The road of shimmering silver is a much quicker path than any in the material world. What had taken Salvador Delahada two and a half days to walk to get this far only took Fionna Helston, in whichever incarnation was at the wheel, a few short seconds. Hundreds of miles were bypassed in the blink of an eye, in the time it took to draw in a chill breath, then exhale it to discover oneself somewhere else entirely.
A moment before she had been looking upon the familiar wooden floors and worn walls of the Red Dragon Inn, a few familiar faces. And now here she was, in the middle of nowhere. A place where trees were sparse and grasses high, and somewhere in the distance a church's bell tower was gonging.
Faye did not deliver Fio to a spot directly in the boy's path. She at least had the courtesy enough not to put her in immediate danger, to give her time to drink in her surroundings and get her bearings straight. But there, only fifty yards before her, a staggering and stumbling figure marked a zig-zagging path through the fields, headed south.
In all her time since she'd come to Rhydin, she'd never been far from the City walls. It was, as she'd confided to Ali once, a matter of faith for her, that other towns and hamlets existed outside of the walled and diverse place they both called home. The thought of other worlds with people in them, other planets, was no more strange in their way than the sound of church bells coming from the other side of that hill, on the other side of this field. Sal was staggering and hungry; if Faye was to be believed, he was half out of his mind. And he was heading into a village of people who would not know him.
Dangerous, just as his mother had proclaimed. A village full of people ripe for the pickings. He was very nearly salivating with the vacant realization of this goal. The boy walked with bent limbs and spine, hunched and stumbling, crawling every other step. A loose stone here, a tangling weed there. None of these things could stop him from his course.
Even from this distance he looked like a ragged and rabid animal. Dirt caked his pant legs and the hem of his coat. His shirt was torn in pieces, practically gone. His boots were more brown than black from all the walking he had done. Each step carried the labored wheezing sound of a man in desperate need of water.
She watched, followed slowly, and considered. She would not have time, she decided, for subtlety. "Salvador Delahada Azar-Gonzalez," she called to his back. And a single command. "Stop."
Of all the preparations that could have been made, all the tools bestowed, it was this one weapon that made the greatest impact. Something so simple as a name, and likely to Fio's relief much less violent. As sharply as there were a leash coiled tight around his neck, Salvador jerked to a stop, but like an enraged dog he snarled his discontent. The rabbit was just over that hill, and the master dared to yank his chain!
"I have water," she called, her voice a faint and ethereal thing on the wind, full of promise. "And meat." The blue skies overhead mocked them with cirrus clouds that would produce no moisture, to save even the cockle burrs clinging to his shredded trousers. But she promised water. The city ahead was full of people who would kill him, if they could, for his predations among them. She promised meat.
Struggling against his chains, imaginary though they were, he hunkered low to the ground and turned toward the sound of that voice. His eyes were yellow, his teeth were bare, and a snarl still spilled through them. Here he looked more a beast than a man by demeanor alone. Though his frame was still so human, his behavior made him mad.
"She fished in her pouch - thanks be to the woman who'd purchased the painting that allowed her this one luxury - and drew out a liter of water, held it up so he could see it, and twisted the cap off. "Salvador. Come and drink."
Meat, she said. Water. Nearer than what was over that hill. He cocked his head to consider the options. The village was full of more meat, so much more, enough to make himself fat. What did she offer? He looked back at her, indecisive only due to the weight of a name coiled tight around his neck. But so long as she held her end, there was little he could do to disobey.
The boy monster prowled closer, twitchy and displeased, but starving yes. Parched, as well. He kept his teeth bared as a warning, as a dog might to say this better not be a trick. Was he well controlled enough not to bite the hand that feeds him?
The wind was blowing toward him. He should be able to scent the water. She set it down in front of her, took three steps back from the bottle and drew another one out of her bottomless pouch. The cap came off of this liter just as easily, and she cast the plastic stopper into the tall grass, a flash of white soon forgotten. This bottle, too, was set down, and she took a few steps back. There was nowhere for her to be leading him. They were in one, vast, empty field. The trampled grass she stood on marked the path he'd trod.
