Chapter Text
"Have you found something?"
Oh, how the Wise wished he hadn't.
"Yes." his mouth feels horribly dry, despite the onslaught of rain outside this careful circle, "Look."
Look, he beckons, as if this was just another one of his spectacles- meant to entertain children. As if this was not someone's dripping life smeared on his fingers. Something awful whispered to him that it wasn't from the one they were chasing.
"Blood. And fresh, at that."
Beldaruit kneads the tacky substance between his thumb and pointer, grimacing as it cakes easily into each whorl and arch. There's something terribly odd about it... moreso even, than just its plain existence in a lifeless forest.
It could only be human, or human adjacent, the Wise knew. When it came down to it... not even insects chirped in a place such as this. It'd be foolish to neglect it, and assume it came from clumsy wildlife..
And yet-
"Blood!? Are you sure?" Vinanna demands of him, immediately drooping down for a closer look of her own.
"Indeed.."
And yet... it didn't move like blood. No, it seemed.. it almost seemed to cling to the pad's of Beldaruit's fingers, sticky and viscous with a.. sickly sweet smell, that's untampered by the petrichor around it.
For as little light as there is here, he can tell it's red- at least. Mainly red, upon further inspection, though it seemed ever so slightly translucent too- painted so plainly upon risen roots.
Could that truly just be from the rain-?
"It's hard to make out against this infernal blackness," Beldaruit continues, grounded by the slight jingles of Vinanna's finery, "But I am sure of it."
When he pulls his fingers apart, in the seconds of barebones reprieve granted by his fellow Wise pushing forward to bark orders, the substance stretches like sap.
...ugh..
Thankfully, there's little time to dwell on such a phenomena, as their path comes to a stop once more. Perhaps, even, for the final time this blasted night. The ink black carcass of a thick Silverwood looms before their menagerie.
This, formerly pure, being is stained too- a silvery red liquid streaked upon its roots like something scraping for freedom.
Or something clawing for sanctuary..
"Are we to find corpse or hideaway?" Beldaruit muses grimly, as he withdraws his spellbook of awaiting pages, "Stand clear.. I shall lift the earth..."
Even the promise of doing magic isn't enough to ease whatever quivering thing has taken root beneath his sternum... nothing, it seemed, was sacred to these foul beasts parading around as witchfolk. Nothing at all.
Beldaruit pens the spell with enough force to cut into the page beneath his quill's sharp point, barely able to care at the rough treatment.
Something, perhaps that same awful voice as before, tells him it's more than likely to pale in comparison to whatever it is that they're about to unearth. The ground obediently splits beneath his guidance, forcing inky black roots away away away from what they'd ensnared.
And-
-and therein lies a casket.
"Mercy on us all..." it slips out before the Wise can bite down on it, a punched out gasp lower than his station typically allowed.
Few, he thinks, would begrudge him this initial shock.
It's no ornate thing, or a creation particularly befitting of a Brim's theatrics... for all intents and purposes, it's just a box.
It's plain, and wooden- and the most eerie thing about it is the same.. sticky, translucent red that coats its lower half. And even that is being quickly washed away by the rain pooling on its surface..
"Nothing but a casket," a rather bored sounding Knight sighs, crouched down in the scant space at the side of the ditch.
Bored.. like he's disappointed to just find this, like he was hoping to find something to chase. If the straits weren't currently so dire, Beldaruit doubts he'd be able to refrain from tearing into him.
Later, he promises himself, when this has blown over.
Later, he must also remind himself, if this is not a trap.
What truly lies ahead of us, with blood such as this?
"It looks brand new.." that arrogant Knight's partner exhales, and he sounds far more appropriately troubled.
And indeed, the casket- for all its plain make- is still sharp on the edges and lacquered finely. There are no cracks from age, nor much initial give as the Knight grunts attempt to lift the lid free.
There's not even the stench of a rotting cadaver, despite apparently being buried long enough for a Silverwood to grow and die atop of it. That's not quite true though, is it? If Beldaruit could so easily unearth the thing, then there's no reason it could not have been replaced just as easily.
Eventually the lid does give to their finagling, and the Wise in Teachings stands as close as he dares with the uneven ground, but yet there is still no odor of death.
No, this is...
There's the faintest permeance of ink, easily discarded in this inky forest, and there is iron and petrichor from the rain... and that's to be expected, in these circumstances.
