by _Anthology
"It's my job to care." At least she was honest. "Did you want to die?"
"What do I have to say to get my hands free?" I could do honest.
"Tell the truth." Like it was that easy.
"There isn't any such thing."
She made notes. "You're very angry. A fighter." Yeah, well, you have to be, in my line of life. The conversation went on and on, longer than the others had, almost a battle or a dance. Her questions were random and fast, my sarcasm hiccupping along with the lithium.
As she stood to leave, a bird squawked outside, the sound raw and jarring and she smiled. It distressed me then, it doesn't now. I'm not sure which is scarier. She left and the night went on, complete with shaking and screaming and pissing all over myself which burned like hell, but got me another shot and I dreamed. I dreamed about flying and about huge battles that raged for weeks, homes burning, men beaten and bloody and torn just like me. I could smell it, human flesh burning and rotting like a memory except it couldn't be, because I've fallen, but I haven't fallen that far, that low.
But it was, just like a memory, just like a recurring dream and they were there, too, just like I knew they'd be, nine of them, tall and armed, blond hair flying free, watching the battle with lust and pleasure in their eyes, huge black birds feeding at their feet.
I hid, in the dream, because it was a dream, even if dreams don't smell, never smell, ducked behind a stone, eye to eye with a raven, blood and flesh on its beak. It opened its beak to cry and I held out my hand and it slashed my wrist, drank me down.
When I woke up, the bandage was red, wet, the stitches torn free. She came every afternoon, the same questions over and over - Did I want to die? Am I scared? Do I want revenge? Again and again until I wore out my lies and started telling the truth, smoking and staring out the window at the growing flock of crows and grackles, watching the leaves turn, daring her to tell the nurses on me.
I didn't tell her about the dreams. That battle raged, night after night. The soldiers were in fatigues and hiding in ditches. Modern men with rifles, knights in battered armor. Men painted blue and men in furs. I saw things, hidden behind that rock. Those women - a flock of them, pale and bright as the ravens were black - they were as one, swords and blood red corsets, eyes that were changeable as the sun. I saw them laugh. I saw them draw a whole man in between them and leave him dry and desiccated like road kill on a desert highway.
I saw them touch one another, fingers pressing deep and the skies opening with rain. Cries of orgasm felling line after line of mis-matched soldiers. Lips wrapping around nipples and the sun appearing.
The raven that pecked me, fed on me, tasted me, she watched with me. Huge and black. Still.
Silent.
Even as I began to join in with the warriors, the maidens, watching and rubbing myself, making myself need, drinking in the sounds and smells of battle - even then she watched. Last night a blast came, mortar or catapult or SCUD missile, I don't know, destroyed the stone I crouched behind and the women saw me, fastened sixteen eyes of storms upon me. My raven had a sliver of stone that nicked her chest, dark blood staining ebony wings.
They reached for me, the warrior-women, and my hair, my long black hair like my mother's, turned pale in the moonlight.
I woke up, crying. I'm not stupid. I know it's all about having to leave, having to go home, go out, live where it's not safe. She comes in, to tell me goodbye, to check me out, to send me away. The fucking birds are out in droves, squawking, screaming, flocking. Shitting. Stinking. I want to hate them for piercing my silence. She's wearing a tomato-colored sweater, a thick, white bandage peeking out of the neck of it, the tape tugging at her skin, dimpling it.
"What did you do?" She looks at me, quiet, still. "Do you want to die?"
I shake my head, hold up my scarred wrists. "What do I have to say to get my hands free?" "Tell the truth." I look out the window, see the hint of my short hair, once so dark it was black, a raven's wing, now pale, shining. There are clouds in my eyes.
The birds rise to the air as I slide my hand in hers.
Perchance to Dream
By Quatorze
The forest is quiet. Trees stand tall, black outlines against the darkness of a cloudy sky. The air is still, too heavy for them to bear without stooping. There is no moon in sight, clouds are rolling slowly onward, too thick to let the sheen of a half moon through.