He pounced upon the bottle with a savage growl, claiming it quite suddenly as his own. His teeth clicked around the mouth, holding it firmly while he guzzled down the water within. Emptied it with a savage thirst and chucked the bottle aside in short order. Yellow eyes fixed on her, watched her warily. Suspicion glinting clearly in the hollow depths. He prowled aside like the lion stepping out of his cage for the first time in all the years he had been in captivity, uncertain of the new terrain and open air.
"There's more. Drink." She nodded to the second one on the ground. "Slowly if you can. I'd not have you sick." Her dark eyes were wary and alert. There was a clamor starting in her head, but she quelled it with an internal snarl of her own. It wouldn't do to distract her right now. Ali was going to kill her later, she decided, because she was not going to let Salvador have the pleasure.
Dull eyes narrowed with deepening suspicion. He staggered aside, closer to the second bottle and snatched it up without looking. Kept his gaze focused as clearly as he could on her, kept his teeth bared. Though here he lowered into a crouch, once the second bottle was in hand. Did not immediately drink from it. The knowing of a name is a powerful thing.
"Do you know me?" she asked. She couldn't be sure that what looked out of his eyes was even cognizant of who he was, let alone capable of recognizing friends. "It's Fio," she told him softly. She nodded toward the bottle in his hand. "Drink, querido." She slid her hand in the pouch and felt around for the first of the bags of meat she'd appropriated from the walk-in. Skid's black plastic with date markings. It was fresh, it was cubed, and it was most certainly human.
Two and a half days of talking to himself, muttering to the trees, left his voice hoarse even with this first drink he'd had in so long. "Fio," he growled. Either a recognition or a repetition, who could be sure? His lips curled back distastefully, emphasizing the curve of his snarl, but he brought the bottle up to his mouth and drank as instructed.
But then another scent infiltrated the scene, and he dropped the bottle. Nostrils flaring and chin inclined as water soaked the soil and fed the grasses at his feet. That grumbling growl had the undertone of a purr beneath its sound. Mmm. Meat.
While he drank so, she took another step back, erring on the side of caution - and slit the plastic with a fingernail, setting the bag on the ground. Another four steps back this time. "Plenty here. Take your time," she crooned, digging another out of the pouch. She would kiss the inventor of the thing, if she knew who he or she was.
Wise of her to be so cautious. He lunged the moment the bag was on the ground and may have taken her hands in the process if she had not been wary. His hunger was ferocious. He shredded the bag to get to what was inside, hunkered low and practically burying his face in the meal. Underlining the growl this time was a sound suspiciously quite like a moan.
She opened the second before he was done with the first, and repeated the motions. Bag on the ground, four big steps backwards. Even had Faye allowed her a weapon, she doubted she'd be skilled enough with it to defend against the ferally starving fae. "Slow down," she commanded again in a voice like watered silk.
Slow down? He was famished! Starving! And there was meat right here in his hands. Being shoveled into his mouth. A snarl tangled up with a whine, but the command worked well to ease his fevered pace of feasting. Once finished with the first, he crawled to the second, ripping it open further with a little less haste than before.
She was going to kiss Faye. Tell me something, Ali's voice in the back of her head was starting. Are you insane? She almost giggled out of sheer nervousness. Instead, she pulled another bag of meat from the pouch. She had eight two-gallon bags of the stuff. Surely that would be enough to restore him long enough to get them both home?
Bag number three hit the ground while he was gorging on the second. Next to that, an unopened bottle of water. By now, she is thinking, Rekah should have reached the apartment. By now, she is thinking, Ali will have the note. Focus! she tells herself.
Bit by bit, morsel by morsel, color was crawling back into his dulled yellow eyes. His blood was moving again, filling up the irises with orange that would eventually turn to rust. He moved a little more slowly from the second bag to the third, licking residue from his fingers and lips. The rumble that poured out of him was a predator's purr of satisfaction after the hunt. Though here his role was the scavenger, this did not dissuade him at all.
It should be noted that she had the map, thread and buttons Rekah had given her in that pouch as well, along with a dozen bottles of Tara's red pop, as a precaution in case he had injured her. She had to shift this all aside to reach the next bag of meat. This one she kept in her hands unopened, watching him slow down.
