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Dated 2nd December, 2008.
He felt guilty for the emptiness he felt, the nothingness.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was sure that he felt some kind of sadness, some kind of longing and regret. But mostly he felt hollow and distant, like the ashes meant nothing to him, like there was nothing meaningful buried underneath all the shattered wood and grey dust. He should have visited sooner, before the bad news had come. He should have visited sooner, before he lost the last real, full-blood relative he had aside from his sister. And as a child, he should have cared more. Arkham wasn't used to this kind of regret; he wasn't sure that he had ever loved his father like he had the rest of his family. But he had seemed so sad that day, and the no-longer-a-boy regretted that had never been able to do anything for the man.
The coyote sat on the ground before the burned down cottage, much like he had before his brother's grave on the beach. Fire. It was always fire. He wondered how it had started, whether it had only been an accident, or on purpose like Rachias seemed to believe. He wondered if Laruku would have been able to survive the winter anyway. Unanswered questions. He wondered if there were ghosts, if there was an afterlife, if his father was happy wherever he was now, if he was nothingness, if he had become the air. If there was nothing more to contemplate than a pile of ashen bones. It was a quiet and lonely meditation. His cloak billowed in the wind, and he listened to the forest whisper about death.
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indent It had been the flames that had first drawn him. They had started in the early hours of the morning, creating an unnatural glow to the east. He had traveled there, and each step he took made unease draw heavy in his blood. By the time he had reached the building, he had known. The cabin had collapsed onto itself, but the scent was all around, above the smoke and the ash. Gabriel had stood there dumbly until the light had betrayed the necklace and the knife, and then whatever doubts he had carried (as few as they were) vanished. His father was dead. They were both dead.
indent Gabriel had not gone through the rubble, still smoking, still embers at that point. He had taken the knife and the necklace and gone to the ocean. He did not stop and did not think to wake his sister. Instead, he hurled the damned blade into the sea and let out a scream. A thousand emotions washed through him, but it was fury that came first. The grieving process worked in that way, he supposed.
indent Now, with his father’s emblem hanging alongside his own, the Aquila was cutting back through the Dampwoods. It was a distinctive scent that broke through the musk of death and fire. Almost instantly he looked up, and almost instantly he saw his half-brother sitting in the snow. The cloak, though it hid his face, could not fully hide who he was anymore. “Arkham?”
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Of course, it was silly of him not to have noticed that someone else had been there already, but there were a half dozen excuses that were reasonable enough. The wind was fickle and had been blowing in all kinds of awkward directions since his own arrival. All he could smell was ash and smoke and burning wood. The scent of death was transplanted. Arkham only pretended to be a warrior when it was convenient, but he knew he wasn't. Death was only familiar to him at a distance. Graves, the space left behind when someone went away. He had seen dead bodies, but they had not meant anything to him. He had never watched someone he cared about die. He only saw what was left.
Gabriel, he answered without turning around. He had been putting off seeing his half-brother like he had put off seeing his father. So he supposed it was all the better that they should talk now. It was easy, and he didn't have to avoid it anymore. Arkham had no idea that Ahren was also buried under the smoldering wood though, and briefly, he considered that Gabriel might have actually been the one to start the fire. He chuckled a little out loud at the thought, How are you? It sounded like an empty question, but the truth was that he really wanted to know. It was hard all of a sudden, the fact that he had always looked up to him.
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indent There was something different about the boy (though Arkham was hardly a boy anymore). In his voice, mostly. Something that signaled there had been a rift, a definitive changing point. Trigger, heap. Vague sensations that didn’t matter anymore. He wondered how long his half-brother had been here, what had happened to him after the fire, if Rachias had ever found him.
indent The question broke Gabriel’s concentration and he blinked, inhaled, and let steam out into the cold air. “I’m fine,” he said calmly, a default response. My father is dead, my wife is gone, my daughter broken. He was fine. He had to be. Someone had to be the rock. “I’m sorry about your father,” he offered, unable to do more then that.
