Small, ragged holes in the roof sent golden bushels of light sweeping through the darkness behind his eyelids. Birds warbled quietly, the heat of the day was set in full swing. The man's body roared in discontent; his leg throbbed dully as his palms tingled. Strangely, the burning in his hand had stopped. His clothes still stuck uncomfortably to his skin, but something felt different. There was a warm, viscous wetness on his limbs that slammed into his awareness with a wave of unease.
Adonis squeezed his eyes shut tighter before blinking; he grunted in discontent as the sound of creaking metal welcomed his waking. "The truck…" His thoughts felt as heavy as his body did, waking on his back, staring up at that same, oxidized sepia-
"No? No. I was… I was outside, wasn't I?" He crawled out, didn't he?
Adonis' memories were tangled and blurry; his face curled down in displeasure as another pitiful groan left his dry throat. A medicinal scent wafted up as the breeze pushed through the old vehicle. The back of his knees rested on something hard, his legs fully stretched out over the doorway, flat on the dirt. Realizing the current configuration of his body was enough to make his head snap upright, much to the dismay of his stiff, aching neck. Scoffing an odd sound of pain, Ado steadied his breathing and narrowed his eyes ahead of him. The smell of rotting upholstery was mixed with something new, alarmingly out of place. Herbs? Something with a minty and rich odor that made his nose tingle.
He looked at the inside of the truck before him, suddenly granted a wider view of the clearing. Ado's mouth slowly hung open, dry. The human's mind blanked, lost in the absence of something that would not budge an inch the night before.
"The fucking door…" It was gone.
There was a cedar tree in the distance, wrapped tight in vines with pink flowers, otherwise completely rotund. The wall of vegetation surrounding him was verdant; nearly everything in his vicinity was a shade of green or warm brown. In a feeble effort, he pushed himself up with his better forearm. Ado's muscles grumbled, rather than yelled; a strange ooze squished between his inner elbow as he sat up on his side. The exiles brows furrowed as his lip snagged up, the bottom curled down slightly in the most exaggerated expression of disgust.
"What the fuck is that?" He forced himself to shut down any ringing bells of panic, "hopefully this just leaked from the truck-"
"No! Fuck that, what is this?!" He leaned forward with minor strain, still wearing that wonderful look as he studied the dark smears on his skin. "What the fuck!" His mind exclaimed with growing urgency. More applications of whatever the hell this was had been spread across both palms and a fresh purple and green bruise above his knee. The poultice coated scrapes and scratches vines left scattered up the entirety of his calves; "I didn't realize it was this bad…"
He looked in perturbation at his hands, nearly hyperventilating. This wasn't like the healing salves at home; it was thicker than their ointments. There were tiny brown fragments of something scattered within it, too small to identify the source. His head buzzed with apprehension; what… Who?
Adonis remembered hoisting himself through the window, the metal nearly cutting into his hips, the way the vines swayed in the wind,
Head hurts.
The pariah blinked several times, dazed. "What's it matter? I need to go."
Regardless of what he thought, his mind worked overtime anyway.
"The herons;" A flash of gray birds flying overhead shot through his recollection like the release of a tightly coiled spring. "I fell;" He could remember the virescent smudge the world became as gravity embraced him, then the stab of rusty spines from corroded metal when he was dragged down by his own weight. There was a friction burn on his outer forearm, the skin was raw- but suspiciously lacked any rusted flecks or dirt.
The rest of what happened was fuzzy. Ado flexed his fingers, wincing at the muted pain that came with it. His right hand wasn't bleeding, and upon closer inspection, there was something clear and shimmering now plugging the gashes left by those damned twigs; the injuries looked cleaner, too. The exile's mouth fell open again, corners of his lips pulled down. The boy was dumbfounded, his upper lip curled into an unintentional snarl; as it almost always did whenever something sticky or unpleasant touched him when he wasn't prepared.
As one is to do, he curiously sniffed the mystery substance on his hand while scanning the world beyond with utmost suspicion. It was the same as it had been on the breeze; yet, there was something oddly familiar about it, now that it was his primary focus. He smelt this before, or at least he thought he did. The scent was fresh and cool, it had to be mint. "But mint was more for internal use? What kind of fuckin' idiot applies it to a wound?" Mint was not an adhesive, nor did it bind the skin or harden the way this did. Although, he had never been one to pay attention in his botany classes. His teacher- if you could call her that, was a doctor. She had no patience for odd children who didn't grasp the information immediately; as if she made it easy in the first place. Not just that, but he was her only student, for good reason. She kinda sucked.
Mara spent hours grilling him with the importance of knowing what plants to use for what; she liked to lord her expansive knowledge of herbalism over him- as if her brilliance took away from the fact that she was nearly as much of an asshole as her father. Her lectures bordered bullying with how extensive they were; those courses were designed for someone twice his age, yet he had always been forced to sit through them all anyway. Ado never really picked up on anything unless a plant tasted good, did something particularly interesting, or looked fun enough to draw.
He was sure that only spurred her on to be crueler.
Before he could stop it, her mousey face flooded his mind, accompanied by the characteristic, disapproving shake of her head. He could see her long, dark hair swish as her espresso brown eyes narrowed in disappointment. She was a beautiful woman, fierce and ambitious to a fault. Her sun-kissed skin only enhanced the intensity of the stern, unyielding face that somehow appeared so deceptively delicate. She terrified him, wholly.
He only saw her smile sincerely when she didn't know he was near.
