Kindred Folk - Velvet Wings

[FennWenn]

A soupy storm of white whipped through the forest, cracking wood and withering lush leaves with its intensity. At its center were the two Fenns.

Well, specifically, one of the two Fenns.

Seething incoherently, Fenn — his main sense of self — paced, harsh patterns of frost trailing after his every step. It was difficult to articulate just what he was feeling; there was a lot going on at once. His chest was tight with a stammer of panic, his eyes narrow with anger. Confusion stirred him into frantic motion. Kill? The other him? How? Why? What was even going on here?

Just as placid as before, Mortality watched him rage. “I wondered if this would happen. Maybe I should have phrased that better.”

<Well fucking duh!> Fenn screeched, whirling around to face his other self. His projected voice shook the fabric of the dream. Massive crystals of ice shot up from the ground around him, tearing apart several trees; probably his fault. He was too caught up in his flurry to even turn and stare. <You can’t meet me all of a sudden for the first time out of nowhere and tell me I gotta kill you. Can’t say that you wanna die and act like that’s not a big thing! That’s not okay! That’s really not okay if you’re also kind of a part of me! That’s weird, and creepy, and it freaks me->

“Aaand I’m going to stop you right there. Calm yourself. Before you start off on some tangent about how we should be all perfectly fine — fuck, we’re good at tangents — don’t try to rationalize me off as needing to be some happy, useful bit of your brain. You’re the happy (mostly) useful part of the brain. I’m the bit we quash down because you can’t seem to deal with shit in healthy ways. You can’t deal with the couple of times you’ve almost lost Daugi, you can’t deal with the fucked up monsters you’ve met, you can’t deal with helping Banrion kill Morrighna in cold blood, and you can’t deal with Amari’s betrayal. Right?” Mortality chimed.

<Yeah, but, I wouldn’t’ve guessed a part of me was suicidal though,> he whispered back between agitated hiccoughing. <That’s pretty depressing.>

“I am depressing! That’s why I’m asking for this.” The other him groaned and slumped back, covering his face with his hands. “Everything I’m squashing back — it just keeps coming back to the surface! It’s starting to get unhealthy. Not just for me. For you you. You’re on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Hell, we’re in the middle of one right now. You were musing about loneliness and death not two minutes from passing out!”

Fenn took a deep breath, hands clenched into fists at his side. The storm about him tightened. <But I didn’t want to die. See? I was just sad and sick and all by myself, so I worried about dying! Different.>

Mortality only shook his head.

“That is still not normal for us. Normal for us used to be pretending we weren’t ill so we could go be an idiot and climb the castle’s turrets mid-tornado to see the storm for ourselves. Or something equally ridiculous, just because we could. Do you remember that? I do. It’s my job to remember things.”

What was he supposed to say to that? There wasn’t an easy answer. Still gasping back sobs of panic, Fenn lowered his hands, forcing them to unclench. The blizzard’s breath, the snowflakes and hail chinks raining down around them lightened into nothingness. The entire forest was as pale as a fresh sheet of paper. Slowly, Mortality eased himself off of his branch and fell to the ground — slowly, as if he were sinking through molasses. When he touched down on the frozen earth his feet were muted by the snow. He held out his hand, a gesture made ponderous under the weight of his chains.

“Come on. Come with me. I want a change of scenery. A better place to conclude our business. A better place to help you understand what we need.”

[FennWenn]

It was dark.

It was dark, when the white winds died down again, dark but for a pinprick of light in the distance.

“Goodbye now. Hopefully, we never meet again.” Mortality, silhouetted by the light, glanced over Fenn’s shoulder with his dull, dull eyes and a sense of deliberation.

What was there? The fae whirled around, but found nothing but black. He scoffed. Of course, he thought, glancing back over to frown into the distant prick of light. Now, the other him was gone too. What else would he expect from himself?

Fenn paused, hearing the gentle shhhhfff of wings on papery wings.

<...Mortality?>

There was movement in the dark.

Memories brushed past him like the gossamer wings of a swarm of insects, fluttering toward the light far away. Vague impressions fluttered over him; silver hair and flowery perfume. The tang of dried blood and a disgruntled glance his way. A boney hug. Thick, strong hands gingerly petting a black wolf on the head. Eyes, green like his, reflecting him back from under straw-blonde hair. The movement of a cart and the promise to visit again. Laughter, a man’s, and many shiny piercings glittering in the sun. A mane of feathers falling over him, two courteous voices speaking of the same mind, blue scales. Being held tall atop mountainous shoulders. “Good night, my little dragonfly,” whispered a hazy blur of gossamer wings, delicate hands brushing a lock of black hair back from his eyes…

The impressions were attached to faces. To names, sometimes. To people. To places and times.

They were shadows in the dark, movements out of the corner of his eye. It was difficult to quantify their exact appearance when looking directly at them — when just touching them — gave him thoughts of times past. Fenn watched them float away. It struck him somehow that he could, if he desired, reach out to catch them. Maybe call them back to him. Where were they going? But he found himself afraid.