But-
Drowning it all...
The knights have paused in their lifting, shocked stiff by the.. admittedly, it wasn't an unpleasent smell, but it's not... expected either. It's sweet. Sickly sweet, like syrup that's been diluted with sugar water- or a fruit that's gone overripe.
It completely overwhelms the light notes of petrichor and iron and ink that precede it, pooling on their menagerie's tongues oppressively.
What manner of-!?
Beldaruit covers his mouth and nose with a quick slap of his hand, gesturing for the two knights to continue. The sooner they found out what was making that...
..that scent.. then...
Then, they..
...could..
. . .
The wooden panel clatters loudly back to the ground- pervasive in the sudden and suffocating near-quiet.
Barely heard over the ringing in a wise man's ears.
For what feels like an eternity, they following can only stare. Slack jawed and horrified, not quite at the situation at hand but at the... at the-
"What is that thing!?" the bored Knight from before all but screeches, as he rushes to leap out of the ditch- raising the sharp point of his pennant at the ready. Pointing at an unmoving body.
Tiny, Beldaruit thinks faintly, it's so small... that's what it is..
"A child, you fool!" his mouth roars, though it feels so so far, "Quickly! Check if he's alive-"
"I'm not touching that-"
That.
How foul... it's not some manner of beast, despite it's.. pecularities.
No, what awaits this procede is not a foe of any sort- nor is it a cadaver, he hopes, but instead... instead a small, so so small, boy. A boy with hair that might've been white, under his own sticky blood.
A boy with missing nails, and fingers scraped raw.
A boy with harsh, cruel indents around his wrists and ankles- and bruises pressed around his thin throat. There's probably a thousand more injuries Beldaruit cannot see, but they're far from what has triggered this so called 'Knight' to violence.
This boy- so impossibly small, so impossibly still- is tragic in a different way than his.. his torture. That's really the only way to describe this violence, this brutality, is it not? Not only has the child been beaten into a crisp pulp, and left to drown in his own sweetly scented blood, but he has also been carved upon.
There is no trace of ink upon his paper looking skin, greedily absorbed to bone no doubt, not from where the Wise sits, but the damage has already so clearly been done.
For moth wings- pale and pearlescent down the centers, and lined and dipped with an almost equally pale brown- extend from tears ripped through his threadbare attire. They don't twitch as rain falls upon them uninhibited.
Compared to the rest of the poor boy, though, the things seem.. relatively unharmed[?]... if a bit cramped by the walls of his casket and flooded by the slowly increasing rainwater.
Beldaruit inches just a smidge closer, unfortunately cowed by the restraints of his seal chair's balance- however elevated it may be.
That cowardly Knight- raising his pennant at what could very well be a dead child- seems to take it as permission to move though, and not the feeble attempt at getting the boy within his circle of dryness that it is.
The sharp triangle tip hesitates, dipping and shaking, before moving down to nudge against a gaunt cheek- like one might poke a sleeping brushbuddy with a stick.
"What do you think you're doing?" the Wise snaps, far pushed passed his wits end.
Vinanna yanks her apprentice back by his robes, her spotted face wrinkled with a stormy look that promises due scolding for his behaviours thus far. Good.. maybe he won't need to speak with her after all...
But there is still absolutely no response- not from her Knight, and not from the boy being gawked at.
Not at first, that is.
The dark haired Knight, the one that had noted the casket's age and make, had crouched down in his partner's absence- making to swaddle the poor child in his own crimson cloak. Dead or alive.. some
At least one of them had some sense..
As soon as his hand slips beneath an undoubtedly cold cheek, to raise it, a tiny tiny whimper is pulled from abused lungs. A sound so irrevocably human that it lodges like a thorn in his heart..
Beldaruit exhales what must be the weight of half of Zozah.
He's alive.
He's alive, and-
"Lord Beldaruit," the dark-haired Knight stutters, "Captain Vinanna, I don't- I'm not sure how... without hurting him further-"
His hand shakes at the middle of the poor thing's back, halfway through bundling him up, and the issue becomes immediately obvious. The wings... somehow, the Wise doubts it'd be very comfortable to just crunch them down flat...
Though, given how water-logged they looked.. 'crunch' probably wasn't the right word in this case. The things seemed far more likely to be mushed into some.. unidentifiable shape with the wrong handling..
