Had he cried in his dream? The familiar uneasiness settled over him.
"Hey," a young, feminine voice called out in a whisper. "Hey, you alright?"
He stiffened and flinched in response, completely caught off caught by the sudden voice. His head thudded against the top of the cage, activating an old headache tiredly held on to him. He sniffed, vigorously wiping away the tears from his face, whipping his head towards the direction of the voice.
"Who's there?" he asked hoarsely, squinting across from his cage.
His eyes calibrated to the darkness, but he knew this had to be a mage-- unless the guards brought in someone else while he was asleep.
"Shh," the girl responded. "Keep your voice down. They'll hear us."
Finally, Alistair could see more than the outline of the familiar figure who had slept soundely across from him since he was caged. In the waking hours that had passed, he occupied his mind by taking note of everyone trapped with him. Because his natural gaze fell across as he sat, he grew to recognize the barefoot wiry woman with choppy hair, face spattered with freckles like the stains on her long white shirt. Like most of the others, she was also bruised and battered.
"You were crying in your sleep," the woman said faintly.
Alistair adjusted his position to lean against the cage more comfortably, even though that was impossible. He bent his legs and turned himself to look across distantly.
"I know you're new here," she said. "Are you a mage, too? You don't seem drugged to me."
"Not a mage," he replied, voice barely above a whisper.
The woman sniffed at the air.
"Yeah," she whispered. "You don't smell like one."
Alistair stared across, the statement sounding bizarre and absurd considering the situation they were in. Unless...
"What's your name?" the woman asked.
Aside from dragon news, there was only one other person who had ever commented about smells, abilities of which that were distinctly not inhuman. Lyall.
"Are you a werewolf?" he asked instead.
The woman lowered her head, watching him with her large, doe eyes. "Yes," she said, barely audible. "It's why they took me..."
Alistair lowered his gaze. "It might be more comfortable if you shifted," he said quietly.
"I can't," the woman said, sounding defeated. "I'm only starting to feel lucid... and I'm afraid that if I did... when they drug me again, I'll never be able to switch back."
Alistair's stomach dropped, tension in his chest swirling within him. "That's awful," he whispered.
"I don't want to be seen as a wolf forever," she said. "I barely feel human as is."
"You're going to get out," Alistair said almost pleadingly, feeling the dread constrict his throat again, playing with his breath. "You won't be stuck."
"No we're not," the woman said, helplessly leaning her head against the bars of her cage. "It's been months now. This isn't going to change."
"What do they--" Alistair bit back a shuddered breath, reigning in the growing panic by taking in a deep breath instead. He tried again, more steadily this time, "What do they do with you?"
The woman looked up at him with glossy eyes. "Every few weeks... they take a few of us and ship us out. I don't know where. And then more come in to replace the ones we lost."
"Oh my gods," Alistair breathed out, grasping on to the bars to steady himself. "Oh my gods."
They were being trafficked. This was human trafficking. They were being fucking trafficked. Why, where-- it didn't matter. People were disappearing and moved as part of the Blue Suns operations.
Both hands gripping a hold of the bars, Alistair fought to gain control of his breathing again, feeling the edges of spiraling fear sinking in again. He couldn't do this right now. Fuck, he couldn't do this! He shouldn't be having a nervous breakdown in a cage next to someone who had already lost hope.
"I'm sorry," the woman said. "I don't know why you're here, but if you're not a mage, maybe you'll be released or something."
Alistair held on the bars even tighter, his racing heart desperately needing an outlet. "I--" he began, breath caught on his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head lower, clenching his jaw to hold back the tension in his body. It was just enough for him to just barely say above a shaky whisper, "I'm so scared."
The woman's eyes softened with pity.
"Me too," she said faintly. "I'm just too tired to feel it anymore."
Alistair couldn't help it. He couldn't stop the quiet sob from returning. His breaths turned muffled to not draw attention from himself. "I think they're going to torture me for information," he said hollowly, wiping back the stinging tears falling from his eyes.
"What about?" the woman asked.
"I-- I can't say," Alistair said quietly, shaking his head. "It's all I have left."
"I understand," she nodded with a sigh.
He didn't comment further, focusing on steadying his breathing instead.
"What's your name?" she asked, cutting through the silence.
That, he could say.
"Alistair," he answered distaintly. "Yours?"
"Amy," she said in a whisper.
Amy. He burned her name to her face. "What's your last name?" he asked.
