[html]
The Dampwoods, 27th November. I suck at life.
The sun was setting, and it was snowing. He sat on the stone steps of the cottage with a ragged blanket over his shoulders and an empty gaze. He could hear the snow somehow, each flake that fell past his face and onto the ground -- each flake that landed on his head instead, the blanket, his arms, his feet. His mind was white, but not empty. It was snowing there too, a different snow, a fake snow. A half-torn memory he had almost convinced himself had never happened. He closed his eyes and thought about something else, anything else. Death. There was a whispering in the back of his head and in between his ears. The voice was familiar, but the voice was too low to understand. (You just don't want to listen to it.) He exhaled and felt the ice on his breath.
Time passed and it got cooler. His mind ran in circles because it had nothing else to do, and he counted seconds until he was sure he didn't know any more numbers. There were conversations in his head -- memories, half-fantasies, things he had dreamt about and not remembered. He counted. They talked. The snow fell. He wanted for when it would be too cold for him to move anymore. He was sure it was a beautiful night.
[/html]
[html]  cake
i'm just a boat on the ocean
cakeWith the recovery of his supplies, the black wolf found a new reason to praise the skies. The leg was healing, the wounds were scabbed over. When he was completely mobile, he would take his things away from this dreary wood and find his way again. He would visit Halifax and find a hospital, he would find shelter from the cold winter that awaited around the corner. He would visit Inferni and ponder the funny way the halflings there made him feel. His relief wasn't happiness and he didn't mistake it for such. It was simply that: relief.
cakeCane in hand, the wolf walked. He walked simply because he could. His arctic fur was thick and it warmed him in the cold. Bane had always enjoyed snow. It reminded him of the north, of the vast tundra and the fjords that eventually stretched into the vast expanse of the ocean. It reminded him of the halflings who had prayed for the All-Knowing to return them to the Land of the Sun. On the wind, he caught the scent of a stranger in his path. Indifference kept him from straying. Indifference and trust in the instinct, which led him always; perhaps in some way, he was meant to meet this one the wind spoke of.
cakeThe cabin appeared in the blowing snow before the wolf did. It was blurry, but because of the weather, not the coal-coloured wolf's eyesight. Something stirred in the back of Bane's mind as he saw the stranger, and he slowed his walk to a stop, careful of the leg, still in its splint. Another halfling. He had found a colony of them here. He should call the General -- they were well-fed and would make good workers. His smile didn't stray from his face as he saw Laruku's eyes. Blind.
cakeLogic told him he should leave. The instinct told him stay, stay.
cake"You look like you're waiting for someone."
cakeAnother step and the halfling's face blurred into a mass of cinnamon and snow.
|
|
[/html]
[html]
Sometimes, when the silence stretched on for too long, the whispers of conversation that only he could hear would grow louder. They would be interrupted by his numbers, fired off in his head with a desperate ferocity. They would be non-sequential nonsense, just words he pulled from the whiteness to fill the space, to keep out what would otherwise be there. Numbers were impartial and had no deeper meaning. They were intangible and only represented something that had been created by man. They couldn't connect to some distant metaphor like real nouns could. Four. Six. Two thousand and seven. A long and lonely night--a hundred. Thirty-nine. Forty. Ninety-nine. Three hundred. A voice on the wind, breaking his silence.
The hybrid flinched for one reason or another, and it was followed by a shiver and a shudder. He didn't turn in the direction the voice had come. He didn't pretend he could see him. He didn't breathe in the scent. He didn't try to analyze the tone or the voice itself, didn't try to see if he knew the person that was there. He stared straight towards oblivion and thought about not replying, thought about more numbers and silence and the snow. But his slim jaw parted and a voice came out, rough and monotone. Do I, he felt his throat vibrate, I've got no one to wait for.
[/html]
[html] cake
i'm just a boat on the ocean
cakeOnce, Bane had been a real doctor, a wartime doctor; he had experimented on his enemies and worked to save his allies. He had seen enough death to fill a chapter of the book of Fate with names. It had a peculiar smell and a distinct feel to it, death; it was recognisable in the night and in the day, even under the watch of the Sun God. Their god had saved no one because, the Elders had told him, they were past salvation. And the smell of death lived on now in his dreams, and in the little spaces in his skull where he couldn't reach.
cakeHe could smell it here.
cakeFrowning, he leaned on the stick and took another step, moving forward. Something drew him, but he wasn't aware what. It was irrelevant, really. He wouldn't offer anything, he wouldn't speak of optimism, of brighter days in the future; it really was all a waste of breath. Bane feared death, as any other man did. But many of the names in his chapter in Fate's book had been people who had wanted to die. Sometimes it was a release. Some feared death less than living.
