Saturday, December 22, 2007.
(Cross-posted from Mutual Endeavors.)

When he opened his eyes again, for an instant the sky was still red, but the sun had risen. He blinked and all the color faded away with a groan. Back to the dreadful black and white and gray that he was used to. Salvador had no idea what time it was. One half of his mind said it did not matter. The other half told him it had to be at least seven. Probably some time after considering how disgustingly bright it was.

The second thing he realized is that there was a rotten orange peel stuck in his mouth. This usually was not so very disturbing. His long winter had brought him back with several changes that most people thought grotesque. Such as his diet. Normally, he would have been compelled to simply eat the nasty morsel, but this morning something was wrong and he was not immediately intelligent enough for it to make sense. He could taste the damn thing, and it was vile.

Lurching upward quickly, he spat and spat and spat even long after the peel was out of his mouth. Hearing a rustle of plastic, his awareness was delayed to the point that it took him one full minute to realize he was laying in a dumpster. "Augh," he grumbled, scraping something slimy off his hand and onto the edge of the metal wall. "The fuck am I doing--?" Before he could mutter the rest of that irritated question, everything came back to him.

Immediately he remembered fire. That was linked to something important. So important, in fact, that it gave him a headache trying to recall it clearly. Groaning discontent, he pressed the heel of his clean palm against his forehead and clenched his eyes shut.

When everything was right and well with the world, he could have called up an ability doing that. He could have used his clairvoyance to see halfway across the city and look upon Ambrosia as if he were floating right above it. This morning all he saw were flickering flash images of smoke and ash. Despite not being able to see the image clearly, and regardless of how annoying that was, he knew that had to be the club that he saw only a glimpse of. That was important for some reason.

His head was swimming. He was groggy. He wondered, briefly, if this is what it felt like to be drunk. Or maybe just what it felt like to be smacked upside the head a few dozen times too many. "God, I feel like a truck fell on me."

"Maybe one did," said someone. That was a fatal mistake only because the nameless and faceless entity that was suddenly there leaning into and looking at him sprawled atop a heap of garbage was not a someone his cluttered senses recognized. That person had a clawed hand clutched around his throat in under a second. Or should have.

Salvador grasped at air with a growl and discovered himself laying folded over the grimy edge of the dumpster wall looking at broken pavement. A second later he fell right out of the garbage and tumbled to asphalt with a displeased grunt. "Well now," said the someone. "That wasn't very nice. And here I had considered giving you a hand out, but you seem to have managed on your own." The someone even laughed.

No wait. He did recognize that voice. It was just taking some time for his memory to catch up with his ears, and his eyes were no help at all. Everything was blurry and bright. That should have been his first clue. There really wasn't enough snow on the ground for the sun to reflect off of and be that bright. Grinding his fingers and thumb against his eyes, he groaned when some other part of him said he should have attacked. Kill first, ask questions later.

The someone did not seem to mind his condition. He heard footsteps come closer and the shuffle of fabric, backed by a looming shadow, to indicate that the person had crouched down beside him. "You must have bumped your head pretty hard when you took that plunge. I can't imagine trash to be a very comfortable bed. Not to mention the smell." The man, yes a man, just kept talking to him as if they were having the most friendly one-sided conversation of their entire history together. Salvador decided to ruin that fantasy as quickly as possible.

"Who the fuck're you?" he growled. Tilting up his chin, he dared open his eyes, and only found himself squinting painfully at the bright yellow light this man was made up of. Bright. Yellow. A color. Like the sun. That meant something.

What the mighty hunter had difficulty seeing with the limitations to the color spectrum put upon his eyes was the fact that this man was unremarkable. Those details were pretty easy to make out in black and white, sure. He was not a super model or a body builder. He was not portly or obese either. Doubtful anyone would venture to call him handsome, though. He was the sort of man that people only glanced at once, forgot in an instant, and never looked at a second time. Salvador stared, though, because all he saw was that blinding, headache-inducing, light pouring out of his aura.

"You don't remember me?" This someone sounded disappointed. This someone actually had sun-kissed caramel tan skin, blonde hair, and eyes as blue as the sky. He also had one heck of a smile. One that might remind people of a particular gum commercial. Seriously. When he flashed his teeth, Salvador swore he could have heard a high-pitched, shiny chime back up the glint of star-pattern light that gleamed off of them. He must have had the best dentist in the world. Maybe he was a dentist.

"No. No, I remember you. I know I do. I'm just having trouble--" Well, he never had been very good with words. "--remembering you."

The stranger laughed again. Even his laughter was obnoxiously illuminating. A shame it did nothing for Salvador's memory. "Paul," said the man, extending a hand. Assuming that was an offer for that hand up as before, the hunter accepted by taking it in his own. "Paul Namarlo. We met in Egypt."

