#mcsrtober

He tumbles down and down and down, skidding to a stop– or rather being forced to a stop when he slams into a tree, the wind being knocked from his lungs, coughing roughly with a pained groan. The wet leaves crumple and squish underneath him as he shifts around on his side on the ground, clutching himself before the pain ebbs away, leaving what felt like a bruise that would become darker and more visible against his pale skin later. His breathing is ragged, panting as he wobbles on his feet, bracing himself on a tree nearby.

Limping along, he mumbles to himself, words carried away by the silencing winds of the Nowhere, his destination a blurry image in his mind every time he closes his eyes briefly, exhaustion tugging at his thoughts. He doesn’t have a destination– he’s never actually had one, he’s just drawn to the rumble of energy that pulls him along, his journey a quiet, solo one, accompanied by no one but himself.

He fumbles for the trident that had skewered itself into the ground when he had fallen, narrowly avoiding being impaled by his own weapon when he had been thrown over by the winds of a brewing storm. He restraps it to his back, continuing his trek through the forest, the trees fading away into bare plains that stretch on and on, reaching into the horizon with no real end in sight.

And so he walks.

And walks.

And walks.

Until he can’t.

For whoever knows how long, he’s just been going in a straight line, and now he’s stopped by a wall that looms over him– which doesn’t exactly stop him, but it forces a pause in his thoughtless walking, looking up at something that his mind isn’t able to process. So he doesn’t look further into it, simple as that. He climbs up into the hollow parts of the wall, something that reaches on into the beyond infinitely, holes making the otherwise solid wall look like a slab of swiss cheese, paths carved out by a bigger entity that resided in a land that was far from normal. It was unstable, parts of the world carved out to allow some path forward to form, even if it was a mind melting thing to comprehend.

It’s cold, almost. There’s snow and ice, but the wind here doesn’t quite reach him, the air questionably still. It’s suffocating, kinda, which is weird because the place was open, while being constricting in some places, it was overall open enough to see the sky when the terrain reached out towards nothingness that continued on forth, and he has to be careful with where he steps and where he jumps from because one wrong step would send him tumbling to his death, and it wasn’t like he was afraid of heights, it was just a harrowing thought.

He sure does talk a lot about caution when he’s not very careful at all, thoughts drifting off which makes him forget about his steps and where exactly he’s going, a clipped shout getting muffled by the scarf over his face when he plunges his trident into the stone as hard as he could, attempting to get the prongs to sink into the stone and keep him dangling there rather than falling to his death immediately, which gives him a moment to think about what the hell to do in this situation. It’s more of the question of what he could really do rather than how he could even get out of this because he has basically nothing to help him, and his only tool is stuck in the wall and preventing his death currently.

 So much for being careful.

There’s the thought to swing himself up, but when he swings a bit, his trident groans and wobbles far too much to be safe, sending a jolt of fear through his heart when it slides further down, prongs bending under his weight and the pull of gravity, desperate to make him fall to his inevitable death. Which, looking at his current state, might happen sooner than he would’ve liked.

He doesn’t really accept it– he’s actually quite pissed that this would be how he goes out after his big grand journey that just basically lead to nowhere at all, but he is actually stuck in a place called Nowhere because… because he’s a doomed child, and he’s here for all eternity or something– he doesn’t remember, nor does he really want to. Last thing he really remembered was struggling to sleep, then what felt like he was sleeping forever before being woken up again, then becoming restless all over again, unable to ever get a wink of sleep that always made him more agitated, caretakers forcefully separating him from other children when he lashed out, punishing him by making him watch them play while he was trapped indoors.

Man, what a boring way to go out. Why couldn’t it be due to something big and scary? Not that it would matter, then he probably would be remembered for anything either.

He screams when arms suddenly wrap around him and pull him away from his trident in the wall, sweaty hands sliding from the handle as he scrambles– the tight grip scaring the life out of him as he flails around because what the hell was grabbing him– this was NOT what he meant by wanting to not die in a boring way!! What else could’ve possibly been out here that had the ability to even reach him like this???

“Ohmygod– stop– you’re gonna make me drop you please stop flailing around you’re really heavy–!” Someone's voice barely makes it past the buzzing in his ears and the flapping of wings that he’s finally picked up on, and why should he trust a random voice like this–? Or, well, maybe he should because he kinda did just get saved by them but he’s still being carried concerningly high up and he really doesn’t wanna fall so maybe he should stop flailing but that’s a bit hard to calm down when he’s still scared for his life at the moment.

Unfortunately, his unrelentless flailing does eventually cause them to crash land on a patch of grass that was miraculously there for them by the odd terrain that made it look like the world was falling apart and struggling to put itself together again. Both of them groan there, and he does get to his feet quicker than the other, eyes landing on the wings filled with ruffled feathers now after their rough landing. They don’t look one little bit amused at him at all, dusting off their dirty dark purple and gold clothing, looking like they were from a different era than him, maybe they had been in the Nowhere for longer, or they had been taken when the world outside and before the Nowhere had still been stuck in the royal ages, though they wear no crown so he assumes that maybe they were just dressing like that for the fun of it, or maybe they actually were a prince and had lost their crown due to unfortunate events.

Hmm, lots to think about.

They don’t appreciate his staring though, because they narrow their eyes at him and poke the center of his forehead, getting swatted away with a hiss. They scoff at him, turning and taking off into the sky with a few strong flaps of their wings and he watches them go before looking at his surroundings to see if there was a safe way to get down from wherever they had crash landed together.

There isn’t any, actually. Every side he looks down, he has to take a step back so he doesn’t vomit from the vertigo that he gets, closing his eyes tightly. Though, he really should keep his eyes open because in the next second his trident flies through the air and pins him to the tree that he had been near, prongs embedded in his clothing and there’s only one thing he knows could’ve gone and found his trident from where it was, and the bird boy flutters in front of him, highly amused by his situation with his own weapon.

“I think that trident of yours causes you a lot more trouble than it does with helping,” they chortle with a smirk, watching him basically fight the damn thing to free himself and ripping part of his outfit as a result. Their eyes are covered by cloth, and he wonders a bit how they could see. Maybe the cloth was thin, and what were they hiding underneath?

“It’s been a perfectly fine companion so far, actually.” He snaps back, clutching it protectively and the avian crosses their arms with a scoff.

“I’m pretty sure it just nearly caused your death.”

“It saved me!”