"Who are you?" Being intrusive wasn't his style, but the instinct reared like a dragon in his skull.
|
|
[/html]
[html]
When he wasn't thinking about it, he half-believed that he was already dead. When he thought about it, it seemed like a fantasy cure-all, like it would solve everything. When he thought about it, he half-believed that death really was the end, and that ghosts had never been real, that there would be no confrontation beyond it. When he was faced with it; when the blade was really pressed against his wrist, or the claws to his throat, when he had seen the sun rise that day, he had been scared. The unknown was the most terrifying thing at all, the fact that he didn't know whether it was really be the end, the fact that he didn't know if death was really just another life. What he wanted the most was an end; what he feared the most was that the ultimate end was not an end at all.
The stranger's voice shouldn't have been haunting because he shouldn't have been thinking about it that much. It shouldn't have sounded like people he knew because he knew no one. A ghost, he answered, because it may as well be the truth. Laruku, if you want me to be. That Laruku didn't want to be Laruku never seemed to matter. People drew it out of him, demanded it out of him. They expected things, words, reactions, the things that they had perceived to make him him. He was only as much of anything as anyone perceived him to be. They fooled themselves. They saw things that weren't really there. Faith, leadership, strength. Invisible things. He saw himself as nothing, and a shadow, a cackle in the darkness, and a bitter smile. When no one was there to behold him, he was nothing. The stranger would see what he wanted to see, and that would be what he was. Who are you? Another ghost, most likely. Ships in the night.
[/html]
[html] cake
i'm just a boat on the ocean
cakeWhen the halfling spoke his name, Bane understood what had transpired in the heavens to bring him here. When he had been young and four-legged, Bane had heard the name Laruku enough that it stuck while other things slipped through the cracks into the vast expanse of his subconscious, lost in the endless void. His father's obvious feelings for the cinnamon hybrid hadn't been so obvious to the young boy, but later in life it had dawned on him. Once upon a time, he had felt resentment for knowing his mother hadn't been the first thing on Tsunami's mind. Those days were long past.
cakeA ghost, indeed. The man didn't know the irony of his words. Bane smiled thinly at this. His life felt more real now. Is this what the prophet had meant for him?
cake"Laruku Tears," he commented idly. Bane's voice was a slow, strong thing; an easy tenor that flowed forth effortlessly. He still felt like smiling, but it didn't come. He still felt like speaking, but it didn't come either. It was funny; Bane had pictured the former Alpha a lot differently. A lot less... helpless. "A pleasure. I've heard much of you. My name is Bane." A first-name basis was fine for the doctor. He was generally a lot more formal, but the taste of death on his tongue kept him from holding back. Besides, he had a feeling that his given name was more than enough here.
|
|
[/html]
[html]
He should have laughed. The cackling was there, suddenly loud and clear in the space between his ears, and he should have joined it, howling wildly until his sides ached and until tears rolled down his cheeks, but then he might have really broken down (it was too late for that). Instead, he found himself stiffening and realizing for the first time just how cold it was outside, just how little the blanket was helping. His ached down to his bones, and he couldn't feel his fingers or toes. Phasma had asked him to keep an eye out for Bane, and to send him home if he saw him. But their home was gone and so was Phasma, so was Willow, so was Ire. There was no where for him to send Bane.
What have you heard about me, he asked stiffly, still refusing to turn to him. But the mask of the ghost was gone, the veil of apathy -- the protection it gave him was gone. He couldn't pretend not to care anymore, knowing that it was Bane. His ears were pinned back, and he could feel his heart beating faster deep in his chest. Ghosts, all of them. The dead needed to stay dead. Bane should have died, just like Tsunami should have died, or else disappeared forever, never to return. There was paradise elsewhere, not here. Why did people always come back?
[/html]
[html] cakeI miss our old threads. :|
i'm just a boat on the ocean
cakeMany men in this situation would have been uncomfortable. Bane understood why but easily detached himself; emotions were a useless thing when they couldn't be put to use effectively. The lack of noise kept his head clear. It helped him focus and not care when he saw the walls crumble around the tan coloured halfling. In fact, he found it intriguing. Laruku's milky eyes reminded Bane of the prophet. He knew a dying man when he saw one.
cake"Apparently you can play piano, and you've got a hell of a singing voice," Bane replied. Quiet and calm with an undercurrent of something else, something intense. "You chased fireflies when you were a kid. Never wanted any yourself, though." It was always the little things, the stupid insignificant things. Things Tsunami had mentioned briefly in passing. Bane had always been good at reading people and knew how important his father had considered these things. The sentimental bastard. Bane's tone changed suddenly then, and the smile came back. He reminded himself the halfling couldn't see it, even if he turned towards the conversation. Perhaps looking away made this whole thing less real. "Suppose you haven't seen the old man around?"
|
|
[/html]
[html]
It would have been easy to believe that Bane was a ghost, or a verbal hallucination. Though he had never seen him before, even as a child, the hybrid could picture him there now, an adult, two years old (god, only two years?), dark like his mother, built like his father, standing out stark against the snow, but black against the forest. And he found that he didn't want to listen to anything the ghost was saying. They were words that did not belong there anymore; they old sentiments, old conversations, old scenes and memories that had become faded and obsolete with time. Laruku had not touched a piano in years now, and the singing only came in raspy bursts that he later tried his hardest not to remember. He had not seen fireflies that summer, hadn't looked for them or thought of them at all. The truth was that Laruku had died a long time ago, and all those things with him. His body was an immortal corpse, and his voice was only the wind. The zombie didn't want to remember the life it had lived.