Adonis wished she would let him know her then, too. She never cared for him much, no matter how hard he tried, or what face he wore. It only took so many years before he realized it was a rigged game. He was undeserving of victory in her eyes, for circumstances he could not control.
She was a Vemora, after all; kindness didn't run a colony. Not in a world like this.
The young man sighed with regret he wished he didn't have, cursing the ache that lingered from missing people that probably felt better with him gone.
Why do we have to love the familiar, rather than what's best for us?
He was a master of distraction, especially when it wasn't necessary.
The young man blew a harsh stream of air from his nose, hiding from the heaviness of his heart.
The poultice had a flaxen tint to it the more he studied it. Yet, the more he looked at his own body, the more it screamed at him to get his shit together.
Adonis sighed more irritably, dragging himself up to gather his bag
"Oh, fuck." Someone had come by, and his first instinct wasn't to check his things?
Remember what was said before?
The exile groped the area around him gracelessly, his bad hand hit the soft fabric of the satchel his beloved sister gave him. The sharp twang that came from the impact wasn't met with a single flinch; he wrenched the thing to himself desperately and looked inside. The brunette didn't care about the goo on his hands
"The mark."
Adonis clawed at his collarbone with a free hand and exhaled a sound eerily close to a sob when he felt the stone. The necklace was safe. If only he had been allowed to keep his own.
No.
"Why would I want that stupid shit?" He grumbled internally, looking through his possessions with little patience.
"Someone was fucking in here."
He felt close to tears, his shaking hands gingerly grasped the once tangled twine that had since been neatly rewrapped.
"Why the fuck? Was this a joke?
Oh God; Is this the start of a sick game?"
Adonis was too afraid to be angry- his stomach still knotted and screaming for nourishment any chance it got, eating away at any ability to keep calm. His head sunk between his shoulders; the outcast tried to keep his lip from quivering.
Adonis swallowed at the rock in his throat and kept looking, peeking up at the clearing anxiously. "What else coulda ripped a fuckin' metal-ass door off it's hinges other than a God damn beastman?" He took a shuddering breath, steeled his expression and focused. Ayoka's old knife was still there, that stupid rolled fabric, his book from Mara's lessons;
He grew more confident with every item, though a voice in his mind yelled belligerently about the location of his waterskin. "Just wait. It'll be okay. It will."
He hoped he wasn't lying to himself.
Hitting the bottom of his bag, a poorly carved wooden totem slid under his fingers. The vagrant went still, scanning the glade keenly one last time before giving his full attention to the warped creature in his hand. Ayoka insisted it was a cat, but if anything, it looked more like a bean with two sharp peaks on the top. There were notches for eyes, whiskers, and an "X" for the mouth. He could give her that it had the essence of a feline. The tail on the back was cut in the middle by a thin line; an accident, no doubt.
He held it reverently, its flaws adding to its perfection. How she managed to size it perfectly to fit in the palm of his hand while he was detained in preparation for exile, he would never know. His thumb swept under the seat of the totem; the soothing sensation of the smooth, cool rock underneath earned a sigh from the unruly survivor.
He glanced around again; nothing but the hymn of nature called to him. The breeze whispered in his ear, yet he refused to listen. Ado tilted the wooden abomination to look at the red jasper underneath. It was a polished, deep red stone he had been accustomed to seeing since he was ten years old; something he wished he could hate, but found solace in all the same. If not for the perfectly round shape, he would have wondered if Yoka snuck his own mark to him after all. She would have been severely punished for it, no matter what status she held. "I hope she still got that promotion. God… you better not have gotten caught, shithead." There was a rough, black and gray strike through the crimson; a crossroads through the center of the adornment.
A grim look fell over his face, before a lump on the ground next to him caught his eye.
The fine leather pouch looked swollen, nestled in the bout of grass he mindlessly plucked at yesterday(or this morning?). "That…" Words left him, but the blank can easily be filled: "that shit was in my fucking bag." He's somewhat predictable.
His waterskin wasn't missing after all; yet, for some reason, it made him feel worse.
"What did they do to it?" Hesitation filled the air as he set the wooden bean-cat on his lap. Ado licked his lips, narrowed his eyes and reached for the suspiciously full-looking skin; his hand hovered over it with twitching fingers. The heat of the day and his bone dry throat made it hard to think of anything but ripping the cap off that pouch and downing it like a man possessed. Adonis knew if he touched it, he would either be severely disappointed- or faced with the hardest test of wills.
A few yards away, branches began to shake unnaturally. The human's head flicked up to take note of the noise, only then noticing the amount of sweat on his skin that mingled with this weird gunk. A limb shook from the weight of a squirrel or chipmunk, whatever the hell it was bolted elsewhere. The young man was unaware of how his face drooped in a pathetic sulk as he analyzed the clearing, bringing the waterskin closer to himself. Overcome with nerves, moments of tense silence passed before he realized the weight of the leather in his hand.
The glade and its cicada's, its crickets, and wrath inducing gnats kept buzzing, birds chirping, singing, blah, blah, blah.
Adonis sighed, sick of surviving.
What he wanted, above all, was to live.
He looked down at the gourd-like pouch cradled against the swell of his chest before coming to terms with his options. Drink, and play roulette; or remain dehydrated and have no chance doing what he had always dreamed: learning about the world beyond the sandy white shores that caged him into being someone else entirely. The pariah swept his eyes over the area again, dragging his heavy body more upright before twisting the cap off with trembling hands.