"I never had one..." she said faintly.
"You don't have one?" he echoed softly.
"I grew up in a pack," she said. "We don't have last names like you do."
Alistair felt some of the tension leave his body as he took in another deep breath. "I know a pack," he said, hardly audible. "A family. They have last names."
"That's probably because they've had to hide with humans," Amy said.
"And you didn't?" he asked.
"I used to live at the edge of the wilds, before monster hunters found us," Amy said emptily. "I was just a pup, then..."
"You escaped," Alistair softly finished for her. "But your family..."
"Got treated like all monsters do," Amy said. "You kill them, and make them your trophy."
Alistair shook his head, wiping away the silent tears that fell. This was inhumane. She didn't deserve this. No werewolves did. No mages did. This was inhumane.
"You're not a monster, Amy," he said through a pained whisper as a tear fell across his cheek on her behalf.
"Maybe I'm not," she murmured. "But maybe I should be..."
The door opened with a heavy thud. Footsteps stomped into the room, echoing off the barren walls.
"Who's talking?" the guard demaned.
Amy's eyes went wide, and she froze. The guard's heavy footfalls drew closer, and her eyes shot back to Alistair in a panic. He met her eyes, growing more alert.
Then, she shot her arm out of the cage.
Alistair's eyes widened. "Amy--"
"Please," Amy cried out over him, cutting him off. "Please, let me out of here. I can't feel my legs anymore."
The guard marched over quickly. Alistair withdrew in his cage, silently pleading with her. Wishing he could tell her that there was hope.
He didn't want her to hope if it was never going to come.
"Looks like the lumshade wore off on you, didn't it?" the guard murmured disappointedly. They knelt down beside Amy's cage and reached in, ripping her arm out between the bars. Amy weakly gripped the guard's arm.
"Please, no," she begged, but he could hear there was no heart in it.
Already, she'd lost her fight. Eyes wide with horror, Alistair clamped a shaky hand over his mouth, barely able to hold in his cries.
The guard pulled out a syringe, sticking the needle into her arm with no ceremony.
She whimpered, but it only took a few seconds for her eyes to sag with weariness, overtaken by a half-awake haze. Her arm fell limp, and the guard tossed it back in the bars like a sack of meat.
The guard stood up and marched off. The door slammed behind them.
Alistair peeled his hand away, breaths growing shorter. He pushed himself to the front of the cage, heart aching at the sight of her limp body. "Amy," he whispered hoarsely across her cage. "Amy."
No response.
"We're going to get you out," he said in the silence that followed, offering the hope much too late. "I promise."
~ ~ ~
- The breeze pricked at his cheek, fingers of wind combing through his hair. The clean mountain air flooded his lungs, emptying the nicotine cravings and replacing them with cool, crisp, calm.
It was this dream again...
Wait. That meant--
Alistair's eyes flew open, barely registering the floating clouds drifting above the mountain's jagged peak. His body moved on pure instinct, feet pounding against the cold, packed dirt.
"Renerre!" he called desperately, running with nowhere to go, with nothing but vast skyline in sight.
"Young Alistair," Renerre's voice carried from behind him, close, and grounded. When he whipped around, he was face to face with her dragon form.
This wasn't like their training sessions, where her dragon form had made him feel small and inadequate. Now he stood before her, with her head flushed against the ground, and her long, snake-like body curling around him like a shield.
"You were taken," she said, her voice quiet and meek. For the first time he could hear worry in her voice. Worry for him.
"Renerre," Alistair called again, out of breath and shaken. His head was spinning, unable to form full thoughts fast enough to make sense.
Was he being delusional? No, this had to be real. Fuck, this could be his form of escape!
"Renerre, I've been taken," he confirmed, words tumbling out in a frantic rush. He feared that the dream could end as abruptly as all the other ones. "I'm at the Blue Suns base. I've talked with Sparrow, the leader of the Suns. I didn't tell him anything. Now I'm in a cage. I don't know what he plans to do with me. There are others around me-- mages, I think-- but they're all drugged. Can you send for help?"
Something in Renerre's reptilian eyes turned deeply saddened. Slowly, she inched her snout forward, and rested the tip of it against Alistair's chest. Alistair felt his breath hitch as he shakily reached out, using her scales as an anchor to ground himself of this hell of reality.
"We are putting together a plan," she said. "But you will need to wait a little longer. I am so sorry."
