Work Text:
Lying on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, his vision is blurred by the blood sliding down over his temples, but he doesn’t have the strength to wipe it away.
It doesn’t matter as he cannot feel his hands. He hears the blood rushing in his ears, pulsating, tastes the metal of it in his mouth, smells it, and vaguely wonders if it’s his or hers when he drifts off.
With his eyes closed and his consciousness so barely present, the rushing in his ears and the scent that fills his nose amplify and he doesn’t know if he’s lost the last bit of his sanity when another nuance mixes into it.
A familiar scent, a comforting scent. Though he doesn’t see where the memory comes from, it embraces him like a warm blanket draped over his shoulders on a cold winter morning, gives him warmth on the hard ground – tiles, was it? No longer, it seems, when his numb fingers brush over the ground and feel the lightest tickle.
Grass. As is the scent, fresh grass, wet grass, shortly after a drizzle.
The earthiness in it is mixed with the familiar smell of blood, halfway dried on the edges, still pouring out in the middle, where the cuts go deepest into the flesh. He can feel them in his own body, in his flesh, though no longer in his abdomen.
His eyes still closed, he feels his skin prickle when another few raindrops fall on his face and the bared knees, cold but eerily strengthening. The rushing in his ears is just as strong when he shifts his head to the sides in an attempt to wake his body, but no longer distinctively from the blood pulsing in his veins.
No, this rushing is harsher, and there’s a soft whistle buried in the depth of the sound. Wind, and the rustling of leaves in the crowns of tall trees. There’s a forest nearby then, somewhere to the side of the meadow he must be on. Then, underneath his back and the palms of his hands that are still spread out over the grass, there’s a thunderous movement, vibrating on the surface of the earth.
The repeated pattern of hooves stamping on the ground, approaching quickly. The horse comes to a halt close to him, and then there’s a voice calling his name, though it is not Will he is calling for.
He recognizes the voice, a friend, a brother, though he’s an only child, and with a deep exhale, brings his eyes to open in a slit.
He hears the man descending from his horse, hears the hustle of his steps towards him, repeating his name just as desperate as before.
All he can see, is the greyish sky over his head with the curved, heavy clouds and the black little shape passing through the lower layers in a circling motion.
It’s all blurred for a moment, only cleared once he blinks and sees the bird in her full shape, the hawk, passing through the clouds, hears her screech.
He thinks of freedom.
Thinks of Tristan.