The inside was dark, of course. The sight of sloshing water instilled something primal within the young man, his jaw nearly locked from the force of its clench. His breathing was forced and unsteady; logic should have screamed "where did this water come from?" Ado could only repeat "no. No, don't do it. Don't you dare, you dumb fuck" in his head as his mouth watered and tingled- taunting him to gulp it all down.
He leaned in to smell the spout, his nose and eye twitched. There was a tightness in his chest, his throat constricted. "What kind of cruel bastard…" There was a clean, refreshing smell to it- once again irritatingly familiar. It was barely noticeable within the water; and as much as he knew he should pour a splash on his palm to see what it looked like- the more desperate side to him was loath to waste it. No residue was left around the cap or mouthpiece, no evidence of foul play; though the lack of visible traces meant little.
His head pounded even harder than before, finding it hard to breathe. It seemed he would have to be a fool for a moment. Ado slowly and shakily attempted to drip water onto the back of his bad hand, thankful his dominant wasn't the one impaled. The water fell, pooled then cascaded down his arm; he worried what the water might do if it got into his wounds, if it were contaminated. "Cryin' out loud." It looked normal, for the most part. It didn't irritate or burn the skin, it was cool and looked much too alluring.
He perked up as he noticed small, gelatinous and clear membranes now littering the trail of liquid. Alarm shot through Adonis; his chin tilted up, brows furrowed, and lips pursed in a frown. He hastily sloshed another shot of water out, and more jellies fell. They were miniscule, some a dull yellow-green, some clear. His mouth opened and head cocked; "is this-"
It had to be! He smelled his hand; low and behold the faint smell of cucumber welcomed his nose. The man's head fell back as he salivated even more, fighting the urge to groan entirely too loud.
"Why would somebody do this to me?" He mentally whined with melodramatic strain. The clear things would have to wait to be figured out- or, simply be as they were, a mystery.
Adonis could bear it no longer, he would hydrate, or die like the miscreant he was. Possibly both.
He slung the waterskin back and chugged with a force that choked him, his stomach immediately twisting. The water was chilled compared to warmth around him; he had to fight himself not to waste it when he inevitably began to face the consequences of his haste. Hacking wet coughs into his arm, he panted and struggled to swallow down the dry burning of his throat. He took the pouch to his lips with more sense this time, sipping hungrily. His eyes welled from the intensity of relief; and soon, he was chugging it again.
It emptied faster than he pleased, his hands shook around the deflated skin. His right palm felt like it had been coated in hardened glue, barely hurting while he gripped the leather shell for dear life. A drop of water trickled from his cracked lip before he caught it with his tongue; Ado nearly felt sated. His mind slowly began to return, though unease lingered. A woodpecker knocked relentlessly in the woods, and the man's eyes narrowed. He looked to the dash, seeking the skull for a macabre sense of comf
Adonis' heart skipped a beat and sank.
They were gone.
Not a fragment, not a sliver nor a speck of dust of that crumbling hunk of bone remained. Dread welled in his stomach; he had to look away, averting his gaze to the waterskin again. Ado felt his head floating as the weight of anxiety inevitably became too much. His eyes unfocused, brain hazy. The young man's stomach writhed, begging for anything ro fill it.
"Why?"
The outcast's body felt like static; losing himself to an ocean of numbness.
Vacantly, Ado lifted his bag; the satchel felt heavier than before. His tongue tingled, throat no longer addled with the sensation of being full of dust. The human did not want to feel, did not want to think; therefore his body tried to give him what he desired.
Though, gifts like these always come with a price; even the ones we do not fully wish for.
Adonis went through his bag again: the book, twine that had been wrapped for some unknown reason, knife, bean cat thing, the cloths; he ran the checklist through his mind, looking through the pocket to find his flint and most of the shards. "What would someone have to gain from this?!"
He lifted the largest shard of flint, and finally, they were there. Well, it was there; there was no longer another person attached to the skull, no they to speak of. The chunk of bone now looked smaller… A wave of mournfulness washed over the deviant as he replaced the flint between his digits for remains, now able to touch it and only feel mild shocks of unrest beneath his fingertips.
"It is smaller!" He felt oddly irate at that, yanking open the bag and its pocket to root through the flint again. None of this truly mattered, but it was the principle. Of what, exactly? I couldn't tell you. There was a reason this young man had always been ostracized.
Clicking his tongue, Ado found the other half and audibly deflated: "oh."
It simply broke in his bag. Or?
Adonis sighed with indignation, clenching his jaw. "What the fuck am I goin' on about?!" He shook his head and gathered himself to stand, tucking the piece away carefully and moving the flint to the bottom of his bag. "Bastard thinks he c'n just fuck with my shit?" He grumbled internally, clenching his hands hard enough to make his breath hitch. The rubbery sensation of whatever protected his palm made him pause as he bent a knee in preparation to crouch. The pain in his leg brought a wheeze from his chest, though the brunette ignored it to examine his injuries. The ragged openings shimmered, his once open wounds had been an angry red-violet, but now were simply dark pink. He wasn't a fan of the oily salve coating him by any means, yet it numbed the majority of what inspired him to give up.
"I feel like I should be grateful." But that sentiment often came back to bite him in the ass. Guilt and morosity filtered through him as he stood and grasped the frame. It jabbed into his good hand, the rough crust of the metal turned to dust while he heaved upwards.
Stooped under the doorway of the ruined old truck, his head spun for only a moment.
"It'll be okay. You're a tough-" His father's voice bled into his mind before he could stop it, Adonis shook his head again. His face contorted, but refocused immediately. "No more; they're gone now. I'm gone." He tried to convince himself he had no memories as he stepped through the now gaping doorway. A breeze welcomed him to the outside world, a new adventure surely to show him what life was meant to be.