Suddenly, there was a flash of light - and the dragon once in front of him had shifted into the old woman Alistair knew Renerre to be. Tightly, she hugged him close with her head over his shoulder.
His head spun some more as the stress from the reality came crashing down all at once. There was so much fucking stress that pressed against him, again and again, each day that passed.
And Alistair was so, so tired.
He squeezed his eyes shut, clinging to Renerre as if she were his last lifeline. He buried his face in her shoulder, choking back a cry that already burned behind his eyelids. Even if it was just for a moment, he had to allow himself to be small, to be held, to feel the crushing weight of it all.
"I am not as strong as I once was," she said softly. "Nor as strong as I wish I could be. I will not be able to meet you in your darkest hour in the flesh, but I can meet you here. You have my assurance in this: Bo has pledged to wage war on your behalf. He will save you. He will save the others. You won't have to bear this much longer."
And just like that, this dream of a world imploded on top of him. Alistair's senses were overloaded, mind fracturing under the pressured strain. His pulse thundered in his ears, drowning out all other thoughts. Each breath came shorter, thinner, his lungs screaming for air that refused to satisfy.
What was--? Was this the atmosphere elevation? No, this was-- fuck!
He crumpled to his knees, tears scalding his cheeks. His hands betrayed him, trembling beyond control. He felt like he couldn't breath. No matter how many gasps he rasped, it wasn't enough. Each hollow breath tore from his throat, raw and useless.
"Fuck! Fuck!" he rasped, the words barely clawing their way out of him as he doubled over, fingers scrabbling at his chest. Panic coursed through his veins, consuming his whole body and crippling him with an intense dread and fear that weighed heavily in him. The world around him warped, closing in with a suffocating intensity.
Renerre fell with him to the ground, and her arms remained around him. She pulled him close and began to rock him slowly. Alistair clung on to her, desperate for any lifeline as he struggled to take control of his rasped breaths.
"I know," she said, barely audible. "It's too much to bear."
Words failed him. "I-- I--" was all he managed to get out before he surrendered himself to weep uncontrollably.
He was paralyzed, unable to do anything else but cry in her arms. Fear hissed, snaking its way around him to constrict his chest and mercilessly squeeze. Eyes shut tight, Alistair rasped shallow breaths between sobs, holding on to Renerre's arms with an iron death grip.
"I'm so sorry," Renerre said, tender and gentle. "I'm so sorry."
Alistair couldn't speak, bounded by the deep fear that ruled his body. What was this? What was happening? He legitimately felt like he could die. He felt like he was dying. The feeling consumed his entire being as the world spun out of control. He couldn't focus, he couldn't latch onto anything solid or real.
"Let's see how determined you are to keep repeating this story, time after time," Sparrows's mocking voice thundered in the storm of emotions that followed. Like a flash of lighting, his empty eyes stared back at him, lifeless and unmoving as he put on a twisted grin.
"See you soon," Pia's voice through the wind, complete with her bone-chilling laugh the sliced through the air like a knife.
"I didn't hit you that hard, baby," Andy's voice whispered in his ear, hopeful and trusting. He could hear the eye-roll in her voice that he missed hearing. She wasn't here, but even through closed eyes, he could see the way she threw her curly hair over her shoulder, one edge of her lip curled into a forgiving smile. "I'm sorry, love. Let's not fight again, okay?"
Alistair never could put up a fight, even if he was hurting.
"Renerre," he sobbed, voice muffled over her shoulder as he actively fought back against the electric current of fear coursing through his veins. Every nerve ending in him screamed, threatening to claw his way out of his body. "Renerre."
Time lost all meaning. Seconds stretched into minutes then turned back into seconds. His emotions circled around him like an infinite coiling snake. The ground beneath him seemed to tilt and sway, which would have left him dizzy and disoriented if Renerre's arms hadn't encirled around him, holding him steady.
Alistair's muscles tensed and trembled, bone-deep exhaustion at war with the flood of adrenaline. His throat burned, raw from the ragged breaths and choked sobs. He squeezed his eyes shut, one last hot tear burning down his cheek. Waves of nausea rolled through him until the world teetered to a gentle stillness.
Finally, he could breathe again.
Gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, the raw intensity began to ebb. The vice grip on his chest loosened, allowing deeper breaths. The trembling in his limbs subsided to be intermittent tremors instead. Exhaustion settled over him like a heavy blanket.
