I Once Saw the Past [Trebias]

[seraaches]

The world was a haze of blood and fire; there was nothing here but pain in agony and despair. A giant, trembling hole screamed a name that he could not hear, he could not understand; there were tears he could not cry. He should be screaming. Should be. Should... not. No, could not. No movements, though the world was trembling like the edge of a giant's footstep. Once there was a golden-hooved boy with a voice like thunder... There was a story in low, laughing tones, but the story was gone, just like the ending. The page had been ripped from the book.

Half-swallowed by a swampy pond, the striped, green body trembled beneath a caking of grime and blood. His eyes were rolled back in his head, coming forward to stare sightlessly before another fever rocked his mind into delirium. His whole frame would shudder and twist, going tense through racking pain before easing again in a fake sleep that gave him no rest. Slowly, his body was slipping into the swamp and it was just a matter of time before he was swallowed whole.

[Trebias]

The canine made his way slowly through the marsh on his search for herbs. He moved with both caution and silence, because this stretch of the Marsh had several minor hazards working together to form a larger danger. He was near enough the border that, although quite obviously firmly in the territory of Josiggy Marsh, someone from the Lowlands or the Range could claim convincingly enough to be lost. That would allow them time to begin setting up any number of nefarious activities in a nice out of the way area where they could reasonably expect privacy.

The other reason was the quickmud here. It was far too easy to step into the mud and be vanished from the world forever. One wrong step if you didn't have a traveling buddy usually meant your death. Of course, El didn't have any buddies, so he had to make sure to be especially careful.

He saw a flash of green and yellow ahead, and thought he could hear a faint heartbeat. Was someone struggling through the mud? He made his way to the small form as quickly as he was able given the muddy surroundings. Acting as fast as he could, he reached his mouth down and pulled what turned out to be a tiny, hairless horse up by the scruff of its neck. It smelled of blood and fear, and he wondered what the little guy was doing so far out here all alone.

None of his concern, he thought, turning to walk away. Maybe from now on the horse would learn to keep clear of whatever it was left him mess up like that. Elias had herbs to gather, and they wouldn't find themselves, so he continued along his path.

A short walk later, or maybe a long, painful crawl (the words came unbidden to El, who quickly told them to shut the &U*& up), Elias came on the remains of a camp. Some lowland scum, most likely. It was messy and had that stink of rotting flesh still. El poked through the camp, looking for anything valuable. What he found instead repulsed him.

Several bones, many cracked open with the marrow sucked out, were in a pile. They were small, and El again though involuntarily how they matched the size of the colt he'd left back on the path. Where there wasn't flesh enough underneath the skin, the part had just been torn or cut away and thrown aside. The remaining fur was familiar too.

El stood back. He'd never seen such evidence of cannibalism before. Frankly, he wasn't too pleased with the prospect.

Now he had guilt.

&*$#.

Well, he supposed he should go to find the &#^$ healer. He picked his way back to the horse, took him back to his shack, and did what he could to make the lad comfortable while he went to get more skilled hands to take care of him.

[seraaches]

He had the vague impression of movement and people and he knew there were flashes of horrendous pain ripping through him and across him. Low voices murmured in fretful tones with a more strident one running through with a harsh confidence in itself. Oddly, this drew him more than the low, calm one. That voice encouraged him to float away, but the louder one called to him, told him to get up, to move, to fight for revenge. He had to make his way past the lethargy, he had to just... wake U-AAHHHHH!!!

When he made it past the low level of drugs in his system, the colt woke screaming in pain as tears streamed down his face despite himself. He heard nothing, saw nothing, understood nothing; he didn't even feel the prick into his hide as another injection swiftly flooded his system and caused him to slip back beneath the cool blanket of unconsciousness.

[Trebias]

"What did you do to him? Is that stuff even good for him?" Elias demanded of the doctor. It knocked the colt out fast enough.

"It's a sedative and painkiller. He's not going to be happy when he wakes up, ELIAS - "

"I said I didn't do it!"

" - and he'll be happy that we've kept him under while the worst of his wounds mend, probably a week. He just won't know how thankful he is for a while."

"Fancy that," El responded. "What do I owe you?"

"I don't charge to help younglings, you know that. If you're determined to give me some sort of payment, however, I won't object to some healing herbs if you happen to think of me next time you're deep in the wild."