There was kindness out there. There always was.
"But why?" It didn't make trust come any easier to those who had only been pinched by the feeding hand. He only bit once in retaliation, and look where it got him.
Well, no. That isn't true.
This curse may be an end, but it's a blessing.
A fucked, awful, thing.
He was suffering, but he was free.
He was free.
Ado gazed up at the sky, white and golden clouds smattered across a deep blue ocean of nothing; the puffy shapes shifted as he stood, shadows crested over and under ridges of floating mounds that could be interpreted as anything you set your twisted little mind to. He saw a grand mountain, behind a tilted tower in the sky. Underneath it all, an osprey flew across the top of the glade, hunting. Its wingspan was probably the length of his as it soared with debilitating grace; the wind took the trees in a gentle sway, that rotund cedar off to the side still trapped in vines shook in a tender dance that somehow eased his weariness of his heart.
His chest expanded with a weightless breath of air;
Adonis was alive.
He couldn't help but grin, his eyes burning as he was filled with reverent awe.
Reality bore into the exile, but did not break him.
His cheeks weighed the grin to a reserved smile, "A collared dog no longer."
He looked curiously around the clearing, scanning stubbornly for the skull. "Maybe they thought it was cool, too?" A chill sparked his spine, "or… they wanted a snack?"
His heart began to twist as he looked at the poultice smathered over his limbs, then at the ground. The flesh on his arms rippled with concern; he could see gouges in the dirt from where he fell earlier, a smudge of his handprint still freshly embedded in a pile of soil. It was a pain to walk more than he had to, his knee and shin still screamed from being slammed into the unyielding Earth; but he had to know more, he had to move. There were tracks around the vehicle that certainly weren't his- their path had been scraped over…as if someone purposely tried to hide them.
"Oh no- fuck no. I'don fuckin' like that."
He breathed deeply to ease his nerves, regardless of the hackles raising. Ado sighed and straightened his posture, frowning and keeping his eyes on the perimeter. His gratitude and wanderlust bled into suspicion yet again. No gleaming eyes met his in the distance, no blood-curdling silence marked the presence of a beast… "What the fuck?"
"Hopefully it was just some weirdo." He thought, clicking his teeth when he realized there were several scrape marks in several different directions. Either whoever "helped" him was a little lost up there- or they didn't want to be tracked. It made sense, even to him, living out here and all; but that didn't ease the growing restlessness from the pit in his gut, growing up his throat. "Hopefully… they were the right kind of weirdo…"
"What would they have to gain from this? Other than to prolong…" He'd rather not finish the thought.
He couldn't remember there ever being any news of murder while he was alive, but there were plenty of horror stories from before, even from other colonies. Rena was rife with it, before the bestial massacre.
"Maybe they smelt the blood in the water."
Adonis felt himself hobbling on, it was time to go. There was nothing left here, nothing but a relic of a civilization that failed us all, swaying trees, and lingering remnants of the unknown.
He grunted with his steps, reaching the treeline. Something forlorn curled within the cavity of his chest; the man's left hand pressed tentatively into the bark of a smooth tree; a species he was not familiar with. Adonis took one last behind him, gazing at the vehicle and the ghost of a paved road farther beyond it. He sat for a few moments; his dirty honey eyes shifted up to the sky once more. The clouds had stopped moving, looking more blue than golden now; but not any less beautiful. The familiar world he knew was getting farther and farther behind him.
The boy would never admit it, but he was afraid.
Familiarity was a curse, but at least then, you knew what was coming.
"I hope you're at peace." He tried to distract himself with the mystery of the skull again, reminded of it when the knuckles of his bad hand brushed against his bag.
Ado shook his head and turned back to the forest, he couldn't think about the stranger anymore; he didn't want to. That person was dead, taken by the unknown. If it came for him too, it would happen. If he died, it would happen. The stream that life could be had a current that no one could stop. He learned that time and time again; when it swept his brother away, when it took his mother- and finally, he found himself caught in the rapids, desperately fighting to keep his head above water.
There was more to life than drowning, sinking and paddling water thicker than blood and fear. There were lessons taught through laughter, with ease; not everything had to hurt, or be instilled through shame.
Adonis hadn't yet had the chance to grasp that fully.
The forest was dimmer than the clearing, naturally and pleasantly so. The breeze was no longer needed to cool down. If anything, the young man had grown somewhat chilly due to all the sweat he had accumulated. The exile watched the woods as he walked- limped, ignoring his sore leg. Sunlight dappled through the range of different pines and oaks, he stared at any and everything. There were so many trees he didn't know, so many flowers and strange plants, some he'd seen, some he hadn't; others he faintly recalled Mara holding up in front of him with her face drawn long in a grimace thinly veiled in annoyance. The memory still made him want to chuckle, because he couldn't remember for the life of him what any of it was called or what it did.
"Well. That's.. That ain't much to laugh about now I guess."
"Shit, I'll figure it out." One caught his eye, a tall and thin stalk that didn't look like it was even strong enough to support the flat and thin snap-pea-like pods it bore. Some capsules were green, and some were a dark purple, almost black. His lips twitched up curiously as he studied it; peeking around to make sure he was safe before leaning down to look closer. "It's like…a fucked up green bean." He smiled wider, wondering what it could be.
"It may be in the book…" Adonis stood upright, looked down at Ayoka's gift, then promptly decided that he couldn't be bothered.
