Lifting two fingers to his mouth, he whistles shrilly and almost immediately the welcome sight of his large and very furry familiar comes barreling into view. Phoebe skids to a halt before them, screeching her worry in that strange garbled whinny-roar, and she dances from hoof to hoof anxiously. In his distraction with Kane, he's unable to sever the telepathic line of pictures she’s mentally shouting at him.

go go go go run run run RUN

Jack has to hiss a warning to get her to settle long enough to hoist Kane’s larger frame onto her back. It doesn’t help that he’s dead weight with his wound and he grunts in protest at being heaved up so gracelessly. Kane mumbles something about missing his fox, scanning the ground a bit drunkenly as the blood loss starts to affect him.

But Jack can’t think about that right now. If he can get Kane away, the wound can be healed without magic if the blood flow can be halted. It’s the issue of getting away that’s the problem. Speed will be his only chance and Jack’s military brain is already strategizing the quickest path to take.

“If we make it to the castle, we can rejoin what’s left of the army and pool our strengths. They will have barricaded the wounded up on the rear turret with the healers. The monsters wouldn’t have reached the stables yet. Should be a clear path if you come from the east and through the servant gate. Draw it behind you, set the horses loose and knock down the torches to light to the oil on the boundary ring. It will buy everyone some time till the beasts can get in.”

“Ok great. You’ll just have to repeat all that once we’re in,” Kane scoffs, giving his brother an incredulous sideways glance. But it had not been for Kane’s benefit that Jack had voiced the plan. It’s Phoebe’s sapphire eye that meets his with sad understanding. Her uneven huffing suggests she is already mourning what is about to happen, but she is steadfast and still under the weight of his injured brother.

The younger man holds out an arm, waiting expectantly for Jack to latch on and swing up behind him. But he looks to the streams of red starting to drip down Phoebe’s mane from his brother’s gut and does not move to take his hand. Instead, he meets Kane’s stare and holds it, ignoring the panic etched on his little brother’s face to instead memorize the bright green of his eyes. The way his mouth tightens so reminiscent of their mother’s when she was annoyed with their boyish antics. The way the flickering light of war casts his hair burnished gold, like it turned each summer spent at Silver Coast. The way he looks at Jack when he’s frightened, trying so hard to mimic the fearlessness he’s convinced his older sibling has.

(Teach me to be brave like you, Jack)

“Go,” Jack orders.

But Kane, catching on to his plan, is having none of it, eyes flaring wide as he starts to scramble in an exhausted bloody tangle of limbs from Phoebe’s back. “What?! No! Fuck no, Jack.” He’s doing his best to throw his entire weight against his brother’s hold, but is weakening quickly. Fox slips from her perch on his shoulders in the scuffle with a yelp, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “You’re out of your fucking mind. I ain’t going if you aren’t. I’m not leaving you here. Please! You can’t-”

Jack cuts him off with a final shove to right his slumped form upward on the lorse’s back. He smacks the younger fairy in the back of the head with a teal-tipped wing for good measure. “I can and I will!”

He then snatches the trembling fox up from where she cowers at their feet and crams her back around Kane’s shoulders. “Now go, godsdamn you! Don’t you dare turn around!” And he punctuates the command by slapping his familiar’s spotted flank, spurring her into a quick uphill gallop.

“NOOOO!” he hears Kane bellow. Jack inhales a ragged breath, throat tight, knowing he’s laying eyes on his brother for the last time. Phoebe, to her everlasting credit, is diligent in her responsibility, and does not slow at feeling the terrible stutter of his heart as it breaks. She is a true war mount, and she will see her precious cargo to safety or die trying. He takes a brief moment to pass a wave of fond gratitude across their connection. He is guilty for being the fairy to drag such a magnificent creature down. He will not get the chance to apologize to her for being so reckless with their lives.

He watches, shattered and with the backs of his eyes burning, as they crest the hill and ride out of sight.

”Stay alive, brother” he whispers.

They are upon him within minutes. He lifts his sword in greeting.

Gruesome coal-black cat things with glowing lidless stares and a rumble like cannons coming from their throats. Half a dozen, they come with jowls oozing foul vapors and the dark ochre of Shamanites. He recognizes a swatch of Fergus’ coat fabric hanging from the canines of the big one.

