The Wheel - The End.
Oct. 16th, 2005 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
new_kateTitle: The Wheel
Author: Newkate
Fandom: Saiyuki
Warnings: Reincarnation fic. PG-15. 1st person POV, crude language, violence, questionable grammar and elves. Last part evar.
Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hibem (I so wouldn't have finished it if not for you)
Part One: Shift
Part Two: Dance
Part Three: Experiment
Part 4: Party (Ch. 4 of 4)
Ch.1 Ch.2 Ch.3
When I wake up, I’m alone.
For a moment, panic drowns me whole. I’m lost, I’m nothing, empty hand reaching into the abyss, no feeling except that of loss, no thoughts except those of defeat.
I’m dead. I can tell I’m dead.
“Welcome back.”
I know this place.
I always end up here, behind cold mouldy bars, inside freezing cramped darkness, chains cutting into my flesh, silence eating me alive.
I scream as my knees hit cold stone, as I fall down and sink, alone, alone, left behind yet again.
Small warm hand slaps across my face, sharp sting, heavy spicy aroma.
“Calm down. Don’t you know where you are?”
I look, and realize my mistake. This is that other place.
So what? I still feel the absence of sun with every inch of my skin. The air is still stifling and still, and the pink petals rain silently down with relentless, blind inevitability, exactly like snow.
“This is not a punishment.”
Good, because I know I don’t deserve this.
“You are free. You may leave.”
I finally find my tongue and ask the only thing that matters:
“Where are they?”
“Not here,” says different voice. “Forget about them, your fate is not theirs. It was never meant to be.”
“Where are they?”
“You’ve completed the cycle. Now you have another chance to leave. Don’t waste this one, not everybody earns it even once.”
I look to where everyone seems to be pushing me, and see the place where all threads twist into one, see the end, see home, see the nothing.
That’s not where I’m going.
They see I’m serious and back off a little. The pretty one leans over. Lotuses climb inside my lungs, I sleep and dream and am here at the same time.
“You can stay here, you know.”
The crowd moans and fidgets. They know I could if I wanted to. They know that if I’m alone, if I have no one, then there is no way to contain me. I could rule this place or tear it to pieces. Maybe I could even change it. Make it live, make it feel, make it scream. I could bleed it clean and make it what it was meant to be. Maybe I should.
But I wouldn’t dare, because I do have someone even here. I know. I remember. Please don’t think that I don’t remember.
It hurts so much to look at you, to touch you. You feel horribly empty, like a broken mirror; your eyes look past me, see too much. Your hands, so warm and strong once, have become listless and flower-scented, like everything in this place. You haven’t aged at all, just like I didn’t when I was the one doing the waiting. At least you aren’t cold and hungry. At least you can’t even see the sun so you don’t ache for its rays to touch you. You are nowhere, lonely like I never was, like no one should ever be.
I can’t save you alone. I need to go get help. I touch you one last time and head down the only path I can take.
“How dare you! This will never be over unless you leave! You have to go, you have to…”
“Oh, don’t harass the boy. He knows what he’s doing,” says the pretty one with a smile I remember so well.
“We can not let it go back again. We can not let it abuse and mock everything we stand for. It’s just a heretic filth, it can not be equal to anything! We all agree that it should be allowed to leave, oh, good riddance, but it cannot just choose to…”
I turn around and everyone jumps back.
“I’m free,” I say. “Aren’t I free?”
And I go, and their angry voices fade into the darkness.
A door opens. A door closes. Universe shifts, settles. A hand slams on the table top in front of me.
I wake up.
*-*-*
Every time I had this stupid dream I woke up in tears. Normally I would lie there, crying over something I couldn’t remember, until Hathal put his hand on my forehead and gently clouded my mind with magic so I could fall asleep again, or Kasen called me a baby and tickled or wrestled me till I forgot to cry, or Soll talked to me and calmed me down. But this time I held my breath and kept as quiet as I could, because although the dream was quickly melting from my mind as it always had, something lingered. Maybe a scent, or a sound…
“The spirit of the land will manifest itself over and over, until it fulfils its purpose,” said a very familiar voice.
“Which would be what exactly?” asked Soll. He was near me and sounded calm, so I relaxed a little.
“Who knows? Some say he’s the anger of the Earth personified. Some believe him to be an embodiment of instant Karma. But his purpose could just as easily be simply this. To live. To love. To give and receive mercy.”
I carefully peeked from under my eyelashes and saw a really pretty lady sitting cross-legged opposite Soll. She had long wavy hair and huge boobs. Her shirt was so flimsy I could see totally everything.