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Arkham had always believed everything that Gabriel had told him. The man had raised him after all, more or less, because no one else had been there. Now he knew there had always been other things there, unspoken things; there had been matters that had been kept from him, but the coyote still wasn't sure that he had ever been lied to. That was the tricky thing, wasn't it. If he had had the sense to ask back then, what would the answers have been? And would he have been able to comprehend them? Maybe the only faults rested with him. Except that he felt like Gabriel was lying to him now. It was too calm. There was a fire still burning and a forest full of longing and regret. Things shouldn't be so calm. And why should he be sorry anyway?
Me too, he said, turning to his brother and pulling the hood of his cloak back from his eyes. Mostly sorry that I never knew him. Seeing Gabriel face-to-face now, it felt like years had past. It felt like they were both much older, and that a thousand things had happened since that day in the library when he had been a shark. It had in a way, but those were always the things that were hardest to accept. Arkham wanted to ask about the war that had happened, the new scars that seemed to be present; he wanted to ask about Talitha, about Andrezej, about the family he had left behind. But most of all he wanted to ask about the fire and the betrayal and all the reasons why. He had always been articulate, even as a child, but he didn't know how to form these words. I'm sorry I've been away for so long. It was a general statement. Maybe it applied to Inferni. Maybe it applied to his family. Except that Inferni was his family, right?
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indent Even before his children had been born, Gabriel had been acting as a father, and as a son. This was difficult, as he had no experience in the former. His own father had been outcast not once, but thrice, and one of these times by his own accord. To say he did not understand the man would be an understatement; Ahren was an enigma and he functioned on a different level. He saw things differently, and he spoke on matters he could not know. You started the fire.
indent Perhaps it was best that both of his parents were gone now. They carried their secrets with them, as was their right. It was better that way. His half-brother turned to him fully now, and showed his face. He resembled his father. Gabriel did not know if this was mostly the fault of his eyes, but he liked to think so. “What happened to you?” It sounded peculiar, that phrase, once it was in the air.
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I saw you start that fire, he said, before he could fully think. It was better that way, because there was really no point in dressing it up now. Maybe there was an accusation in his voice; there had to be. The knowledge was something he had carried with him for months, and the betrayal cut him deeper than he would ever admit. Arkham had always wanted to believe in people, and he so he had believed in Gabriel. He liked to believe that the reason his brother must have had was a reasonable and logic one, but the longer he thought about it, the less balanced any explanation became. He still wanted to believe, but even optimists had limits. Even children had limits.
He sat on the ground and looked up at his brother, waiting for the explanation he had wanted since April. For the moment, his dead father was at the back of his mind where the emptiness was. When this was over, perhaps Gabriel would join him there in that place full of things he thought he wanted to move on from and forget about. Life was all about moving on, wasn't it.
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indent There was one brief moment where Gabriel’s face went completely blank. His eyes widened and turned flat, hollow. Even his jaw went slack, letting his canines slip into sight. He stood there like that for a few seconds, as if the noise, the words, the truth of the matter had hit a switch. Then, as quickly as it had come, that shock was gone. His eyes narrowed slightly, instinctively, and his teeth came together in a smart snap.
indent He said nothing for a long time. There was so much he had to say, and even more he could not. Because it was Arkham, because it was his half-brother, and because he owed him this much, he would try. “Do you remember when I told you about God?” A nod. Gabriel couldn’t recall when exactly he had done that, but he knew it had happened. So much of the past year had rushed together into a mass of moments and fading memories. “There are people that can hear His Voice. And when He tells them to do something, they obey.”
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Arkham believed in people. He believed in life; he believed in death. He believed in tangible things, and he believed in the logic. But he did not and had never believed in any god because the things Gabriel had told him then had seemed more like stories than anything else. They were fables and myths, the same as what he occasionally read in books; they were things that people could derive meaning from, but not things to truly believe in. The younger man furrowed his brow and frowned. A voice. He wanted to laugh. If there really was a god, why should he need individuals to carry out his bidding like minions?