“You would’ve fallen to your death regardless if I hadn’t been there to find you and bring you to safety– and I brought your trident back for you! A thank you would be appreciated!” They squawk when he attempts to poke them with his trident, glaring at him and sticking their tongue out at him before flying out of his reach and hovering there.

“You’re acting like I made you save me. You went out of your own way to grab me while you were doing whatever you were doing instead of just ignoring me and continuing on.”

“Yeah, right, because I should just let someone die when I could’ve saved them– ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” Okay, well, awesome. He has an absolute lunatic of a bird now following him as he attempts to make his way through the messy terrain, forced to stop when he meets the edge of a drop where he knows that there’s absolutely no way for him to get down without actually dying or breaking a limb badly, and he can’t just go back because that’s no such thing when you’re this far out already.

“You want some help now?” They are far, far too amused at his current situation right now, and he scowls at them before begrudgingly nodding, stiffening up when he gets grabbed and carried over the yawning chasm, a sigh of relief leaving him when his feet touch solid ground again.

“Not a fan of heights?” He only grunts quietly in reply to their tiny poke at him. “Only not a fan of them when I’m being dangled over a drop that would kill me instantly.” They both fall into silence after that, the avian boy hovering beside him as he leaps across pits that he doesn’t look down into and attempts to move forward in a terrain that is hellbent on only generating sideways.

“Why are you helping me? You could just leave this place if you wanted on your own, you can literally fly.” He plays with a fallen feathers, running it between and across his fingers, feeling the soft plumage and it’s a gentleness that he hasn’t felt in a while.

“Having a bit of company never hurt anyone, and besides, not many ever really appear in this place.”

“So when I find a way out you’ll leave me?”

“If you find a way out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dunno, find out for yourself.”

“You are the worst companion ever.”

“Hey! I saved your life! I’m the best actually!”

“Are you gonna hold that over my head forever now?”

“Just making sure you remember who’s responsible for the fact that you’re still walking around like this.”

Their conversation ends when he hurls his trident towards them, regretting the decision to throw it the exact second it disappears out of view. It leaves his hands empty without anything to hold, and he attempts to hide how much it affects him, but it seems to be obvious enough regardless that the avian disappears before reappearing and chucking it at him, the prongs digging into the dirt that were far too close to hitting his feet.

“Good throw.” He huffs out quietly, refusing to not acknowledge that the other boy did have a pretty good ability to hit whatever he was probably aiming at. They grin triumphantly at him, and he turns away from their way too bright smile. It’s the only thing he can focus on since their eyes were covered with cloth that was tightly secured to their head practically, and he grits his teeth under his scarf, for what reason? He doesn’t know.

It’s a weird journey. The terrain doesn’t change too much, and he feels like he’s walking in circles. There seems to be no end, and maybe this is what they had meant by what they had said earlier.

He’s starting to get really tired of not knowing this nameless boys.. well, name.

“What can I call you?” They’re both still on the move, but a bit of idle conversation never hurt anyone.

They hum quietly, thinking for a moment. “You can call me Wings, easy to remember right?” Their wings flare out with a sharp smile, and he rolls his eyes at the sight. “What about you? Got a name or are you just brooding and mysterious?” He snorts, finding a smile tugging at his lips at the other boy's words.

“Just call me Strike, doesn’t get more simple than that.” And for some reason, he’s smiling when the avian looks at him with an extremely amused grin that makes their eyes squint from their smile presumably, he just seeds the way wrinkles form from the bit that isn’t covered by a blindfold yet.

He doesn’t remember the last time he smiled like this.

They drop down and bump their shoulders together, grinning brightly with Strike uncontrollably reflecting the smile.

It’s a walk that they get lost in, just paying attention to each other and talking– bonding, actually.

Their nice conversation gets stopped when Wings abruptly drops to the ground and tugs him behind a wall, wings encapsulated around him and a hand over his mouth when he wiggles in his grasp, glaring at the other boy that sends the glare right back and tightens his grip around his mouth. He hisses quietly, but he stops his struggling when talons dig into his cheek as a warning. It’s a long moment of nothing, and he debates biting Wings hand before he feels the ground beneath them both shake from thundering footsteps, and he feels the golden feathers curl tighter around his body as he attempts to glance out at what could possibly be shaking the world as it walks, but Wings stops him with a tight hold, shaking his head.

“What was that?– What is that?” He whips around and hisses quietly, demanding answers but he gets grabbed instead, pushed down to the ground by his shoulders.

“Did you harm anything while you were here? There’s not much to hurt, but– still, did you punch or threaten or harm any of the people that stayed here?” Wings is frantic, and he has to take a moment to think back to if he had really done anything. Were there people that he had passed by? He had only seen weird amalgamations of creatures when he had shortly entered the glitched remains of a world, keeping them a trident's length away as he carefully navigated the silent chunk of world. Were those the people he was talking about? He did stab a few in self defense when he had gotten cornered and they were getting too close for his comfort, but they were gonna hurt him!.

“Do you count towards those people? Because I threw a trident at you,” Strike points out in a hushed voice, and for a moment, Wings thinks about it, expression shifting between several before shaking his head aggressively.

“No, I didn’t originate here. This isn’t my home. That– that thing doesn’t care about me at all.” He glances over to the giant for a moment while he replies, voice shaking for a moment before it fixes itself when he clears his throat.

“Damn, doesn’t matter regardless. I did poke some pretty weird blank faced figures– they attacked me first, don’t look at me like that!” Seriously, can he be blamed for acting in self defense? It’s his first time here! How was he supposed to know that he’s supposed to just let himself get pummeled by whatever the hell those things were.

“I wouldn’t be looking at you like this if I didn’t know that you just doomed us both. That thing is an unrelentless protector that doesn’t awaken unless the people under its guard and it doesn’t particularly want to go back to its sleep until it kills us, y’know, not a big deal at all!” He really shouldn’t let Wings stress him out like this but the other kid did also just have a better knowledge of the area overall, but he would’ve appreciated this knowledge way before!

“It’s pretty big compared to us, we can just sneak past it right?” He reaches to put a hand on the other boy's shoulder, feeling extremely awkward about it.

“Yes, because a kid who looks like he just walked out of candy land and another with bright yellow wings are extremely sneaky, let’s do it.” Wings drawls sarcastically while he shoulders his hand off and brushes the spot where he had put his hand. Strike rolls his eyes at him, shoving him from the back, crossing his arms with a huff before getting hit in the face with the feathers, getting a mouthful of the dirty things and gagging, coughing them out and waving the downy feathers away.

