Against the Wind

22.1 || Corvin

Corvin did not sleep. Tucked up into the corner, he feigned it, arm draped over his eyes as he kept determinedly still. From the moment he heard light footsteps wind around the corner until the breathing in his ear finally eased into a slow, settled rhythm, fear gripped him like a great, squeezing fist, and he dared not flinch.

Even in the quiet, he did little more than open his eyes. This corner of the nest was a familiar, comforting sight; he knew every curve and crag and crevice of the small space, from the rings in the stone—cut as if someone had taken a messy bite out of the wall and spat out a few heaps of pebbles—to the gnarled roots sewn around the gap that led out to the rest of the cavern. He'd always had to twist and struggle a little to get through that gap. His antlers knocked against everything in here, but it was separate, it was hidden, and it was safe. That was the purpose: it was theirs.

Little hairs mingled with the scattered grains of sand. Kyril's russet red sheddings were much more plentiful than Corvin's longer, softer hairs, and even then they were white and discoloured, laid flat as if attempting to disappear. He felt the same, trapped in his own body, forced to stare. He was supposed to love this place, but he still couldn't sleep. He felt like a bolt of lightning stuffed into a tiny white cloud and told to freeze.

It was a starker, more visceral echo of the feeling that had possessed him in every moment he'd spent locked in Raya's room, and it made him want to scream. He'd told Raya his home was free; his heart belonged to freedom. He hadn't wanted to make himself a liar.

You want to live freely, don't you?

He did his best to crush the whimper that rose to his lips. It had all felt so magical, then, when he was away from it all, when he was looking into the wistful dream reflected in Raya's dark eyes. He wished he could live in that reflection, in blissful ignorance. He wished it were simple.

The warmth at his back shifted, and he quickly shut his eyes, breath held tight and fluttering in his chest. Kyril let out a long sigh. His skin was warm and vaguely coarse, sliding over Corvin's scars while his head nestled into the crook of Corvin's neck. His curls spilled over Corvin's cheek, tickling his nose, and he tightened every muscle in his bid to keep still. He ached.

Kyril laughed, faintly and giddily, the sound trailing into a delighted hum. His hand wandered around Corvin's waist, over his stomach, easing him into an embrace. A tentative kiss landed on the edge of his jaw, just beneath his folded ear.

A rumbling whisper followed it, just as gentle. "I know you're there, Corvi."

He shouldn't have reacted, but he did. Everything went tense.

"Will you not say goodbye to me before I leave?"

His heart stumbled. Against his better judgement, he twisted his head. "Leave?"

Kyril's face filled his view. He wore a triumphant grin, brilliant and too sharp at the edges. His eyes still had that odd flame in them, noticeable yet muffled in the dark, as if viewed through cracked, inky glass. "Today is a very important day." Having crawled forward, he settled his body against Corvin's, fingers perusing the grooves of his back. "It marks the beginning of the rest of our lives. And the end of some others." He giggled, a dissonant sound utterly at odds to the soft, clawed fingers brushing the back of Corvin's neck, his slim chest shaking.

Corvin fought a shudder. Cool, tender shivers dripped down his neck anyway, equal parts soothing and terrifying. He wriggled a little, hoping to jostle Kyril from his perch and ease the ache in his lungs, but to no avail. He longed again to black out the world and disappear, but his eyes and ears betrayed him.

Kyril must have read his shifting as nerves of a different kind, for his brow creased with concern. His hand wandered up to cup Corvin's ear, then slid to his cheek, fingers toying with a stray lock of hair; as always, he froze at the touch, and Kyril knew it. His smile broke free with ease.

"Don't worry, doe," he whispered, curling in closer. "You will stay right here, where you'll be safe. I will return to you soon."

A pause sat there in the dark silence, melodiously hollow like a long note of his flute, painful like a held breath, and part of Corvin wanted to crawl up and live inside it forever. Detached from everything else, it was perfect, if all was simple and kind.

But it was neither and he knew it. Though there was a mix of bitterness and longing that churned in his stomach, relief was what he felt when the moment ended and Kyril's touch fell away.

He was quick to sit up as soon as Kyril shimmied backward, pulling his legs in so that when Kyril settled on his knees, they were at opposite sides of the crag. It was not a subtle rejection. A sharpness flitted over Kyril's features; for a beat, Corvin tensed, awaiting some kind of retribution, yet it was gone as soon as it came.

"I must go." The tips of Kyril's ears bent, regretful, but his air of cheer remained. His tail flicked from side to side. "There is much mage blood to spill, and I'm impatient."

He laughed again—that same ringing, trembling laugh, loud and high enough to grate at Corvin's sensitive ears. He folded them over, teeth digging into his tongue. There was a more significant wrongness to that laugh, one that twisted and writhed in his core and awakened an ill squeeze in his heart. It was something deeply unnatural. Even for Kyril, with all his eccentricities, it was too much.

It died out with little flare. His eyes were dull in its wake, suddenly focused beneath the slightest frown. "Everything will be fine when I return," he said, with emphasis, leaning forward on all fours. His stare was pointed and desperate. "I promise. When you see the new world I'm going to make, you won't need to be afraid anymore."

The air between them was thick, fraught with impatience, clawing at Corvin's throat in need of a response. He swallowed hard, and made his head shake.

Kyril's furry ears drooped along with his gaze. He turned to leave. His disappointment swallowed him like a great rain, rendering him small and forlorn, and pity made Corvin stupid. He opened his mouth.

"Kyril," he called. Old affection crumbled in his throat, nearly choking him.

Kyril looked back with one ear flicked up. Hope lit his hazel eyes, a rare, muted shine.

There were essays of words within them, and Corvin hoped his own gaze carried the same boundless weight. Kyril had been his home and his safety since his antlers were little more than stubs. The sliver of time he recalled from before their lives had collided, before his memories settled into a gentler rhythm, was smudged in darkness and ice and smothering fear. Kyril was warmth and light, was the raft to cling to when all else fell to ruin. There had been an ease to that truth, once. Corvin dug for it, held it tight as a blanket in the depth of night, but he still couldn't shake off the cold.

It couldn't be true that losing Kyril equated to slipping off the surface of the world, to losing everything, but it felt that way in this moment. He surged forward. The stupidity of it rang somewhere unseen, but it was him who closed the distance, his hand that wandered in search of Kyril's curled claws.

"Please, Ky." His voice was barely a breath. "Stop this. Stay."

Within the instant, Kyril's face changed. His eyes went dark. Within them were traces of ruin, sharp and loud as a wild, howling wind. Like it were fire at Corvin's fingertips, he retracted his hand.

"I can make the world right," Kyril said, a chill in his tone. "You'll understand when you see it."

There was no time to say anything more; with a sweep of his tail, Kyril was gone. The sinking feeling in the pit of Corvin's stomach kept him frozen in place. He chewed his lip, listening to distant footsteps and echoic, faraway voices that trickled from somewhere else in the cavern, numb and alone.

--◦༄ؘ◦--