Once the third bag was empty, he paused to breathe. Panting hard and heavy, choking on the air. Well thought to have that third bottle of water nearby. He picked it up and guzzled it down, a few tiny rivulets dribbling down his chin. Then he dropped the plastic aside and seemed for a time to war with himself on whether to remain awake and continue the feast, or curl up in a ball and sleep. A slow turn of his head fixed his gaze on Fio once more, eyelids heavy and hooded.
"Salvador ... do you know me?" She repeated the question from earlier, testing the waters. He seemed to be sated for now - just as well she hadn't opened the fourth bag yet.
The wind soughed through the tall grass, which waved gold-green in waves like the ocean lapped against the docks with the north-east winds. Somewhere in one of the lone trees, a thrush warbled out a sudden song of aching beauty. A cloud cast a long shadow on them as it passed in front of the sun. She watched him through all of this, waiting for an answer.
His lips pulled back again in a snarl, teeth bared to display nothing but menace, but something else slipped through the cracks. Short bursts of hissing noise that sounded quite a bit like laughter. "Know you?" he wheezed. Though less parched than before, his voice was still hoarse, throat still raw and scratchy. "Which one? All of you. Which one today? Not the little girl..." He paused, forced to cough and growl, reclaim his voice. "Not the whore. Though you stink like him anyway." The bastard still seemed to be in control.
Clearly he was incapable of recognizing his own stink. She listened, her eyes practically narrowing with every syllable he uttered. "I'm not the only one with many names, Salvador." She elected to adopt some of Faye's cool dispassion as a ward against the sting of his nettlesome words. "Shall I name you again, Linewalker?" A pause in the face of his silence, then. "You prefer Truthspeaker, perhaps? You need to remember who you are, Salvador. You are not the animal crouched before me right now."
Hssst, was the sound he made, growling at her fiercely. A dim glow lit up his eyes. Not completely refueled, but gaining speed as he rose from his crouch. "She is the Linewalker. She the Truthspeaker," he snarled, pointing a deceptively sharp nail at Fio's face. "What am I but a tool she made? Just a tool! I know who I am!" He prowled closer, fingers hooked like claws. "Was it She who sent you here? You carry her stink too." He spat his distaste on the ground at her feet.
"She didn't send me here. I asked to come. I wanted to find you, you ass." Take that name, then, if you prefer it!
Hers was the hand that feeds; he knew this. Might be the only reason why he stopped where he did, inches from her face, and still he bared his teeth at her. His breath probably didn't smell all that great, stained with the flesh he had recently consumed and all. "Why?" One simple snarling word illuminated by the menacing glow of rust in his eyes.
"Because I missed you. Because I love you. Rekah loves you. Ali ... all your friends." She met his stare nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye. "Because you're more than the sum of all of your titles, and all your true-name. You are our friend. And we are yours." Finished a little softer. "And we don't want to lose you. Rekah sent you a button," she whispered. "She sent you a map, and a hug. Ali .... sent you me. Come home."
"Love." He repeated the word with bitter distaste, spat it mockingly in her face. His face contorted with a dozen savage expressions. Quick is the viper when he strikes, as sure and snappish as the hand he raised to catch her by the throat. That was surely his intention, to choke her sweet-laced words right out of her. "Love is a weakness," he hissed. "Which is what you all are," he added angrily. "Weak. Pathetic. Fools." Each word emphasized by a snap of his teeth.
His hand bent her head back as the span between thumb and index finger crushed against her larynx. She was forced to look down the length of her nose to meet the feral golden glint in his stare. Adrenaline and anger rose viscerally in equal measure. Not now, one part of her wailed. Not when I finally found... Think! Another voice snapped in her head. Use the weapons she gave you while you can.
"Let me go." A choked hiss of command.
"Poor, pitiful Fionna Helston," he crooned viciously. "So tortured. So bruised. So--" He could have gone on, defined every fault in her he saw, but three little words defeated him. He released her, but not without a drag of sharp nails against her skin. The effort made his fingers ache, to be forced to obey so easily. A whining growl accompanied the release, but the noise itself did not satisfy. Though he let her go, he then lashed out immediately thereafter to push her to the ground. "You don't need me! Why can't you see that!? You're all better off without me!" He shouted at her in his fury.
