Ch58

He prayed he wasn’t giving Norah too much. There was so much she deserved to know and only a finite time remained at this juncture.

He remembered the shock in his blood when he felt the ink in his palm, sharp and blindingly painful above the fresh burn. But each tattoo represented a new chapter of existence for Figments. To have tattoos was an honor, representative of the many lives, the many scars, and the many Corporeals served. When he saw the Blue Jay, he knew his Purpose had shifted to an entirely new story completely. While he was honored for the opportunity to continue serving Robin’s family, this change in his charge meant something was very wrong.

The next memory he shared with Nor was moments after the last but occurred on the hospital rooftop. He and his brother had reunited in the aftermath and were dueling to the death.

Cecil slugged him across the temple, bending his younger self in half.

“This is your feckin’ fault!” he screamed, eyes bulging and furious.

They looked like true opposites here, different pawns of the chessboard.

Cecil was an apt fighter, sharp, fiery, and built like a boxer dog. His black hair was wrapped in a bun at his scalp, and his dark clothes whipped about him like wings.

Dex’s white hair stuck to his temples with the humid evening. His limbs were long and lean, tick-tick-ticking with threatening sparks. Blood leaked from a cut in his pale hairline.

All they shared at present was their Figmented blood.

Dex recovered, and they danced again. He was efficient, sharp, and measured, but he had no desire to kill his brother.

Cecil took full advantage of this intention.

They’d tussled over the Kestrel’s issues prior, all of which were resolved for the sake of Norah. Despite their burnout, they always seemed to find peace for the child.

But this fight was much more.

Dex was slammed into the incinerator bricks until they creaked with ancient dust. His temples were pounding as Cecil pinned him against the structure and sliced a cold hand up and under Dex’s ribs, impaling him beneath the breastbone.

Dex’s world grew cold with surprise as the arm plunged up into his torso, hand slick between the wet bones of his sternum. The old man’s breathing hitched and he nearly stumbled with nausea. He wailed, feeling the horrid vibration of his screams against another entity pressing on his lungs.

Cecil squeezed at inner organs, eyes ablaze like wild green chemical fires.

Tears streaked down Dex’s cheeks, intermingling with the now pouring rain. His blood shone like molten gold, oozing down Cecil’s forearm. This was before Cecil had perfected his craft and made a mess of most things he touched.

“Cecil…” Dex gasped, knuckles white, gripping his brother’s shoulders, attempting to lift himself from the unfathomable pain.

“Why didn’t ya feckin’ stop her?” Cecil screamed, bicep twisting with tension, stirring like a knife blade. “Robin was yer feckin’ pet Dexteras,” he spat.

“She couldn’t hear me!” Dex called out into the storm clouds, tears falling like tides. “The alcohol, the pills…” he moaned. “She can’t feel me like she used to.”

“And ya burned Norah, she’s me feckin’ turtle!” he roared, torquing his arm until Dex’s muscles contorted and tightened like wound elastic.

“Please,” Dexteras screamed. “I tried, I tried, truly I tried,” he said through gritted teeth, nails raking into Cecil’s neck.

“Ya feckin’ tried,” Cecil laughed manically, “but she’s the one suffering!”

Dex remembered this part well. Words and breath were becoming more and more impossible to force from his chest. His throat was taut with screams and his heart pounded like a hummingbird’s. His feeling body was going into shock.

“Wh-Where were you?” he screamed with a final, desperate screech.

Cecil bared his teeth like ivory gates, pressing harder into Dexteras, reaching, clawing, tearing at muscle and tissue and sinew to grasp his heart. His fingers wound tight around the cardiac muscle, and he clamped down hard.

Dex had never experienced a heart attack.

He’d only experienced the physical pains that Robin had. The worst was when she overdosed for the third time. Her veins collapsed. Her brain was oxygen deprived. Her lungs slowed and depressed, fluid leaking between their decaying tissue. She couldn’t swallow, and then she couldn’t breathe. Until teenage Norah Kestrel rushed into the bedroom and saved them both.

But this was a heavy, searing, lightning-white pain that made his eyes bulge, and his gut tremble. He attempted to tear at his chest, throat, and lungs like he’d swallowed live, lumpy coals, red hot from the furnace. He could only pry his lips in agony, unable to scream. Black flooded his terrified peripherals like leaking ink.

He’s killing me.

I’m dying.

And Dexteras knew, in the end, he had no choice.

