The Briar Patch (BP): Ch. 9 - Shenanigans

Zeal was not pleased to find himself covered in Shols.

Eyeing the small lumps curled on top of him, he made to sit up, and was met with a muffled, discontented grumble.

Sighing he lay back down.

There wasn't much he could accomplish with his injuries anyhow.

An idle hand reached up to comb through the soft leaves as he normally would when he'd awoken before Vye--and was promptly bitten.

"Hey, no!" he retracted the limb sharply, inspecting the bite and finding himself dismayed at the pricks of red dotting the fresh and astonishingly deep wound. Were all Shols this bloody rabid?

Lockes bared their teeth and threw a last unrepentant hiss at the appendage before skittering off.

The remaining lump shifted and Vye poked up from under the bedding to greet him, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Does this look infected to you." Zeal raised his hand and the small Shol grasped it, turning it over in his.

"... maybe? What bit you... ?" He had an inkling, what with the commotion he woke up to, but he didn't want to say anything.

"A bloody Shol." 

Vye was doing his best not to laugh, but the quiver of his shoulders and his breaking mask were a dead giveaway. The unamused droop of Zeal's glare just adding to it.

Yet to Zeal's amusement, Lockes was the one that ruffled up indignantly, "He pet me! Do I look like a plushbear to you?"

"More like a porcupine." Zeal snorted.

Indeed, ruffled as Lockes was, they did appear quite the plush.

A downy pillow struck him in the face with a fwoomp.

Oh it was on.

Before the other could open their mouth, he tossed it back and knocked Hemlockes clear off of their hanging perch.

They fell gracelessly onto a tangle of vines with a displeased squawk.

Vye dodged pillows and bedding alike as he crawled behind the mossy nest the Shols had occupied last night before being abducted by the sleeping Reaper. A plush of some bird crash landed beside him, bouncing a short distance.

Vye gave it a solemn salute, ever will it be remembered in its last, and devastatingly short flight, promising that its sacrifice would not be in vain before darting elsewhere as his hideaway was bombarded by more stray projectiles.

Oh but--he glanced back at the plush. There was still hope, leave none behind! And so he rushed and scooped the plush up, running with it across the treacherous terrain, dodging around the two sides.

He couldn't see from where he was, but he was pretty sure Zeal was losing this match. Not that he didn't have any faith in his companion, but this was Shol territory. 

Vye grinned and snagged a pillow, lobbing it with all his might at the mess of wintry blue hair.

What betrayal. Zeal frowned at him, "Traitor."

But Vye just snickered, holding up another pillow threateningly.

A few bumps and bruises later, the tousle stopped when, in a surprising turn of events, Zeal--who had been slowly hoarding all the pillows he could--scooped them all up and dropped them on the two Shols, flopping on top and squishing them under the poofy pile, effectively trapping them.

The fire burned bright and cheery. Unlike the discontent Shol across from him. 

Vye narrowed his eyes over his bowl, huffing at the mercenary, "You cheated."

"Two against one is already cheating." Zeal retorted, nursing his bowl and looking smug as a cat with a mouse under their paw. 

Nevertheless, he avoided the accusatory slits of his companion's gaze.

What Vye didn't know was that Zeal had uncharacteristically gotten too wrapped up in the game, and was making recompense with a sharp smarting of his agitated wounds.

He grabbed Vye instead, trapping the struggling Shol against his chest and ruffling his foliage. 

The young Shol seemed fond of the affection and went limp with a content sigh as he combed his fingers through plumes.

It felt nice, a warm and firm hand straightening out his leaves.

"Zeal?" Vye hummed, "Can you do this for Lockes too?"

"No. I don't want rabies." 

Vye huffed and batted at Zeal's knee. The only part he could reach from where he was hugged to his companion's chest.

"Why don't you do it?"

His charge averted his gaze, "I can't. My hands aren't as big or warm as your's. It wouldn't feel the same."

"It's probably been a long Time for them--and... I think they'd enjoy it. You just took them by surprise last Time."

Somehow Zeal doubted that the dark Shol would be pleased to have the affections of a Reaper, but he kept it to himself.

So when Lockes returned that evening, Zeal gestured for the severed Shol, beckoning them over.

They did and sat, offering Zeal a bowl of some odd mix of wild porridge.

He accepted it and wondered then how to proceed.

Vye was much more tolerant of him than Lockes.

And Hemlocke hadn't taken well to the direct approach.

The Shol was waiting.

It's probably been a long Time since they'd felt a caress like that.

