Demi-gods and Hungry Ghosts [drabbles]

[ayascythe]

Author: ayascythe 
Fandom: Original fic
Characters: Ethan (mention of Alexis once)
Rating: PG-13
Language: English
Categories/Warnings: weird imagery?
Beta: unbeta-ed
(Dis-)Claimer: This is fanfiction for a TV show I made up for the isurrendered meme. To find out more about the basic plot of The Spring Court, read this introduction post. I made up all of this, however, some elements were influenced by White Wolf's Changeling: The Lost which I don't own.

Summary: The trees start talking to him again. - Snapshots of Ethan's time in captivity.

A/N: 5 Spring Court drabbles I wrote in a weird state of mind(fuck). Can be read seperately as well as a whole story. Concrit is as always highly appreciated. Quotes taken from "Thrown away" and "Here" which are awesome songs by Vast.

Demi-gods and Hungry Ghosts

 

There's a sun, there's a ground under my feet

There is almost nothing in between

Now I'm left like a flag atop a moon

Precious one, you have abandoned me

 

*

 

He rarely sleeps. It is not so much the cold that keeps him from closing his eyes but the ever-present fear of waking up again and not knowing who he was before. Consciousness is a fragile concept in these lands. He sees others lose their mind right and left, and it's all he can do not to give in into the bliss of forgetful madness himself.

Think of home, he tells himself. Think of Darcie.

But the memory of her smile is bright and sharp, almost too painful for here and now, and so he stores it away almost immediately.

 

*

 

There are others, but nobody quite like him. Nobody foolish enough to say Take me instead of running fast and far, far away. Except maybe one. He tries to look out for her, wants to tell her her daughters are alright.

One time, he meets a woman that might be her, only she's frail, ghost-like. Barely an imitation of the Catherine Court he's seen on a picture once. It's the first time he wonders which would be worse: that he'll never find her or that he already did.

He walks away that night without asking her. They never meet again.

 

*

 

The trees start talking to him again. He's forgotten how it was to be able to communicate with them, but it comes back almost naturally. Like swimming, like being imprisoned, you'll never forget the basics once it's burned into you.

They write stories into the earth – strange patterns made out of insects and twigs and leaves, punctuated with morning dew – and beckon him to come closer. So he does and he reads.

It's always the same story, though, (one of loss, loneliness, pain and deafening madness) and after a while he cannot bear being near the trees anymore.

 

*

 

Alexis visits him from time to time, watching him doing one chore after another with cold unfathomable eyes, all the while smoking myriads of cigarettes. Ethan is not sure why he's doing this, but it gets to him more than anything else in these fucked-up lands. It makes him furious, so much that he wishes one of Alexis' cigarettes would set the forest on fire and make everything burn. At least it'd be warm for once.

„You alright?“ Alexis asks, snorting and clearly not meaning it.

Ethan doesn't say anything as he walks away. They both know the answer.

 

*

 

Sometimes the leaves decide to fall upwards. Away from rotten earth and back into the trees where they disappear between the branches, up, up, and up they go. The air is filled with a neverending rustling, then. A quiet whisper in a land where no one dares talking and even the wind is silent when it touches your skin.

Sometimes, if Ethan doesn't watch out enough, he's in danger of falling, too. Up, Up into the sky, to be lost forever between the clouds and drown in eternity.

Sometimes he thinks this wouldn't be so bad an ending, after all.

 

*

 

All I know is that I'm here

Drifting somewhere in the vast

Somewhere in eternity

And I never want to leave