“I need to know more,” said Soll.
“Why?”
“I want to be sure he won’t one day disappear back to wherever he came from, or turn into something I’ll have to put down.”
“Oh, honey. Who could possibly promise something like that?”
“Don’t give me that existential shit. This may be a game to you, Zana, but he…”
“He’s awake.”
Soll turned around and caught me by the ear faster than I could duck.
“Eavesdropping is not polite.”
“Oww sorry. Hi,” I waved to the lady, and she winked at me.
“Hi. Do you remember me?”
“He doesn’t remember anything,” said Soll, but his voice suddenly seemed so quiet and distant that I hardly heard him over the noise in my head.
“He remembers,” laughed the lady. “He just doesn’t realise it yet.”
“No. It can’t be. Because if that’s a memory… If that’s all true…” I started, barely able to breathe. “Then he’s still there, and he’s been waiting for…”
“Oh, he’ll wait. He’s very stubborn. Don’t think about it, enjoy your childhood while you can. Forget.”
She waved her hand in front of me. I inhaled the flowery aroma of her skin and felt much better.
“Now run along,” she said. “Soll needs to do some worshipping.”
She got up and started untying her belt. Soll rolled up on his knees and mumbled something that sounded like “horny bitch”, and I firmly decided that I should listen to her and go far, far away from there as fast as I could.
“Come on, don’t be such a lazy-ass,” I heard her say to Soll as I was leaving the camp. “Who’s your goddess?”
I sped up, heard Kasen and Hathal not very far away, at the river, and headed there to see what they were doing.
When I waked onto the riverbank, they were standing thigh deep in the slow, calm water. Kasen was naked, bent forward with his hands braced on his knees. Hathal was wearing only his shirt, with lacings untied and loose, sleeves rolled up. He was washing Kasen’s hair.
I sat on the grass and watched them. Hathal threaded his slim, quick fingers through Kasen’s long wet locks, carefully worked the knots out, rubbed the suds in. Kasen’s eyes were closed, and he kept turning his head just so, to make Hathal’s fingers brush against his neck or cheek. Hathal must have noticed, but he didn’t object.
“Kasen, are those your elf marks?” I asked. His left arm was circled by a dark purple pattern of angled pointy shapes.
“They are there, yes,” he said. “I edged them with ink and needles so they look like human tattoos. Makes passing easier.”
“I want a tattoo,” I sighed. “Soll didn’t let me get one when we were at that fair. Kasen, how come your hair there doesn’t match?”
“I dunno. Maybe it’s a half-breed thing. Weird, huh?”
“I think it looks very good,” said Hathal in a low purry voice. “Unique. Bend a little lower, please.”
He rinsed Kasen’s hair and held up one strand to look at it closely.
“It’s getting better, but it’s still in terrible shape. I hate to see it like this.”
“Well, I’ve been travelling a lot lately. Didn’t have much time for hair care. We could chop it off, let it grow back new and shiny,” suggested Kasen. “Since everybody here can tell what I am anyway.”
“I like it long,” Hathal picked up a pot full of nettles soaked in warm water he had cooling at the edge of the river, tested it with his fingers and started dribbling dark green liquid over Kasen’s hair. “This will help. It’s not too hot, is it?”
“No. It’s nice.”
Hathal carefully squeezed the extra moisture out and draped the hair back over Kasen’s shoulder.
“Here. All done.”
“Thanks, man,” said Kasen and straightened up. Thin green rivulets ran down his broad shoulders and chest; he brushed them off with his fingers, and the ones he missed were getting lost in the darker hair below. Hathal watched, absent-mindedly wiping his wet hands on the shirt.
I felt a tightening in the pit of my stomach and lower, not quite like what I had when I wanted food, but food would also do to quell it. The guys looked hungry too, and it was dawn, so it was time.
“When’s breakfast?” I asked. Kasen started, bounded out of the water in three long jumps and got dressed so quickly and messily he got sand and water all over his clothes. Hathal stayed in the river, tugging his shirttails down.
“Ahhaha, we will be with you in just a moment. Would you please start a fire?”
Back at the camp I found Soll alone. He was laying face-down on a crumpled blanket, glassy-eyed and dazed, chewing on a flower stalk.
“Did she leave?” I asked cautiously, looking around.
“Yes. Fuck, that bitch is hell on wheels. Heaven. Whatever. Where are the others?”
“Oh, Soll, you are awake,” smiled Hathal, approaching. “We were…”
“Yeah, I don’t care. Listen, Zana gave me some new directions.”