“You don’t have to be sarcastic about it, I’m just suggesting it. I don’t hear you having a better idea.” They stick close to the shadows, words biting at each other and after a bit, Wings relents with a sigh, wings slumping down and he looks Strike dead in the eyes.

“Fine, we’ll attempt to get past, but I want you to know neither of us know where we’re going and how to get out, and I’ve already looked quite a bit, so I hope you can find a way out before that guardian finds and kills us both, I’ll go distract it from you running around.”

He watches the other boy shake his wings out, taking off and hovering in place when Strike calls out. “Wait, you’re what?? You’re risking your life for me? What are you doing!?”

“I don’t think you’re quite mobile enough to distract a guy that big, so try to find something quick!” What? What the hell was Wings doing? He doesn’t– the avian most definitely knew that he didn’t know anything about this place and he’s supposed to find something that would let them out?? This place seemed like it was infinite!

“What– what would happen if I don’t find anything?”

“Well, let’s just hope that you do.” Wings disappears into the sky after that, and he scrambles to get a move on, because he’s not just gonna stand around and be useless– especially not when his companion is out there risking his life for him after he basically caused this mess.

Okay, what is… what is he supposed to do?

There’s no real way out of this, it’s a loop. It’s something never-ending because he’s pretty sure as long as he hugs the wall, he won’t leave this large chunk. What can you do when you can’t get out of a loop? You start making up bullshit.

For as long as he’s roamed the Nowhere, he’s sometimes heard or even seen stuff like portals to different sections of the world– though it wasn’t like you could naturally achieve making one, the kids in Nowhere were special, usually. He’s heard things about the weird and the normal, and he’s one of those weird ones. Along with Wings too because it wasn’t like feathery appendages on your back were normal at all, glowing in the sun and providing extended flight and the ability to navigate between large distance areas was something obviously not possible in any reality.

Strike is normal at first glance, but his attachment to his trident and the odd pull he feels towards a strange energy that he actually doesn’t know where it comes from is what makes him different from the others, even if it isn’t very special. Sometimes when it rains, his chest feels tighter than normal with his trident buzzing in his grasp, but he hasn’t really done anything with that because he’s actually concerned about what it would be.

What is he thinking about? God, he has to focus.

There was a dark material usually associated with portals he’s pretty sure– well, he’s not that confident but it’s the only thing he knows, kinda. He’s scrambling for anything here! The terrain forces him to take riskier jumps, but a lot of his stumbles are caused by the fact that his eyes are searching the sky for the small blur that flickers past now and then, the ground underneath him throwing his balance off when his feet touch the grass, and he has to use his trident more than once to save himself from falling off edges, shoving it into the grass and attempting to stabilize himself before it ended worse than it was going, knowing that his savior was currently too preoccupied to come and save him if he ended up dangling from his trident again.

He hates this! He really does! He feels a bit helpless, fumbling for something as Wings stays in the sky and keeps the guardian from noticing Strike, heavy arms dragging through the ruined world, and for a moment he questions if the holes in the shifting walls had been made by the protector made of nothing but iron and whatever enchantments that were engraved in it to actually make it come to life like this. He’ll give props to the– er, whatever those creatures had been… for being able to actually make something like this to protect them if harm came to them.

Glad to know at least they had something to protect them if harm came their way.

Well, now isn’t really a time to be bitter because these damn minerals are darker to move than expected and he really needs to focus– how was he going to light this? Ugh, dammit. He hates not being prepared for things.

He bristles when raindrops land on him, head snapping towards the sky and seeing a storm gather, and a chill runs up his spine when it begins to pour, and when he check the skies again he can’t see Wings up there anymore, the giant still stumbling around and swinging wildly. His trident shivers in his hold, glowing like it always did, and the rumble of lightning brewing resonates through his chest, forcing a heavy exhale from him.

The portal is somewhat assembled, he doesn’t care– he’s pretty sure there isn’t any time to care about how presentable the portal was because for a moment through the darkness that had shrouded the place due to thick clouds blocking the sun, he spots Wings, rapidly losing height and distance from the guardian due to the aggressive rain that had begun pounding down upon them both.

Wings is blind in the sky when it rains, Strike realizes. He observes the frantic movements made by the avian, zigzags in the air that lack any sense of direction, the winged boy nearly getting slammed by the heavy arms of the golem and knocked out– or even worse, crushed to death when it brings its arm down rather than swatting at the boy and attempting to knock him out of the air.

Thunder strikes, and his trident whines, filled with energy that he doesn’t know what to do with. The portal still needed a light– one that he didn’t have but it wasn’t like it was gonna light on it’s own because of the rain but–

He yelps when his trident suddenly shocks him, burning his hand and he basically throws it, shaking out his hand from the pain, hissing. Apparently, that had been enough for his trident because right where the tip bounces off the dark material, a bright light flashes and basically blinds him and also deafens him for a moment, his ears ringing before his vision clears and the noise in his ears fades, and the portal in front of him is alive.

It glows purple, swirls dancing on the surface and it’s inviting almost. He’s a bit transfixed by the sight because did he do that?

He doesn’t have much time to figure out what he’s done and appreciate it because Wings crash lands beside him, sliding in the mud before slowing to a stop, drenched to the core with his wings dark and covered in dirt and absolutely soaked in mud now, and he’s only dazed for a bit before he scrambles up and shoves Strike into the portal before the arm of the guardian comes down on both of them, Strike disappearing into the swirls first before he falls through himself and sends them tumbling out into a new, unknown place before the portal that had just been made was crumbled completely.

Clutching his head, he groans, stomach churning as he struggles to breathe and get his vision to stop swimming around. His trident vibrates nearby him, and he rolls over on his back and pushes it away so he doesn’t hear the god awful clanging sound that it makes against the ground. Stuff digs into his palms when he uses his hands to support himself and push himself to his knees, blinking at the red, brittle ground below him with dust that sticks to his hands.

Wait, red? Grass was green– not, not red– not this weird dirty color–

He scrambles to gain a bearing of his surroundings, blinking away the fog that clouds everything and the murky red haze that’s settled over basically everything, all the colors muddied and the red was more of some dried out color instead of being vibrant and alive like the grass had been. There’s no grass here either, just brittle, dusty ground. It stains his hands, a bit like terracotta but he pays little mind to the coloring on his hands as he looks for Wings, spotting the avian sprawled out nearby, wings bent weirdly, and he reaches over carefully, fingers barely graving his shoulder before the non-crooked wing springs out and smacks him in the face, making him cry out in pain because that hurt. It hurt more than expected, last time he had been hit by the soft appendages it hadn’t done much but annoy him, but this time it made him groan and clutch his nose.

