Quiet. He’d learned to both love and loathe the quiet. Sometimes the lack of noise (spare the twittering of forest birds or the chattering of chipmunks) meant he could doze in and out of consciousness, gripping desperately for black, dreamless sleep to find some peace. Sometimes the lack of noise meant he had nothing but his inner demons as entertainment and they broke him down, bit by bit, reminding him every reason he was worthless. Nephilim was no longer living. Nephilim was no longer surviving. Nephilim was existing.
When he grazed, he did so almost robotically, allowing the instincts in his mind to guide him toward the nourishment his body needed. He stayed in this wide, shallow valley between two mountains, bordered by trees, and didn’t venture beyond it. His gait was slow, hindered by a lame back leg and a lame front leg, causing him to limp and favor his right side. The cold, he’d learned, was worse for the injuries. Though his joints had healed, there was scar tissue built up and the cold seemed to seep into these wounds, deep into the joints of his bones and make them painfully stiff. Nephilim had found this out the hard way during his first winter spent away from the islands and it had broken him until all he could do was stumble, collapse, and cry out as he fell to the ground, trembling and sobbing in his grief. If the chill of the mainlands affected him so, he could never return to Tinuvel.
A soft murmur of voices over the hill pulled at him as he stood in the shade of a pine, weight leaning gingerly to allow his lame limbs to rest. His remaining ear twitched and the skin pulled where his other ear had been torn away, as if a phantom ear was turning too. Consciously, however, he did not grasp what it meant to hear even the faint whisper of voices nearby. Nephilim was shrouded in grief too great to come to the surface and though his body instinctually reacted to the noise, he did not. Nephilim stayed with his head slung low, remaining eyelid closed, breathing shallow.
In fact, he was so far gone he didn’t realize what it meant when he heard hooves approaching. Nephilim snapped from his grief for nothing until… It’s you. Startled, his head jerked upright, one gold eye rolling in its socket to flash white as he turned his head to awkwardly stare at who had come into his self-inflicted solitude. It’s really you. Nephilim stared in horror as he recognized Dances, standing here, looking at him. Seeing him. Seeing what a waste he’d become.
Somewhere he felt the pull of his heart and the rise of emotions which would threaten to make him sob, crash himself as close to Dances as he could get and cry until there was no more tears left in him to give. But Nephilim did not believe he deserved this – he did not deserve love or compassion. He noticed a figure on the faraway crest of the hill and glanced briefly over Dances toward her. Oswin, remaining far away enough she wouldn’t intrude on their conversation, but still watching. Loathing sprung bright in his gold eye and his one ear turned back, his lips curling in distaste. How dare she… how dare she bring Dances here! Nephilim had told her!
Dances spoke again and Nephilim’s attention was brought back to him. His heart pounded hard in his chest, too many emotions filling his body for him to focus on just one. Rage burned in his belly, but iciness crawled in his veins, and sickness plagued him to turn his stomach over as he thought of what Dances was seeing now. Longing filled him until he wanted to gasp and cry, looking at the stallion that’d been his closest, most trusted, most beloved friend. He wanted comfort, but swiftly the demons reminded him he didn’t deserve it. He had failed his children not once, but twice. He had failed his family not once, but twice. He could never be their champion again, for it hurt to even walk. He was a failure. He only continued because he was too weak to let them go completely.
My brother.
Dances broke him. Tears welled hot in his eye and Nephilim’s body shook, but as much as he wanted to crash against the painted stallion he instead did the opposite, tearing his body further away with a cry and an awkward stumble in his limping gait. He trembled, tears slick and hot down his cheek, and shook his head slowly back and forth, lip quivering. He’d ripped away when Dances had reached for him, and he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing any hurt on Dances face because of it.
“Stop, please.” Nephilim begged, squeezing his eye shut, ear flicked out to the side and head slung low. “Please just go, Dances,” he begged, his voice catching on a sob which threatened to choke him. Nephilim swallowed a large gulp of air and trembled again, beginning to shake his head back and forth. “Just go, just leave… you shouldn’t have seen me. She wasn’t supposed to bring you here.” Anger leaped on the last of his words, making his voice bitter and his gold eye flash. He’d told her.
“I can’t,” he sobbed softly in a broken whisper, “I can’t… just go… just go…”
|