“Does he actually believe he talks to a goddess?” whispered Kasen into Hathal’s long ear.
“Don’t dwell,” mouthed Hathal back.
Soll frowned at them suspiciously and continued:
“There is a dragon lair somewhere near the top of this mountain. We have to find it.”
“Right,” said Hathal, trying to take a better look at the flower stalk in Soll’s mouth. “And what do we have to do then?”
“You know, I forgot to ask,” answered Soll. “Shit, fuck the breakfast, I need some more sleep. Keep the noise down.”
He turned over and pulled the blankets over his head. Kasen looked like he was dying to say something he knew he shouldn’t be saying.
“Yes, but try to get to know him better, you’ll like him,” Hathal told him quietly, trying not to jingle the pans he was arranging. “Now, who will find me some bird eggs?”
*-*-*
“We have been here before,” said Soll.
We’d been climbing the mountain for over a week now, picking our way through razor-sharp rocks and snow slides. We never had any cooked food and spicy herbal tea any more; we couldn’t even find enough firewood to make a tiny fire to warm our fingers. We climbed up all day and huddled all together for warmth at night, and time started to blur together since every day was just like others – black hard cliffs, white scratchy snow, tiny cracks in rocky walls to grab on to. And deep, fierce hunger that wouldn’t go away no matter how much jerky I ate because I missed Hathal’s cooking and because Soll’s arms were sometimes around me at night and I couldn’t breathe till dawn, choking on the hot, dark dreams I was having without even sleeping. The mountain top was still nowhere near, and here in the cold maze of black and white we couldn’t even tell at times if we were going up or down. So when Soll said that, I was not surprised.
“We haven’t,” said Hathal. “I’ve been marking the rocks after we lost direction last time.”
“Maybe not in this exactly same spot, but near enough, I can feel it.”
“Shut up, you shitty priest, it’s depressing enough already,” stuttered out Kasen, shaking in the chilly wind. “Ask for some divine guidance or something.”
“I’ve been trying. Apparently, we need none at this point.”
“Crap. Well, good to know we are doing a stellar job all by ourselves. Hey, kid, cut that out!”
I was feeling sleepy. Looking at the snow always made me feel so tired…
“He’s dosing off again, we have to move!” yelled Kasen, grabbing me by the shirt and shaking me around. “Get up, don’t sleep in the snow, remember how long it took Hathal to fix your toes that last time?”
Soll made to get up and swayed in place, about to fall and hit his head on the rocks. Hathal caught him and sat him back down.
“Just a moment longer. We all need to catch our breath. Please keep him awake, Kasen.”
“Aiieee! Keep you cold thief-fingers away from me!” I squealed when Kasen pushed his icy hands under my shirt and started to tickle my sides mercilessly. “I’m going to stuff snow in your pants, pervert!”
“Oh, don’t you even dare, you whiny Bigfoot!”
“Maybe getting lost is not our fault,” Hathal said quietly while we were laughing and grappling in the snow. “Maybe the locals have put a curse on this area to ward off the unwanted visitors…”
“And we are doomed to crawl around this rock for eternity,” finished Soll.
“Only until we die,” Hathal smiled cheerfully. “Which, considering how much food we have left…”
“Huh, we should be so lucky. How long has it been already? I feel like I’ve been doing this for centuries. Maybe we are dead and this is someone’s ironic idea of hell.”
“What, going in circles over hostile terrain while coddling the disturbed, bickering with the difficult and watching a monster coming of age?”
“And while the world is falling apart at the seams because we were too busy thinking with our dicks to do anything about it.”
“I was only joking, Soll.”
“Me too. Let’s go.”
When we set off again I let Hathal and Kasen go on ahead and fell into step with Soll. He was shivering from the cold worse than Kasen, and although he didn’t have bags to carry, he hardly had any strength left to walk, let alone jump and climb. He was always so strong that I kept forgetting he was actually the weakest of us all.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said.
“I was never worried about you.”
“I’ve been remembering things,” I admitted. “I don’t understand all this, and I’m not sure about the stuff I do understand, but I think this is my turn to protect you. So you don’t have to worry. I’ll stay with you no matter what.”
“I know,” he said. “No need to go on and on about it.”
“Over here!” called Hathal from above. “I think I see the cave!”