The mud caked on the feathers had apparently solidified, which was strange because just mere moments ago both of them had been soaked to the core due to the sudden thunderstorm. He finds that his own clothing is also dry, and Wings is actually awake now, grimacing at the state of his wings, fingers reaching out to poke the filthy feathers with a wince.

“Cool, no– no really, that’s awesome. That’s just splendid, my wings are unusable now! Isn’t that just the best thing that could happen?” Wings grows more and more agitated by the second, talons sinking into the dried mud of his wings and Strike grabs his wrists to stop him, staring at him in the eyes before the avian lets out a heavy sigh. He pulls the other boy up to his feet, using his trident as a walking stick as they move away from the warbling portal, attempting to see where they had ended up. They leave the small cave that they had been spat out in and immediately get blasted with pure heat, not even any steam or something like that, just nothing but suffocating heat that makes him dizzy for a moment at how suddenly the temperatures in his body had shifted, going from freezing to actually sweating all the water out of his body in mere minutes.

Wings winces every now and then when he moves and his left wing shifts with his shoulder, bent in an odd angle that looks uncomfortable, even without being caked under the layer of mud that had been brought through. Strike glances over now and then, keeping him stable and cautious with keeping the avian on his feet as they both slowly trek through the unfamiliar environment. They settle nearby an odd tree– it glows a bit, almost like veins crawling through the dark bark, pulsing teal. His attention is stolen from the tree when Wings hisses quietly, the feathered appendages sprawled out in front of him, expression stuck in a grimace as he picks at the dirt and grime, struggling to reach the parts that were closer to his back.

“Can I help?” He’s already reaching out before he gets an answer, and the other boy gives him a side-eye before reluctantly spreading his wings out wider, a quiet acceptance of the offer.

“Try not to rip my feathers out,” is the only thing that he really gets from his partner when he lays his fingers into whatever fluff he could feel through the hardened mud, and he’s starting to think that this might be more like clay than anything. Wings sits with his legs drawn up, arms crossed over his knees and chin resting on his forearms, staring into the red haze, the glow of lava far below barely breaching the smog that had layered over everything. Technically, he isn’t really able to see the fog or the murky redness of the biome– the blindfold over his eyes blocks everything, and he’s a bit surprised to see it still covering the boys eyes even after the entire encounter with the golem and through the strong rain that had been pelting down upon him while in the rain.

Mud is weird to get rid of. He sits and focuses, cracking the dried layers and carefully peeling it from the gentle plumage, and he spots the fine details in the hardened mud, the imprint clear as ever, and it’s a bit beautiful. He doesn’t stare at the way the texture is basically identical to how the feathers feel at the moment– a bit stiff, still dirty and there’s obviously no way to really clean these at the moment since water seems like it would evaporate immediately in this environment, so he hope that Wings won’t be too uncomfortable like this.

When he reaches the other wing, he isn’t sure how to approach it. It’s bent, so he suspects that maybe it’s broken, or something along the lines of that– he’s never really dealt with stuff beyond a few deep scratches. Wings head turns a bit towards him when he moves to the other wing, but he turns away soon later, presumably silently giving him permission to continue to clean his wings.

He gently pokes and prods at the appendages, hearing the way Wings hisses and flinches when he nudges something that does not look like it’s supposed to be pointing in that direction. His touch runs up the gentle feathers, brushing against the other boys back before stepping away for a moment. Blue vines reach up around them, curling towards something, somehow growing upward without any support at all but still flimsy enough to be harvested with just his hands, the vines noisily collapsing and falling onto him, getting momentarily tangled in the thick teal vines before freeing himself and setting back down next to Wings.

“Don’t scream. I don’t know what I’m doing.” It’s probably the worst warning he could’ve given before abruptly pushing whatever the hell was sticking out weirdly back into where it probably belonged, barely giving the other boy any time to register the warning before a shriek explodes from Wings at the pain that shot through his wing attached to his back, snapping around and glaring at Strike through the cloth covering his eyes. He pokes Wings until he lets his back face Strike again, something that he does slowly and reluctantly. “This might be a bit impractical but… this might help.” His trident is a bit heavy for the avian’s wings, but he makes do anyway, pushing the wing closed and using the trident as some sort of brace for… something. The vines are some makeshift thing to hold it in place, and he reaches towards his own scarf, thinking for a second.

Wings can’t see. Well, he can but also not fully through the blindfold. It’s not– he doesn’t actually know what the avian could see and what he couldn’t, but it’s not like he's hiding too much at all. He doesn’t trust these vines too much, and cloth is easier to tie than thick vines. Wings perks up a bit when he feels the soft cloth against his feathers, and he does attempt to turn, but Strike catches his head and stops him, making him look forward again.

“Could’ve given me a warning before you decided to snap my wing like that..” The shorter boy grumbles and sniffles, rubbing away the tears that had gathered in his eyes before contorting his body to turn around to brush his fingers against the cloth and vine, fingertips hovering over the cold material of Strike’s trident, humming quietly when he actually feels it. “Didn’t expect you to give up your trident for me like this.”

He shrugs, pushing the extra vines to the side. “It’s a bit heavy, you should get used to it before we keep on going, your wing is a bit fucked.” His hands are caked in what feels like dry spores and dirt, and it’s a weird feeling when he clenches his hands into fists, staring at them for a moment. It feels weird to actually feel air brushing against the lower half of his face, his scarf now wrapped around dirty golden feathers that still seem to glow even in the fog that clouds his vision. He wonders if it’s okay for them to be breathing in this air because it does feel thicker– like every couple breath is suffocating him, his lungs feeling a bit tighter before his next exhale gets rid of the feeling.

They fall into a good pace, him navigating the spore filled forest, gently poking the new textures and tugging Wings away from vines that he could get caught in and trees that he couldn’t see. Eventually, their hands end up intertwined, just to make their journey easier, and neither of them mind, accepting it easily without question or even saying anything. He’s on high alert, and although both of them are quiet, he hears the screams of something else existing too, and he hears creaks sometimes, like the world couldn’t bear its own weight and was straining to keep itself together– he stares at the ceiling sometimes, standing there in silence and hearing how it groans, a cry for help that no one could really give.