"It's only moving forward now. No more looking into the past, no more torturing myself over what could've been's and why not's. It just wasn't. It isn't. An' that's it."
If you only ever look back while moving forward, you're liable to stumble. Just when you laugh about tripping, you'll fall. If you never move on, you'll only be able to repeat what was behind you.
And in those cases, the path you tread will only grow steeper.
Ado passed a fat-bottomed boulder where moss had overtaken it from the rear. It looked oddly familiar; the rock had a jutted obtrusion from the central base, making it look like the letter A.
"I better not be walking in fucking circles." Ire washed through the young man before a break in the trees caught his attention. He perked up, already tired from the 20 odd some minute trek of awkward hobbling. His aching knee screamed for him to sit and rest, but the exile was determined to find his water. The little he was given had the young man feral for more, still tasting the phantom traces of cucumber and something indiscernible- though just as delicious- on his tongue.
Knees of cypress roots jutted out of the black dirt ahead of him; telltale signs of deer lichen scattered across the bare patches of soil where short, scraggly grass began to dissipate. Other trees lessened, spreading farther to make room for sprawling magnolias that had gone unchecked for centuries. Bald cypresses in the distance grew wide as a pier, so tall they spanned far over the treetops. The crick in Adonis' neck kept him from craning his head back all the way to look for the top. In front of him now was a large opening, a natural walkway; a tunnel bereft of impassable branches and imposing vines. Only a few easily manageable shoots spilled from the canopy while he walked though; most he was able to swat at while stumbling artlessly. The rest fell over his face and dragged over his hair. The earth grew wetter the more he walked, causing excitement to shoot through him like a flare; the annoyances combing his scalp were worth the possibility of success.
One particularly interested mass of scraggly moss spilled from the ceiling of branches and tickled the corner of his mouth, making Ado flub air from his lips and swipe at it with alarmed disgust. He cleared his throat and lowered his head, wiping his face manically, slapping at his cheeks with his left hand. Adonis' lips curled in revulsion as he decided: "maybe… slow down…" He pushed more air from his nose, face pinched in displeasure at the scene replaying unwarranted in his head. Although this time, his imagination allowed him the wonderful image and physical sensation of the moss (probably brimming with red bugs) actually going in his mouth. Adonis groaned deep in his throat, screwing his eyes shut and shook his head violently in hopes to loosen the infestation in his mind. He whined a gravely groan and keeled over; forgetting that he was in the deadlands where predators lingered; with those much scarier than little red pests that burrow under the skin. He pressed his knuckles into his eyes, pushed more air from his nose, and ignored his bag as it slunk forward with gravity. The man's forearms tingled, sore and uncomfortable from the mental and physical journey he'd partaken.
Finally, he stood; repugnance lining the frown on his face.
As if nothing happened, the young outcast clicked his tongue with forced indifference and trudged on.
His left hand curled into a fist, held below the corner of his mouth to protect from any more wandering tresses from getting too close. His injured limb hung low to protect Ayoka's bag.
Ado's legs were lean from running and working most of his life, but five days without stopping with barely enough food to take the edge off? Every inch of his limbs, his back and neck twitched maddeningly; stomach-
No.
Adonis was sick of it all; beyond that. He was pissed, tired of wanting to whine and locate every sense of discomfort in this hellacious prison he wore. They always said one's body was a temple, but the deity inside had since run off and crumbled under the weight of its parishioners misconceptions. The young man set his jaw and shook his head for the millionth time; taking a step;
His foot.
My foot is
Adonis' shoe was wet.
The young man stepped right into a mud puddle. His pain and discontent was bundled up tight and thrown out the proverbial window, used as a catalyst to power him forward; the (very recently learned) past lessons of caution and mindfulness heaved away in the wind.
He knew he was being brash, but no longer had it in him to care. "If I die, I die."
"No what if's."
This is it.
He was making his bed, and would lay in it.
Regrets always followed such brazen actions enacted with absolute finality, but it was his mistake to make. His life to live; his brave, foolish, new beginning.
The vagrant followed the trickle of water that created the puddle, leading him into a denser thicket. Blood rushed in his ears, making the sounds of nature around him all the more crisp.
I'm living.
His dry lips cracked into a wide smile as he bumbled forward at a swift pace, not feeling the sluggishness or residual jolts of pain he'd been stuck with since waking. He panted heavily, spotting a flat rock coated in a bright yellow green wash of moss out his peripheral. It caught his eye enough that he was almost tempted to stop for old times sake; but the voice of a man long gone cheered him on. "The salamanders can wait, punk. We got dinner waiting."
"Solomon… I'm living. I'm living," A weightless bubble of air raised from the center of his chest. His cheeks tingled as something he had not felt in quite a while encased his heart in warmth.
For you.
For us.
Ado felt tears well in his lashes when it met a pool of clear water maybe twenty meters ahead.
He made it.
Maybe.
Blinded by faith, Adonis tried to run, but stumbled. His right hand brushed the ground to catch himself, and pain reared its ugly head. He was resolved to leave it behind, chasing the fleeting memory teasing the fringes of his mind instead. The exile blinked water from his eyes just in time to see a turtle take a leap off a fallen log that was the very same shade of green and brown as-
His legs kept moving, but his mind was elsewhere.
A tall and thin young man stood near the edge of a pond. He wore dark clothes that matched his short black hair, but contrasted the paleness of his skin and the green hues of his eyes. He held his hands on his hips and looked down at a child that seemed to be his opposite in every way; With wild and curly hair, who seemed hellbent on catching something jumping away. The teen laughed and shook his head, "Stop; you're gonna crush it, dummy."
