[Anglachel]

Days had passed, and the prince – former prince – was not sure how long or how far he had walked. Time blended, the sky an endless mishmash of dusks and dawns, his weary feet refusing to rest for long. Not yet, echoed in his ears. Keep going. And so he did. It was all he had, all Anglachel could allow himself to focus on. (Anything but the brewing storm of regret and hatred; he had left them behind, he left them behind to die or live or–).

Slow, ambling gait stumbled to a halt, tired wine-red eyes taking in the field that had beckoned to him. Of course, this would be his destination. The red, red field, strewn with bodies and bones and scavengers. The stage of every single one of his nightmares. But the tired nomad blinked, and his vision filled with pretty pastels, not a spot of red in sight. The flowers had grown back.

Perhaps this was it, fate tugging him back to where it should have ended, instinct drawing an animal away from home to die alone.

Above, a crow cawed.

[Kashmir]

Born into a house of pain, seeking out something kinder and lighter that made more god damned sense, the fugitive prince and the king of swords had more in common perhaps than they'd ever surmise... yet still their paths were vastly different ones. Maybe they'd never have crossed at all if not for their warring nations. Anglachel was adrift and alone, drawn back to where he'd been cut down only once of many times, full of grief and rage and scars. More importantly, he had been haunting the outskirts of Inaria nearly as though the silent fields grown by shed blood were his own little royal stomping grounds.

The boy had nerve then. He had it now. Even the merciless thrashing he'd taken could not knock that out of him, it seemed. Brave, thought Kashmir vaguely as he stalked the scent of rainforest and bad memories to its conclusion, intercepting the slowing pace of the prince. Or maybe just terribly foolish.

He'd take care of this himself. No need for interference. There was no Setebos to roar in his face now, to stop him from doing... ah, whatever it was that needed to be done. Yellow eyes opened in slits, bright in the oncoming dusk. Where had he come from, this jackal? He approached from the side, in any case.

"You shouldn't have come back."

Kashmir too heard the crow; its mind was every bit as sharp as his own.

[Anglachel]

You shouldn’t have come here.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have, perhaps he should have stayed home with his family and all that was familiar. But sorrow and a whim and nipped at his heels past Saboro’s borders and to the unknown. His feet and heart had led him with no destination in mind, just a feeling. He had nowhere else to go.

Brave, Kashmir may think. Foolish, he may determine.

Tired, Anglachel would reply, Just tired.

Eyes momentarily shut, a stuttering breath of ice and fire expanding dying lungs, the prince – the chemist – the Saboran – the tired nomad turned to face his nightmare.

The soldier was different here, smaller now in this field of wildflowers than the monster of the battlefield who had seemed larger than life when tearing into his flesh. Perhaps Kashmir would look at Anglachel and see him as different too. No longer a child, the youth from war replaced with a three-legged, ragged rogue. The jackal had not been the last to leave a mark upon his body. But he had been the first. The beginning of the fall – where it all began.

Anglachel had… hoped for fire to ignite his heart, to stir rage for vengeance, to demand back the control and security that had been so cruelly taken from him. He had expected tears and blame and self-pity. Yet all Anglachel could do was stare at the creature that haunted his memory. His head tilted, scarred featured contorting briefly in his own confusion before relaxing beneath defeat or exhaustion or a combination of the two.

The barrel of the gun filled with a loaded question.

“Why...?”
        ...Shouldn’t he have come here?
                   ....Are you not attacking ?
                                         ....Did you do it?
                                               ....Did you let me live?

[Kashmir]

He was like a moth fluttering to light, the poor creature. Kashmir studied him, seeing everything missing nothing, and the penetrating gaze was not so different than the renegade's of his nightmares. Somewhere along the line, he'd lost a leg, and the stump left behind, ringed at the center with old scar tissue, tried in vain to move when its three brothers did. His beautiful face had healed, but it would never be the same as... before. He was very much alone.

