“What do you mean, ‘we’re leaving’?” The words were uttered with a hushed heaviness, that lingered between three stallions that had gathered close together.
“When the sun rises tomorrow, we won’t be here any more.”
Azizi worked his jaw, rather irritated by the response, because it didn’t tell him anything, and only added to the confusion he felt. A sliver of fear pricked at his heart. “And, what? You’re not going to come back?” His golden eyes were guarded as they scrutinised the face of the stallion that towered over him.
“I can’t say. None of us can foretell the things to come.” But the way the strange pair glanced at one another then, a loaded, knowing look, heavy and inscrutable…
It made Azizi’s lip curl, because he knew they were keeping something from him. Swallowing thickly, shifting as the sliver dug deeper, burning him and turning his blood cold all at once. “Are you going to Atlantis? I could visit when -” A quick shake of Charon’s muzzle stopped the brown stallion short.
“We’re leaving.”
Cold realisation dawned on Azizi, and he took a swift step back, tossing his head and issuing a ragged snort, as if the gentle words had hit him with all the force of a physical blow. “At least tell me why,” he pleaded hoarsely, once he’d managed to find his voice again.
“The why is not something you could understand.” Charon offered the words with hesitation, almost knowing what effect they’d have on Azizi, but he didn’t know how else to convey what he needed to - the reason was not for Azizi to know, and they - he and Acheron both - they just needed Azizi to trust him.
But for the scarred, tatter-eared brown stallion, trust was not something that came easily anymore.
“I’m not enough for you, am I? Not smart enough, not good enough.” He spat the words at the hooves of the pair who had become as brothers to him, and waited for their reaction, almost hungry for violence - a twisted echo of what his mother had been, once, and she’d held on so tight because she’d never wanted him to hurt the way she had.
“We want you to come with us, Azizi. Please, you… You have to.”
He saw the sorrow in their eyes - it ran so deep in the silent Acheron - sorrow for what he’d lost, and for how he was hurting. And as the moments dragged on, that sorrow turned to raw grief, because they knew they’d lost him. He’d read the sorrow as pity, and hardened his heart against it. And then he read the grief as fear, because he’d hunched himself up against the hurt, and masked it with a savage snarl, and he believed they were afraid of him.
“I don’t… I don’t have to do anything!” Azizi snapped, teeth snatching at the air in front of them. The pair retreated a little, not wanting to come to blows with one who mattered so much to them. There was anguish on Charon’s face, tears in his eyes. But Acheron, Acheron was already withdrawing, turning away in silence, just as bereft as the red behemoth beside him, even more so, but he didn’t show it.
The son of Tyr lingered, as if hoping that there was still a chance.
“Just go,” Azizi snarled, a dark, low sound. “Go and don’t look back, Charon,” because the both of them knew the sooty red stallion would. “I don’t need you, and maybe I never did.” It was a lie, the both of them knew it.
Charon opened his mouth, but with a squeal, Azizi lunged at him, deliberately turning his open mouth away from his almost-brother (because he’d hate to bleed Charon in anger), shoving his small, stocky frame into the solid, unyielding wall that was Charon, stumbling through the wetland undergrowth as he glanced off the point of the tall red stallion’s shoulder, and with a savage scream, he tore away through the Lagoon, running almost blind for the tears that stung his eyes, so he blinked them bitterly free and hardened his heart.
He’d not stop running ‘til he felt dampness on his face begin to dry.
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