The forest is very quiet. The only light is the glow of a fire burning underneath a heap of twigs and sticks, in a low hole dug into mossy ground. Surrounded by stones, the fire burns quietly, as if fearing to disturb the air that hangs still among tree trunks and bushes. Its faint light flickers on the coarse lean-to beside it, on the small pile of baggage and bunches of squirrel skins piled under the roof, out of the reach of rain that won't come tonight. The light licks the figure of a man who is sitting cross-legged close by and looking at something in his hands.
The forest is unusually quiet. He's preparing a new snare, the smaller work knife in hand, fingers moving with meticulous precision. He knows what he's doing, he could do it blindfolded if need be. He frowns a little as light from the fire brightens and reflects from his messy blonde hair. That hair was cropped short the previous fall, to make the life of fleas and lice at least that much more difficult in the winter months, when keeping warm is infinitely more important than staying clean. Now it's long enough to curl over his ears and nape, to tangle in his eyebrows. Soon it will be time to crop it again.
He glances up, blue eyes squinting in an effort to see into the darkness around him. But no, all he can see is the small sphere of light around the fire. Outside it, nothing. He's not afraid of the forest, or of darkness. He can't see, but he can hear. The fire makes a quiet crackle, every now and then a stick burns through with a sharp snapping sound, or the flame heats a droplet of pitch so that it boils with a hiss. Even that sounds strangely loud now, when the wind has stilled and nothing moves in the darkness.
The forest is too quiet tonight. He looks around once more, one hand touching the weapons beside him. His bow and big knife are within easy reach. The spear, the one he carries just in case a bear should come too close, is leaning against his shelter. He's not afraid of the forest or the dark, but this stillness puts him on his guard.
He's not old, yet it's already years since he began to spend more time on his own in the woods than in the villages. The forest is where he feels at home. It is not always a friendly home, it rarely gives anything for free or hands things out on a silver platter. But he knows its ways, how to live and die there. How to tell the direction, how to find food and water, how to find shelter. How to be the hunter, not the prey.
He doesn't much care for people. Not for girls who make eyes at him, look at him boldly like at a horse on sale, whisper and giggle to each other. Not for men who value his skills with weapons and yet shun him. They appreciate him as a hunter and trapper, but his silence makes them uneasy. He's not one to spend an evening in the village tavern, sharing a pint and some idle talk with others. He prefers to hunt alone, keeping his camp and his most lucrative trapping grounds to himself. Loner, the people call him, the lone wolf, and they don't mean anything good by that. Loners are something one ought to be suspicious about. To be a man is to be about other people: family, kinsfolk, village. A loner is a man with something to hide; a man best left alone.
Thus he's at home in the forest, more at home than with people. But tonight this home feels different. This is one of those nights when something seems to lurk teasingly just out of his reach, watching. The air is too still, the trees too stiff, the darkness too black. He should be hearing at least something -- nocturnal rodents, owls on the hunt, the stealthy sound of a fox paw, tree branches rustling at the touch of wind or sleepy birds. Now there is nothing, even though he tries to hold his breath just like the whole world seems to be doing. He cannot hear a thing.
For a moment an absurd fear seizes him. Has he gone deaf? No, no he hasn't -- as if in reply
, a long flame licks up from the fire and some sticks collapse with a distinct crack. He snorts soundlessly, lips pressing into a tight line. Stupid, he thinks, puts the ready snare aside and leans forward to poke at the fire with a longer stick. The water will be hot soon.
He stiffens, glances up, tries once more to peer through the dark, for he thinks he has heard something. A quiet shuffle it sounded like, almost muffled by the hiss and sparkles of stirred embers. His hand creeps to the big knife and closes around the handle. He squints, eyebrows crunching together, turns his head slowly. Is there something after all? He cannot see and yet he suddenly knows he's no longer alone in this little clearing. His jaw clenches. He stops breathing.
He hears something. A sound, slow and soft and steady, somehow a little moist. Breathing. So faint he's not sure that he isn't imagining it after all. His senses are on edge, they tell him it's there but not what it is. A bear? He'd have heard its grunts and whistling breath. A deer? Not at nighttime. A lynx? Not big enough. A sly old wolf perhaps?