The youngster looked up with fiery determination and irritation, making the teenager scoff. "Like this," he crouched and guided the amphibian to the younger miscreant- with much more poise and tact. Both their eyes alight, the younger had wonderment and awe- brimming with excitement; the brother's were affectionate, sharing the emotion with less child-like wonder. He carried his knowledge with pride; guiding the frog into the youth's hand in a joint effort. Patience was a virtue the younger struggled to have; brows knit, mouth in a firm line, chewing on a lip in absolute focus. The closer the frog got to those smaller, pudgy hands, the wider Solomon would smile. The higher those light dusting of freckles would stretch across his pale cheeks; his chuckle as mischievous as the untamed look in his hazel eyes were wild.
It worked. The thick, cool and wet skin of the creature hit the kid's palm; joy was set off in them both like a slew of fireworks. Triumphantly, the curly haired babe jumped up and yelled, hoisting the frog with both hands. Bubbling giggles of impish mirth died as the older spoke:
"Now, don't let it pee on you. Your hands'll fall off."
The child watched in disbelief at first, mouth agape and eyes untrusting. Though; after dripping liquid fell from those dirty, tanned fingers, the youth yelped and tossed the poor amphibian away with a look of pure horror; brows drawn up, eyes wide, lips curled down dramatically. He guffawed as the youngster still stood with hands outstretched, now empty.
"It… my hands are wet; it peed, Som… It-"
Solomon laughed and approached; "You better go wash 'em."
Adonis exhaled heavily, still feeling the warmth of his brother's palm when it clapped him on the back all that time ago.
"Four years. Four years later, he was gone."
Adonis never stopped catching frogs.
No matter how much trouble it got him in.
His hands never did fall off.
He was at the treeline, looking dead ahead… "A spring."
A familiar buzzing crested over the back of his shoulders, his nerves reminded him of the precarious nature of his situation. "How far did I…?" He peeked behind him as he stopped and awkwardly crouched on one leg. Hidden behind a tree draped in a wild dress of wiry vines and soft, heart shaped leaves with ragged edges, he tried not to be distracted by their bright yellow hue; using the pain in his still extended leg to focus on the mouth watering, crystalline water not even nine meters away. "I know that shit is nice and cold."
Adonis balled his hands into fists, immediately regretting the sharp pinch in his right, then relaxed them in annoyance. That glue- or whatever it was, was starting to crack.
And so was he.
The human surveyed the area; there was a circular pool that attached to a broad channel which bent around the perimeter and out of sight. He could hear water sloshing beyond the bend of trees; Adonis saw no animals, but the life around him remained lively and vibrant in his ears.
There was some semblance of safety to be had.
Did it even matter anymore?
Panting, he leaned forward and peeked around a slim pine tree, the sharp bark left remnants of itself on his better hand. Leaving the dull prickles to the back of his mind, his eyes trained on the lucid water before him. It was the deepest shade of cyan he had ever seen, the top and lower depths ringed with emerald iridescence that drew his attention a dangerous amount. He took several hesitant steps forward, licking his lips while breathing in the deepest he could to then hold it completely.
The sensation of his blood rushing numbed the pain, letting adrenaline slowly percolate. A thrumming sensation began between his collar bones, flowing upwards while pressure built in his head. The colors of the water grew even more intense as his heart picked up it's pace to play faster than any song he'd ever heard. In the back of his mind, he could still hear it; the drums going wild, stamping of feet and the community united, singing and hollering- celebratory, untamed and utterly free of reservation. He'd always loved the new year, it was the only time he wasn't expected to be someone else; if not for just a moment.
He could dance and stamp his feet as violently, as wildly as he pleased. Raise his arms and drop his shoulders like crashing waves, letting the hums of his wardens lift his body to swing and sway in motion that both awed and unnerved. He didn't have to hold his head back with his nose upturned, carry his posture with grace bereft of his abominable soul.
This year was different.
He had been detained. Starved.
Forced to hear the songs of his people beyond the confines of the tribunal, where no trial had ever been planned to take place. He was simply a curse to be exorcised.
They never did like it when he danced.
Adonis stood before the shoreline, hands balled at his sides with his back rigid and straight. He looked down his nose while wrath washed through him like baptismal fire. "Those fuckers won't get what they want."
He swallowed the lump in his throat, forcing his chest to raise slowly with breath hard enough to puff air from his cheeks with the power of an exhale. His knuckles creaked, cracked cuticles burning despite the salve. Adonis' jaw ached from clenching; rage engulfed his form like a spark hitting paper doused in gasoline, feeling it scorch his very soul as that damnable water sullied his eyes.
Ado would dance again, a free man. He wouldn't have to pretend to smile or wear those stupid fucking clothes that made him ill.
He would kill to do it too; he had.
He would do it all again.
"If I could… I'd've kissed her harder."
Even if his legs swung with violence, his fingers closed into fists rather than languidly flipping those outward palms- his last fight, whether facing human or beast, would be his final encore.
She would never see it; he wouldn't want her to. She didn't need to see what he'd become.
What she created.
They'd never dance together again.
The outcast had been staring into the water with pure vitriol for a long minute before he caught himself shaking with a temper he'd been forced to choke on since he was a child. "I can't keep fucking doing this to myself for fucks sake."
