Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 9
9
It was a completely different world beneath those branches. The wind didn't cut into him so badly, and the canopy shielded him from much of the rain, but the drops that did make it through were huge and fat, dripping from boughs that creaked and swayed above his head. Every time lighting struck, he was able to see the mountain right through every gap in the foliage, merged by light and shadow, as if they were one and the same.
"Are you the one that did this to me? To us?"
No answer. Just the sounds of the rain and the wind in the leaves, and the groaning of the branches. It felt like he was back in his tent, talking to Shekka, waiting for an answer that would never come.
"Am I the one that's to blame? Did all this happen because of me?"
Kadai didn't know what he was waiting for. A voice? A sign?
None came.
"If this is my punishment, then why did you have to hurt Shekka!? Why did you have to hurt our baby!? Why couldn't you just punish me alone!?"
Still no answer. But maybe it's because Kadai already knew the answer. Maybe he knew it from the start. We are never the ones who suffer most from our sins. The ones who suffer most are the ones we love.
Kadai fell to his knees in front of the great tree and stared down at his arms. They were still streaked with red, even though he had run in the rain for who knows how long. It had seeped into his fur just like the guilt had seeped into his heart.
He looked up at the swaying branches, at the silver raindrops falling straight down into his upturned face just like the tears falling from his own eyes and, unable to keep it back any longer, he shouted out his pain and frustration for all the forest to hear.
"Nooo! Whyyyy!? Why did this have to happen!? She was just... She didn't do anything to deserve this! Neither of them did!"
Shekka...
"What am I supposed to tell her when she wakes up!? If she even wakes up!?"
A thousand eyes, a thousand minds, a thousand thoughts. None shared.
"Answer me!!"
The sheer absurdity of what he was doing started to dawn on him. He wasn't talking to a god. He was talking to a tree. He had held his dead baby in his arms and it had driven him crazy and now he was talking to a tree. It didn't know any answers, and even if it did, it couldn't share them, because trees couldn't talk. He was such a fool...
"Kadai?"
For just a moment, Kadai thought it was the Cora speaking to him. He jerked his head to the source, expecting to see a living embodiment of their mountain god staring down at him with its hideous assortment of eyes, ready to crush his skull between its teeth of stone for all the blasphemies he had committed.
But what he saw was even worse.
It was Sarah, but not as he once knew her. Bathed in the fleeting light of a thunderbolt, he was staring at a walking corpse. Her eyes, normally so joyous and full of life, were now half-lidded and unfocussed. They seemed to look right through him. Her hair was a complete mess, a straggly tangle of twigs and sodden leaves. She was carrying what looked like a bundle of white rags in her arms, but that hardly seemed worth noticing.
The worst was the blood. By the Cora, there was blood everywhere. It was dripping from her mouth, running down her neck. The lower half of her dress was absolutely saturated with it. Even as he knelt there, too stunned to speak, more blood came running down her legs and pooled around her feet, turning the mud a horrifying black. Kadai shifted his body a little and saw a trail of it leading East, a string of black spots in some places, thick splashes in others, so dark they stood out with terrible clarity, even on this night. The further back he looked, the more diluted the trail became, until it eventually faded away to nothing in the mountain's shadow.
Surely, she couldn't have come here all the way from the other side? Nothing _living_could make a journey like that. This thing standing before him, this apparition... it couldn't be Sarah. Nothing could be so torn apart and still be alive.
Thunder rumbled, signalling the end of the lightning strike that had revealed this sight to him. It felt like he had been staring at her for an eternity, but it couldn't have been more than a few seconds.
No, this couldn't be her. There's no way this could be her.
Not unless he was staring at her ghost. Maybe this curse wouldn't stop until every last woman he had ever loved was dead.
And yet...
"Sarah? Is - Is that you?" he breathed, getting to his feet. He wanted to reach out and touch her for so many reasons. He wanted to make sure that it really was her, that she was alive and standing only a few feet away. He wanted to take her in his arms and hug her tight. He wanted to feel his embrace returned. But all that blood... "By the Cora, what happened to you?"
"Kadai, I..." she said, her voice trailing away to nothing.
But she spoke his name. That was real.
"Sarah?" He took a step towards her, intending to catch her if she fell. It looked like she could barely breathe, let alone stand.
She held the white bundle of rags out to him, her face a reflection of pure misery. At first, Kadai couldn't understand what it was or why she was presenting it to him so painfully, but then he saw it.
A tiny hand, reaching for her face in the rain.