It was easy to see, how a lifetime in Saboro was rewarded. How it took and took and gave nothing back but the boot in your ass when it had sucked you dry and didn't want you anymore. It was easy to see what a victim of circumstance the once-prince was. Maybe that was why Kashmir only looked, didn't touch, slowly circling Anglachel like a scavenger around some mortally wounded lunch.

"Because we're enemies," came his hoarse reply, for he wasn't psychic, and took hold of the most obvious meaning to Ang's question. "Because your friend savaged my elite and my queen." And me. His eyes slitted again, looking sidelong down at the wolf who could only listen right now. How could he not know this? "Because you tried to save him... so he could live another day to do it again."

There was a heartbeat of silence, where the jackal considered that last accusation. Then he spoke again, his expression unreadable --

"They say I should not have done to you what I did."

-- and left that in the cold night air for interpretation.

[Anglachel]

The disappointment toward the jackal’s response was only a numb, cold weight in his gut. His questions wouldn’t be answered here; this creature slowly circling him was real, not a twisted fragment of his nightmare brought to life by fever dreams. He would not wax poetic verses or present poignant reasoning to feed the prince’s fragmented mind. Anglachel had thought he knew Kashmir, he had painted the jackal in strokes of black and crimson. He depicted a monster in his mind that only took and tortured and murdered.

He had expected hoped for death, but the monster listed his reasons instead, shoving them before blinded, deluded eyes, and the strokes of black and crimson – the sculpted monster dripped away leaving only a jackal in its place.

Anglachel’s breath hitched in his throat, numbed expression breaking. He had wanted to save Thresher, just as the jackal surely wished to save his packmate and queen that day. Kashmir knew only the murderer who mauled young green girls, but Anglachel never knew that side. He remembered a friend who let a lonely prince stay by his side, who cared enough to teach. Who called him ‘Ang’ and ‘kid’ and let him mend his wounds. But the former prince held his grief and memories close to his heart, he did not try to defend Thresher, would not try to paint him out to be a good man where he hadn’t been to Inaria. “I loved him.” It was simple as that. Weren’t they the same? Desperate for the ones they loved.

But Kashmir had bitten when Anglachel had not – the timber mix still stared at his reflection some days, wondering why.

Enemies Anglachel rolled the word silently on his tongue. It tasted like bile. I hate you, he tried instead, but the words crumbled like ash, scattering in the wind with a shaky exhale. He had wanted to protect Thresher back then, just as the jackal had fought viciously to defend his people. But Anglachel had returned to Saboro with only his own blood painting his cheeks. You’re still beautiful his father had murmured comfort by the lake one night. Beautiful, untainted by the blood of others. He hadn’t fought back, he still wondered why. “You’re not my enemy,” escaped him instead. It tasted like nothing.

"They say I should not have done to you what I did."

Something like life stirred in Anglachel’s chest. ”I don’t care what they say.” Wine red eyes flared, meeting yellow-green on his own accord for the first time.

”What do you say?”

[Kashmir]

It was far easier than Kashmir was willing to know to view him as monster. What were monsters, anyway? A cat to a songbird. A snake to a mouse. Anything that hurts and devours inexorably, anything that cannot be comprehended. Or sometimes they were simplified versions of some creature who had done you wrong. Far more comforting was it to inflict upon them such an easy-to-grasp epithet rather than consider them a living thing with thoughts, dreams, fears, a mother, feeling pain when bitten.

And what was the jackal but that fearsome Other? Giving no quarter, no mercy, to those he decided must die. Responding to Anglachel begging for his friend's life with an appalling and unjust act of violence. What was comprehensible about that? Look into your reflection, future king of swords! Do you see a spider's maw, filled with the bits and pieces of other spiders? Can you find the similarities in your face to those of the men who have died at your feet? They're there. I promise, they're there, if you care to look.