Dragons were supposed to be the biggest, scariest creatures in the whole world. From the stories Hathal told me, they were all about eating bulls and coupling with girls – and how would that work, I didn’t even want to know. And they were also stinky and could breathe fire. So I wasn’t all that excited about going into the dragon’s lair, especially since we didn’t even know what we were supposed to be doing there. Soll could probably kill even a dragon with the Hammer, but I didn’t feel too confident about us protecting him from a huge beast inside a tiny cave while he chanted that long-ass spell. But he said we had to go, so we entered the dark tunnel and went down, inside the mountain, lower and lower. The smell rising up to meet us was so disgusting it even managed to spoil my appetite for a while.
“So what’s the plan?” whispered Kasen, clutching the daggers.
“There is no plan. Just keep going,” answered Soll. Kasen swore and peered into the darkness.
“Can’t see a thing, and the stink is killing me. That dragon of yours smells like it’s already dead,” he whined.
“It is dead,” said Hathal, stopping so abruptly I bumped into him.
The tunnel widened ahead into a big round cave with a small crack in the ceiling that let some light through. The dragon was curled inside, coiled on itself twice, taking up most of the room, huge, white, scaly, dead. Its hide was coming off the rotting body in patches, and its empty eye sockets were crawling with maggots.
“Are we late? Fuck, are we late?” groaned Soll, leaning on a wall.
“Oh,” said Hathal, suddenly, in the softest voice I ever heard him use, and rushed forward. “Oh.”
Only then I noticed in the middle of the room a grey egg-like thing, messily broken to pieces, and between the shards something small, creepy and slimy was moving, slowly dragging itself across the dusty floor. Hathal fearlessly reached with both hands and scooped it up to show us.
“Look! Isn’t he adorable?”
It didn’t look anything like the dead dragon. It was all oily grey and sickly pink, toothless, blind, with small quivering wings translucent like hideously stretched eyelids. It was incredibly ugly, and it was shaking and hissing in Hathal’s palms and tried to bite me when I poked it with a finger.
“I’m not eating that,” I said. “I’d rather eat a frog.”
“Nobody’s eating him!” cried Hathal angrily, clutching the gross thing to his chest. “It’s just a baby! It’s an orphan! He needs nourishment, care…”
“And a loving home,” intoned Soll with his eyes closed, lightly banging his forehead against the wall of the cave. “I knew this would be some kind of a trap…”
“And a loving home, yes! Oh, he’s cold, poor thing!” Hathal stuffed the squirming dragon inside his shirt, slime and all, and dove into his bags. “It’s such a shame we don’t have any milk, and I’m afraid the jerky will be too spicy for such a young…”
“Hathal, it’s a dragon!” dared Kasen. “It’ll grow up and eat us all!”
“Are you suggesting I should abandon him to perish on his own?” said Hathal in a dangerous voice. “Oh, cheese! Perfect! It’s a bit tough, but it’s a good source of calcium. Aw, look, he likes it!”
“So is this it? We did all this climbing to get him a pet?” asked Soll. “Seriously now. It’s not funny.”
“Well, he’s happy,” shrugged Kasen. “That’s something. Hey, how did this fat dragon squeeze through that tunnel we came in through?”
“Good point,” said Soll, trying to sound shocked on purpose. “Let’s take a look.”
Behind the dragon’s body we found another tunnel, wider and steeper, and it took us out of the mountain, below the snow cap, on the elf side. Soll collapsed on the grass and declared that we were camping right there.
After a huge dinner, nobody wanted to move, so we were all lying around a big crackling fire I’ve built. Warm, full of delicious fresh food, we were breathing in the scents of the forest and basking in the sun, resting. Hathal was fussing over his fed and washed dragon, and Kasen was watching them with a smile.
“He needs a name, something appropriate and melodic. Let’s see, hmm… Strong Wings?”
“Jeep,” said the dragon and burped.
“Sharp Tooth? Brave… Brave…”
“Is it a he?” asked Kasen. Hathal checked under the dragon’s tail and nodded. The thief reached out to pet the dragon and got his fingertips singed by a small smoky flame.
“Ooh, he can breathe fire already! Don’t do that to Kasen, Swift… eh… White…”
“Jeep!” chirped the dragon again and licked Hathal’s neck with its tiny purple tongue.
“Lucky dragon,” sighed Kasen jealously and tried to pet it again. This time the dragon didn’t burn him, just grabbed his fingertip into its small maw and froze like that. Hathal and Kasen looked at each other, surprised and amused, and suddenly burst out laughing.
“Idiots,” said Soll warmly, stretched and turned to face me. The mountain breeze was ruffling his hair, making the sunlight dance around it, shifting light and shadows. “Speaking of names, I thought of a great one for you.”