If he wanted to exist to see Norah or Robin again, he’d have to save his damned neck. Cecil knew fighting, and that was the only language he spoke.

Thus, Dex tore his face from his brother and drove his thumbs into Cecil’s eyes. He pressed until the snap-snap-snap of ocular nerves gave beneath his fingers. He dug until they both relented and collapsed, writhing on the bird-shit-ridden roof of the hospital.

Wheezing for life, Dex croaked again, “Where…were…you?”

But Cecil was too preoccupied, the heels of his palms shaking above his bleeding eye sockets, collecting puddles of blood.

“I can’t see, I can’t see, I can’t feckin’ see!” he screamed.

“Cecil, where were-”

“He was with me, Dexteras,” hissed a new voice behind them.

Dex scrambled to his feet and propped himself against the wall to take in Solus, standing coolly by the roof’s ledge to spectate.

Their gold blades scraped against the stone roof as they approached. They wore their beguiling form, their hair was much longer then, black and shining to their round buttocks with the gloss of a horse’s coat. Their dagger eyes were painted with black smudges like smoke.

Black, high-waisted pants clung to their ribs beneath a sable knee-length velvet coat. Gold chains jostled and shone, gripping their scant lapels like sutures.

“What?” demanded Dex.

“He was with me, agreeing to my contract.”

Dexteras dropped the gripping hands at his gut and straightened to fix his eyes upon the beast. “What contract?”

“I only offer one, Dexy. I’ve offered it to you many times.”

“No…”

“Cecil wanted peace from all of this,” said Solus, gesturing below to the hospital that held their Corporeals. “Can you blame him? All the pain you’ve both contained? Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you exhausted by the idea of a forever in this void, this pain?” Solus chuckled as though the answer were obvious.

“You fucking vulture,” growled Dexteras. “You wait until things are bad, and then you make bargains!” He spun to scream at Cecil. “Cecil, if it was a good offer, he wouldn’t approach you with it when you’re weak!”

“Ya feckin’ bastard,” said Cecil between gasps, his eyes clenched shut, leaking tears and blood and unknown fluids. “It’s my choice.”

“They take your memories to keep you obedient Cecil!” Dex exclaimed. “You can’t do this to her!”

Cecil roared and was on his feet in seconds, against Dex’s chest, clutching to the lapels of his suit. They were both painted in blood, but Cecil’s face was abhorrent. A horrid guilt wrought Dex’s gut for the gruesome aftermath he’d inflicted on his oldest friend.

“What the feck would I want with all this pain, aye?” he said, shaking and snarling like a cold dog. He pointed below to where Norah was recovering. “What good am I to her?” he slapped his chest where clotting blood from his eye sockets shone. “Can’t stop yer feckin’ Corpse from being absolute bobbins to her!” he snarled.

Dex had no response. He only watched the bloodied Figment wince and convulse with rage.

His brother had always brimmed with hatred for how Norah wept and ached in that home. His fury had often given the entire household headaches for days. The helplessness ate at him, but he’d given Norah so much more than he knew.

He taught her to love the adrenaline of rooftops and the relief of punching pillows in her room. He’d taught her to flip off her screaming parents behind shut doors and how to feel in control and strong. He inspired her to go the field the day she found the old cat. He’d taught her to find peace in little things like fidgeting with coins and caring for Vincent, to draw, doodle, and paint when there were simply no words for the chaos.

But she was still so hurting and small, so vulnerable and innocent. His anger atrophied and corroded at his insides until he was the creature before them, weeping blood and weary.

“I clearly wasn’t doing her any feckin’ good,” Cecil cackled with pathetic laughter into his hands. His brutish rage was exchanged for despondence. “She lived tonight ‘cause of you. You be her Fig,” he stated, stumbling back from the old man. “I can’t hear them anymore,” he whispered, clutching his skull. “Can’t help none their screamin’ Dexy.”

With a moan, he shuffled towards Solus blindly.

“No. I can’t let you do this,” muttered Dex, shaking his head. “I can’t care for her like you did C…My own Corporeal….”

But he knew it was a lie. His own Purpose had fallen dormant. He could feel it in his bones. Robin wouldn’t leave her bed again once the disease caught up with her. He could smell it in the tar-ridden exhalation of her lungs. He could hear it in her wheezes. One day, those gasps would tremble in his own chest and take him back to the stars. But he had to know. He had to know how the Kestrel’s story ended. After generations, he needed to know, and this was his chance to stay.