The prince told him that he'd loved Thresher. No blame, no rage, just that one sad admission. Kashmir didn't know how to respond to that and in this solitary meeting did not have to pretend he did. It was difficult for him, imagining this sort of humanity for a Saboran. Surely if Inaria's soldiers killed no wolf that had ever befriended another, the rainforest wolves would long have been picking their teeth with the nation's bones... and yet, what could a Saboran possibly know of friendship, anyway?

"If you like," said the marquis slowly, his face unreadable, though he did not entirely know why he offered this small, harmless kindness, "I will show you where he's buried." Buried being a generous term, of course. Inaria had simply dumped the redtat corpses outside their borders where they could stink and rot in peace. But Kashmir decided that Ang, who thus far had not acted untoward, did not need to know that.

He tilted his angled head to the side, the motion somehow both curious and predatory, when the prince declared that they were not enemies. "No?" was his quiet question, a request for elaboration perhaps. I hurt you. I took away your pretty marks. I killed your friend. What else makes me an enemy, if not that?

Royal rubies met cat-yellows. Ang looked Kashmir straight in the eyes and something in his voice changed. Kashmir looked back, and though he did not quite have the height to peer down his nose at the wolf, it was certainly implied in his imperial stance. I don't care what they say, monster. What do YOU say?

A long, tense moment passed. Until surprisingly, the jackal sat, the motion prim and graceful, both little paws placed neatly beside the other. His striped tail flicked at the tip, on and off.

"I haven't decided."

[Anglachel]

It was easier to believe in monsters and ghouls, but it many ways dismissing reality in favor of unexplainable nightmares was the more dangerous line of thought. For so long the jackal had haunted his steps, a cloud forever looming over his head, waiting to strike down all he held dear. So many nights spent restless under an unknown weight in his heart and lungs. So many nights his children or mates’ touch burned like open wounds. So many nights he walked with fearful eyes cast over his shoulder.

Monsters did not obey reality. Monsters dug into minds and rotted all that they touched. Monsters didn’t feel. Monsters didn’t bleed. Monsters had no reasons. Monsters did not offer kindnesses.

And yet… and yet –

The hardened numbness of his features softening briefly into something painfully grateful. “You buried him?” His voice soft, full of disbelief and hope. His friend would have hated the Inarians for it, would have sneered at Anglachel for finding such comfort in the gesture, but burials were for the living, not the dead. “I… Yes. Just to say goodbye.” I didn’t get to. Left unsaid, written in the scars across his cheeks and over his heart. “Thank you.” And he found that he meant it, the warmth left behind by Oriana’s kiss desperate to rekindle his decaying heart.

Monsters left you with nothing but fear to hold; was it all for nothing? Asked over and over. Do you hide beneath the covers and hope the monster doesn’t get you, or do you look to see it? Was it scarier to face the unknown, or never know?

And so Anglachel looked. He looked and searched every piece, committed it all to memory. This is what your fears look like. Are you still afraid? Wine reds raised to face his nightmare, watched as it tilted its head in an expression both predatory and curious. In another life, one where intricate meshwork of scarlet and scar tissue did not embroider his face, Anglachel may have found the gesture endearing. Here, he only found it to be jarring.

The former prince hesitated at the jackal’s question, holding it uncertainly as though the single word may bite as sharp as its speaker could. “I don’t hate you.” Enemies were to be hated, weren’t they? Revenge or ill intent wished upon them. He dug within himself to find it; the contempt, the hate, the anger. “You’re just…“ A monster? No, that wasn’t right. Not quite. Not anymore. “…A person.” He continued lamely, grasping for the words that felt right. “Who has probably has name, and cares for that green girl and your queen. You… did what you felt had to be done… For you and them…” Just a person caught in a war neither of them ever wanted. “I would have…” done the same, died in his throat. Because he hadn’t. He still wondered why.

Anglachel peered closer, searching for the hate, the white hot anger, the blame, the face of an enemy – and peering back at him was a reflection. Wine red eyes framed by ruined features and silver locks.

Ah.

I haven’t decided. The soldier said.