They twitch, suddenly- abruptly- in the suffocating air, just enough to prove they are horrifyingly real, and just enough to startle the Knight attempting to remove him from his watery prison. Blessedly, unlike his partner, this one doesn't jolt away- but the movement does cause the hand that's supporting a cheek bereft of baby fat to twitch.
And it causes the child to whimper again.
This time, it is decidedly a bit less human sounding- loosed with a faint squeaky chirp wrought from abused lungs and extremities.
This time, it's from a lot more than just touch.
The Knight is pale as he carefully extracts his hand- paler even, than the boy he shifts to support on his lap instead of the rough wood.
And it's coated in blood.
Sweetly scented, sticky, just barely translucent red blood.. that seeps into the dark pants of his uniform. An open wound on the still hidden side of his face. Or one that only just crusted over..
"Quickly- give him here," Beldaruit demands, thrusting out his arms, "Now."
The knight hardly stalls.
He gathers the skinny and drenched child with care, tucking his arms awkwardly under his knobby knees and just under the extend of mushy wings. His cloak is thrown over the crook of his arm, laid over the Third Wise's lap before the child is.
At first- he wants to be disgruntled at the implications, wants to snarl at the mere suggestion that this poor thing was something dirty his skirts needed protection from.
He's not that fragile.
But- no. The cloak was laid down to catch the water still dripping off the boy's trembling frame, and to be carefully wrapped around his far too skiny legs, as the knight carefully lets him droop against Beldaruit's chest.
Goodness, he barely weighs a thing...
With gentle fingers, such such gentle fingers, the Wise in Teachings reaches up to brush the boy's pale-sticky bangs away from the covered side of his face. There are two particularly long pieces that hung down from his hairline to his poor bruised neck...
Pieces that twitch has soon as knobbed fingers make contact.
...ah.. well- that's on him.
He shouldn't have expected the moth modifications to simply end at an ornate pair of wings.
Those long pieces of hair were antennae, and thin as pieces of straw. Not only that, but they were knotted about a quarter from the bottom. Manually knotted.. a bead of fire burns hot under his collar, at the realization.
This wasn't like a knot that occured in hair, or a knot rope could tie itself into by some curve of nature, this was done...
..on purpose.
Beldaruit grits his teeth, oh so very carefully adjusting his seal chair to prop only its upper legs on an outcrop of his own making. That should prevent this poor boy from sliding off while he-
Stars, they're tangled so tight-
Did the Brim Hats' cruelty truly know no such bounds? To not only carve upon a child but inflict such violence onto the appendages they forced upon him, it.. it was... it was.. just...
The Wise doesn't have a word for it. Not one that feels apt enough.
He feels the tight bundle of.. these have to be exposed nerves of some sort, right[?].. what are antennae otherwise? Er.. regardless, he feels the knot of them finally give, and loosen beneath his insistent picking... unspooling into two, pearlescent arches.
They're crinkled, slightly, and a dark brown at the tips- natural or dyed from his own sticky blood, Beldaruit cannot tell- but there doesn't seem to be any major damage otherwise..
Well.
Not to these, at the very least.
Upon closer inspection, upon awful realization, and hidden beneath those sticky sweet stained bangs... lies what must be the worst injury of them all.
For this boy, carved upon and left to drown, is missing his entire right eye.
"Stars above.." the Wise breathes out raggedly, before flinching as those once tangled nerves perk up with the motion.
"...mm... mmgh.." the boy whines quietly, subconsciously nuzzling into the soft finery of Beldaruit's robes as he comes to, "...what..?"
Alive. Aware..
The relief is so crushing.. he thinks he can hardly be blamed for drawing the half-drowned thing into his chest- crushing him into his arms and tucking him under his chin to feel the feeble heartbeat beneath his willow brittle bones. Alive, alive, alive...
Mushy, soaked wings flare with tired surprise- then fall limp again, too wrung out to raise much a fuss.
"Are you alright, boy? Can you speak?"
Or did the Brims take that too? Would they?
"What is your name?"
Perhaps it is... well, unwise of him, so to speak, to bombard the poor creature with so many questions- especially so soon, but..
"mn.. hmpjh-"
Ah-
"Apologies," the Wise hastily shifts the child to the crook of his arm and carefully keeps those twitchy antennae from tangling in his baubles, "How silly of me.. you can't very well speak buried in my chest, now can you?"