The End
Author: Newkate
Fandom: Saiyuki
Warnings: Reincarnation fic. PG-15. 1st person POV, crude language, violence, questionable grammar and elves. Last part evar.
Betaed by
hibem (I so wouldn't have finished it if not for you)Part One: Shift
Part Two: Dance
Part Three: Experiment
Part 4: Party (Ch. 4 of 4)
Ch.1 Ch.2 Ch.3
When I wake up, I’m alone.
For a moment, panic drowns me whole. I’m lost, I’m nothing, empty hand reaching into the abyss, no feeling except that of loss, no thoughts except those of defeat.
I’m dead. I can tell I’m dead.
“Welcome back.”
I know this place.
I always end up here, behind cold mouldy bars, inside freezing cramped darkness, chains cutting into my flesh, silence eating me alive.
I scream as my knees hit cold stone, as I fall down and sink, alone, alone, left behind yet again.
Small warm hand slaps across my face, sharp sting, heavy spicy aroma.
“Calm down. Don’t you know where you are?”
I look, and realize my mistake. This is that other place.
So what? I still feel the absence of sun with every inch of my skin. The air is still stifling and still, and the pink petals rain silently down with relentless, blind inevitability, exactly like snow.
“This is not a punishment.”
Good, because I know I don’t deserve this.
“You are free. You may leave.”
I finally find my tongue and ask the only thing that matters:
“Where are they?”
“Not here,” says different voice. “Forget about them, your fate is not theirs. It was never meant to be.”
“Where are they?”
“You’ve completed the cycle. Now you have another chance to leave. Don’t waste this one, not everybody earns it even once.”
I look to where everyone seems to be pushing me, and see the place where all threads twist into one, see the end, see home, see the nothing.
That’s not where I’m going.
They see I’m serious and back off a little. The pretty one leans over. Lotuses climb inside my lungs, I sleep and dream and am here at the same time.
“You can stay here, you know.”
The crowd moans and fidgets. They know I could if I wanted to. They know that if I’m alone, if I have no one, then there is no way to contain me. I could rule this place or tear it to pieces. Maybe I could even change it. Make it live, make it feel, make it scream. I could bleed it clean and make it what it was meant to be. Maybe I should.
But I wouldn’t dare, because I do have someone even here. I know. I remember. Please don’t think that I don’t remember.
It hurts so much to look at you, to touch you. You feel horribly empty, like a broken mirror; your eyes look past me, see too much. Your hands, so warm and strong once, have become listless and flower-scented, like everything in this place. You haven’t aged at all, just like I didn’t when I was the one doing the waiting. At least you aren’t cold and hungry. At least you can’t even see the sun so you don’t ache for its rays to touch you. You are nowhere, lonely like I never was, like no one should ever be.
I can’t save you alone. I need to go get help. I touch you one last time and head down the only path I can take.
“How dare you! This will never be over unless you leave! You have to go, you have to…”
“Oh, don’t harass the boy. He knows what he’s doing,” says the pretty one with a smile I remember so well.
“We can not let it go back again. We can not let it abuse and mock everything we stand for. It’s just a heretic filth, it can not be equal to anything! We all agree that it should be allowed to leave, oh, good riddance, but it cannot just choose to…”
I turn around and everyone jumps back.
“I’m free,” I say. “Aren’t I free?”
And I go, and their angry voices fade into the darkness.
A door opens. A door closes. Universe shifts, settles. A hand slams on the table top in front of me.
I wake up.
*-*-*
Every time I had this stupid dream I woke up in tears. Normally I would lie there, crying over something I couldn’t remember, until Hathal put his hand on my forehead and gently clouded my mind with magic so I could fall asleep again, or Kasen called me a baby and tickled or wrestled me till I forgot to cry, or Soll talked to me and calmed me down. But this time I held my breath and kept as quiet as I could, because although the dream was quickly melting from my mind as it always had, something lingered. Maybe a scent, or a sound…
“The spirit of the land will manifest itself over and over, until it fulfils its purpose,” said a very familiar voice.
“Which would be what exactly?” asked Soll. He was near me and sounded calm, so I relaxed a little.
“Who knows? Some say he’s the anger of the Earth personified. Some believe him to be an embodiment of instant Karma. But his purpose could just as easily be simply this. To live. To love. To give and receive mercy.”
I carefully peeked from under my eyelashes and saw a really pretty lady sitting cross-legged opposite Soll. She had long wavy hair and huge boobs. Her shirt was so flimsy I could see totally everything.
“I need to know more,” said Soll.