“I have.” Anglachel hummed, settling in the soft grass with a tired sigh, his posture reflecting Kashmir. Once, he would have wished to become someone like the yellow eyed soldier; willing to do anything to protect those that mattered. But the taste of a slave’s blood still lingered in his mouth, churned guilt in his belly where relief and pride should have been as his sister had walked away unharmed. He looked for that justice the jackal held so firmly in his grasp – that strength. Anglachel could not find it.

The scars burned. The crow called out to its murder, settling into the treetops as indigo dusk light spread over the sky.

The stars were prettier here than in Saboro.

“I don’t blame you.”

[Kashmir]

To cast away the belief in monsters, perhaps, was to let something too horrible to fathom inch closer to your soul, thinning the boundary between them and you. No small wonder that someone like Kashmir in his most despicable moments might fear that. Either way, Anglachel had chosen to look behind the curtain -- and be careful what you wish for, right? He was there. A little thin. Striped hide. Big ears. A look equal parts cautious and calculating. Smaller than he remembered. Just some animal. Isn't that disappointing?

The prince didn't seem to think so. He seemed hushed somehow, steeled by his own awe, by this resignation to a strange reality, and the jackal who would be king went on watching him from eyes like bright slivers. Ask me no questions, thought Kashmir impassively when Ang expressed disbelief at the idea of his brethren being given a proper burial, and I will tell you no lies. Still, he meant what he'd said. It was not too far away from here, Thresher's final resting place... not that he knew the dead man's name.

Enemies hated enemies. Anglachel didn't hate him. He didn't feel what life had taught him he should feel when you met again with someone who has hurt you. He said as much, said that Kashmir was only a person, and the jackal blinked slowly. "Yes," he said, not really understanding, or at least convincing himself he didn't. "What else would I be?"

Anglachel continued his confession, kneeling at a dangerous altar. I don't hate you. I don't blame you. Nor should he, the jackal may have said, if the words had not caught in his injured throat and turned to dust. He let the prince talk, without responding. He let him sit as well, wrapped in the silence trailing long after his words. Mercifully, he did not take too long before breaking it once more.

"It's west of here," was all Kashmir said, hoarsely. "Come with me." Come away with me into the dark, unseen, unprotected, alone with the spider.

They walked for some time. There was a fog starting to settle upon the outskirts of Inaria as they made their way to the unceremonious redtat graveyard. For a long while, Kash did not speak a word, and when he finally did so, his quiet voice blended with the background ambiance of the forest.

"That green girl is an old student of mine. When she was still a pup, I helped teach her to guard." Their kingdom bred the indomitable, and Sage was no exception. "My queen is..." A beat as he searched for the right word. "... brilliant. I trust her with my life and she with mine." A strange sort of love that in some ways had eyes for nobody else. "They are my friends." He breathed out through his nose, parting the fog before him. "Now..." His voice had smoothed out. "... who was yours?"

Kashmir listened intently to whatever the prince had to say about that. I am a person, as you say, blameless, doing what I have to do. And what about you, Anglachel?

They ventured into an area of outskirt that, truth be told, looked almost no different from the rest of its likeness. Scavengers would have long ago made off with whatever remains once littered this place, bones included, parts all scattered to the four winds. But here it was, as promised. The closest thing Thresher had to a grave. "There," said Kashmir, and gestured with his snout to the gently sloping ravine at the far end of the conclusion of Inaria's territory, one of the dividers between "ours" and "not ours." There it was, where dead Saborans apparently go.

When Anglachel turned to look, the jackal didn't take his eyes from the prince, but stepped silently back several paces while he said whatever it was that he needed to say. Hovering seemed... improper somehow.

(Why hadn't killing him, that day?)

[Anglachel]

ANGLACHEL

"What else would I be?" The jackal had questioned, and the silvery haired prince tilted his head in response, an empty smile tugged at his ruined features. "What Thresher was to that green girl. A living nightmare, I suppose." Anglachel answered plainly after a moment, not unkindly, but rather resigned in an honest, matter-of-fact tone. Where you two so different? Lingered unspoken in his words. Questions waited at the tip of his tongue — would you have continued, if not for the healer? Would I be alive, if not for him? How much more would you have ripped and torn? — bitten down and swallowed like bitter pills.

