Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 6 // The Feast (C.STRAY)

THE TRUTH COMES SECOND - 6 

These will never be forgotten.

Lights flashed dim, nothing powered by man through appearances, but it was doubtful the torches Carrick walked by would be extinguished if he really put his mind to it. His mind was on other things, anyhow, and the sight of flame only made his cheek sting despite the lack of touch.

He wanted to make the sting real, if only to make sure he remembered how he got it, but his hands, like his mind, was preoccupied.

These will never be forgotten.

They moved in sync with his steps: swiftly, but not in a rush; steadily, but not at ease. He recited the movements as best as he could from memory, but when his brain failed him, he went to the little leather booklet he'd come to hold within arm's reach at every moment's notice. There, he remembered things even the restoration of his memories never gave him.

These will never be forgotten.

A set of fingers met a shoulder, a shoulder was subject to drumming. An elbow jutted out, a palm flicked an elbow. The back of a hand swept over a forehead, and a pair of lips twitched as yet another signal was remastered miles from its conception.

"That one means 'did you hear about that little pair sneaking through the district? Scandalous.'" The tugging at his lips won out, and when the boy of harvest orange beside him chuckled, Carrick let his chin fall to his chest so he might offer his smile to the ground he walked on.

These will never be forgotten.

He lifted his head after a while and returned to recreating the hand signals. It was a wonderful time waster - the walk to the ballroom was far, and it kept his nerves from bouncing at thoughts of the upcoming feast - but that wasn't why he did it. It was more of an insurance plan. If he ever forgot everything he'd ever known again, he could just lift his arm and go to making signals out of habit. He'd retain them through habit. Why they'd never been habit before, he didn't like to wonder.

Reciting was also a clever way to drown out Wilden's constant droppings of "sorry." No matter how many times Carrick reassured him he didn't linger on their fight, on his ripped stitches, the boy just kept on going, a broken record. What Carrick found funny, though, was how, even as a scratched disc, Wilden's voice was awfully pleasant on the ears.

He will never be forgotten.

"Carrick, are you even listening to me?"

The boy of forest green smirked and shrugged. "Call again later." His attention went back to a rather complicated hand signal, one with the weaving of fingers and flicking of wrists. He was so concentrated on his own two hands that he didn't even notice the third that entered the picture. It only came to his knowledge once the whole thing had been disrupted and his fingers were stuck between a healer's hand. It felt normal, nothing more than friendly, and he didn't so much mind so long as the scrapes on his knuckles went away during their stay there.

Through corridors they walked, down stairs they bounded, and between crevices they slipped, but not once did they detach, not even as they came to a door familiarized by beginnings, familiarized by a game of truth.

It was the door to the ballroom, to the feast, and they stood before it, linked together, and waited.

Is this where we're forgotten?

The nervosity Carrick had been pushing down since Wilden came to his senses was beginning to leak, and the clamminess in his palms did nothing to conceal such things. He quickly detached, rubbing a hand fiercely against his pant leg. The small act made his skin groan in protest, and then he, too, was groaning in protest. "I don't wanna do this, Wilden."