A mindless fear makes his every muscle coil and his heart thud until rushing blood is echoing in his ears, but he's frozen into stone. Only a fool attacks without any idea of his adversary. He's no fool. He waits. He couldn't say how much later it is when his fingers finally release their white-knuckled hold on the knife and he lets out a long breath, eyes closing for a moment. He's alone.
He doesn't sleep well that night.
*** He lets his burden fall to the ground and shoots a hostile glance at the leaden sky. The day isn't over yet but it's rapidly getting darker, rain is approaching and he has made today's rounds shorter than usual. No use getting the skins wet, they'd only start rotting before he has time to curry them properly.
He kneels and begins to kindle the fire, then rubs his eyes with the back of his wrist when a thin tendril of smoke makes them water. He is weary and his eyes are aching for lack of sleep. His rest has been fitful ever since he felt that nocturnal presence, nearly a week ago. Whatever it was hasn't come back, but he's been dreaming too much and of strange, wild things: the forest at night, bathed in an eerie light, full of sounds and smells, wet soil, heady wind, swamp and wolves and the screech of an owl, fear and power and lust and death.
The dreams have haunted his every night and left him tired and seething. He's alone, with no one on whom to vent his building anger. At times he's afraid -- is he going mad? Why does he feel that someone is watching him? Why does he suddenly stop and hold his breath, trying to decide whether or not to turn around? He has done it many times in the past few days and of course never seen anything. Just the forest.
So he doesn't turn this time, either. Mouth tight, he stares stubbornly into the small fire that is coming alive between his cupped palms. No, he will not look because he won't see a thing anyway. The fire is getting stronger, he adds a loose ball of dried moss, then a handful of bark scraps. They catch fire easily and now it's big enough to attack some proper sticks. He reaches deeper into the lean-to where he's piled the firewood -and drops them, grabs the knife and leaps backward into a low crouch, putting the fire between him and the dark shadow looming on the edge of the clearing. Then he blinks, his mouth falls open and the knife wavers in his hand.
He's a clever man. The forest is his home and even though he's inclined to mostly believe only things he's seen himself, he knows better than to dismiss tales of goblins, gnomes and fairies as mere talk designed to frighten kids into obedience. After all, the forest is big and full of strange things and, even if he's never encountered a sprite nor been harassed by a malevolent troll, he doesn't take that as proof that those things don't exist.
He takes the usual precautions, too. Leaves behind tidbits of his every catch to keep the forest spirits favorable, mutters an apology to water fairies every time he thinks he might be disturbing their peace, avoids unnecessary noise that would upset the game as well as other inhabitants of the woods.
Yet for some reason he's always laughed at these particular stories. The ones telling of bewitched black stags, the cursed creatures of doom. Of course he's heard them aplenty -- no one living in or near the vast dark woods of Beltrionas could possibly avoid hearing them. Stories of huge animals, jet-black from antlers to hooves and from head to tail, luring men into a hopeless hunt from which the wretched chasers never return. Of evil little elves that ride on their antlers, unseen and wicked, tricking men into trying to shoot the stags. Of men who have tried, only to die a horrible death or disappear without a trace soon afterward. And somehow it has amused him no end to observe how these unfortunate hunters are always said to be young and exceedingly fair of countenance; to hear of the hordes of girls who are invariably left wailing for them, and of the men who shake their heads sagely and sigh at the demise of such a clever lad.
Black stags, sure thing, he's said with a snort. He's seen enough deer to know that they come in many shades. A darker-than-average mature stag could easily appear black in meager light, during the rut it might well attack a man venturing too close, and a frightened person tends to see things anyway.
Now he's looking at the very thing whose existence he's always so glibly denied. He can hear the moist hiss of its breath and he can see it perfectly well. The air is getting murkier by the moment, but the stag is standing stock still, not more than ten steps away, looking at him.
Its coat is shining black all over. His gaze drops to look for the paler area that he knows should be under its belly, skims along the legs, then climbs incredulously back to its face. Black, only black. Light from the fire makes its muzzle glisten and reflects from large eyes that are steadily fixed on him. He tries to count the points of the huge crown of antlers but fails when it shakes its head slightly. It's there, it's alive and it's definitely real. A black stag.
