and he resolved not to think on his appearance any more than he had to.

Bracing himself, he walked out the room and past the threshold of the ward. Though pain still laced through his head, he withstood it and noted it was less than before.

Downstairs it was about as lively as it was the past few days, though it had steadily been getting rowdier. It was as though, for the first time in months, or even years, they were starting to relax. Getting Darren back had put the town in higher spirits than before. They were still guarded, still held the weight of so many gone on their backs, but they were beginning to think this would be over soon.

Roman hoped he was good enough to not break their trust in him. His shoulders shook with the weight of it and he grinned and tried to bear it.

Patton sent a wave his way as he noticed Roman coming down the stairs, but it was Persephone who walked over to him and ushered him to an empty seat. “Hey!” she greeted, smile warm and kind. “How is the hunt going?”

Roman hummed to himself. “It appears there are mysteries yet undiscovered, but fear not dear maiden! They shall be solved in no time at all!” Persephone laughed softly, and almost looked surprised by it. Her shock only made her more amused it seemed and then she was laughing loudly, head knocked back and arm over her stomach. Roman looked on confused, but smiling.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, waving as she got herself under control. “It is just, I am relieved is all. I guess I am still riding the joy of having Darren back. Thank you again for that. Fel and I had just resigned ourselves on never seeing our son again and then…” She trailed off, smile strained before she brightened again. “It is like we’re kids all over again. You swooping in and saving the day, sweeping princes and princesses off their feet alike,” she teased.

“Ah, what can I say,” he returns, beginning to feel like himself once more. “I am merely the knight to your princess, dear maiden, and rescuing others is the thing I do best.”

They share another, quieter, laugh and Persephone sighs. “I have missed you these years. We may not have talked much, but you had a way of making everywhere feel happier. Making it feel safer. After Virgil-” she cuts herself as Roman tenses.

“You should talk to them about it,” she nearly whispers. “I think it would do you all some good.”

She doesn’t elaborate but she does not need to. Roman is momentarily stunned before guilt comes rushing through him, grief hot on its heels. He did not realize just how many would notice or care about his absence.

He gives a noncommittal “perhaps” as he struggles to lock down his feelings once more. Persephone gives him a shrewd look before smiling once more. “When you’re ready, let myself or Patton know what you want.” And then she leaves with a swish of her hips, long skirt gliding across the floor. 

Roman sits in silence for a moment before he sighs. Maybe she is right, and maybe she is not. Even if she is, he has things far more important to do than talk about his feelings. They can wait another day. This disappearing cabin can not.

Eventually, he flags down Patton to get some food. As he is eating, Logan takes a seat across from him. “Progress?” He asks, business as usual.

Roman explains stumbling across the clearing first, the one with the missing cabin. He talks about walking forward and still not stumbling into it. He leaves out his ability to see the blank void where it should have been standing.

“It was just gone?” Logan asks, confusion taking the form of a frown on his face.

“That is what I just said, is it not?” Roman retorts, falling into a bickering that he had been tiptoeing around. It startles them both and they blink at each other, before Logan grins, whip-quick.

“It is, but you have a habit of… embellishing things,” Logan says, adjusting his glasses.

“Why you!” Roman exclaims in mock affront.

“Now, now, boys,” Patton admonishes, smile affixed on his face. He pulls up a chair and kisses Logan on his cheek as he sits. Roman glances up and sees Persephone waving as she glides around the pub, taking care of its customers with ease. “What seems to be the issue.”

“Roman was just telling me the cabin he saw no longer exists,” Logan drily states. 

“That is not what I’m saying you nerd!” Roman exclaims, and then explains again to Patton.

“And you are sure this is the same clearing?” Logan needles, enjoying the rise it gets out of Roman.

“Yes! I saw the gouge in the earth from where I managed to break free of the enchantment keeping me in place!” Logan hums and then Roman continues.

He tells them next of stumbling into the clearing with the Life-Bringer. He’s careful not to call it by name, only says that it seems important and appears to have a ward carved into it. He does not tell them how he managed to find it, only that he did. Plays it off as an accident.

Life-Bringers are a rarity outside of the Fae Realm and Roman doubts anyone who is not a master knows of them, of their importance. He does not know if they would inquire as to how he knows what he knows, but he does not wish to find out. 

He tells them of the beast and how it once more refused to attack, only watching him. They are just as confused as he is, and they try and fail to come up with reasons behind the beast's motivation once more.

“Maybe it did not see you as a threat?”  Patton asks, unsure.

“Did it see those parents as threats then?” Roman challenges.

“The only bodies found were those of the bounty hunters,” Logan interjects, his Puzzle Look on his face. Patton and Roman trade glances, knowing what that look means.

“Logan, you can not go out and seek the beast,” Roman says, rolling his eyes. 

“I was not going to do that!” Logan exclaims. Patton just looks at him disbelieving. “Okay, I was not going to do that alone,” Logan stresses, looking to Roman.

“No, absolutely not. It is way too dangerous.” Roman shuts down that line of thought as quick as he can, fear crawling up his throat.

“Actually,” Patton says, looking between the two of them. “I would like to see this tree, if possible.”

Both Logan and Roman stop glaring at each other to look at Patton, who smiles in the face of their confusion. “Come on, Ro!” Patton says, the old nickname tugging on his heart strings. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

You could die, Roman thinks but does not say. You could find out the truth. You could hate me.

Instead, what comes out is, “Okay.”

Next (in progress)