underlies / v+r d2 day4

he is dragging me up the ladder, i am pulled to his chest.

that terrible thing in the wasteland, called god.

the small, winged animal in me. it called my name for days, somewhere from the ash, still pounding painfully.

little aches. the wanting goes vulgar. goes unholy. goes and becomes something in the wasteland. we teeter between hallowed and befouled. the prophet, the omen.

at least we'll die prophets now

the words hum. i feel them in the slant of sound.

there is Roe. he is holding my wrist. a vein beats. i am tired and tired, folded over itself. there is Roe again, image sharpening, his chest shudders beneath me. still warm. his voice.

i am dragging myself up, i am sitting on my knees. i am swallowing air. suddenly, remembering the labour of breathing.

he comes into focus.

drenched. grime on his cheek. i thumb it off unsteadily. i didn't realize i was shaking.

Ripred and the rats and the echo. out of everything, i say this.

“i've not met anyone as clumsy as you.”

he moves away. the air roils with murmurs. softer now.

“shut up.”

something loathsome, slick in my belly. and i am reaching for him still.

underneath, the bandages are wet, pink of diluted blood across his back. new wounds on old wounds. i touch his shoulder. beneath my fingers, there is a circular scar there. warm like a flame.

the old, healed cut on my hand is just one thing. the blood beneath, another and another. and i wonder how many more there are.

a bird sings.

my hand falls. down his back, damp from the tunnels.

“let me retie these.”

little by little, i am unraveling him, hands still unsteady. my temples pound.

i stare.

swallowing salt, swallowing something chewed raw.

“what is this.”

stiffening, then softening. he is still in my hands. the line of sutures. even, before it goes funny.

the watch.

“Antigone.”

i prayed to Idunn to let my dog live forever. my own blood as offering on the altar. softer then, i asked for him to be there in the afterlife, waiting for me. my mother would've killed me, if she knew.

what i wanted.

for always, i serve the gods. what is fated is fated. what is to pass.

why suddenly, do i think the body is always dying. that Roe is rare in his mortality. that i am a child again in my wanting. in disobedience. all the apathy hard won, slipping.

the ravens, crowing feather-soft, the stemmed, leafed voices over the hills, the votives. for a moment, it all lights on fire.

he twists.

“what?”

“she…”

the loathsome thing in me. my throat feels hoarse. hardened chest.

“her initials.”

he turns, twists, the sutures twisting too. there it is, the stitching, no matter the way it contorts. Roe is standing now.

i think of the leash. think of her in the dining hall, blue in the long lines of light, the flecks of blood across her face. think of four, the warm, indigo waves. the morning and the blood on the floor.

like a rib, grown too sharp, caught somewhere. i feel it in me.

i left. i shouldn't have.

his back stretches against the thin thread. rising, hand on his shoulder – “bathroom.”

passed the bedrooms, passed the strange shrine, ladden with silver blades and portraits and wreaths dying leafs onto the floor, into the white tiled room. the sink is too hot, i think, scalding, hands still shaking. 

fists clenching and unclenching, the pounding. head to chest to wrists, i stare at my palms.

then through the mirror, at his eyes, bitter dark.

“Roe. give me the knife.”

a hesitation. “she wanted to help.”

“she wanted to help, of course.” a laugh, sharper than i meant to sound. in the mirror, he averts his gaze. there is the taste of ash as he does it.

my hands are red from the heat of the water. i am thinking how i lined up the edges of the wound, how i repeated the motions to myself like a galdr each time in the medical wing. the sutures are neater now from Antigone's hand. except the bottom, distorted in hunger.

nothing happened, he says.

from the laceration, to his face again. still, he doesn't meet my eyes.

i am not angry, i tell myself.

the ravens drop shadows across the tile. ringing in my ears. a cold settling. lagging like in water, i let him go.

once is enough.

i know.

"turn around." i am speaking to my hands. the small tremors subside. "if you want, i will restitch."

when i look in the mirror again, all the fire leaves me.

"i'll need the knife."