They stare at each other for some breathless moments, the blonde man holding a large knife and the stag standing like a statue. He swallows, stands up slowly. It doesn't move even when he takes one cautious step closer, then another. He wants to touch it. He can see it, he can hear it, he can smell it, but he needs the last confirmation of touch, of oily coat under his hand, to fully believe. He makes a low sound in his throat, beseeching, reaches out his hand.
The stag turns around and leaps away and the man curses under his breath. Then it stops again, another ten or twelve steps away, waiting. Its movements are deliberate and unhurried as it walks around him, lets him come almost close enough to grab its shining coat and then retreats further, playful and purposeful. The man doesn't run, no, but he doesn't give in. He wants to touch, he wants to know if this is just a product of his tired mind or something he's never encountered before, yet the animal stubbornly denies him that touch.
The man knows he's chasing something impossible but refuses to stop. Rain falls, night embraces the forest. He seeks shelter under big trees that give at least some protection against the rain, blinded by darkness and water and sweat running into his eyes, hunting by instinct and smell and sound. The stag is never far, he can smell its musk in the air and he can hear the soft sound of its hooves on wet ground, so close and yet out of reach. Always just out of reach.
*** The man shivers as he falls on his knees next to the marsh spring and bows down to drink. The water is freezing and tastes of earth but he drinks greedily, eyes closing against the cold. His arms are shaky when he finally pushes himself up, sits on his haunches and rubs his hands together, movements sluggish.
He has no idea how many days and nights have passed since he turned his back on his small camp in the forest and took the first step towards the stag. It doesn't really matter, either. He has been stalking the animal through woods and marshlands, across brooks and over hills, and still he hasn't managed to touch it a single time. Big hunting knife in one hand, he strides after the shining black animal, never turning his eyes from it. The stag fills his mind and he knows he's finally gone mad in his solitude but doesn't care. The only thing he still wants in this world is to touch it once and he's going to do that
before his body gives up on him for good. He's past hunger and exhaustion and cold, past fear and everything else save this one resolution.
Every now and then he slows down enough to scoop a handful of berries from the tussocks of moss that shine red and blue and golden with them, then munches them absently while walking steadily onwards. Ahead of him, the stag is dancing away, calling him, leading him on. When he has to curl up on the ground to sleep, he knows it's keeping watch. Once he has woken up to see it standing right over him, head bent low as if in concern, and that's when he saw how velvety soft the shorter hair on its head and face looks. But when he lifted a hand, the stag stepped away again. No touching, it seems to say. Just come with me. And he goes.
He begins to get on his feet again, but this time his legs just buckle and he sinks back to the ground. Wet and cold seep up from the moss into his ragged clothes and through them, all the way to his skin. He trembles again, clenches his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering, closes his eyes. Just for a moment, he thinks, for the moment that he needs to dredge up every bit of strength he can summon. His head sinks slowly forward.
Something touches his back and despite the loud, shrill whistling in his ears he looks over his shoulder. The stag is there, muzzle close, head tilted back as if to keep the huge antlers away from him. It makes a deep keening sound, warm breath puffing on his neck, and nudges him again. He wants to laugh but no sound comes out, his throat is thick and sticky as he turns awkwardly around and raises his arms. Then he's touching it at last, fingers weaving into thick stiff hairs around the animal's neck, burying his face into its coat. It's rough and slick at the same time, he breathes in the heavy scent and feels a wet muzzle nudging him in a silent question.
He smiles into the thick fur. Now he's happy, now he only wants to lie down and sleep, but the stag won't let him. It's agitated, it makes low sounds and begins to shuffle onward, dragging the man who won't let go of its neck. It feels so good, so warm, his arms are so tired but he won't let go. Slowly he pulls himself up, crawls forward like a mole until he's sprawled on the animal's back, hands grabbing its coat. He's so tired, his head is burning, and every step of the stag echoes inside him in a dull wave of pain. So softly and steadily it treads, as if mindful of his condition.