“Why?”
“I want to be sure he won’t one day disappear back to wherever he came from, or turn into something I’ll have to put down.”
“Oh, honey. Who could possibly promise something like that?”
“Don’t give me that existential shit. This may be a game to you, Zana, but he…”
“He’s awake.”
Soll turned around and caught me by the ear faster than I could duck.
“Eavesdropping is not polite.”
“Oww sorry. Hi,” I waved to the lady, and she winked at me.
“Hi. Do you remember me?”
“He doesn’t remember anything,” said Soll, but his voice suddenly seemed so quiet and distant that I hardly heard him over the noise in my head.
“He remembers,” laughed the lady. “He just doesn’t realise it yet.”
“No. It can’t be. Because if that’s a memory… If that’s all true…” I started, barely able to breathe. “Then he’s still there, and he’s been waiting for…”
“Oh, he’ll wait. He’s very stubborn. Don’t think about it, enjoy your childhood while you can. Forget.”
She waved her hand in front of me. I inhaled the flowery aroma of her skin and felt much better.
“Now run along,” she said. “Soll needs to do some worshipping.”
She got up and started untying her belt. Soll rolled up on his knees and mumbled something that sounded like “horny bitch”, and I firmly decided that I should listen to her and go far, far away from there as fast as I could.
“Come on, don’t be such a lazy-ass,” I heard her say to Soll as I was leaving the camp. “Who’s your goddess?”
I sped up, heard Kasen and Hathal not very far away, at the river, and headed there to see what they were doing.
When I waked onto the riverbank, they were standing thigh deep in the slow, calm water. Kasen was naked, bent forward with his hands braced on his knees. Hathal was wearing only his shirt, with lacings untied and loose, sleeves rolled up. He was washing Kasen’s hair.
I sat on the grass and watched them. Hathal threaded his slim, quick fingers through Kasen’s long wet locks, carefully worked the knots out, rubbed the suds in. Kasen’s eyes were closed, and he kept turning his head just so, to make Hathal’s fingers brush against his neck or cheek. Hathal must have noticed, but he didn’t object.
“Kasen, are those your elf marks?” I asked. His left arm was circled by a dark purple pattern of angled pointy shapes.
“They are there, yes,” he said. “I edged them with ink and needles so they look like human tattoos. Makes passing easier.”
“I want a tattoo,” I sighed. “Soll didn’t let me get one when we were at that fair. Kasen, how come your hair there doesn’t match?”
“I dunno. Maybe it’s a half-breed thing. Weird, huh?”
“I think it looks very good,” said Hathal in a low purry voice. “Unique. Bend a little lower, please.”
He rinsed Kasen’s hair and held up one strand to look at it closely.
“It’s getting better, but it’s still in terrible shape. I hate to see it like this.”
“Well, I’ve been travelling a lot lately. Didn’t have much time for hair care. We could chop it off, let it grow back new and shiny,” suggested Kasen. “Since everybody here can tell what I am anyway.”
“I like it long,” Hathal picked up a pot full of nettles soaked in warm water he had cooling at the edge of the river, tested it with his fingers and started dribbling dark green liquid over Kasen’s hair. “This will help. It’s not too hot, is it?”
“No. It’s nice.”
Hathal carefully squeezed the extra moisture out and draped the hair back over Kasen’s shoulder.
“Here. All done.”
“Thanks, man,” said Kasen and straightened up. Thin green rivulets ran down his broad shoulders and chest; he brushed them off with his fingers, and the ones he missed were getting lost in the darker hair below. Hathal watched, absent-mindedly wiping his wet hands on the shirt.
I felt a tightening in the pit of my stomach and lower, not quite like what I had when I wanted food, but food would also do to quell it. The guys looked hungry too, and it was dawn, so it was time.
“When’s breakfast?” I asked. Kasen started, bounded out of the water in three long jumps and got dressed so quickly and messily he got sand and water all over his clothes. Hathal stayed in the river, tugging his shirttails down.
“Ahhaha, we will be with you in just a moment. Would you please start a fire?”
Back at the camp I found Soll alone. He was laying face-down on a crumpled blanket, glassy-eyed and dazed, chewing on a flower stalk.
“Did she leave?” I asked cautiously, looking around.
“Yes. Fuck, that bitch is hell on wheels. Heaven. Whatever. Where are the others?”
“Oh, Soll, you are awake,” smiled Hathal, approaching. “We were…”
“Yeah, I don’t care. Listen, Zana gave me some new directions.”
