[locked and backdated] and all my bridges burned
Not for the first time in his life, Bran woke up to the fading sound of music--delicate and silvery, insistent, beckoning, filled and filling with profound, sorrowful longing. The first time he remembered hearing it he was twelve, standing on top of a mountain with Will and the Drews, and had felt, inexplicably, as if something very important had happened and he had somehow missed it. (He found out later this was true.) In the five years after he had sometimes heard it again, in those liminal moments just before waking, and always it faded before his memory could quite catch it.
Then one morning he heard the same music on the island, and he woke up alone.
The next few days really all ran together. He hadn't thought anything of it at first. The room he shared with Ephram was generally so untidy that it was difficult to tell even on a good day whose things were whose and where and what ought to be there, and it wasn't as if either of them were in the room all the time. Ephram had probably just gone off for something--breakfast, laundry, practise, shower. The spot in the bed next to him had still been warm, and Bran had gone back to sleep.
He'd spent most of the week going back to sleep. There wasn't a lot of thought involved in it, he just kept waking up to the realisation the Ephram was still gone, most likely for good, and his stomach would go all tight and his eyes would sting and he'd hide under the blankets again because he just didn't want to deal with it. Besides, last time he'd thought someone was gone he'd been wrong and they'd come back. (Right in the nick of time, too.) Surely if he just waited a little while longer, he'd wake up and find out he'd been dreaming, or had made a mistake all along. Abby poked her head in once, and he'd mumbled at her that he didn't feel good. He didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted it to go away.
It didn't go away, and Ephram didn't come back. Eventually Bran got up only because it just wasn't possible to spend any more days in bed. He started to tidy up the room, but realised he didn't actually want to change anything, and let it go. He had a shower and a stale muffin, and sat on the edge of the bed with Eirias across his knees feeling bitter and lost. The sheet music for the song Ephram had written him lay on the floor where they'd last fallen, half under the bed. He cast a glance down at them as he stood, and a knot rose in his throat as he strode out the door.
He swung the sword about as he stalked through the trees, scattering the leaves that fall around him from the blade's bright edge. It's a small consolation and no real help, demolishing the foliage, but even a little destruction is sometimes better than none. It's hard enough to keep from thinking--notfairnotfairIhatethisIwanttogohome--and nothing really helps; he'd choose facing dinosaurs any day over this miserable loss that remains so determinedly out of his control. Every time he loses someone it's like having a limb ripped off, or being hit in the stomach every time he thinks about what ought to be there and isn't. With a frustrated cry he swings Eirias at the nearest tree. The blade sinks into the trunk and sticks there, embedded halfway through, the hilt trembling.
For a moment he just stares at it: the sun glinting off the hilt, the prismed blade streaking the ground below it with a sudden, broken rainbow. And Bran, who scarcely cried even when he was a baby, sinks down onto the ground next to the impaled tree, buries his head in his knees, and gives in to tears.
Then one morning he heard the same music on the island, and he woke up alone.
The next few days really all ran together. He hadn't thought anything of it at first. The room he shared with Ephram was generally so untidy that it was difficult to tell even on a good day whose things were whose and where and what ought to be there, and it wasn't as if either of them were in the room all the time. Ephram had probably just gone off for something--breakfast, laundry, practise, shower. The spot in the bed next to him had still been warm, and Bran had gone back to sleep.
He'd spent most of the week going back to sleep. There wasn't a lot of thought involved in it, he just kept waking up to the realisation the Ephram was still gone, most likely for good, and his stomach would go all tight and his eyes would sting and he'd hide under the blankets again because he just didn't want to deal with it. Besides, last time he'd thought someone was gone he'd been wrong and they'd come back. (Right in the nick of time, too.) Surely if he just waited a little while longer, he'd wake up and find out he'd been dreaming, or had made a mistake all along. Abby poked her head in once, and he'd mumbled at her that he didn't feel good. He didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted it to go away.
It didn't go away, and Ephram didn't come back. Eventually Bran got up only because it just wasn't possible to spend any more days in bed. He started to tidy up the room, but realised he didn't actually want to change anything, and let it go. He had a shower and a stale muffin, and sat on the edge of the bed with Eirias across his knees feeling bitter and lost. The sheet music for the song Ephram had written him lay on the floor where they'd last fallen, half under the bed. He cast a glance down at them as he stood, and a knot rose in his throat as he strode out the door.
He swung the sword about as he stalked through the trees, scattering the leaves that fall around him from the blade's bright edge. It's a small consolation and no real help, demolishing the foliage, but even a little destruction is sometimes better than none. It's hard enough to keep from thinking--notfairnotfairIhatethisIwanttogohome--and nothing really helps; he'd choose facing dinosaurs any day over this miserable loss that remains so determinedly out of his control. Every time he loses someone it's like having a limb ripped off, or being hit in the stomach every time he thinks about what ought to be there and isn't. With a frustrated cry he swings Eirias at the nearest tree. The blade sinks into the trunk and sticks there, embedded halfway through, the hilt trembling.
For a moment he just stares at it: the sun glinting off the hilt, the prismed blade streaking the ground below it with a sudden, broken rainbow. And Bran, who scarcely cried even when he was a baby, sinks down onto the ground next to the impaled tree, buries his head in his knees, and gives in to tears.