<Mortality! Come back!>

He was afraid because among the flickers of soft remembrances he felt sharp-winged forms shedding pain like dustings of scales. They were many. Reptilian eyes, ice-white teeth tinged pink and grey with blood, the stench of rotting meat. A child, looking much like him, face-down in the snow. Decay and fungus blooming in the dark, a voice that spoke in colors, a harsh cracking against his skull. Red hair and even redder eyes, black cracks over pale-white skin and a raw-bleeding eye held in one hand. A flash of heat around his wrists. Eyes spinning around him, a blizzard of cold faces, beastly and beautiful. Thick blue drinks in clear crystal. Clammy flesh hidden under bones and skeins of algae, not quite smelling of the sea, but drowning all the same. Tea black as blood, black as poison. A girl with a wolf’s face, a wolf who was not a friend. A girl in a wolf’s guise, screaming, screaming at him. A ghost in a wolf’s guise, screaming empty promises to haunt his dreams.

Fenn drew back.

The winged creatures trickled and whirled past him, borne on a breeze he could not feel. Toward a destination he could not identify. The pinprick of light called to them. Like sand, he felt them vanish, felt their presence lighten. One by one by one. As a memory cut up against him — one that emanated a weight of time and the heat of cold iron — he felt the urge to scream. He was silent. The phantasm passed.

All the angry things that whispered to him in the non-voice of his inner survivalist — Mortality? — streaked away. Many of the things that made him the gleeful thief screamed off with them.

What was going to be left?

Panic pulsed through him as emptiness crashed down on him. Belatedly, he reached out to grab something, anything that didn’t cut him.

It emenated the essence of red yarn, a sweater heavy and damp with bathwater. The wings— they were soapy— they were slick and soaked through with a thickness that he wasn’t sure was water—! It slipped through his grasp. Gasping, he reached out into the dark again, into the void. Deft hands struck the next — the last — memory to brush against him. Whatever he’d grabbed, whatever he now held, he didn’t let go. The impression of frost spiraling out from a cold touch fluttered up his hands through wings as delicate as fresh snow.

So did the essence of a name. A face. Blank green eyes reflected in the puddle of a dark city street. Silent laughter.

<Fennik Glenwey,> he whispered to himself as the whirling wings took their leave of him. Trembling, he clutched his name to his chest. Dusty membranes still fluttered against his hands. <I’m still Fenn. Even if…>

Even if…

He couldn’t remember.

[FennWenn]

“Fennik Glenwey. Still here,” a small fae felt himself mouth as he returned to himself. “Fenn.” To his waking, breathing body. To…

What was this?

There was a liquid covering him, a gummy slime of sorts. It tacked his eyes closed. Yet… he could breathe through it. At least he wasn’t frozen. Frozen? Something instinctively insisted yes, frozen. You can do that. Though, his back was numb and entirely without feeling. Fenn shifted onto his side. A sore stiffness tacked his limbs together at the joints, as if he hadn’t moved them for weeks, or months. What… where was he? What had happened? He had fallen asleep and… well. What happened after that? More frighteningly, what had happened before that? What at all? With a groggy squeak, he reached into slime around him. After a certain point, the goo became something else, solidified into tacky, silky threads. He stretched, uncurling his leaden legs. His feet, too, met with more thread. It was almost like a blanket swaddling him all around. A really gooey, wet blanket.

Uncertain, Fenn pressed his palms harder into the threads. They had some give to them, but a few broke under his touch. Beyond the initial layer of gunky buildup, they met his hands with a feeling not unlike like dried-out spiderwebbing.

What was this?

With a grunt of effort, he tore through it, making a gash just big enough for him to stick a hand (and an eye) out of. Oxygen wheezed into the narrow space. Ooze sloshed out. A sneeze jolted him and he felt guck slide of of his nose. Yuck. Stale air slid into his lungs, sharp yet lukewarm, forcing him to hack out more gunk. Wiping the rest of it from his eyes, he peered out.

His vision was blurry. Maybe from the guck, maybe from not using it for a while, maybe just because the world around was murky-dim with dark. Hesitantly, he felt the floor outside with his palm. It met coarse and eroding fabric. This swampy mess of threads enveloping him — cocoon? — was on a rug, on the floor of what seemed to be a quaint stone bedroom. Fenn blinked. He felt as if he should recognize this room. Perhaps not intimately, but still, recognize. He did not recognize this room. He still did not remember how he got into this room. This room, filled with fuzzes of faded sky-blue and cloudy decorations. Dust and cobwebs draped from the canopy bed beside him. A wavering mobile above spun about in a chilly breeze. He knew enough to know that this place wasn't his.

The gaping emptiness, his lacking past, both burned in the cage of his chest.

Something stirred elsewhere in the castle. The wump of heavy paws and click of clawed nails echoed in through the gap in his cocoon, and pricked his ears up to alertness. He wasn’t alone.