Kadai stopped, raised one shaking, blood-soaked finger and pointed at the bundle in her hands. "What is that?"
She opened her mouth, closed it again, seemingly at a loss for words.
"Sarah, what is that!?"
In barely more than a whisper, she said, "This is your son..."
Too much has happened in too short a time. Kadai couldn't handle all these things piling up one after another, he just couldn't. He slowly shook his head, repeating the same word over and over, barely aware that he was doing it.
"No... no, no, no..." He reached up and grabbed a handful of his hair, feeling like he was about to lose what little sanity he had left.
"Kadai?"
"How? This... this isn't possible. This can't be happening."
"Kadai, please... he's heavy..." she said, her arms shaking.
Kadai rushed forward and carefully took the baby from her arms, smearing the cloth with his bloody handprints. "Sarah, what happened?" he pleaded, awkwardly holding his son in his big hands. "Just, please talk to me!"
She wouldn't answer him. She just stood there, staring at him, covered in blood, looking more like a wraith than ever.
"Sarah?"
She slowly walked backwards, her face completely blank, until she stepped out from underneath the tree's reaching branches and the full force of the rain poured down on her once again. Water trickled down her face, making it look like she was crying.
Lightning tore across the sky, turning the world once again into a flickering image of absolute white and absolute black.
"His name is Andr - "
Thunder rumbled overhead, drowning out her last words. Did she say his name was 'Ander'? In the Old language, that meant 'different'. Kadai looked down at the baby in his arms, really looked for the first time. Its fur was an odd shade of brown, much lighter than the average Wolf, still wet and spiky from the rain. But other than that, it looked like a pure Wolf. In fact, this pup looked a lot like himself.
So it's true? This baby really was his? Losing one child and gaining another within the hour... he didn't know how to feel about this. The death of his enka was still so fresh... the blood was still on his hands! And now -
Wait...
This baby wasn't moving.
"No, oh no... Please, no..." He pressed his lips against Ander's forehead, feeling for his temperature, praying that the same horror wouldn't strike him twice in one night.
He was ice cold.
Shekka's last words came back to him, as if she was whispering them into his ear: You need to take it when it comes... You have to keep it... warm...
How long has this cub been out in this storm? How long has it been exposed to the freezing rain with nothing but this flimsy rag for protection? How long!?
He looked up, but Sarah was already walking away from him, her head bowed against the wind, her cloak flapping out behind her.
"Sarah! Wait!" he shouted, but she ignored him. "Sarah!"
Should he go after her? Was there enough time? Even if he did, what would she be able to do about it? No, he needed to get this pup somewhere warm, right now.
But first, he needed to do something about the scent clinging to this infant. Sarah's scent. It was faint, but it was clearly not from a Wolf. He took his hand, still slick with Shekka's blood, and pressed it against Ander's forehead, leaving a blood red handprint on his face.
An odd feeling stole over him in that moment, as he stared down at the mark he had left on his bastard son, but he couldn't understand what it was. It somehow felt as if this was supposed to happen, just like this, or maybe... it had already happened?
Kadai gave his head a brief shake. Now was not the time for his mind to wander. He had one job to do right now, and even though he has failed so many times before, he would not fail again.
"Don't worry, little one. I'll get you home safely." With that, he held his dosa close to his chest, sharing his heat, shielding him from the wind and the rain as best he could, and dared the cold night once more.
He looked back only once, a fleeting glance at a single shadow among thousands, struggling through an ocean of darkness. His Sarah. It was almost an entire year since he last saw her, and he still loved her just as much as he did then. What horror could have driven her over the mountain in such a condition? What unspeakable evil could have forced her hand like this? The pain he saw in her eyes as she handed their baby over had cut into his heart like a blade, tearing the wound left by the death of his enka even wider than it was before. He wanted to go to her so badly. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her how much he still loved her. He wanted to heal all her wounds because, if he could see her smile, just one last time, he knew it would be enough to heal all of his. They would heal each other. They would...
No. Deep down, he knew that wasn't true. His presence would only cause her even more pain. That's all he was good for, it seemed. Making those around him suffer. That's why she barely spoke to him. That's why, after all this time, she left before he could even touch her. Seeing him again must have hurt her far worse than the birth of their child.
Kadai looked down at the baby in his arms, lying so still, christened 'Ander' by his mother.
Different.
Covering his face was the blood of Shekka, in the form of Kadai's hand. The rain was making it run across his features in crimson rivulets, like he was bleeding.
Kadai hugged him close, whispered: "Don't worry, Ander. You're going home. I promise you, you're going home..."
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