The fact that there’s no sky but rather a ceiling covering what would’ve been a sky is what makes him feel trapped in a way. He wonders if it’s better that Wings couldn’t see because it probably wouldn’t feel too good to realize that you were basically trapped and had no real access to the sky in a place like this, something that doesn’t mix too well with avians at all, something about them needing to be free and feel the nice fresh cold air on their face as they flew. In Wings current state, he’s pretty sure flying isn’t something that’s gonna happen in a while, and it looks more dangerous to fly here than anything else, something about the eerie wails echoing in the distance and the shrieks that accompany them, along with the world sounding like it was gonna collapse upon itself in any moment.

He catches flickers of something else here too– tall and gnarly, lanky in frame and looking like those villagers he had seen back in the world where the sky still existed but the world was being eaten by itself, corroding and corrupting by repairing itself all at the same time. The ground beneath them squishes as they walk on it, and it feels weird– feels cold but unbearably hot at the same time, the foliage makes it feel like there’s life here, but it’s all fungus– it’s all spores and something that takes from those that had once been alive to survive.

The figures flicker in and out, piercing eyes staring through him as he looks at them, but not in their eyes– never in the eyes. The thought makes acid burn at the back of his throat for reasons that he can’t explain, but he doesn’t think, he just moves through the weeds and steps on mushrooms and squeezes past vines, Wings hand tightly grasped in his and the other boy trailing behind, blindly trusting Strike in the most literal and metaphorical sense.

“Do you know where you’re going?” It’s a reasonable question to ask when you’re getting led blindly through an environment that you can’t see at all– although Wings could probably see a bit–flying blind isn’t something that really could be done, and whatever the avian was able to see had probably been blocked out by the unforgiving thick clouds of ash and smog that sunk towards the ground of the biome, reaching for the blue warts that were facsimiles of the grass that they were used to.

“Not really,” he sighs, “I’m just going where we actually can– not like this place is really made for us… or anything at all, now that I think about it.” 

“It’s most definitely not made for me because there’s absolutely no light here for me to use to see– I’m already blind enough!” Wings grumbles under his breath, and Strike tugs him up an edge after he had been helped up by the smaller boy, only smiling a bit in amusement.

“There’s not much to see anyway, It’s dark and just really, really red– apart from this area, it’s blue and weird, and I don’t wanna be here anymore.” He tightens his hold on the avians hand and attempts to speed through the place that feels like it’ll never end, and eventually, they do escape the demanding purple eyes that had been boring into his back the entire he had been inside of that biome, finally taking a risk to turn around and regretting that decision immediately when purple eyes lock with his, a shriek piercing his ears and making him dizzy and short of breath, his blurred vision offering little help to spot where the threat was coming in from.

No matter how hard he squints, he can’t see, so he turns and runs, dragging Wings along who’s shouting questions at him that he can’t hear nor offer the answer to. He runs blind, hearing a cacophony of screams echo behind him, and the avian behind him stumbles with yelps, and for a moment, Strike stops just to lift the smaller boy up onto his back, making this easier for both of them.

The figures are too tall to reach them if they slide under the caps of mushrooms, but they’re still hot on their tails, fully just focused on them both regardless of what the terrain was– it didn’t matter to them because they would just teleport past anything, and it’s horrifying. It’s a horrifying realization that no matter how far they go, they’ll be caught up to as long as they aren’t continuously moving.

As long as they can’t reach them, they’ll be okay.

He scrambles across crumbling ground, pebbles and tiny bits digging into the soles of his feet as he attempts to block out the deafening cries of anger while stumbling onto cracked dark bricks, coughing from the burn at the back of his throat as he ducks into a spot deep in the dark walls, sliding Wings off his back as he coughs his lungs out, struggling to breathe. His limbs ache, and the dusty air that enters his lungs as he desperately gasps for oxygen is heated– it does little to clear his foggy mind, tears gathering in his eyes because everything hurts.

The air feels molten as it drags down towards his lungs, hands clawing at his throat, and he feels another hand run its palm against his spine, dragging up and down and rubbing circles into his flesh through his thin shirt, his thicker jacket having been long discarded due to the hot and stuffy environment.

His head throbs when he’s able to get control over his breathing again, a whine high in his throat when he flops over on his side, laying on the heated ground for a moment, waiting for the world to stop spinning. He exhales roughly, coughing a bit still, the taste of soot and ash sticking to the roof of his mouth.

“God, you nearly scared me half to death! What the fuck was all of that??” Wings' shrill voice and chirps pierce his sensitive ears, and he licks the back of his teeth, biting his tongue to tell him to watch his language or shut up for a moment, and he finds that it’s strangely out of character for him to be thinking about either of those things. Maybe this air wasn’t safe to  inhale at all, and it should be obvious because he had just basically nearly died attempting to get some oxygen into his brain after running for far longer than he ever had in a new environment. He hisses weakly when he gets hit by a feathery appendage, swatting it away before actually getting up, dusting himself off and letting his vision focus on the avian beside him.

Wings is doing fine for the most part, several scrapes are present on him and bits of soot all over his face, but his blindfold still covers his eyes, and his expression that isn’t covered is morphed into a concerned and frustrated one, jabbing a finger in Strike’s direction that he nudges away when it misses. They help each other back up, hands connected again.

“Are you gonna answer my question about what that all was?” He’s poked from the back, and he huffs quietly.

“Bad idea to look at things in the eyes here, made a mistake that nearly cost us our lives. They could teleport, and they were pretty tall– like the people from where we used to be, but more violent. They were less forgiving– less peaceful, more aggressive than anything.” He braces against a crumbling wall as they climb up stairs, the brick falling apart under their feet and hands. His voice trails off as his head turns and follows a step that fell from the structure, tumbling back into the darkness they came from. His fingers trail over the dusty walls, feeling the cracks embedded in the surface, eyes drawn to the gold that hides between the dark bricks, pulsing in the dark.

“Why’d you stop? And that sounds… scary. Are we safe from them now?”

“I’d hope, but they seemed to really want us dead, so I’ll be on high alert for us.” His head turns at the sound of quiet shifting that hadn’t come from him or the avian, noises clicking through the structure, echoing through the cramped spaces they pulled themselves through, reaching the edge and he watches Wings breathe a sigh of relief, the appendages on his back twitching, only one of them spreading wide open due to the other still being tied to his trident, and he stands to admire the sight for a moment before he hears faint snorts that become more frantic, and Wings hears it too, wings folded up again and looking back towards him with a concerned expression.