She hit the ground hard, landing on her arse in the trampled grass. He was so angry. So hurt. She rubbed at her throat and her fingers came back slick and red; she seemed almost stunned to see that, like she didn't recognize the blood for what it was. She sat there a minute, let him rant.
And rant he did. The refuel had revitalized the inner voice as well. The kinder, calmer side he had locked down tight. He brought the heel of one hand to his forehead and snarled at the noise. "I'm not," he growled at the empty air over her head. "I can't be. And I want to rip her f*cking throat out, but I can't do that either!" Dropping that hand away so quickly, he pointed sharply at the grounded Fionna. "Because somebody told her. That b*tch. It had to have been her. For all her talk, She's just as weak as all the rest of them or else She never would have sent her!" The last word was carried sharply over the tall grasses, echoing like a whisper until he interrupted with another snapped thought. "Truthspeaker. Pah." Again he spat, a big glob of malice and blood, into the field.
The lion paced with pent up rage, an unfulfilled desire to lash out and rip her to shreds. Why he didn't act on it, he couldn't say. Or at least he wouldn't say. Salvador ceased long enough to crouch before her and look her in the eye, let her see his hate. "Tell me, Fionna." A pause to let the venom slide between them. "What would you have me do?"
This whole time, she'd been quiet, listening, watching. This whole time. Her answer was simple. Two words. Two syllables. Save for the first letter, they were identical. Magic. "Come home."
"And ... do ... what?" She made it sound so easy. But she held the reigns of command and he could not defy her. His fingers curled into the earth and he clawed up a fistful of dirt. Teeth still bared to emphasize his displeasure at these orders.
Whatever was wrong with him, whatever was broken, couldn't be fixed here, in the middle of nowhere. Sinjin was coming back. He'd promised her. He'd know what to do. "Have faith." Calm. Preternaturally calm in the face of his anger. He is a child, she reminds herself. "Rest. Heal." She could not beat him in a fight, she reminds the part of herself that bristles at his body language, at his anger and venom. She sits still, looks up at him, projects calm the way her Bubasti projected heat.
"Faith," he repeated, scoffing. "Faith in what, I ask you?" He pushed up off the ground, then, out of his crouch to mock the sky. "Have faith, she tells me! Rest when I'm not tired. Heal when I'm not wounded." Then he turned back sharply to look down at her and scowl. There were more words on the tip of his tongue, but they were stilled by another voice inside him. "Shut ... up," he wheezed, bringing hand to head once more. Here now he was wavering and growing an irritably fierce headache.
Fionna recognized this, had seen it in the mirror perhaps, from time to time. Knowledge clicked into place as easily as a whispered name into her ear not too terribly long before. "Let me speak to the other one," she said.
Afternoon was wearing thin, grinding down into a honey gold syrup of sunlight and birdsong. Already, the violet shadows from the sparse trees were growing long, stretching toward them. Tiny insects churred and buzzed in the tall grass. Seed-fluff from some weedy plant drifted on the breeze, pod pierced by the gnawing of a field mouse. The church bells in the distance chimed out another hour.
"F*ck that," he snarled, tearing his hand away from his face. "That one's weak and pathetic just like the rest of you!" With Salvador, it was not quite so easy. Two halves of one whole and nothing more. He staggered, clenching a fist to his chest. "Nngh. Tired," he moaned, dropping to his knees. "Don't want you to see me like this. Shouldn't have to... Want to... Rrrgh." A breeze kicked up the scent of flesh and made him tremble. All the noise passed through him like static. He bowed his head and wound his arms tight around himself, rocking in the tall grasses.
The drumbeat of a dragon's wings in the mountains to the south east rent the air for a vibrating minute or two before fading. She watched. She listened.
The fever struck him with a shivering ferocity. Growls and whimpering whines transmuted into a softer, quieter sound. Hunched over like he was in the waning light of day, there was nothing of his face to see. But Fionna was observant. Fionna was once a mother. Surely she knew the signs of a child struggling to maintain his composure, to not break down and cry. One word slipped out amongst all the undertones, a desperate whisper of one man's name. "Tohias."
Oh, she recognized the child in him, throughout the entire display. She'd had two boys once. A daughter. Seen them when they were tired, frightened, stressed beyond the point where they could do anything except lash out at the hands that offered comfort. In the end, they'd just wanted to be held and reassured. Like anyone else, really.