Shols being highly social oriented creatures, the full weight that the matter carried was not lost to him.

Slowly he pat his leg, and earned himself a quirked brow, "What manner of game is this, Reaper?"

"Zeal. And it's a game of trust." He tried to smile, but it felt like an awkward and lopsided pull at his mouth, "We're going to build our trust."

"Is it now?" That got their attention, "By sitting on your lap?"

"Indeed. After all we're trusting each other aren't we? Let it be mutual then." Zeal pointedly repeated Lockes's own words back to them.

And it was clear the dark Shol hadn't missed it. They struggled to come up with a retort, before they sighed and stood. Reluctant, but ultimately relenting and in a brisk stride, walked over and sank into his lap.

They stared at him expectantly, arms crossed.

Now what. Was the expression sent his way. 

Slowly a hand came to rest on the bristles of pine and Lockes stiffened.

But the hand was gentle as it combed through the needles, careful not to go against the grain.

And to the mercenary's relief, he did not find himself at the receiving end of a set of sharp teeth.

"Eat the porridge before it cools, Reaper." Lockes spoke so softly, it nigh escaped him. "Don't waste a hot meal."

"Just a little longer." He tugged at the small tangles, carefully working through the plumes and smoothing them out.

"Vye put you up to this didn't he?"

Zeal wanted to object, but Lockes spoke before he could.

"You wouldn't have on your own initiative, Reaper, don't lie. I bit you once and you'd be fool not to heed the warning." Lockes chuckled, "My brethren were not felled by an adversary so foolish, though it is commendable that whatever you promised to Vye, you would see through."

Zeal had no answer to that. And so he combed his fingers through the needles with one hand, the other taking up the bowl to partake of its contents.

"... How long has it been?"

"For what?"

It had been but a spoken musing of his own, and he realized with some delay, that it was perhaps a step back.

"Since... you met another of your kin." 

For doubtlessly, it posed nothing but painful memories, and despite having been the one to ask, Zeal wasn't certain he wanted to know the answer.

All pretense of casual conversation dropped the moment the question left the Reaper's lips, and the answer came slow and reluctant.

"... Not since the harvest. I had thought them all perished."

"We were fortunate." small hands forced themselves to relax, to not curl in their lap, "Whitedew was the last place to be lost, largely due to the harsh climate and treacherous terrain. We were warned by our brethren in the Lowlands before--" Lockes cleared their throat, sight set firmly ahead and a strong voice that wavered none, "Pardon. Before all communion was lost. "

"Why didn't your circle flee?"

It was an honest question, and a just as honest curiosity. But one that was inappropriate for the Time and place.

This Time Lockes said nothing, and just when Zeal decided it was Time to drop it, they spoke.

"We knew nothing of what happened. Of what became of them."

The smile never left their lips. Weakness the Bluepine would not permit. Reapers relished most, in the pain and suffering of another. Such feigned kindness and concern Lockes would not buy into.

No matter how convincing, a mask was still but a mask, and Zeal was still a Reaper, inside and out. One who took a great deal of pleasure from the agony and torment wrought by another, and greater still by his own hand.

Reapers weren't simply powerful, ruthless, brutes to carry out the labor. They were cunning, and cruel besides. Behind every one of them was a clever mind. Odd then, how they mirrored the coveted power of deception that Shols so loved, but with none of their innocuous humor or good-natured mischief.

Ad Hominem, one mayhaps deem it. But say what they may, it changed little, and certainly not the past.

"As you must know by now, our Fairy Rings serve as more than just a breeding ground. We waited, in case..."

They trailed off. Zeal needn't hear the rest.

In case there were any survivors. They wanted to be there should any of their brethren survived. Desperate to hear any word. A hope for any who survived.

It was terrifying to be lost in the dark, without knowing even a shred of what became of the other Circles. 

They had risked their lives to stay. To be there should any try to reach for them.

Only a Shol could link the Fairy Rings after all.

"Of course." Lockes closed their eyes, "In the end, well." They gestured around the large hollow. Despite the cheerful fire burning, and Vye dozing on the moss bed and recovering  well, it seemed all the more lonely, "It is as you see it now. I'm the last of this Ring."

The sole survivor of a millenium old Ring.

"Reaper." What Lockes didn't reveal. "There are far worse fates than death."

Was that there had been survivors in the Lowlands.

But they dared not reach out for their Highland cousins, should the communion reveal their location or worse, provide a means of entering their lair.

And they suffered greatly for it. 

The burns, the amputations, the horrid "augmentations" they suffered through.