“What the hell was that?” Wings hisses quietly, and he wordlessly reaches to grab the smaller boy's hand and pulls him away from the edge and behind a broken part of the wall, hiding them in the darkness. They’re pressed close as a stampede of footsteps suddenly storm down, gold and flesh blurring past them, their breathing harsh as squeals and snarls pass by, bi-legged and quadruped creatures stumbling on top of each other to get further ahead of each other, no care for each other due to some mysterious force that takes every ounce of their attention.

There’s sharp squeals– it’s ear-piercing, and they sound more like shrieks than anything else, but it meshes with the crowd that seems endless, and they’re stuck together, pressed close as the hoard tramples each other. A loud squeal terribly close to them makes their hearts stop, beady, pale white eyes staring directly at him before it screams and runs at them, tusks sharp and swinging wildly as it tries to squeeze into the hole of the wall, both of them pressing back and away from the huffs and grunts, drool dripping onto the dusty bricks. It backs up a bit, rearing back to get ready to charge and force its way in to get them, and both of them brace for impact and to fight back, freezing in place when a large hoof comes down and crushes the hog flat. Nothing notices nor cares, hooves continuing to stomp over the body that lays limp, both of their eyes stuck on the way the life drains from the tiny body– tiny compared to everything around it, and it twitches a leg, attempting– reaching and struggling to put weight on that mangled leg before something steps on that hoof, bone piercing skin and entirely shattered in the flesh from the force that had trampled the tiny limb.

“That could’ve been us.” He nods stiffly with Wings words, backing away towards the back of the gap in the hole, sitting down next to the young avian. Both of them can’t look away from how the corpse continues to be trampled, gore plastered across the dark brick and he wonders, for a moment, his thoughts bring up the possibility that these bricks had been stained dark with the blood of those that had been misfortunate enough to stumble on a step and fall, not a single soul turning back to check on those that were being trampled.

What a horrifying thought.

The crowd passes dreadfully slowly, and he wonders how the both of them had even managed to avoid them in the first place. He takes the first steps out of the dark crack, unable to stay hunched for longer, and Wings also seems to be relieved to escape the cramped spot, feathers twitching as they slowly climb the stairs, trying to ignore the way their feet step on something slippery and wet.

He makes an uneasy noise, pressed close to the wall when he hears grunts and snorts, squeezing Wings hand tight as he peers past the wall. Something lurks, roaming around and patrolling the broken halls, something sharp dragging before it. They keep their lips sealed as they pull themselves through the shadows and dust, shuffling along past the patrolling guard, golden axe-head glinting in the light produced by the slowly oozing lava that cascaded down the open parts of the structure. It sniffs the air, once, then twice, as they sneak towards the stairs, and it squeals sharply when its dead white eyes land on both of their tiny figures at the very foot of the steps. He shoves Wings ahead of him, stumbling up stairs that were never made for the young– never made for anyone like them, because why would children ever be in a place as dangerous as this?

It shrieks, and they run through halls and gaps that they’ve never seen before, scratching themselves on exposed broken bricks and tripping in gaps that didn’t trouble anything but them, and their frightened turns lead them to where all the inhabitants had gathered, crowds circling piles of glistening gold, their glow enhanced by the lava that flowed through everything. The shrieks from their chaser produce enough of a ruckus to break the trance that all of the hogs had been set in by the sight of the treasure, and they don’t hesitate before joining the chase, and Strike sees the way that they only pay attention to Wings, their eyes glued to the golden feathers which also glow from the light of the heat, glistening and still beautiful in their dirtied state.

He can’t let them ruin what’s already so close to being destroyed. He can’t let them hurt him like this.

He can’t.

Their run is pushed further up the structure, and he’s scared– he’ll admit it! He’s fucking scared of the way that he can hear the rumble of so many feet pounding against the ground to catch up to them, and they’re so defenseless that he’s not sure what else to do. Wings reaches the top of the structure first, it’s flat up there– weirdly so, but they’re so high up, and he knows– oh, oh he knows that there’s no way out of this for him.

But there is one way out for Wings.

He rips away the vines that he had tied– even though he knows the time is limited, he still is careful– he ties his scarf around his trident and pushes it into the avians hands, and he doesn’t give time for any questions to be asked before he shoves the other boy off the edge, unable to see what actually happened to Wings before hands wrap around him and crush his arms to his body, and he feels his ribs creak– he feels them bend before they snap under the tight hold, and he chokes, a metallic taste flooding his mouth as he coughs up blood and his vision blurs as he loses air and any sense of his surroundings, unable to even fight back for a second– helpless to the dangers that no kid should’ve ever faced alone or even at all at an age like this.

At least maybe Wings has a chance at survival, if not him, then the other boy had some chance.

…

…

His vision swims, lungs screaming for air as he crawls from the depths of the ocean, kicking against the hands that tried to drag him back down, ripping a chipped and bent large fork from the rotten hands of the lurking monsters and swinging downwards as dots crowd his vision.

The waves spit him onto cold sand, and he coughs and gags, trembling on his side, weakness imbued in his limbs as he lays under the sun that doesn’t provide any warmth at all.

His heart beats, and he feels short of breath, chest tight as something in him pulses, an outside tugging on the nerves of his body. He cracks an eye open, staring at a bird that landed near him and starts pecking at the sand, staring at it as it stares at him before it flies off, and he follows it until it disappears into the clouds high above.

He closes his eyes again, and his heart thunders in his ears.

He feels empty, like he has no purpose, but he’s compelled to find one for himself– to fill the aching in his chest that makes it hard to breathe as he lays without movement. He starts moving when the sun falls below the horizon, and the ebb of hurt in his heart lessens, but the throb in his head doesn’t go away.

He is alone, with no one and nothing but himself, and it leaves him lost– it makes him walk until he cannot anymore. His feet fall in front of the other, his eyes stuck looking forward at something beyond what he can actually see, and that’s how his journey is.

He walks.

And walks.

And walks.

Until he can’t. He goes until there is a wall and he turns the other way, zoned out and letting the wind guide his steps, pushing him along until it cannot anymore and he has to take his own steps for once.

It leaves him eventually– the wind. He’s left on his own to walk his journey that he doesn’t even know how to navigate yet.

He continues his pattern– or he tries to at least. He’s more conscious about his decisions, about if he should go left or right, or maybe even turn around again– he feels like he’s overthinking everything, and how maybe every decision he makes is the wrong one– he doesn’t know, and he’ll never know, but he keeps thinking about it.

