shoveled love o mine | umber leisure

The crown atop his head was a cruel irony. The red stone glittered like blood as he cleared the fog. Georgie's blood. D'arcy's. All the blood of Six, dripping down his forehead like sweat to be wiped away with a sleeve. He'd been charged with the protection of two princesses, and he'd lived to see them both die. Well, he had not seen it; the flowers had robbed him of that much. But the events of the day were becoming more and more clear by the second, and Umber found himself making connections to the mound of nonsensical sights he'd seen.

There were some things he knew were not true. There hadn't been any District Twelve. That was a dream. There was also no way Baleriya had actually spoken in his head, though her sudden willingness to listen to him since the dream was not lost on him in the least.

He wasn't sure if Georgie had actually been taken by the flowers or not, but certainly the dirt caked under his nails and the bleeding tips of his fingers were sobering reminders of his attempts to dig her up. And because Georgie's reflection had taken so long to follow her down into the earth, Umber wasn't entirely sure for a while what it meant until he realized what he saw must've been D'arcy meeting her own end. Each of their cannons had rattled his bones and set his teeth on edge, led to him clambering over to Baleriya and climbing onto her back. "Go," he begged. And because things were different now, she went. With her, the brood mother brought all her children: the fledglings all lazing about, perhaps themselves dazed by the fog. After a few moments, Strawberry joined pace with them, her long serpentine neck drooping with the same sadness Umber felt for the empty saddle on her back. The young wyvern's youth was showing again, he noticed. After several minutes he noticed the noise he kept hearing was the pour thing whimpering.

"I'm sorry!" he called, hoping his own voice would carry on the wind as easily as theirs and instantly finding it hard for even his own ears to pick up the sound. It didn't matter anyway; she likely wouldn't have been any more accepting of his apology as he was with himself. He was no knight, no gallant Noah with his honor and skill. He was never fit to protect anyone, not Georgie, not her district partner, and now that he didn't have his friends to hide behind it was only a matter of time until everyone saw that he couldn't even protect himself. Cotton-sewn effigy, a useless reminder of a childhood that wouldn't ever exist again. Just as his dream foretold. Or maybe that part was real after all.

He closed his eyes and listened to the rhythmic flapping of Baleriya's wings for hours, feeling his own heartbeat thrumming along as one. The sun had long set when he finally made his landing, near the ponds where he and Georgie had found each other the first time they got separated. He supposed he'd been hoping it would spark some sort of joy, remembering the world as it was at that point. It only hurt his chest, half-lidded stare at the massive tree they'd huddled beneath. He left without dismounting, once the wyverns all had their drink, and flew again until he found a nice outcropping of rocks down below the climbing trees.

It wasn't quite big enough for something Baleriya's size, but the treetops provided lovely cover from the elements and it didn't stop the old girl from trying, anyhow. She wound up backing her lower half in and lying down so that she completely blocked the only exit from the shallow cave Umber and the fledglings had crawled into. He'd seen Strawberry landing somewhere nearby, surely settling her own nest for the evening, so it was with a pocket of fear that his head snapped to attention at the sound of a new wyvern landing.

For a moment, he was idiotic enough to feel excited- relieved, even. Noah's wyvern, Shadowspine, stood riderless about fifty yards away. He'd landed a respectable enough distance away that Baleriya didn't warrant squeezing herself up onto her feet, but her blood-red eyes were locked on the scene unfolding before her with zero intention of looking away anytime soon. Umber stumbled around to the other side, hoping a hundred things. Hoping he'd find Noah dangling off his saddle, giggling about his misstep. Or caught in his stirrups, reaching to Umber for help just in the nick of time. He would've even settled for another night like the one a few sleeps ago, where Noah looked beaten and bruised and in need of help. So long as Umber was there to give it, it would've been enough. It would've been more than what waited on the other side.

Nothing.

He felt only emptiness, plucking a caught fish from his store and tossing it to the grieving wyvern. "Sleep now," he called, "Tomorrow it'll hurt just a little bit less."