“She still needs you, C,” Dex still begged, “it’s not too-”

But without warning, Solus spun on their blades impatiently and gripped Cecil’s head by his bleeding temples. Fingernails raking, Solus bent and kissed Cecil deeply on his busted lips, long and hard. They drank tides of Cecil’s thoughts like a euphoric drug into their bobbing throat.

Cecil’s hands fell, and his bloody eyeballs flickered back into his skull, where the past was now stripped from him entirely.

Solus tore away with a moan and swallowed the memories down their gullet like thick wine, lips tipping to the sky for breath.

Cecil collapsed to the ground lifelessly.

“Don’t worry, Dexy, I left some of you in there,” gasped Solus, eyeing the younger, dark-haired Figment. “That little scuffle there. Let him think you tried to kill him for pursuing his freedom.” Solus grinned, eyeing the old man like meat. “Or, I could offer you the chance to join him if you’d like?” They winked, eyes dazzling and hopeful.

“I could also tear your insides out through that mechanical fucking cage,” snarled Dex, eyes cutting to the tarnished brass pressed into their skin.

The smile fell from the ancient Fig. “Your Corpse is out of hope, Dexy. You can smell it as well as I can.”

Yes, Robin would deteriorate. It’d already begun. Her mental health would wither. The energy she once invested in otherworldly hopes would die. And then…

“You’ll die,” said Solus, straightening their bloody lapels. “It’ll take a while. You’re a concept. An idea. But you’re only her’s.”

Dexteras didn’t care, of course. He knew what being a Figment entailed. He loved each moment with every Starling woman he’d been honored to share existence with. Rose and Robin. And, of course, that was why he too, loved Norah and Cecil. He was theirs, and they were his.

But returning to the stars wasn’t death, as Solus coined it. It was simply a new chapter. Something else. And that terrified Corporeal and Figment alike.

Cecil moaned, and his crusty eyelids strained on dried blood. His fingers clutched to the earth but couldn’t lift him from his stupor just yet.

Dex swallowed and blinked away his tears. Cecil was the bravest Figment he’d ever met, but he was so tired. Dex hadn’t any idea just how weary the young Fig had been and felt horrible for not noticing how much he’d been hurting. How much must one ache to choose nothingness above everything?

“Give me your pain, Dexteras,” muttered Solus, walking nearer now with soft eyes. “Is it so asinine to turn from our most vivid horrors so that we may know peace?” The beautiful form approached gently on golden limbs, a hand outstretched in empathy.

“They’re the reason we exist. We owe them loyalty,” Dex objected.

“Dexteras,” they said, eyes closing in disappointment. “Humor me a moment.” The tips of their gold blades tossed bits of gravel toward Dex with their creeping. “We didn’t ask to be created.” They gestured to the skies as though it were the cosmos’ fault. “To endure all this pain.” Solus bent their head like a doting parent. “Just like little Lenore didn’t. Do you truly believe she owes her parents her life and death simply because they created her?”

Dex’s shoulders fell.

He knew how Robin’s untreated trauma would simmer to the surface and feed on others as it had for decades. She hadn’t done the work to heal, so took it from others to survive. Just as Solus was plastering themselves with the power of others Figments to avoid their own process.

Rose had taught Robin that if she wanted to survive, she had to steal, hoard, and take everything without mercy. Grace and compassion would only weaken their hides. It was in that dark hunger where Dexteras had been sewn together. Consume or be consumed: a game all Figments and Corpses knew equally well.

What he represented was always left unnamed and lingering in the shadows, so there was never healing. There was never peace.

So consequently, Robin couldn’t find peace in the orange plastic bottles of pills with their peeled-off labels. Peace had nothing to do with high-percentage alcohol or the hefty bequeathal her grandfather gave her when he passed. It wasn’t in any of the rooms of the charming sable farmhouse outside of town. It certainly had nothing to do with the handsome financial analyst who’d left his number and name, Leo, stuck to a welcome folder from her local bank after she’d inquired about an account.

Peace was always an inside job. One that Robin had never been taught.

She’d been hungry her entire life for love, and validation. Just as her mother Rose always had been. He was concocted from that thirst, that unfilled cup where fatherly fervor should’ve been stored and flowing like fine wine.

But now, Robin had no parents, no guardians, despite all her running, and no partner to love.

She only had Norah.

And it would be from that child’s meagre cup, still brimming with fresh hope, where Robin would attempt to drink her worth.