"Salvador," she whispered, shifting to crawl the three feet that separated them. She didn't touch him yet. She was still smart enough to be wary. She'd seen what his spines could do, and she'd not brought enough of the bottled blood for that. "Salvador, come here." She sat crouched before him, her arms open, if he would let her, to offer comfort.
Just like anyone else. To the very core, Salvador was still human, if only by half. The other half had grown into a defense mechanism, much like the physical parts he had, the spikes and the armor that grew when he wanted it to. All he had to protect him from heartache was a heartless, wicked bastard who cared for nothing but the satisfaction of destroying all that lived. And deep down into the core, he hated that part of himself more than anything at all.
Her sweet voice shook him, broke apart the walls way deep down. Though he was wound so tightly in on himself that he couldn't quite crawl any closer. Her arms were open. Her lap was right there. And all he did was slump forward to put his face between her knees. There he let the trembling take him and the tears spill free. Try as he might to struggle and keep himself from making any noise, he couldn't hold it all in.
She folded over him, her arms on his shoulders, her head bowed down over his and she kissed his hair, whispered soothing, crooning nothings to him, and let him weep. And perhaps she wept as well.
What it was that caused him to snap and switch a second time, who could say? His thoughts were his own and he kept them well. Except for the obvious that slipped through the cracks, the part that shattered to have him weeping and trembling like a broken little boy. Achingly slow his arms uncurled to tug and crawl up her legs and wind instead around Fionna's waist. He couldn't bring himself to speak, only cry.
He was, at the heart of things, a child still. She stroked his back like she would one of her own babies. Like she'd hoped someone had done for her babies, when she'd been forced to leave them.
At least beneath the thick fabric of his jacket, his spikes lay flat and still along his spine. He was filthy and in desperate need of a shower among other things, but he didn't seem to notice his own state. "I..." An attempt at words. He choked on them and wept instead. Swallowing hard down a sore throat.
"Shh-shh-shhh-shh." She ran her fingers through his hair, down his back, smoothing and stroking and gentling. Words didn't matter right now. Dirt didn't matter right now.
Then he sufficed with whining and whimpering instead. Adult he may be in body, but somewhere in there deep inside is the child that never lived. He hooked his fingers into whatever she may be wearing and latched on tight. This may not be the lifeline he had wanted to cling to, but she'll do.
She hummed, very. very softly, a little song she used to hum to her children at bedtime, or when they'd woken with the night-terrors and needed to be eased back into sleep. The music, for her, had always seemed to wrap a protective bubble around them, shut out the world and its fears. Nursery magic. Those were her talents, beyond what she'd been made.
Did you know...? Nobody had ever done that for Salvador in his entire short-lived life. The sound of it sure as hell did work some kind of magic on him. A hitched breath, a choking hiccup of a sob, quieting down to listen to the soothing melody, the likes of which he'd never heard before. Though his fingers were still locked tight in her clothes, even the trembling sloughed away.
Nowhere to go. No rush for anything. She rocked him, and hummed to him, and stroked him. Maman Fio knew how to deal with cranky children.
When the static cleared and all he could hear was the sound of her song, he whispered against her thigh. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "So sorry." The line that separated the light from the dark, the good from the bad, was a tremendously thin one. "I'm an assh*le." At least he knew.
"Shh. You're just tired," she murmured. "And sad. It's okay. Everything will be all right."
"Tired," he agreed on an exhale. That much was true. Exhausted might be a better word. The grip of his fingers loosened some, slowly unraveling.
"Sleep for awhile, then, miho." Her voice still hushed and smooth. "...and when you wake up, we'll go home. I'm not going anywhere." She added this while strumming her fingers lightly down his shoulders.
She didn't have to tell him twice. He may have already beat her to the punch. So long as she didn't mind him turning her lap into a pillow, he'd sleep right there in the middle of the field.
Not at all. She shifted his head just long enough to cross her legs and settle more comfortably, and then she let him rest, while she watched the afternoon unroll into twilight spangled with more stars than she ever saw in the city. She'd do her best to wish on each one, while he slept.
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(Long awaited adaptation, taken from live play, with TREMENDOUS thanks to Fio Helston.)