They were burned beyond recognition, gutted alive, and their eyes torn from their sockets. Hot coals were dropped into impaled wounds, every fibrous bone broken, crushed, mended, and shattered again. Movements for the stalwart few who still could, were agonizing, with the shards piercing into their soft bodies. Bodies carved and branded by hot irons. Collars were clamped around their throats so that they could not induce the mandragora's shriek.

It was gruesome and beyond belief.

The Highlands had waited with bated breath, but heard nothing. A day turned into a week. Then a moon. Then another.

Finally, the Fairy Ring had flared.

But what stepped through wasn't a Shol, but a monstrosity.

A hideous blind creature in chains and covered in a thick, putrid, and blackened slime. It screeched, a horrific, agonizing sound that chilled the Shols to the bone.The stench of death and decay that flooded the grotto the moment they appeared, strong enough to make all present gag and stumble for the opening

But what really drove the stake into the Bluepine's Heart, was the realization that it was one of their own.

Even changed as the poor Shol was, the children of the Verdance would always be able to tell one of their own.

Hemlockes had been tending to the Ring, and the first one to see them. They rushed to the disfigured Shol's side, grabbing them and helping them up, dry coughing as the putrid scent foul of decay hit them. 

Yet even the slightest touch sent them reeling back in pain, flinching and cowering at what should've been the familiar comfort of home and kin.

"No..." Worse still, Lockes realized with heavy Heart that they recognized them. A sob caught in the Bluepine's throat as their eyes met empty, congealed, and festering sockets that once held a brilliant azure for which they were known for.

Angrily they tried to pull the collar off, but Azure shrieked, and Lockes realized in horror that there were long sharp spikes that pierced deep into the Shol's neck, embedded on the interior of the collar, never to be removed.

This was too cruel. 

They held the horribly disfigured Shol to their chest, sobbing. But the mutilated Shol forced Lockes to pull away gurgling and screaming.

Through the tormented cries they realized it was a warning.

Lockes tentatively leaned forward, and they touched foreheads. In that single moment, they gleamed the terrible memories, and long suffering. 

But through all the pain, one thought screamed above all else, a desperate cry.

RUN.

They're coming. The Reapers... They come. 

It was a trick.

The circle flared. 

Forced open by a foul and foreign presence. One that the Bluepine knew immediately to be nothing of their's.

And it was the first Time they laid eyes upon them.

Figures draped in long cloaks.

There wasn't even Time to grieve.

They fled, those who had been tending to the Ring. By the Bluepine's order did they turn tail and flee, carrying the poor Shol sundered beyond the mending of even their natural potent regeneration on the conjured Vines as Lockes gave a long howl. A piercing cry that resonated with indignant rage, reverberating deep through the air, woods, earth, and stone alike.

The alarm had been sounded.

A responding howl pierced the calm of night.

The peace before the storm, and the last any of them would know of.

Lockes and the few still present turned to face the Reapers. Anything to buy Time for their kin--and to protect the seedlings that still lay within their earthen womb. 

But nothing would stop them.

And the Harvest Moon rose an eerie red in the light of dusk.

"-es. Lockes!" A hand nudged at his shoulder and the dark Shol looked up at the lethargic, benign eyes of the Reaper. The vague concern was mildly unsettling in their countenance.

Of Zeal.

Of the Reaper.

The Reaper didn't need to know.

Didn't need to know that what had broken the Lowland Shols was a simple trick. A lie told in mocking taunts and jeers that they had found their brethren in the Highlands.

Didn't need to know that it had been a seed of fear instilled not out of their own well-being, but that of their cousins, that had tricked Azure into reanimating the Circle to warn them of the coming of the Harvest Moon.

Didn't need to know the anguish the long mangled Shol felt when they realized that it was a trick. 

Didn't need to know what Lockes had witnessed, or how each Shol fought to defend their Circle. 

Didn't need to know how they had watched the Reapers burn the Fairy Ring down to the ground, their unborn seedlings shrieking in the Earth, already buried in the grave. In Earth where there should've arose life, not death.

Didn't need to know the agony as Lockes watched their brethren fall, unable to defend them. How they watched the excruciating pain by which each were torn apart, their leaves, their blood, staining deep into the snow and Earth.

Didn't need to know how they were "processed", nor hear the cruel laughter as the Reapers relished and wagered in how long each one of them would last, as if it were but a mere game of cards amongst drunkards, as they tore off their plumes, plucked the eyes from their sockets, impaled their limbs, sundered the appendages from their body, flayed their skin, and ripped the tongue from their mouths.