He was here, the voice said, quietly, Last winter. Briefly. Not since then. The words had become more punctuated, and his body shook from beneath the blanket. His ears rang with laughter, with voices, his own and others, with conversations they'd had. His throat throbbed where the scars were. You haven't seen him either? Suddenly, Laruku wanted to stand and attack the man, wanted to tear him apart and devour him like he had his brother. If he killed him somehow, then that would be the end of it. No more ghosts. No more survivors. Phasma was dead. Willow was dead. Ire was dead. If Bane followed them, then there was only the grey wolf that remained. And if Tsunami came back again, one or both of them would surely die. The hybrid's fingers twitched though he still couldn't feel them. He closed his eyes, and tried not to give into the laughter.
[/html]
[html] cake
i'm just a boat on the ocean
cakeThere was a part of him that was amused by this. Months and months ago, when he had been living with his father, Bane had watched the elder man with the wisdom and the eyes of someone far older than his years. And through watching, he had learned, but not the typical things children learned from their parents. He had learned that life would push you down when she could, and that to care was largely a waste of time. That it would devour you eventually, from the inside out. The dark wolf still carried that belief with him. It had kept him alive over the years that had, again and again, tried to see to his death. He had a friend in Lady Luck and he was still breathing, he was still sane. The smile was still there. It was strangely intense.
cake"No, sir," was the brief reply. His voice quiet and dark in the falling snow. Slow, like he had all the time in the world. "Not since I was a child. He's probably dead. To be frank, I was surprised he lived enough to see my first shift. I suppose that makes me the last of the line, doesn't it?" As his words gently broke the otherwise silent late-fall night, Bane took another step forward. From his pocket he produced his glasses. Without looking, he wiped off the lenses and put them on. And the world was clear again, and the sky was brighter, and the halfling on the stone steps of the cabin was a little more real. He had a feeling Laruku wasn't interested in a word he was saying. Bane didn't care.
cake"You realise he was mad," he stated. "Most of the things he said were lies. I don't know if he was doing it intentionally or not. He talked to someone who wasn't there, when he thought he was alone. Claims he's been places that don't exist." After leaving his father, Bane had searched these supposed places out himself, and had found nothing. "So he's likely better off dead." The dark wolf blinked his mother's blue eyes, and the smile was gone. "A lot of people are likely better off dead." He was simply musing to himself now, regardless of whether Laruku was or was not still listening. His following question was spoken to the air, eyes pointed towards the sky. "I was told you were a good man. So what happened, Mr Tears?"
|
|
[/html]
[html]
He laughed then, finally, because it was a defensive mechanism, and because it was better than the alternative. It was a dirty sound, too rough and too dry, and the traces of a demon's grin tugged at the edges of his lips as he did so. It was a dangerous thing to do, laugh. And when he opened eyes, he could see Bane clearly in the snow, standing with some pretend defiance. He had come closer, and the hybrid would have sworn that he could see his breath on the wind and his shadow on the snow. (It was just a matter of standing up and tearing out his throat.) The laughter echoed through the quiet forest and a half-sneer remained on the blind man's face when it faded away. Of course Tsunami had been crazy; he had always been. They both had been. But Laruku didn't think the grey wolf was dead. Things were never that easy. Neither of them were that lucky.
I killed your brother, Laruku said, almost flippantly. That probably led to your mother's death. Phasma had been innocent of everything, but he had taken everything away from her. The guilt was a ball tucked away in the back of his mind, but that wasn't what he was thinking about anymore. His tail twitched from underneath his blanket and he clenched one of his fists. He laughed again, but it was clearly bitter. I'm better off dead, he told the boy, and drew one knee to his chest, scarred arm hanging over it. Why don't you change the world? No one wanted to change the world anymore.