He kills that one first.

The others retaliate by biting through the tendons in his leg. It doesn’t drop him yet, though he meets their roar with an outraged one of his own. He swings with calculated fury, striking a jugular here, and twisting to deliver an up swing to a belly there. Eventually his ruined leg gives and he falls to his knees. But still he continues to fight, bending backward to swipe through the chest of another as it leaps. Another lunge has the point of his sword removing a freaking yellow eyeball from its socket. He lets loose the war cry of the Kingsguard, hacking and blocking razor sharp blows from where he kneels. He’ll take as many of them with him before he goes.

It’s the claw down the chest that pauses his furious attack, leaving him gasping and vulnerable as his arms swing wide in surprise. He hesitates long enough to watch the hot rivulets of blood stream down to puddle around his knees, and in that still moment - he is defeated.

They pounce as a group of three.

It’s beyond excruciating.

But he does not scream as they tear his limbs from his body.

***

Dying is painful. Death is not.

There is weightlessness…..and the smell of the sea.


***

When he wakes again, it’s because the surf is a cold shock on his face. He sputters, hacks, clearing briney water from his lungs and mouth. Reeling, he tries to blink the seafoam from his lashes. He’s sodden, down to the core and there’s grit in his teeth, where earlier was blood. He can’t for the life of him recall how he ended up on the beach, stuck elbow deep in the place where ocean meets the land.

Suddenly he remembers he should be bleeding out, guts and organs slipping through his fingers and it’s frenzied hands that search for gaping holes along his torso. But it’s all intact. Nothing but smooth unbroken skin beneath his still-whole shirt. He is not doused in his blood. He cannot see his own insides.

How can this be?

It’s then he notices the ocean has another side where should be an endless horizon of water - a river. Wide and turbulent, but not the familiar waves of the cove he had originally thought them to be. How has he gotten here?

His thoughts are fuzzy, and now that he’s no longer injured, he finds it’s nearly impossible to come up with a reason for his being here or how it might have happened. He remembers the sharp tearing of his flesh (the way it feels to die, he remembers it vividly, so why is he still here), he remembers tears of agony burning at scratches on his cheeks. He remembers monsters and the glint of sword points in the light.

And he remembers fear and green and for some reason the two are inexplicably intertwined and it makes him so very sad. That specific combination - it flares a pain in his chest more fierce than one of dying.

He sits there, lost to his thoughts. There is no way to judge the passage of time since the sun appears to be perpetually lost behind a hazy of grey. In fact, if he thinks about it, it all seems to be greying. He stares at his hands, declaring it crazy to think they are draining of color before his very eyes. It’s a disturbingly short time later that he cannot remember what color they were supposed to be.

It’s only a bit longer that he cannot remember what happened immediately before arriving here. Is magic a thing? He wonders if he’s under some kind of spell.

He remembers green though. Green and fear. He wonders where the source of it has gone. It gnaws at him, the need to make sure the green is safely away from him. He can’t remember if he’s the cause of the fear.

(You don’t always have to save me.)

He forgets the sea and the two little boys rough housing in the cradle of it’s waves.

He forgets the gleam of swords in the light. And the laugh of a man who has no name but looks like him. And the feeling of being flayed alive fades - it doesn’t matter anymore anyway.

He clings to the color green. It’s important, but he can’t remember why. And the green is still so afraid. Maybe he should be afraid too?

(Teach me to be brave like you, Jack)

He forgets if he had parents. He forgets why his body is toned like a fine killing machine. He thinks it should maybe be torn open in jagged lines.

He forgets climbing trees with a blonde boy who is shaking like a leaf and looking up for a hero.

(It’s fine, I’m right here with you.)

He forgets the exact shade of green. Doesn’t know if it was bright like gemstones or dark like the underside of an oak tree. But he knows it’s imperative and he can’t forget it too, so he writes the word ‘green’ into the sand beside him. When the water laps up at high tide to erase it, he traces it back in place. Every time. He traces the letters over and over until his finger is calloused and stuck up to his palm in dark grey river sand.

He forgets why he’s tracing after a while. It takes a little more time. The sun doesn’t come out from the haze.

And then he forgets what the word ‘green’ means.

So he stops tracing.