“Does he actually believe he talks to a goddess?” whispered Kasen into Hathal’s long ear.
“Don’t dwell,” mouthed Hathal back.
Soll frowned at them suspiciously and continued:
“There is a dragon lair somewhere near the top of this mountain. We have to find it.”
“Right,” said Hathal, trying to take a better look at the flower stalk in Soll’s mouth. “And what do we have to do then?”
“You know, I forgot to ask,” answered Soll. “Shit, fuck the breakfast, I need some more sleep. Keep the noise down.”
He turned over and pulled the blankets over his head. Kasen looked like he was dying to say something he knew he shouldn’t be saying.
“Yes, but try to get to know him better, you’ll like him,” Hathal told him quietly, trying not to jingle the pans he was arranging. “Now, who will find me some bird eggs?”
*-*-*
“We have been here before,” said Soll.
We’d been climbing the mountain for over a week now, picking our way through razor-sharp rocks and snow slides. We never had any cooked food and spicy herbal tea any more; we couldn’t even find enough firewood to make a tiny fire to warm our fingers. We climbed up all day and huddled all together for warmth at night, and time started to blur together since every day was just like others – black hard cliffs, white scratchy snow, tiny cracks in rocky walls to grab on to. And deep, fierce hunger that wouldn’t go away no matter how much jerky I ate because I missed Hathal’s cooking and because Soll’s arms were sometimes around me at night and I couldn’t breathe till dawn, choking on the hot, dark dreams I was having without even sleeping. The mountain top was still nowhere near, and here in the cold maze of black and white we couldn’t even tell at times if we were going up or down. So when Soll said that, I was not surprised.
“We haven’t,” said Hathal. “I’ve been marking the rocks after we lost direction last time.”
“Maybe not in this exactly same spot, but near enough, I can feel it.”
“Shut up, you shitty priest, it’s depressing enough already,” stuttered out Kasen, shaking in the chilly wind. “Ask for some divine guidance or something.”
“I’ve been trying. Apparently, we need none at this point.”
“Crap. Well, good to know we are doing a stellar job all by ourselves. Hey, kid, cut that out!”
I was feeling sleepy. Looking at the snow always made me feel so tired…
“He’s dosing off again, we have to move!” yelled Kasen, grabbing me by the shirt and shaking me around. “Get up, don’t sleep in the snow, remember how long it took Hathal to fix your toes that last time?”
Soll made to get up and swayed in place, about to fall and hit his head on the rocks. Hathal caught him and sat him back down.
“Just a moment longer. We all need to catch our breath. Please keep him awake, Kasen.”
“Aiieee! Keep you cold thief-fingers away from me!” I squealed when Kasen pushed his icy hands under my shirt and started to tickle my sides mercilessly. “I’m going to stuff snow in your pants, pervert!”
“Oh, don’t you even dare, you whiny Bigfoot!”
“Maybe getting lost is not our fault,” Hathal said quietly while we were laughing and grappling in the snow. “Maybe the locals have put a curse on this area to ward off the unwanted visitors…”
“And we are doomed to crawl around this rock for eternity,” finished Soll.
“Only until we die,” Hathal smiled cheerfully. “Which, considering how much food we have left…”
“Huh, we should be so lucky. How long has it been already? I feel like I’ve been doing this for centuries. Maybe we are dead and this is someone’s ironic idea of hell.”
“What, going in circles over hostile terrain while coddling the disturbed, bickering with the difficult and watching a monster coming of age?”
“And while the world is falling apart at the seams because we were too busy thinking with our dicks to do anything about it.”
“I was only joking, Soll.”
“Me too. Let’s go.”
When we set off again I let Hathal and Kasen go on ahead and fell into step with Soll. He was shivering from the cold worse than Kasen, and although he didn’t have bags to carry, he hardly had any strength left to walk, let alone jump and climb. He was always so strong that I kept forgetting he was actually the weakest of us all.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said.
“I was never worried about you.”
“I’ve been remembering things,” I admitted. “I don’t understand all this, and I’m not sure about the stuff I do understand, but I think this is my turn to protect you. So you don’t have to worry. I’ll stay with you no matter what.”
“I know,” he said. “No need to go on and on about it.”
“Over here!” called Hathal from above. “I think I see the cave!”