El grunted and nodded, but didn't say anything. The doctor was officially dismissed.


~~~~~~~~


El was setting about getting some lunch made when he thought he heard some stirring from the colt. He poked his head in to see if the Heart was awake yet.

[seraaches]

The colt was sitting up in the bed, ears flinching as haunted eyes skimmed the room. They came to rest on the canine and it was evident that the boy was still hurting terribly. Still, he met the other Marshdweller's gaze steadily and there was some relief when he discovered his host (or captor, he had no idea which) was a fellow local.

"Who are you?" the high voice gave further evidence to his young age, but the ravaged pain and despair hinted that his incident had aged him terribly. "Where is my br--" he cut himself off abruptly and turned his head swiftly away, illiciting a pained sound. It was unclear whether this was from some physical injury or from the gaping emotional wound that now warped his soul. The lad had suddenly recalled something and he seemed beyond displeased to have remembered.

[Trebias]

"Good to see you're awake. Means you probably won't croak on me yet," Elias greeted him. "I'm Elias. I pulled your jiffies off the fire back there. I suppose the doctor helped some." He wouldn't offer information about the lad's brother unless pressed. That would be a whole new kind of injury, and Elias wouldn't just cut the kid with that.

Now that he actually had to talk to the kid, Elias was much more uncomfortable. He had the bare minimum of people coming by, and that was generally the way he liked it. "What you need to do is keep taking it easy, stay lying back and let old Elias bring you some food, if you think you can eat. No point getting up and undoing all the doctor's hard work after we spent so much time bringing you back, right? I have a feeling he'd be a little irritable with us both if I let you get sick all over again now."

[seraaches]

For a long moment it looked as though the boy wouldn't even answer, but he finally gave a quick little nod of his head. As long as Elias didn't look to closely, the small horse would just seem tired. Tears, however, fell in slow dripping pattern, turning the bedcovers a darker shade of blue before the salty liquid tried to absorb into the cloth. Too many fell for it to simply vanish from sight, however, and a small pool of darkness temporarily stained the blanket.

For his own part, the colt wasn't entirely certain wot had happened; his dreams were nightmares filled with screams of pain and terrible howls promising further torture. Something really bad had happened... it had happened to Shin and the boy didn't know wot it was exactly. Or if he even really wanted to know. That's wot stopped him from asking about his brother.

[Trebias]

Elias grunted again and turned to finish working on lunch. He didn't mind eating his meat as it was killed, but he figured that the equine wouldn't think as much of raw meat. Elias hoped the colt appreciated how difficult gathering vegetables and preparing them could be without paws. He should really look into that bipedal form at some point. In his less stubborn moments he allowed himself to admit that the form would have its benefits, not the least of which was manual dexterity. At the same time, he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself, hence his hideaway here in the Marshes.

He turned back before long, though. "Doctor left some more medicine to take the edge off. Do you want some of that?" The doctor had been kind enough to leave it prepared, and was further kind enough not to mention that El wouldn't be able to prepare the medicine. Elias couldn't tell if the doctor was just being polite or if it was some sort of insult. Elias didn't care, he wouldn't see anybody he didn't have to, so letting the little things go became easier.

[seraaches]

The colt was faster to nod at that question; the pain was terrible, though it was nothing compared his emotional anguish. One part of his mind realized that he needed to get a handle on his body. There was only one thing he could possibly do to make everything better and that would be to go through and hunt down the *#$@#%s that did this. He had to get better and he had to do so quickly. He instinctively knew that the trail was getting colder for his attackers. He had to figure out wot had happened so he could hunt them down.

The silence was rather unnerving and after a moment, the boy had to break it. Anything to keep him from being able to think, even if it was just for a little while. "Do you live alone... Elias?" It took him a moment to remember the man's name.

[Trebias]

"I do live alone. I like the quiet," El said. "Get too many people around and I get a little testy. I think we'll be alright, the two of us, for a while." He didn't smile, but he didn't sound unkind either. He brought the food the the colt's bed, along with a dose of the medicines. "Take those meds, and rub these on your wounds," he added, bringing a ground up herb. Man, that pestle and mortar was a pain to use with his mouth. He'd let the colt know and appreciate that later.

"Once you get feeling a little better, I've got some stuff that will make you a little stronger. I bet you're wanting something like that right about now. You just rest and take it easy, and we'll get everything sorted out. Those meds should knock you out for a while again, so you can try to sleep." He was rambling a little, not used to company and betting that the youngling wasn't used to the quiet. Bah, he'd get there, El thought, and returned to his business.