A Dream of Spring
Everything seemed to be falling apart. Just when he was sure things would start to go well for him they had taken a sudden and abrupt turn, and he only had himself to blame. He pawed at the base of a cedar tree, unsure if it was even worth the effort of making a permanent den or if he should simply resign himself to inevitably being thrown out. No one had confronted him about what he’d told Rhyme that night by the rapids although he didn’t doubt that by now everyone in Abaven knew that he was a murderer. “Cut wife!” Toad gleefully supplied although that wasn’t quite right he supposed, he was after all a male.
Spider’s speckled eyes journeyed up the stiff branches as though they had some kind of comfort for him, but they didn’t. Cedar was a good tree to make a home under though, he knew that. The scent of the trees bark was a natural pesticide and the wood was amazingly sturdy. Despite his misery Spider put effort into his digging and started to build himself a den in earnest. He had lost a lot this year, Echo Shiloh, Antigone for the brief time he had her, and now it seemed he would lose Abaven and Shaye too. That hurt more than he was willing to admit. He had believed in Shaye and had wanted to help build the safe haven she had wanted Abaven to become. He liked Vali and her soft voice and he liked her idea of growing a garden. They wouldn’t want him anywhere near her. There was to be a wedding with her and another member he had yet to meet. Solar who was to be his mentor. He felt a whine escape him at that. Healers were supposed to jump at the opportunity to aid in a birth, but he had known, deep down, that he would be chased away with snarls and clashing fangs if he even went near her.
A tear escaped him and fell onto the dark soil he had been working on. He was a monster, he felt more like a monster now than ever before and it was all because he had chosen to tell his secret to a trusting face. Rhyme had looked so beautiful that night, with the moonlight in his eyes and a soft soothing smile on his lips. He had convinced himself that a face so kind would never hurt him, even though his life had been one disappointment after another. He had failed to learn from his own history, in spite of how Toad had tormented him. What was worst of all was how Shaye must have thought of him, Shaye who he had no desires for other than that of a loyal follower. Shaye hated him. She deserved to hate him. He deserved to be hated.
He sniffed and forced himself to continue digging, kicking up thick clods of earth as his claws raked at the soil. He had never meant to hurt anyone, had never meant to kill anyone and had in fact not killed anyone before or since his sister’s death. It wasn’t fair, he wasn’t bad, but he had done one bad thing and his whole life he had suffered for it. Now he would continue to suffer.
He dug furiously now, as though it would somehow ease his pain, and ease his torment. In a way it did. As he dug deeper and could fit more of himself into the hole he became warmer. He hadn’t even realized how cold the autumn air had become until he was halfway buried under the cedar’s roots. He paused to look up from his work; at the vast emptiness of the thicket. It was further away then most of the other dens, and close to the border. Maybe Shaye and Rhyme would let him keep it once they asked him to leave, or maybe a rogue would happen by it and end it all for him. He paused mentally. Suicide was a mortal sin, and he had never considered it, and indeed most of his life he had avoided dying, but now with this most recent loss to add to his repertoire he realized he would be perfectly fine if one day he could simply cease to be. Maybe he would even convince himself to take too much of any given herb and pass softly in his sleep. He was already damned for being a sodomite, what was the sin of suicide compared to that?
He batted furiously at his eyes and forced himself to continue digging. It would be a cold winter, and he was getting older, soon it wouldn’t even be a matter of if but when, and no one would bat an eye if he died. If he was alone again in another cold winter he supposed it would be out of his hands entirely.He could barely hunt as it was, and if he starved and froze…Well…There was no harm in that was there?
Spider speaking Toad's voice You |