Didn't need to know the blinding rage as he turned upon the Reapers, how it felt to carve one's Heartseed from their chest to permanently sever oneself from the Verdance. Or the futility of their struggle, that even then was but in vain.

Didn't need to know how the remaining survivors were locked up in an "institution".

Didn't need to know the experiments Lockes suffered through, the scar they bore on their right shoulder, from where their arm was torn off and regenerated. Only for the growing branch to be ripped off again. The brews they were doused with that corroded their bodies to the fibers, made them ill, or erupt into painful sores and boils. 

Didn't need to know that Lockes watched their kin die. Slowly, one by one. In endless agony. Unable to even cry for their eyes had long since been plucked. Unable to scream for their vocals long since mangled, if not altogether rotted. Those who still had them wore collars.

Didn't need to know how they found remnants of the cells last occupants. Macabre scatterings of parts of their Lowland kin, the thick, putrid, black slime of their congealed and rotting blood and bits of fleshy gore covering nearly every surface of their confinement.

Didn't need to know the Reaper who extended a hand to them. Who feigned kindness. Just to deepen and better watch the hurt in their eyes, right before they were blinded forever. Not just plucked, but seared by embers still hot enough to have fire. Deep, deep into their heads, would it burn, never to be removed.

Didn't need to know that when the last of the Bluepine's kith and kin perished, Lockes committed the final of the forsaken pacts, consuming the flesh and blood of their fallen brethen. And escaped. Alone.

Didn't need to know the painful journey back, with the horrors of the past few months shadowing their every step, flitting in the peripheral, nor the screams that reached into even the deepest of slumber. Nothing but the sordid suffering of their memory to accompany them in perpetual torment of both the waking hours and those of purported rest.

Didn't need to know the literal emptiness inside their chest, the utter and desolate loneliness that pervaded them, unable to touch nor hear the Life essence of the aethor, cut off as they were from the Verdance.

Didn't know how they scoured the land, searching for any signs of another of their kind, listening desperately, pleading for any sign of the Heart's Song for survivors.

There were a lot of things the Reaper didn't need to know, and that wasn't the least of them.

The silence wasn't uncomfortable to Zeal, but the blank visage was one he had seen many Times before and did not bode well.

It was a countenance of those who had seen and suffered far too much. It was the look of one who withdrew deep into their shells, to lock away the horrors and cruelty of Life that they not be overwhelmed and swept away by the deluge of sorrow.

And it left him feeling uncertain. There wasn't much question as to the nature of Hemlocke's silent muse. 

Nor his place in it.

Somehow he had the inkling this would be a step forward, and two leagues back.

So when Lockes finally looked up at him, he froze.

The severed Shol stared long. Scrutinizing the one whose hand had been combing so gently through their plumes, they realized.

"... I'm sorry Zeal. But please do not touch me again." They stood up and patted themselves off, "Vye's request or not, it would be the best for both of us if you were to disregard them. Play the pretense of, and lie to him if you must."

It was too soon, the wounds too fresh.

Too much, too painful, too, too soon. 

Mayhaps in Time, but at the moment, Lockes couldn't bare to look at the Reaper, or the memories that surfaced with him.

It wasn't that they wanted to hurt, wanted to suffer from the vicious cycle of grudges, and hatred, and vengeance, but it was just too much and too soon.

Lockes strode past Vye on their way out, the Coty shooting him a concerned look and reaching out for them, but Lockes was in no mood to play to the seedling's fanciful notions of peace when they were at war. 

A war not of their choosing, but against a world that would just as soon harvest them for their parts as they would look at them. A world which would overlook and turn a blind eye to their heart wrenching agony and broken Circles, in favor of gluttony and greed.

And... the severed Shol couldn't help but loathe him for his naivety, to consort with a Reaper. That they didn't understand the horrors that Zeal was behind. That they were being fooled by his facade.

Such masks were a Reaper's specialty.

Petty, and it only angered them to be so deeply stained by hatred, but it was just too, too soon.

They felt not the shrieking gale, nor the sharp of the icy snowfall against their cheeks.

When at last they were alone, far from the prying eyes and feeble extension of the young Coty's reach, deep in the tunnels of the bluffs. Only then did they finally permit weakness. 

To drop to their knees before the ashes of the Fairy Ring, now but a faint ashen mark on the icy stone.

Yet even then the tears would not come. Too long had they harbored the pain within. Faced with no other choice but to trudge on. To live on, despite all others having gone where Lockes could no longer reach.

Too much had Lockes suffered alone, and too long would they continue to.

Far too long.