He'd rather think of something other than a woman whose face could make God weep. His jaw popped as he opened it to release the building pressure; he tried to remember anything but the softness of her golden brown locks between his fingers, how she would giggle and slap his arm when he'd tease her over nothing at all. The adoration in her eyes that warmed her forest green's so bright they shone like gemstones, even if it was only when they were alone. Even if they could only share their soft words and tender touches under the cover of night, beyond the scrutinous eyes of
"Fuck."
It wasn't entirely her fault. Adonis knew that. He was going to pop a blood vessel if he had to think about any of this for a second more, though.
He blew another stream of air through his lips and crouched while releasing a strained grunt. His sister's gift, his only reason of survival, anchored him to reality. "Ayoka. Yoka. Yok." He tried desperately to better his mood, his number one confidant coming to save the day as always. She always laughed at the nicknames he gave others, but when he addressed her as anything other than "Yoka" she often gave him a deadpan look flat and intense enough to tear a mischievous laugh from his throat, no matter the circumstance.
"Yoyo. Ayoaky. Oky." God she hated those.
He lowered his hand to strum the surface of the water; the cold liquid lapping his filthy digits was enough to steal his breath- and the growing hint of a smile.
He inhaled sharply, his right forearm trembled from the sharp pang of electricity zinging up the right side of his body. "…Bad in water;" he thought with a grimace. He let out a raspy exhale through the nose, watching his shaking hand drain of color from the frigid temperature of the spring, despite only his fingers being dipped in; the angry red violet returning to his injuries. "Shit;" he murmured under his breath. Adonis' expression drooped into cross concern as he tilted his palm inwards. Water sluiced off his digits, trickling over the hardened coating around the open gashes. A bit of the clear shell that covered the biggest hole was slowly softening and bubbling. The young man frowned irritably, but knew already that it wouldn't last forever; he would need to wash himself eventually. Ayoka had been kind enough to bring him fresh wrappings and a bucket of warm water the night before expulsion; risking her own damn neck to do so. He sighed, feeling the drag of morosity weigh his features down.
She had not been permitted to escort him through the caves, nor even to the entrance of them. The last time he saw his sister, her heart shaped face was awash in false hope and concealed grief. Ayoka's dark skin had been blanketed by the shadow of the underground cell, her eyes glowing copper in the orange lantern light. Ado could vividly remember the sliver of moonlight lighting her in a pearlescent glow when she first approached the bars; making one of her irises appear amber. It hit him then, without a doubt, he knew: his sister was just as much of a fool as he was. But that was what made their friendship, their bond, as strong as could be- not blood, as blood alone did not make love strong, it did not make you family. Even in death it survived; because to her, he was gone; like his own mother, long since taken by an unforgiving world.
Before he could mindlessly dip his hand in deeper to numb the ache of his heart, a large splash sounded from behind the bend of trees. All thoughts threatening to form of Ayoka's goodbye and the filthy tribunal cell's past inhabitants were ripped from his mind as his head snapped painfully to the right. The crick in his neck panged hard enough for his teeth to grind; Ado's body froze with tension, his chest clenched and prevented breath.
Adonis was out in the open.
There was nothing standing in plain sight- the splash came from the water, though. The vagrant scanned the surface and struggled to push himself back from it; "Water beastmen? Can they swim? Would they look like fish- like a ugly fuckin' merm-"
There was a beat of silence. Everything went quiet, other than the burbling brook where the stream fed into the pool he was loitering by now. Ado's blood went cold, no thoughts of running could caress the forefront of his mind; trapped in a prison of his own making.
As soon as it began, it was over. Birds started up again, and another distant splash echoed. The brunette strained his ears and swore he heard the faintest clicking.
Nowhere felt safe now that he remembered precisely what sort of situation he was in. His throat ached regardless, the man hungered to be hydrated and clean once again…
He growled low under his breath, eyeing the trees with the most wrathful, unnerving stare he could muster. "I'm crazy, bitch. I'm fuckin' crazy;" he tried to convince himself, hiding his fear behind a mask of feral bravado. "I'll fuck em' up- I will;" He straightened his posture and widened his stance, as if being a little over a meter and a half tall was going to intimidate any possible threat familiar with surviving the deadlands. Adonis shrugged his pack to his back and squared his shoulders, eyes wild and wide with his head extended out and chin tilted down. The young man spread his arms just enough and turned his palms out, heart thumping so hard he felt it in his throat. It didn't help that he was holding his breath again.
"Foot forward, bend the knee enough to lunge. Lean into it. Stay ready, be ready." He couldn't remember Solomon's instructions anymore, but he could mostly recall how his brother looked while showing him how to throw someone over his shoulder, no matter their size.
"It ain't matter if you a big bitch, motherfucker. Imma get you, ya fuckin' cocksucker."
He stood like that, still as death, for an embarrassingly long amount of time.
The world around him did not go quiet again. The sound of the water, birds and cicadas was only amplified by the pulsing blood in his head. He finally allowed himself to breathe silent half-draws through his nose. When enough oxygen returned to his brain, his eyes focused where he could see a blur of color deeper in the forest. "The fuck?"
Ado blinked, his face still dangerously vacant and unhinged as he reached with the back of his bad hand to push up the unruly tangle of curls that habitually hung over his brows. As per usual when he wasn't able to wash his hair, it stayed right where he guided it. He grimaced more indignantly while wiping the residual oil and sweat from his forehead; it twisted into something more severe when his arm twinged as yellowish flakes fell from his hand. "Shits comin' off…" He thought, his visage gentling to a more annoyed frown while he peered at his right palm. The miscreant looked back up at the shadowed blotch in the distance, the thing was almost completely covered by trees. Without thinking, his index and middle finger began to worry the seam of his palm, where the beginning of that hardened salve had been slathered on. It looked so much better, especially for the wound only being a day old.
