thoth
we spend all our time running for our lives, going nowhere

Eris was breathing heavily through her nose, the unicorn equivalent of having a good snicker at someone else’s expense. Thoth rubbed his lower back where it had hit Mace’s hard kneecaps, glaring at her with as much ferocity as he could muster. Completely unfazed, Eris started poking curiously at the roof of the tent with her horn. He started to lean forward to challenge her before she poked a hole through but paused, noticing that she was only running her horn gently over the material. Apparently, the waterproof fabric had an interesting feel to it. And frankly, it was a better pastime than goring dead animals or pushing people through tents.

“Yeah.” Thoth grunted back when Mace said his name. “Dunno,” he added unhelpfully in response to the question. Thoth’s watch had broken weeks ago when Eris stepped on it and, being poor and homeless, he was hardly in a position to replace it.

Light blazed, forcing him to turn away and blink rapidly until his eyes adjusted. Shifting slightly so he was sat perpendicular to Mace, facing towards the soft orange glow of the lantern, Thoth went back to massaging his lower back. The ex-soldier’s kneecaps were really hard.

He didn’t actually look at Mace until the latter questioned him again. Thoth glanced over at him, a what? ready on his lips, but the word died in his throat. As soon a she clapped eyes on the former captain, the world seemed to lurch around them. Eris, the tent, the camp-bed, the lantern – it all spun away into the darkness, leaving just Thoth and Mace sat in… space? Stars glittered all around them, glued to an endless stretch of inky blackness. Hovering in between Thoth and Mace, in mid-air, was a faintly glowing necklace. No, not a necklace. Pewter-coloured dog tags, stamped with a star shape and held together with a fine, silvery chain. They were there, suspended right in front of Mace, waiting for him to reach out and take them.

Thoth blinked and the scene vanished. He was back in the tent, staring at Mace, who was watching him with the same expression he’d worn only a second ago.

“Did you just…?” Thoth started to ask, but trailed off almost as soon as he started. Mace was squinting at him, his eyes raking over his arms and shoulders. Thoth glanced down at himself but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe they were both having visions. “Weird.” He muttered. “I just got this really odd feeling like there’s something you need to go and get. I saw it.” He pointed at the space between them. “They were dog tags, like soldiers wear in Earth militaries. Do you have dog tags?”