He wanted to tell Gabriel that he was crazy, just like the rest of them. Just like Samael, just like Andre, just like every other brother they had, just like their parents. But that and laughing wouldn't change anything at all. He told you to destroy hundreds of people's homes. He told you to put everyone you care about in jeopardy. He told you to kill. Why? And for what? Arkham felt anguished, angry, upset. He had known that no matter what Gabriel told him, that it would be upsetting, but knowing didn't change anything either. It felt so stupid and so simple. A voice in your head; ignore it. God gave no explanation because he didn't have to. Why should he? But why shouldn't he if he was really there? Why do you listen to him?
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indent Perhaps the idea was ridiculous; that there was no God, and that he was truly mad. Perhaps this was the case. Gabriel had been raised otherwise though, and he believed in these things. He listened, and God spoke. He believed in heaven each time he looked at his daughter. He could not deny everything he had put faith in, even if that meant accepting the horrible things he had done.
indent This was why he stood there, calmly, regarding his half-brother. Gabriel could quote Daniel, or Corinthians, but Arkham would not understand. He would not understand why the she-coyote and her clan had called him a prophet. He would not understand why Gabriel had been set to burn. “I listen to Him because I owe Him my life. I owe Him the lives of my family.” An abrupt shift in his tone and his eyes caused them to darken. “Those whose time has come were taken, and those who survived were spared. I did what was necessary.” He had used this logic in defending himself after two wards. Above all else, Gabriel was a soldier—this he knew.
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Here, he knew that there was no longer a home for him in Inferni. Here, he knew that the chasm between his half-brother and himself had widened to an immense distance, a space that would never been bridged or crossed over. Here, the emptiness in his chest grew, and he felt colder. Arkham had never known all the details of Gabriel's past, but the idea that many terrible things had happened had always been there. It showed in the way he stood, the way he spoke, the way he reacted to things. It showed in his scars. Arkham did not believe in destiny or predetermined fate. He did not believe anything was necessary beyond what people judged for themselves.
Do you trust that he'll never tell you to harm your family? he wondered. It was the only thing he really needed to know, whether Gabriel held his god in higher regard than anything in life. But then again, if it was the former, then he surely believed that any loved one he ended up killing would be taken care of in heaven. Or something. Arkham didn't understand, but decided that he didn't want to. Madmen were not meant to be understood, and to understand was to become mad. He would not be like his many brothers. He wouldn't.
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indent He had known, walking into this, that his half-brother would not be coming home. He had always know, in some way, whom was destined to remain. Arkham was not one of these. His litter was not meant to be. He and his sister were far too kind—Inferni would destroy them. Andrezej had signed his death warrant the day he had declared himself mightier then Gabriel. There was always one, it seemed. Vitium had been like that too. It would not surprise Gabriel if his brother lay dead in the wild.
indent The truth showed in his eyes, though he did not speak it aloud. “You and Rachias should leave,” he said quietly. “Leave before what happened to Andre happens to you.” Madness, death. One of them. He loved them both, even though he would not say this. But he knew, just as he knew the night the woman in white had appeared, that there was something terrible in their blood. Maybe they could escape it. Maybe they would have a chance to make it out before destiny demanded otherwise, as it had done with Gabriel.
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He didn't believe in destiny, and that was precisely why it was so difficult for him to accept that maybe their blood was the root of everything, that the madness was inevitable and that the beliefs he held would all mean nothing in the end. But he felt no overwhelming power that he needed to fight against, no waves of madness or destruction or anything else; that made things difficult too. Arkham looked into his brother's eyes and saw nothing, understood nothing -- only that he couldn't trust him anymore, only that childhood was over, and this was all there was now. Isolation, loneliness, a stranded sense of belonging, a dying fire in the middle of the empty forest.
The coyote turned back to the cottage ruins, closed his eyes and exhaled white frost. It didn't have to be this way, he said, but even he had little faith in those words. It wasn't destiny, but things still changed. People changed things. The emptiness in his chest expanded to his stomach, to his head. With this, all of Inferni would be cut off to him, all of what was left of his family. Maybe Gabriel was right then. Maybe he and Rachias really should just leave, go to some place far away because there was nothing left for them there. He didn't know.
Arkham stood and turned to leave. Goodbye, Gabriel.
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