Dragons were supposed to be the biggest, scariest creatures in the whole world. From the stories Hathal told me, they were all about eating bulls and coupling with girls – and how would that work, I didn’t even want to know. And they were also stinky and could breathe fire. So I wasn’t all that excited about going into the dragon’s lair, especially since we didn’t even know what we were supposed to be doing there. Soll could probably kill even a dragon with the Hammer, but I didn’t feel too confident about us protecting him from a huge beast inside a tiny cave while he chanted that long-ass spell. But he said we had to go, so we entered the dark tunnel and went down, inside the mountain, lower and lower. The smell rising up to meet us was so disgusting it even managed to spoil my appetite for a while.
“So what’s the plan?” whispered Kasen, clutching the daggers.
“There is no plan. Just keep going,” answered Soll. Kasen swore and peered into the darkness.
“Can’t see a thing, and the stink is killing me. That dragon of yours smells like it’s already dead,” he whined.
“It is dead,” said Hathal, stopping so abruptly I bumped into him.
The tunnel widened ahead into a big round cave with a small crack in the ceiling that let some light through. The dragon was curled inside, coiled on itself twice, taking up most of the room, huge, white, scaly, dead. Its hide was coming off the rotting body in patches, and its empty eye sockets were crawling with maggots.
“Are we late? Fuck, are we late?” groaned Soll, leaning on a wall.
“Oh,” said Hathal, suddenly, in the softest voice I ever heard him use, and rushed forward. “Oh.”
Only then I noticed in the middle of the room a grey egg-like thing, messily broken to pieces, and between the shards something small, creepy and slimy was moving, slowly dragging itself across the dusty floor. Hathal fearlessly reached with both hands and scooped it up to show us.
“Look! Isn’t he adorable?”
It didn’t look anything like the dead dragon. It was all oily grey and sickly pink, toothless, blind, with small quivering wings translucent like hideously stretched eyelids. It was incredibly ugly, and it was shaking and hissing in Hathal’s palms and tried to bite me when I poked it with a finger.
“I’m not eating that,” I said. “I’d rather eat a frog.”
“Nobody’s eating him!” cried Hathal angrily, clutching the gross thing to his chest. “It’s just a baby! It’s an orphan! He needs nourishment, care…”
“And a loving home,” intoned Soll with his eyes closed, lightly banging his forehead against the wall of the cave. “I knew this would be some kind of a trap…”
“And a loving home, yes! Oh, he’s cold, poor thing!” Hathal stuffed the squirming dragon inside his shirt, slime and all, and dove into his bags. “It’s such a shame we don’t have any milk, and I’m afraid the jerky will be too spicy for such a young…”
“Hathal, it’s a dragon!” dared Kasen. “It’ll grow up and eat us all!”
“Are you suggesting I should abandon him to perish on his own?” said Hathal in a dangerous voice. “Oh, cheese! Perfect! It’s a bit tough, but it’s a good source of calcium. Aw, look, he likes it!”
“So is this it? We did all this climbing to get him a pet?” asked Soll. “Seriously now. It’s not funny.”
“Well, he’s happy,” shrugged Kasen. “That’s something. Hey, how did this fat dragon squeeze through that tunnel we came in through?”
“Good point,” said Soll, trying to sound shocked on purpose. “Let’s take a look.”
Behind the dragon’s body we found another tunnel, wider and steeper, and it took us out of the mountain, below the snow cap, on the elf side. Soll collapsed on the grass and declared that we were camping right there.
After a huge dinner, nobody wanted to move, so we were all lying around a big crackling fire I’ve built. Warm, full of delicious fresh food, we were breathing in the scents of the forest and basking in the sun, resting. Hathal was fussing over his fed and washed dragon, and Kasen was watching them with a smile.
“He needs a name, something appropriate and melodic. Let’s see, hmm… Strong Wings?”
“Jeep,” said the dragon and burped.
“Sharp Tooth? Brave… Brave…”
“Is it a he?” asked Kasen. Hathal checked under the dragon’s tail and nodded. The thief reached out to pet the dragon and got his fingertips singed by a small smoky flame.
“Ooh, he can breathe fire already! Don’t do that to Kasen, Swift… eh… White…”
“Jeep!” chirped the dragon again and licked Hathal’s neck with its tiny purple tongue.
“Lucky dragon,” sighed Kasen jealously and tried to pet it again. This time the dragon didn’t burn him, just grabbed his fingertip into its small maw and froze like that. Hathal and Kasen looked at each other, surprised and amused, and suddenly burst out laughing.
“Idiots,” said Soll warmly, stretched and turned to face me. The mountain breeze was ruffling his hair, making the sunlight dance around it, shifting light and shadows. “Speaking of names, I thought of a great one for you.”
The End
no subject
Date: 2005-11-03 08:53 pm (UTC)