His walk ends short when he meets a wall again, but this one is covered in more holes than solid surface, and he feels the urge to continue in this direction, so he climbs through.

And he keeps going, because nothing stops him.

[Full Fic]

“Did you see who you wanted to see?”

Death is a nice man.

He accompanies Couriway as he roams the space between the afterlife and life– not that he’s still alive, he just has unfinished duties that he can’t pass on without completing. Death keeps him company so he doesn’t get lost and end up in places he shouldn’t be.

Death is patient.

Couriway hums softly in reply to the question, sitting on his tombstone and staring off into the sunset. His wings hang limply behind him, phasing through the gifts placed at his grave, feathers still bloody and askew, stuck in the moment of time when he had taken his last breath. His legs swing back and forth as he thinks about the question, deep in thought as Death stands beside him, looking off into the sunset too, watching it dip under the horizon with him.

“Yeah.” He answers finally, exhaling slowly to force the heavy feeling on his chest to dissipate. “Yeah, I did. Even if it wasn't in the best of circumstances, I'm content with the fact that I at least saw him again.”

Death is silent. He is unjudging, simply because he doesn’t have the right. He only asks these questions to get a better understanding about why a soul hasn’t passed yet. He only talks for the sake of his role in life.

“Did you say the things you wanted to say?”

The answer to that question is clear even without saying anything.

No, he had never said everything that he wanted to say before his early death. There were hundreds of pages of words that he had written when Feinberg had suddenly uprooted himself from their routine of a life and disappeared abruptly, leaving a hollow gaping hole in Couriway’s life that stayed no matter how much he tried to distract himself from it or forget about it entirely. It’s an impossible task to forget someone that had basically been his other half, his soul deeply intertwined with Feinberg’s, their bond going beyond something that could be put into words. They were friends, but both of them knew that just being friends wasn't enough– it wasn’t a word that fit what they were towards each other. They both trusted each other immensely, and Couriway could count on one hand how many people that had been allowed to preen his wings, and even that would just be two fingers, and removing Feinberg would just make it one. He knows Feinberg, and he knows that man never trusted easy. He ran from the concept of connecting with someone for long enough to know more than just their name, and he had tried to do the same with Couriway before for some reason letting the avian be his exception to his self-made rules that he had later learned that were made because Feinberg was afraid of loving and being hurt by it again.

He knew Feinberg’s body and mind far better than his own, a hand squeezing his heart every time he thought about him during the nights where he had found himself alone in his own nest that felt more than empty even though it was his and no one else's and no one but him should’ve been found it but Feinberg had been the exception to that. Feinberg had been the exception to everything in his life. His instincts never screamed when Feinberg got too close to his nest, and the sight of the man in or near it made those instincts happy rather than flaring up and making him aggressive at the proximity, and it made him a bit sick to his core. His chest and mind had felt hollow every time he had laid in that nest alone, no warm body against his with gentle breathing that would also accompany his own, and when he turns his head, he expects a soft smile and cyan-brown eyes to look back at him in tired amusement, teasing him for still being awake even though he always would fall asleep before Fein would, but he sees nothing there, and it makes the tight feeling in his throat turn into a sob, clutching at his blankets and wailing into his pillows because it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair at all that Feinberg just left like that, leaving nothing behind at all and forcing Couriway to face the world alone after they had been co-existing in each other’s daily lives for so long that without each other, things would feel wrong– the world was vibrant even before Feinberg had come along, but it actually felt alive when the man was around, the air buzzing with electricity and life, and now it’s nothing but the bleak muddied colors that he’s grown disgusted of seeing, and it had felt like the world had died when Feinberg left. He stood out against the murky world, golden wings and royal purple clothes extravagant against the average outfits everyone else wore as the world deteriorated in a blink of an eye.

He searched everywhere for anything that Feinberg had maybe left behind for him, hopeful that he could have some explanation on where he went and why he even abandoned Couriway in the first place. He tore apart his nest at some point, some foolish hope infested in him that maybe there would be something where they were together most– where they were always vulnerable with each other.

It haunts him, the question of why Feinberg left and how he doesn’t have a clear reason behind it he –thinks and thinks and tries to recall all of their interactions and their moments together, trying to find out why– why the man who had never turned his back to anyone just to make Couriway that exception to his rules and beliefs and pull him close every night and let him see the flesh hidden under so many layers and feel his heart underneath his ribs and touch the scars from challenging the sky that no one even knew about just to fucking leave without a single goodbye or explanation on why he would just throw everything away like it had meant nothing at all when it was everything.

And how was Couriway supposed to live his day to day life knowing the exact way Feinberg’s heart would beat when he was asleep or how his breathing would shift from his dreams or the way his expression was so soft when he was hidden from the world in Couriway’s arms where he confessed that he had felt the safest. Oh, what was Couriway supposed to do but mourn a man who had disappeared and made it look like he had never existed in the first place?

He roamed their home– his home, and everything of Feinberg’s was gone. Everything was moved back to make it look like Couriway hadn’t ever lived with another person but himself, and his heart– already cracked and nearby on the brink of shattering– finally breaks when he spots the shelf that had held the things that they made together just gone, their few photos together missing from where they were usually sat, their frames empty.

There's nothing left.

He knows that this was all probably meticulously planned, because it's Feinberg. He does everything with a plan, even if the problem at hand was little or not. He should’ve seen the signs because he knows that man. But what signs were there to even see? How could he have ever known that one day, without reason, Feinberg would vanish from his life completely? There weren’t any signs for him to notice, and if he went back in time to before Feinberg left then he's sure that he still wouldn't be able to spot anything either, because Feinberg was equally impulsive as he was calculating. 

It’s laughable how predictable he must’ve been for Feinberg to so easily just disappear even though just hours before Couriway had seen and felt him breathing in his arms, clutching the avian as close as possible to him, and he wonders if Feinberg mourns him the same way that he currently is now. His nights are unbearable without the other man, and he’s miserable for he doesn’t even know how long before he does something other than mourn the death of a man who never died, but it’s a while. The world never stopped turning for anyone, so Couriway keeps going, even if it feels like his heart has been ripped straight out of his chest, the wound still fresh regardless of how much time passed.

It’s a weird thing, how even after everything, you still have to keep going like it never happened because the world stops for no one.

