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He stopped shouting.
Took a deep breath.
(Oh gods, he was breathing.)
And knew immediately that he would not be returning to Subcon anytime soon.
(Gods, that’s a heartbeat.)
Being on the kid’s ship and away from his forest was always strange. It felt something like a boat being untied from the dock too early—like he’s drifting lonely far out to sea, and he’s probably gonna die soon, but hey, at least he’s free from worldly concerns or whatever.
Subcon feels muted, and he doesn’t like it, not one bit, except he can’t say he dislikes it either. But—eventually the forest always calls him back. It’s far, far too much a part of him. The forest raised him and he is the forest, he can’t abandon its children to her and her awful, awful cold.
He can’t go back like this.
He knows that if he returns like this, the forest will scream.
This face and hands and heart and soul is something long-gone and yearned-for and the minions will be horrified and the forest is going to scream until it kills him again.
(...He hopes they’re all going to be alright.)
—————
There’s muscle memory in his fingers and his brain now, and he can’t seem to turn it off.
He caught himself humming the other day. His fingers (calloused on the tips again) were tracing out chords in the air and he swears he can’t remember the song, but his hands know it. His voice knows it.
Her screaming drowned out all the music in his head long ago. Only the crumbling ruins held all the old songs, the sheets of scribbled notes and chords and progressions.
(He loved A minor with a passion, but had a fondness for D major. He wrote in too many fermatas, and he always had to go back and fix the measures so there was some semblance of rhythm.)
(He doesn’t know this anymore, except he does.)
The kids are looking at him weird from the other side of the room. He wants to tell them to go away. He doesn’t. The songs are too loud in his head.
—————
The mirror glares at him. The reflection doesn’t look like it should. He can’t figure out how to fix it.
—————
His hands still shake.
He doesn’t notice until the kiddo points it out, an eyebrow raised.
He could’ve sworn he kicked that nervous tic a long time ago, but well. If other crap was coming back to haunt him, so could this.
He doesn’t tell her why they’re still trembling. (He’s not sure he can.)
He watches his hands for a long time. He can’t get them to stop. (He never could.)
Kiddo says, mine do that sometimes too. It’s weird, isn’t it?
He wants to tell her to go away, but he doesn’t.
—————
Ironically, his cracked and broken reflection looks more like him than it ever did before.
—————
He’s—
Oh that’s a blanket, that’s what that is—
Oh gods, he’s warm.
That’s not something that happens.
(There’s ice creeping up his veins and crystallizing on his skin and his breath rattles in his lungs and he’s burning—)
He can’t move for a bit.
Bow looks as happy as can be and the kiddo is giggling but he can hardly register it, much less tell them to go away.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. He never wants to be cold again.
—————
His knuckles bleed red, and that’s not right. She froze his blood to ice long ago.
—————
He’s alone, for now.
There’s a plant in the girls’ room. It’s a sad little thing. It feels like a hyacinth, but it long ago lost its violet luster.
Purely out of habit, he traces a finger across it. He still does that, down in his forest. Places his hands on the cracked and hardened trees, trails across the crumbling grass. Like something’s going to happen.
(The forest says I’m sorry. It won’t ever stop apologizing for that.)
The limp little flower brightens.
Oh. Oh.
Oh—
He’s not quite successful in keeping his voice from trembling as he calls HEY KID! GOT ANY MORE DEAD PLANTS?
This... this was something that had been missing from him, torn and clawed from him. He was brilliance burning and shadow encompassing and brambles intertwining but he wasn’t life anymore, he wasn’t breath, wasn’t music. The only pieces remaining to him were so many words scribbled on paper, cracked and broken spines of decaying books and dripping ink.
He was something like the Prince, once. But he’d desperately pried the Prince out of him bit by bit, music note after wildflower after constellation, until he was left withered and cruel and burning so he and the once-children could maybe feel something warm.
(Wildflowers used to grow where he stepped. Vanessa and the royal gardeners would complain about it endlessly, but he always thought they were lovely.)
—————
The kiddo finds him there, reflection shattered.
He wonders why he’s not cold. His heartbeat is too loud in his ears, his breath too shallow. He should be cold. He hates it hates it hates the cold but there should only be ice in his veins now, winter forced down his throat.
She reaches for him and he can’t tell her to go away. He doesn’t have a voice, because he’s yelled himself hoarse these past few days and his vocal chords should be bloodied from screaming her name, anyway.
He blinks, and he’s sitting in a pile of colorful pillows.
He blinks, and there’s a blanket around his shoulders and something warm in his hands.
He blinks, and there are two weights against his sides.
Huh. His hands aren’t shaking.
I brought you this, kiddo says, uncharacteristically shy. She holds out a small potted plant. It’s a dandelion, bent over like it’s weeping.
He looks at the children beside him, briefly superimposed with cheerful little things in masks and cloaks.
Wanna see something cool? His grin is small, but familiar. The girls nod excitedly, and that’s familiar too.
He gently brushes the little dandelion with his fingertips. It brightens, brilliant and happy like the day it’d been planted.
Kiddo grins, and Bow grabs his arm and says do it again!
(He doesn’t even think of telling them to go away.)