"Ah." Yes, now it was all coming back to him. The someone -- Paul -- helped haul him up to his feet. Salvador swayed a little unsteadily. Last night's explosion in his psyche had done one hell of a number on his equilibrium too, it seemed. "S?, I remember," he said, taking back his hand and dusting himself off. Anything to keep his eyes down so he did not have to look at the brilliant glow of this man's aura. "Another white shadow."

Paul chuckled and brushed his own hand off on his coat. Likely something filthy had stuck to the boy's hand and he wanted nothing further to do with garbage, because he also stepped away from the dumpster. "Yes, that's right. Another white shadow."

"Not one that hisses or howls."

"But one that shines." There was that clean mouth glint and sparkle reflected off his teeth again. Revealing itself when he turned a look over his shoulder and back at the boy. "I remember what you said. Very astute of you. Those sharp eyes of yours will take you far."

"Mm," Salvador grunted. "I remember you saying that before too." This seemed like an utter waste of time to him, and he was only starting to remember why. Impatience filtered in before the reason. "Did you want something? Or are you just here to be a pain in the ass like the rest of them and not tell me anything straight?"

With a heavy and disappointed sigh, Paul turned to face him. He hung his head while shaking it, nearly tsked but did not. "I won't take up too much of your time, Mr. Delahada. I only wanted to tell you that all is going according to plan and you won't have anything to worry about in the future. We have everything under control." Except... There seemed to be something missing from that statement. Something unspoken hovering in the air, just before his eyes that he could catch if his hand were quick enough.

Then it came to him. When Ambrosia collapsed, no one saw Sinjin leave it. A great big slap in the face of hello world! Yes I hear you! Sucking in a sharp breath and blinking, Salvador turned his head quick and looked up at the sky. It was much less bright and yellow, so much more gray.

The apartment was just overhead. Three floors up, there was his balcony. His perch. The ledge he had fallen from the night before. At midnight the tides came and washed over him as a red haze of too much... What was it? What had overpowered him so much? Now was not the time to think of that. All he knew, without even having to be up there to see, as he always just simply knew was that...

Sinjin was gone.

"That ... hijo de puta." Anger was the first thing to hit him besides panic. "He's--" Salvador looked back to tell the man made of light that, but discovered that he was no longer there. He too was gone. Everybody was gone! It was winter and.... "Oh. Christ."

It never occurred to him that by a thought he could have spared himself the effort of sprinting and skidding around the side of the building, throwing open the door, and running up the stairs. Blinded by panic and a dizzying disarray of energy residue from the night before, he probably would not have been able to relocate anyway. He was too tired. He had actually slept. Sure, he had slept in a dumpster, but at least he had rested.

When he threw open the door and stumbled to a halt just inside, that cold slap of reality hit him even harder. A quick look around the front room, the glimpse he stole from that spot into the bedroom, told him everything he needed to know. Salvador was not so foolish that he would have spent the entire morning tossing open cabinets and drawers as if to find the sinner hiding there. He knew.

Even his apartment, Sin's personal sanctuary, was now empty. His clothes and possessions were gone; each of his paintings had been methodically burned -- even the blank canvases in the corner. His guitar, his weaponry, his journal -- all of it gone. There was nothing left of Sinjin Fai except....

Kavi was curled up there on the couch looking at him. That fat, stupid pain in the ass mother cat even seemed to be smiling at him knowingly. Only cats could give such a look, and just with their eyes. He hated that damn cat, but right then she meant something more. He could not hate her seeing as how she was laying on a folded piece of paper that could only be a letter.

Uprooting himself from the floor, he lurched toward the cat and waved his hands at her wildly, hissing. Get. Scoot. Scram you stupid thing! Kavi hissed back at him, growled, but decided she really did not want scooped up and flung across the room. So she relented, leaped off the couch, and tucked herself up under it.

Snatching up the letter and hastily unfolding it, a dogwood blossom fluttered to the floor. This paper and that damn cat were the only things left in the room with his scent on them. Before reading the stupid thing, he held the paper up to his nose and sucked down a deep breath of it. Paper. Sin. Words on the paper written by Sin. He read them.


Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

I'm sorry.


That was it? "That-- That's it?" He turned the letter over and over about a dozen times. There was no name, no signature, but he knew damn well who it was from. The scent was proof enough. Even more, he knew damn well what the message implied. The now drying tears spilled against the ink confirmed everything. Sin was gone.

Gritting his teeth, panting angrily through his nose, Salvador crumpled the letter up in one tight fist. His eyes stung. He could feel the tears wanting to rise before they could spill, but he did not let them. He was too angry to let them. First came the low growl, and then came the fury of his words.