It wouldn’t be fair.

It wouldn’t be loving.

And it surely wouldn’t be pleasant to watch.

But it wasn’t a Figment’s job to find pleasantries in life; it was their job to remain and offer hope. Mental and emotional consistency. He could bear that. He could carry that when Cecil could not.

But Norah was a human child: bleeding, weeping, temporary. How much more could she take?

She didn’t ask to be created either.

She didn’t owe Leo and Robin anything simply because they brought her into existence.

She hadn’t been given the time to dream.

She was just set up for the same dismal road as Robin and Rose. Take what you must to survive.

She hadn’t-

SHING.

Dex’s ruminations were interrupted by a slash of searing pain behind his knees. A sensation that turned his legs to fire and their blood to ice water. His screaming calf muscles shook and buckled before dropping him to the concrete. His arms clutched the rooftop’s ledge and twisted to see the mess that was his limbs.

Shining slick blood flooded the bend in his knees. They’d been cut in one slice across the hamstrings, severing the muscles deep, nearly lopping them off. His feet were already numb, and his legs were soon behind.

Solus crouched beside him on the slender gold blades, one of which was rimmed in his blood. They wound their fingers into Dex’s hair and gripped it like the reins of a runaway horse. They pressed their icy, dead thumbs into Dex’s temples and squeezed until a headache pounded behind his eyelids.

“Psychogenic amnesia is usually what it’s called, Dexy. Sometimes trauma induced shock. Localized memory loss, what have you,” they sighed, eyeing the old man in his hands. “That’s what the Corpses will say happened to you when they find your empty body. Dead. Hollow. Thoughtless,” they said, almost in mourning. “In Oblitus, I call it The Unbecoming. Catchy, isn’t it?”

Dexteras could only swallow with strain and stare upon the devil that held him.

“It has to be this way, Dexy. I know you’ll pursue me, I know you’ll fight for him.” Their eyes flicked with apathy toward Cecil. “And I can’t have you threatening Oblitus or my Fallen there. But please know, as long as he’s loyal, he will be taken care of.” Solus vowed.

“But you could’ve been so extravagant beside me,” they sighed, disappointed as they read the fallen Figment’s prostrate body. “I’ve seen you fight for them. You’ve walked amongst generations of skin-sacks without relent.” Long, cold fingers wiped Dex’s forehead and petted his hair. “But now, they’ll find you up here and believe you to be some braindead bastard.”

Solus pulled Dex’s skull upwards towards their ruby lips, kissing him deeply, intimately, hungrily on the mouth.

The world grew pale and dark as though Corvid were being desaturated of its ink. Deep, long gulps gurgled from the beast who clutched him, dizzying the old man as though he were being emptied of blood.

Dex attempted to kick and crawl and thrash, but everything below his waist was numb now. His fingers struggled to rise to the beast’s throat, swallowing him hungrily.

Dex tried to scream but couldn’t. It’d seemed his lungs had forgotten how.

He was going to be sucked dry of who he was.

No. No.

I need to save Norah.

I need to be here for her.

I need to keep her safe…

Serva me, servabo te.

His fingers reached for the ledge and yanked, dragging his chest onward until he gasped and moaned.

Solus was so transfixed by the consummation, they’d barely noticed Dex’s dragging limbs, inching towards the ledge. They drank like a bloodthirsty animal, succumbing to thirst, holding the old man like dead meat in his teeth.

Skull gripped upright by Solus, Dex pulled himself sideways towards the shallow ledge, arms trembling and heaving with his weight. He hugged the cool stone ledge with his broken body, forgetting why he was doing so as he did.

His hair whipped in the wind about them both. His head felt peaceful, empty.

A strange, beautiful creature clung to him and pulled from his throat like a straw. It was nauseating but not so bad. Not as bad as the descent before him.

Why would he escape the numbing warmth in his skull?

Because it was her. Her. Her.

Her.

Robin?

Le-Len…Norah.

He saw her face. Small, dark. Weeping. A child.

But with another gulp of the creature’s throat, he’d lost her name.

Her face dissipated from his fingers like sugar granules in water.

Then her shape.

Her silhouette.

He needed to hold to what he could. He needed to hang onto whoever she was.

She was so important. She needed him.

Right?

He reached over the edge.

He leaned…leaned…leaned

…and he was falling.

Falling, flying, tumbling, rolling, spinning. Air screaming in his ears.

Hang onto her. Hang on…

I’ll find you.

Who?