The word "scatterbrained" came to mind often. Though he hadn't the slightest grasp on neither the word "scatter" nor "brain", it was the first word that came to mind whenever he tried to make coherent thought of his situation. Perhaps it was just a familiar word. A familiar feeling, to lose one's mind.
The lone Septarian's consciousness floated around in a haze, his brain's instinct for survival naturally fighting to grip onto anything remotely resembling awareness. He was aware enough to know that time was, in fact, a thing and that he existed outside it, but not enough to know how much or even if it was ing. Though it wasn't exactly easy to catch sand between your fingers while you're sinking in it, and the very thing he tried to grasp seemed to want him buried.
Yet every once in awhile that damned sound would bring him back to the bare minimum of consciousness. That song that plagued both his subconscious and waking hours, the keening squeal of the unicorns that seemed to want his scattered mind all for themselves instead. He'd hear it again, ing for just an instant, and he'd sink through the sand entirely, somehow escaping it. Sometimes, in those brief moments of vision, he'd be back in the Royal Archives. Sometimes he'd be back at Pie Island, or Septarsis, or even around those cursed bonfires in the Forest of Certain Death.
This time he'd fallen back into the asylum. The white walls, uncharacteristically sterile, shifted and waved, threatening to fade away at any moment. He squinted at them, trying to something, anything, but under focus they'd return to normal. He ed enough to know there should have been a smell. Chemicals, blood, waste, even ash from the charred remains of magical experiments.
But nothing. And it was this lack of familiarity that jarred him slightly out of senselessness. St. Orville's, he thought, as he softly brushed the scar on his temple. There should have been suffering here. Dirt, grime, putrid stenches, cries of anguish. Now: only a hall. And that fact didn't calm the dread in his heart in the slightest.
Where dread fell, she was always close behind. Her, in all her gifts and flaws, the flame that never seemed to burn out, whether needed for the hearth or scorned for the wildfire. Juno the Disgraced darted past him, stunning red hair the only glimpse he caught before she disappeared around the corner. She took that song with her wherever she went. But it'd be back. It always came back.
Sometimes he'd follow her, sometimes he wouldn't. This time he ed that room on the way, and time came to a halt, as it always had when he ed his father's room. He would always turn his head away, but this time he walked inside. He wasn't surprised to see the burnt remains of his family's living room rather than chains and a hospital bed. He knelt before the pile of splintered beams, wanting so desperately to just have a normal tombstone to set flowers by rather than a burnt down house.
They're not coming back. Are they...
No.
Brutally honest as usual. It was what he needed. And it was what Seth always provided. The lone lizard looked up, expecting to see Seth's shadow looming over him and the pile. But no shadow. No pile. Just the barred window of the hospital room. He stood and touched his hand to the bars. This was his father's room, not his own, so he didn't expect to see the flickering street lamp. Of course, he didn't expect to see them either. The two most important girls in his life, so close yet forever out of reach. He wanted to turn his head away, knowing though that their images would be everywhere he looked.
Teal hair and red spades stood out vividly against the brown horizon, the woman's rich black dress and white lace a shining star against the empty night sky. And the child whose shoulders she held. The false child. The lost child. Hair as deep violet as the finest grapes and eyes like shimmering blue bubbles that made his heart swell. Festivia leaned back against her "mother", who stared at him through the bars with disdain so unlike her.
No one is coming back for you.
Eclipsa, the Queen of Darkness, spat following Seth's words. The lone monster was taken aback. Burning cords constricted his heart. He wanted to rip his hair out, to scream and sob into the void. The ones who'd left him behind, whether by choice or by force, all so close around him but unable to reach out and touch. And the only constant that always stayed with him was that damned song. All he could do was clench his fists and let the fire burn through his soul.
The void started to collapse around him, the walls glitching and shifting in every direction, the fuzziness of sand permeating his brain again. As everything scattered, the lone father looked Eclipsa dead in the eye, pointing at Festivia, and shouted.
She did! Where were you?!
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