"You ... God damned ... stupid ... selfish ... fucking-- Vaya al infierno, t? hijo de la gran puta. No sirves para nada." Kavi, unfortunately, had picked a bad spot to hide. Sinking his claws into the underside of the arm of the couch, he flipped the whole thing up and over and tossed it at the balcony doors. The glass shattered and the hinges snapped from the force of impact, which sent shards and cushions cascading down into the very same dumpster he had slept in the night before.

Of course, this startled the cat. She took off yowling and scampered hastily into the bedroom. Alas, it no longer smelled like the sinner in there. It smelled like nothing. "Nada," he shouted at precisely that. "Hijo de mil putas! Cojeda t?, pendejo! How could you just--" Baring his teeth at the crumpled letter held in his fist, he threw that next. Not being quite as heavy as a sofa, it did not reach the shattered doors. Instead, it bounced off the wall and rolled back to his feet right before he dropped to the floor in a dejected heap.

Seconds completely skipped over minutes and felt instead like hours. It might have really well been an hour before Kavi deemed it safe to creep back out from under the bed into the now damaged living room. Her poor couch had been tossed out a window. Not wanting to suffer the same fate, she crept slow and belly low to the ground closer to the slumped hunter.

Salvador had not moved since that small little tirade that ended in defeat. He sat with his legs folded under him in collapse. His knuckles touched the floor. His head hung low. The cat sniffed at his fingers cautiously before just butting her head against his wrist and purring.

For all his protests to the contrary, Salvador really did not hate that cat. Especially not now. Aside from that crumpled letter, she was the only real tie left to Sin. His fingers twitched, and his hand felt numb when he lifted it. Sluggish and feeling like a dulled blade, he turned his hand over and ran it down the feline's spine. He accepted the diluted and small comfort she had to offer by petting her. She fearlessly crawled onto his lap.

"I spoke to a whisper once," he told the cat quietly. She was an attentive listener, as most felines were. Kavi did not interrupt him, not even with her purring. He continued to pet her, even while she turned and curled up on his lap. "I held a memory in my hand. It was beautiful. It was light. It spoke to me as whispers do and for the first time I heard him laugh." One deviation from cited scripture. He tipped his head and thought to ask his only company, "Have you ever heard him laugh?"

Kavi only meowed at him. For all the feline qualities he had of his own, Salvador was uncertain whether that was a yes or a no. He smiled faintly and told her, "His laughter is beautiful. So is his smile." The cat chirped a noise that might have been another meow. Maybe she agreed with him. It was enough to make him chuckle breathily before spilling her off his lap when he stood. She was only mildly offended by being discarded, which she emphasized by trotting a few paces away and then grooming herself fastidiously.

"So this is his long winter," he said with a languid stretch. The hunter cast a fleeting and unimpressed glance aside at the damage he had caused by tossing the couch at the balcony doors. A chill breeze was sifting through the swaying frame and stealing away whatever warmth was left in the apartment.

Sin may have left and destroyed all traces of his ever being there, but some things still remained. The letter. The cat. Salvador's own book which he had last left balanced on the window sill. He took it down, then, and smoothed out the next available blank page. "This isn't over," he told the journal. Maybe also Kavi. He picked up the pen he had left beside it and while writing a few words lost himself to memory.

"It feels so long-- it hasn't been that long, has it? No-- no, maybe it has. Years? Lifetimes?"

"Forever...."

His eyes were intensely focussed. Gaze intent on what should have been single-minded purpose. But he said this: "?l que tiene por qu? vivir puede llevar con casi cualesquiera c?mo." You think I forget things, said his eyes, or perhaps steel chime song. But I don't. I remember ... everything. "I will come back to you," he promised, with spoken words. "Siempre."

"...I remember writing-- Everything."

"...without you. I have no balance."

"You must wait for me, love. Can you?"

"I can wait. I will wait-- if you will do the same for me, my love. Please."

Salvador frowned, finished what he was writing, and at first snapped the book closed. He had never closed it before. Up until this point it had always stayed open. He left it always for Sin to read. But now there was no Sin to read it. Probably no one who would. He opened it halfway with the thought that maybe someone would, but that thought was quickly defeated with another and he snapped it back shut again.

"I'm not letting you quit that easy, mi alma," he told the air, repeating what he had just written. Then he set the book back on the window sill, the pen next to it, and turned around. Kavi watched him stalk to and out the door, which he left open. There was no point to closing it with the balcony doors smashed out.

Unlike the sinner, he left no note. He wrote no letters and attached no trinkets to them. He left only his journal, the cat, a crumpled piece of paper, and a dogwood blossom. "I hope you can forgive the mess I made." There was also that.

That morning, Salvador left Rhydin behind to go hunting. Though the prey he set out to track was not one he meant to kill. He left behind plenty of memories, but no trail. How did he know where he was going? Oh, he simply knew. He always knew.