[/html]
[html] cake
i'm just a boat on the ocean
cakeBane listened. His ears were a great tool, and he used them always. People said things and meant much more. Laruku's words made him smile. It was nostalgia, almost. Life had been quiet where he had come from until the Revolution. From then on, the air had reeked of death and blood, and the decay of their collective moral standards. The air had carried the sound of Laruku's bitter laughter, coming from a hundred different lost souls. He felt a flashback coming on. It had been months since he had had one.
cakeHe heard the murder confession, clear as anything. The intense smile had travelled to his eyes and he stared heavily at the hybrid. Bane's entire family -- Phasma, Ire, Willow -- were dead; his father was now the only loose string. He felt the lack of compassion like a hole in his chest. And he welcomed it. It was empowering, in fact, knowing he had survived and they hadn't. He wondered if Laruku had expected him to care. Bane had known from day one he wasn't like his father. "No," he said with a soft laugh, and it was barely a whisper; it carried on the wind like the falling snow. "I'm far too selfish to want that." And he was silent for a moment, simply looking, watching, listening. In a place he knew he wasn't welcome, with a person he knew didn't want to speak with him. "Seems like you're the type who would understand." It wasn't meant as an insult or a low blow. His father's ex-lover had died long ago, and before Bane now was just a shell of a man. A broken man wouldn't try to change even himself, much less the world.
|
|
[/html]
[html]
It wasn't the world that needed to change, it was the people in it. He didn't know when exactly he had realized that, but it seemed like too simple a thing to accept. But naturally, changing yourself always seemed harder than changing the world. It was easier when you could imagine change to be a tangible thing. Introspection never seemed to end well. It was easy to say that lack of compassion was what was wrong with the world. It was easy to say that people needed to empathize more with others. It was hard to care. Maybe he was surprised that Bane didn't care; it was more likely that he wasn't, but he wasn't thinking about that either. Bane's death would be the end of an era. Except that that era had already ended. It had ended before he was born. Laruku had spent too long caring.
Then what do you want? The ironic thing was that selfishness didn't work without caring. To want something was to care. Even if all you cared about was yourself, as long as something mattered, there was something to do, something to strive for, or to struggle again. And that was what life was made out of. Apathy was death. And it was undoubtedly why Laruku was still alive. Every effort he made to purge his mind and soul had ended in failure and he woke every night to pace circles in his head because he still cared. Bane's death would end nothing. He could be the last person left alive on the planet, and there would still be no peace.
[/html]
[html] cake
i'm just a boat on the ocean
cakeIf a lack of compassion was what was wrong with the world, then Bane was what was wrong with the world. Perhaps the black wolf knew this, but he didn't care, because he didn't care about much. Somewhere along the line, he had lost what his parents were, and had become someone entirely different. Perhaps someone neither his mother nor father would have liked. It was a moot point, and he refused to walk circles in his head anymore.
cakeThis refusal was maybe why he didn't respond right away. What did he want? Why was he here? It was obvious to say that his father had been the one who had the most influence over Bane when he had been young, and the boy hadn't understood at the time why the world worked the way it did. He was older now, and knew better now, but for most of his life now he had wondered what here had taken hold of his father so completely. For most of his life this had mattered. During his time wandering, when he had become an apprentice to a renowned doctor, when he had been sentenced and sent away. When he had fought battles for a cause he had been told to believe in. Through it all he had wondered, sometimes in anger and sometimes in curiosity, sometimes with some vague regret and equally vague sympathy for his mother that had eventually faded into nothing. What was it about this faceless hybrid that mattered to the grey wolf more than even his on son?
cakeNow, Bane finally understood.
cakeHe didn't understand why, but rather that he would never understand, and that it no longer mattered either way. Standing in the snow with his broken leg and his mother's piercing eyes, set steadfastly on the stranger, it was a good enough answer. He would never get it, and it didn't matter. The resentment he had forgotten he even had was gone. "Nothing at all, really," he replied evenly. Then he smiled an apologetic smile. He didn't care that Laruku couldn't see it. "I apologise for interrupting. It was rude of me." He took a step back as he spoke, turning to walk away. This place felt like a dream or fantasy, as if it were imagined, and Bane was feeling wholly ready to return to the real world. "Good luck, Mr Tears, and goodbye."
cakeThey would never see each other again. Bane knew this and accepted it. No part of him worried nor cared; some really were better off dead. And if this were the end of an era, Bane was ready to see to the beginning of a new one.
|
|
[/html]
[html]
He didn't say anything. He lied again and decided that he didn't care. He had been talking to the breeze again, and it really wasn't such an unlikely conclusion. The laughter was ringing loudly between his ears, and he could almost make out words in there too. When the footsteps faded away in the frozen grass and snow, he stood slowly and dragged his cold feet back inside the lonely cottage. The fire had died again, but that didn't matter. Laruku found his way to the bedroom where some two dozen ratty blankets were tossed onto an equally ratty mattress. Lying down, he curled deep into the mass of cloth and pretended that he was invisible, that he was floating through space, and that there was nothing around him. There would be memories in his dreams that night, but in the morning, he would forget about Bane again; he would forget about Tsunami again. It was a tired ritual, but it was all he could manage.
[/html]
|