He tries to keep his tone light, friendly, because it wouldn't do to scare the boy any further. No, no, magical... mishap that he was.. he was still practically just a baby...
And he was very, very hurt.
Beldaruit keeps one hand on the bony protrude of a too prominent spine and the other on cloth covered knees- even as he lets the boy shift sideways and especially as the Wise starts on his way out of this blasted forest. The Knights would undoubtedly recognize the need for urgency.
Alas-
Bones... this moth child had bones.. so he was not... completely lost to a bug then.
Good.
That was.. that was... good.
The boy, at long last, finally gathers enough strength to peer his singular eye open and oh.
What a pretty shade of blue it happened to be.
Watery, a tad silvery, maybe... but crystalline, despite lacking in much lucidity. It took up a larger than normal portion of his sclera, as his pupil did that pretty crystalline color of his iris, but that seemed.. more design, than injury induced.
His pupil was pooled oddly towards the bottom, though he seemed to have no such trouble in finding Beldaruit's face.
So:
"Hello," he smiles, sans his teeth.
The boy blinks. And a few beats of near-silence pass, punctuated only by the slowing sounds of rain and this abused thing's wheezy.. chirpy inhales and the falls of his seal chair's hooves. And-
"...h'llo.." he mimics.
And he is so utterly, undeniably human, despite everything screaming that he is not.
+=+=+
Clearly only Beldaruit felt that way.
"Have you gone mad, Third Wise?" some Order dignitary he really should remember the name of screeches, as he bangs his fist against the meeting table.
Ironically, acting more childlike than the child he was attempting to condemn.
"I should hope not," he intones, with a tone reserved only for the most impudent of audiences, "Otherwise you might seek to wipe my mind alongside this boy's."
"That is not a boy-"
Oh, gag him.
"No?" Beldaruit thunders, "Not a boy, you say? Then what, truly, would you call him? Does he not breathe the same? Talk the same?"
..that last one might not be the best example, the Wise will concede... he's only said a handful of words thus far. But he's spoken, he's communicated. He spoke of a witch, if not much else. He spoke of how his name, his life before drowning in his own sweetly scented blood and rainwater had been taken.
Maybe it is Beldaruit's growing age that has made him sentimental, and soft, and maybe this decision will make his life significantly harder but... the alternative-
The dignitary has no alternative response at the ready, and so Beldaruit continues.
"Go on, tell me. Tell me, what is he, that you are so ready to steal more from him? Say we do wipe his mind and send him off to Adanlee-"
His seal chair brings him forward, to bear judgment upon this callous fool.
"-what, then, of his features? Would you scalp him too? Or carve out his wings and display them somewhere, just as the Brims have done with his eye?"
Again, there is no ready response. There is not even a look of chastised regret.
Disgusting.
Even if this boy- with no name and no memories- was to be relieved of his antennae and of his wings, what then of his fingers? Now cleaned, they are also the same pale brown color that tips his twitchy extensions and bisected at the knuckles like actually insect legs.
His knees and little feet are the same, and they are without any trace of keratin. It seems that smoothness, that lack of a nailbed at all, is their natural state.
And still, if all of that, was not enough.. not enough to prove that the boy is far too intertwined with magic to seperate from... he bears two extra limbs.
They were small, unnoticed until his dirty dress had been carefully removed and replaced with something far cleaner upon hasty treatment, but they were undeniably attached.
Extending from his sides, carefully protecting his shrunken organs- were.. well... Beldaruit's not entirely sure what to call them.
They were curved, articulated things- following the same pattern of his fingers and toes.. perhaps, actually moth limbs?
Would this dignitary- should he even still be granted such a connotation- suggest they lop those off too? This was a child, a child who so clearly has only known unfathomable pain thus far... how could he seek to add to that?
How could anyone-
...he's getting too worked up. It was best to simply end the 'conversation' here, and do as he'd like anyway. Ask for forgiveness, right?
Hmph.
Beldaruit makes for the doors, his expression stormy enough [how ironic] to scatter the guarding Knights standing stiff. Well- startle one of the guarding Knights. Another opens the door for him, shoulders squared and prideful.
The same Knight, he'll note only much later- after the Wise in Teachings has spirited a moth shaped child away and made him anew- that lifted him from his deathbed in the first place.
A Knight with dark hair, and gentle hands.
A Knight still bereft of his crimson cloak.
A Knight, smelling faintly of a sticky sweet iron, and petrichor.