"Go? Stay?" Ado looked back down at the water and righted his stance to something closer to normal. He debated his next course of action with his lips pursed out; "water?"
He wanted to say 'fuck it' and jump in… But the part of him that purposefully made it this far scolded him, we need to know what that shit is in the woods. It may be a shelter…
Whether it was already occupied or not was the gamble he was still deciding on making.
He hesitated long enough to hear another splash, his head flicked to the side to focus on any other hints as to what it could be. Fish jumping in water had a distinct sort of sloshing sound before a plop; where this sounded more like something falling in. It wasn't routinely repeated, where smaller bouts of quiet followed. Sometimes the birds went silent but the bugs did not, another time it was the reverse; but there were no more instances of pure silence. Not yet, anyway.
"It'd be better to fuck around in dry clothes. An' I sure as hell ain't gonna be caught naked." He clicked his lips against his teeth with finality, eyes trained on the shape in the distance. A chickadee called loud behind the man, startling him slightly; his gaze darted to the side, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from the bend of trees beyond the spring fed creek.
"Chick a dee, Chicka-dee-dee-dee." A mother sits with her child, leaning over the youth who rest against her within her lap. The mothers hair dangled down, tickling her youngsters face.
The memory was distorted after all these years; mom had said the bird was precious or something, but it didn't matter anymore. Ado somberly peered up at the trees, unable to stop from remembering how his mother could recreate the bird's call with an unbelievable accuracy by drawing her teeth together and pulling air between her tongue and molars. He never managed to do the same, though he stopped trying to match it once she was gone.
"My little mocking bird;"
He hated that song now.
Hush, little baby, don't say a word.
Mama's gonna buy you a
Another bird swooped an arms length from him, close enough to make him jolt and freeze with awe. It swept low then sharply turned upwards to maneuver with a flourish across the pool. "A red breasted robin…" He thought, the corners of his mouth curling up playfully.
"Cheeky lil bastard;" the hypocrite added, before the thicket beside him rustled loudly, making him jump out of his skin- and land a foot into the freezing spring. The knotted welt on his lower thigh screamed the most vulgar obscenities imaginable, unhappy with the lower half of its limb reacting to the temperature, being submerged up to the calf. All the muscles in his leg seized tight, knee throbbing. His fingers locked into trembling hooks as he was shocked into paralysis.
Adonis inhaled sharply, his ass and heart clenched taut to the point his throat felt as if it closed. A small flash of silky black fur shot from the reeds and ferns, darting after the robin who had since escaped to the other side of the pool.
Ado's jaw dropped with dour disbelief that he had just soaked his shoe over a cat mid-hunt. "Chasin' a bird, fa'fucks sake." The cat was frozen in place upon spotting the human, its body stilled in a prowling stance with shoulders drawn low and one white-tipped paw extended; the fluffy black and white tufts of its cheeks made its head look humorously large against its scrawny body and oversized paws.
"It had ta'be young, looks well fed, but scrappy." The man hadn't moved, locked in a standstill with a furball barely reaching his shin. The water froze his leg, his sock and shoe were already drenched, so he didn't see the point in moving. The wind was still, and so was that sweet little pitch-black nose; its whiskers didn't even twitch, the different sized strands of pure white extruding from its brows and mouth- it twitched! The little beast's lips were half pink and black, the cat seemed to be a mishmash altogether. A strike of white on the face made it look like someone spilled a smudge of cream down the little baby's nose.
It was cute. Too cute. It made Adonis want to be foolish.
The exile turned his head slowly to scan the area, then regarded the tuxedo feline again. "He'll be big when he grows up." Ado tilted his head, his face since calmed into something more empathetic of the cat's wariness. He didn't think to speak, knowing the words would be useless; though the tone would be felt. It wasn't safe to speak out here, not from what he'd been taught.
Our silence is survival, as theirs is death.
The line was drilled into him over years, the squirrels chittering angrily overhead with the birds squawking behind him made it hard to find sense. "These bastards getta scream all they want;" he complained internally. Ado pursed out his lips, having had enough of the frigid water making all the hair of his leg stand on end. He lowered his head, clicking his tongue soft and slow; a smile stretched over his lips as he crinkled his eyes welcomingly. "Hey there, boy;" he murmured softly, reaching a hand with his palm down and fingers extended while taking a sloth-like step from the shallow of the spring. The long haired tux wasn't having it; its pale, yellow-green eyes widened into saucers, pupils dialed into slits. It reared its head back and stumbled over itself to scramble back in the woods… Directly into the direction of the bright splotch within the jungle that he was eyeing earlier. "Pussy."
Ado had a sinking feeling in his stomach, working to swallow the lump in his throat. He licked his lips as intuition guided him to hoist his happy little ass somewhere else. The young man looked around, deciding on the dime that enough was enough (yet again). Whoever fixed him up had to be nearby, God knows if they were watching him now. That cat looked too well groomed and healthy to truly be wild; too loved.
Ado huffed, swiftly shaking the water from his foot with a grumble and righted his bag to his side. His sigh was cut off by a troubled grunt when the sore ache of his ribs twinged with the movement and exhale. The shithead ingrained within him was whispering to follow the cat, to see what that thing in the woods was… but he couldn't afford to make those choices anymore.
Maybe later.