A part of him didn't want to know. The Saboran parts of him accepted the violence as it was. A fact of nature. To be expected. Anglachel did not blame the Inarian marquis because his brutality, though painful and terrifying, was only natural to a prince raised at the foot of a bloody throne. He remembered Artemisia's tattered features. He remembered the lesson by the river, the shredded carcass of a princess who dared to run lain strewn across the grass. But another piece — the sickness that had churned at the pit of his stomach continued to stir. The little flicker of flame that had carried his paws here rattled and whined, twisting his gut with every heartbeat.

I don't blame you — I don't hate you — It was only natural — but, but...

Why? Still weighed on his tongue, the heavy leadened burden of a bullet caught between his teeth. Anglachel did not voice his questions, reigned them safely within the confines of his ribcage. He would not burden the jackal with the dissonance that warred within his skull, not in the face of unexpected kindness, not when Thresher was so close.

Anglachel followed without question, not once hesitating or uncertain. The prince would convince himself it was the need to say a final goodbye to his friend's grave rather than a lack of regard for his own safety.

"That green girl is an old student of mine. When she was still a pup, I helped teach her to guard. My queen is...... brilliant. I trust her with my life and she with mine. They are my friends. Now...... who was yours?"

He was lost in the rising return of grief, raw and unhealed and sudden, and Kashmir's voice cutting through the mist came as a surprise. Anglachel hadn't expected anything more, but he listened intently nonetheless. And a gentle smile unconsciously lightened his melancholy expression into something momentarily untouched by pain and grief. Words like is and are. Present tense and absent of grief or pain. They lived, and for some reason the knowledge ever so slightly soothed his own aches. "Thresher was..." The prince trailed off, struggling both with wanting to keep his friend's memory precious and close to his heart, and wanting to share his grief. "He was... he was a jerk," The first think that bubbled to the surface in a cross between a dry sob and laugh. "But he... I think he cared. He tried to teach me to defend myself, and always looked out for me." Anglachel murmured, wine red eyes focusing not on the jackal but on the swirling mist disturbed by each breath. "I became a Chemist for him. Found my love for healing because of him. I promised I'd always heal him, I — " The prince broke off and said nothing more, jaw setting firmly as he braced for the wave of resentment that flooded his system. He had promised and he had failed.

"There."

Without a second glance, Anglachel moved past the Inarian, silvery paws brushing against the gently swaying wildflowers speckled throughout the ravine, a shaky relieved breath escaping him. His gaze flitted from each flower to each rock. To the blades of grass and dotting of shrubs, committing it all to memory. And for the first time in his life, Anglachel stood as a the prince he never saw himself as. "I'm so sorry." He spoke to his people, voice echoing across the quiet ravine, dipping his head in a bow to the flowers —the only grave maker any of them would ever have.

And Anglachel simply breathed. Deeper an steadier than he had in months, the air felt clean here in this piece of in between. It was like going home. He was almost there, so close he could taste it. Could almost hear that gruff voice growling something like Ang and stupid kid and — but the wind swept and a crow cawed in the distance and the illusion broke, leaving only Anglachel and the future King of Swords. He had imagined some sort of epiphany here, finding some peace here that would settle the dysphoria that drowned him since the war. He had left Saboro, left his sun and moon and little stars in desperate hope of a cure. And there was none. There was none except—

The former prince spun around, his soft, ruined features twisted in an expression of confusion and rising nausea. "Why?" Always back to that question, his slender frame quivering (in grief? anger? fear? anticipation? hope?) as he stepped back toward Kashmir. The words tossed and turned in his skull, gathered at the scarred corners of his eyes in frustrated tears. Then finally, in a small, strangled rasp. "Why did you do it? Why didn't you just kill me?"