So he tries, and he keeps trying, and it’s hard to ignore the way his hopes get sent sky-high when he spots a glimpse of pink or blue in the sludge of people around him, because who would ever wear those colors but Fein? Those hopes don’t stay high for long when it immediately clicks after that no, Feinberg didn’t randomly reappear magically after being gone for years now.

Couriway misses him tenfold every single night, but he has to steel himself and tell him to get it together because a normal person wouldn’t still be stuck on a guy that had disappeared without even leaving a letter or anything behind at all.

Fate brings them back together eventually, and it’s not a nice meeting.

He had thought he was hallucinating or dreaming when he spotted colors too specific to be anyone else appear from out of nowhere, gleaming trident in hand as he moved past the waves of people, heads turning towards him as he basically glowed in the murkiness of the city, an air of unwavering authority emanating off of him.

In all his glory, stood Feinberg, uncaring of all of the attention (Feinberg never liked attention) and searching for something– or someone rather, because his eyes connect with Couriway’s, and it’s a moment of silence because Couriway really isn’t sure if he’s breathing or not because this… this was never supposed to happen.

Feinberg was gone, he was– no, Couriway never believed Feinberg was dead, but he knew that seeing the man again was close to zero because when he didn’t want himself found, he knew how to do it. So why? Why was he back? Why was he now staring at Couriway with thousands of incomprehensible emotions swimming in his eyes like he too didn’t expect it even though he willingly came back himself.

It doesn’t make sense.

Feinberg never made any sense.

He closes his eyes, his spectral form unmoving as he sits and remembers, going back to the mere minutes before he had bled out because of his best friend, the last thing he had heard before everything faded into nothingness was a soft broken whisper from Fein, a plea of some sort, words jumbled with a sob escaping the other man before it was all over, and oh man, he would’ve cried if he could when he had come back as a ghost after realizing that basically all of his good memories– the one that people said would always replay in those few minutes before you’re actually gone– were just him and Fein before he had lost the man to reasons that now he’ll never know.

Death stands beside him, passive as he watches the sun fall below the horizon and the moon come up to lay with the stars.

His confession weighed heavy on him, words swirling in his mind as his vision faded, unable to properly see how Fein reacted to what he said– he knows that Feinberg isn’t a man that loves– had he been scared of loving Couriway so much that he ran before it became something more than he could handle? It’s a thought that he occasionally comes to a conclusion with, and his heart is already shattered and frozen still, but it still hurts, knowing that feelings that he held onto no matter how much time passed would’ve never been returned and it would be his fault because he knows that Feinberg was a survivalist first and foremost, why would he ever stick around and stay with someone and god, even fall in love with them too? What hopeful little deluded dream had he been believing in?

He closes his eyes for a while, and when he reopens them, Feinberg kneels in front of his grave.

Feinberg.

He’s here.

Why is he here?

He doesn’t understand.

He can’t hear Fein– he looks at Death for answers, but he’s not there anymore.

Flowers are placed on his gravestone, and Feinberg is talking, and he’s– unfortunately, he’s never been good at reading lips. Fein fiddles with his switchblade, something that Couri had warned him countless times to not do and only scolded him further after he cut his finger, finally learning his lesson and he feels the instinct to do it again, but then Feinberg stops, shoulders sagging with what looked like a sigh.

Feinberg stays for a while, and he keeps him company, leaning against him and attempting to not phase through the man– it takes a bit of energy that he really doesn’t want to exert like this, so he phases through him and it startles him when he’s able to feel Fein’s breathing and heart beat, and oh, it feels like he’s actually laying beside him in bed again in a way– when was the last time they had been this close?

It’s comforting, feeling the low vibrations of Fein’s voice and heart, and if he closes his eyes, he could imagine that nothing bad had ever happened, and it was just another night where he listened to Fein aimlessly ramble until they both fell asleep.

He startles when Fein moves, standing up, and he watches him strip himself of all his belongings, and his world freezes when he spots the photos that had disappeared from his home all that time ago, placed in the bouquet of flowers and he realizes that all this time, Feinberg had kept them.

Feinberg kept them.

He kept photos that would remind him of Couri no matter how far he ran– no matter where he was, he would’ve had something that brought him back to those moments that he had shared with Couri. Feinberg never wanted to run– it doesn’t make sense. If he ran, then why keep parts of his past with him? Why keep photos of someone that he should’ve forgotten and let go of when he ran. He should’ve burnt and discarded all of these photos, yet he didn’t.

Couriway would never be able to understand Feinberg.

But that’s the thrill of it, in a way. If he could never fully understand the man, then he would just have to keep learning, and that’s not a bad thing at all; to keep discovering new things about each other.

Feinberg’s trident– the thing he never parted with– sits in the ground next to his grave, and he watches as Fein takes off running into the horizon, red and blue flickering in the distance.

He’s not a ghost bound to one spot, so he roams, Death staying near and keeping an eye on him, and he keeps his eyes averted from other restless spirits, vengeance clear on their minds while Couriway walks and walks, going somewhere that he doesn’t even know himself.

Oh.

He comes face to face with a detained Feinberg, stuck in a small cell with no sunlight, arms bound and orange really had never been his color.

Death doesn’t stop him from phasing through the cell door and approaching the man on the ground, sitting beside him. Feinberg looks hollow, stripped of life, and it’s probably something that would happen pretty soon with first hand murder being on his list of crimes. He moves to be in front of the man, reaching out to hold his face, and Feinberg’s shivers when his fingers phase through him, eyes opening slowly and looking straight ahead, right through Couriway, but it doesn’t really matter.

He presses a kiss against Fein’s face, and he’s unresponsive of course, but he looks up, and for a moment, they make eye contact before guards drag him away.

Couriway doesn’t stay for the execution, and Death accompanies him back to his grave, and his chest feels a bit lighter.

“Is it too late?” He whispers, looking at Death as he nods, and he has to accept it, even if he really doesn’t want to.

“Will I ever see him again at least? Maybe after I’ve passed on?”

“That is something that cannot happen. You are ready to pass on. You have done everything you wanted to do. He cannot accomplish that same objective. He is doomed to roam forever without you, a punishment for being the cause of your death, even if you forgive him, and even if he regrets it.”

It leaves him speechless, but he can’t argue with Death itself, so he stays quiet.

For a moment– it’s extremely brief, but it’s enough for him– he makes eye contact with bright cyan-brown again before Death blocks it, but that’s enough for him.

That’s enough.

Fein will find a way back to him, he knows that.

He trusts Fein.

[Full Fic]