As the panic finally began to recede, Alistair became more and more aware of the ache in his muscles and the hollow feeling in his gut. He sagged against Renerre, completely spent and drained. The fear was by no means gone completely, still lingering like a subtle shadow-- but it was at least no longer all-consuming.
The storm had passed. He was still at the mountain peek with Rennere, his breathing steadied and having synched with hers. He took in a ragged, deep breath and unclenched his jaw, wincing at the soreness.
"Wait for us," Renerre said. "We will be with you soon."
It registered too late that this was her way of saying goodbye.
"No. No," Alistair moaned, jolting himself awake. "Renerre..."
He wanted to tell her to not leave him. He wasn't ready to leave. He didn't know what she meant by her cryptic plans. He didn't know anything. He never knew anything.
Alistair took in a shaky breath, calming his nerves that had carried over from the dream. He had no idea what that was-- a panic attack? Tears stung his vision again as the grim reality loomed over him, darkening into a thick shadow.
He was back in his small cage, muscles aching from lack of space to sprawl. Hunger growled within him while thirst dried on his lips. It had only been one day, but Alistair already felt his strength waning. Fear clung onto every fiber of his soul.
He was used to living day by day, and he was used to dreading the motions of the next day, but this type of dread overshadowed all past fears.
Alistair had never truly wished to not live out tomorrow-- until today.
"Hey," a voice whispered in a shaky tone to his left. "Are you okay?"
Alistair flinched in his cage from the unsuspecting noise, rattling his body against the bars. Scurrying his legs to be pointed towards the voice, he pressed a shaky palm against his chest and asked, "Who's there?"
The voice wasn't Amy, nor did it come from her direction. It was from his left, which was-- which was--
Not empty now?
"It's--" A deep breath followed the word, and it sounded like the voice was also trying not to cry. "I'm in the coffin."
Alistair stared into the dark abyss of the box that took up the space of the cage. His heart skipped a beat from the horrific implications, the familiar dread coiling inside of him again. "Coffin," he repeated slowly. "Why--" Even though he already knew that there only spanned a sea of cages around him, he whipped around to verify anyways. "Why?"
"I-- I don't know." A pause. "Special treatment, I guess."
"To be buried alive?" he said desperately, his panic creeping up on him again.
"No. No, I--" Another shaky breath from the coffin. "He just wants something different from the cages for me."
"Sparrow?" Alistair pressed, voice growing a pitch. "But-- why?"
"I don't know," the voice whispered, and Alistair had heard enough to tell it was a man's voice, although a softer one. "I haven't done anything. This is just-- some kind of grudge he has against my family. I've never even met him before."
"Your family?" Alistair wheezed.
He wildly ruffled his hands through his hair, begging his aching head to not go wild with unsaid thoughts. Alistair's family will be fine. They will in no way be involved in this. Right? He'd only been gone a day. Would they take drastic action? He didn't dare to even imagine their reactions.
"Yeah," the coffin said quietly. "I... don't know what the nature is. Just that apparently, Sparrow is family, and that might have something to do with why I've never heard of him."
"Wh... What?" Alistair croaked stupidly in response, feeling dizzy from this new information. He had no idea what any of this meant anymore. He never did.
"That's all I know," the voice said defeatedly.
Alistair collapsed, pressing his torso against the frigid metal floor and bending his legs to dangle against the other side of the cage. The position was awfully uncomfortable, but he needed something-- anything, other than the bars of the cage-- to ground him while he was on the verge of breaking down. The literal fucking ground would have to do.
"Are you okay?" the voice asked quietly again with concern, followed by a sniffle.
Fuck. Fuck!
Alistair was losing his composure again. He violently flipped himself around to land on all fours, panting like a dog who belonged in a cage. He squeezed his eyes shut, his breaths turning haggard and thin. His chest constricted, squeezing out every ounce of dread to course through his lungs.
"Hey, breathe with me, alright? If I can breathe in here, you can breathe out there," the voice urged him. "Deeper breaths. That's it."
"I-- I can't," Alistair rasped, chest tightening. He scratched at the floor, wishing for something other than the cage bars to hold. He gasped desperately, each breath more ragged than the last. "I can't."
"You can," the voice promised pleadingly. "Breathe in for four seconds, hold for three, breathe out for four, and we'll do that as many times as you need. I can count the seconds for you. Okay?"
The voice sounded warbled. His world narrowed, engulfed by barrage of his heart that rammed against his chest.
"In for one, two, three, four," the voice said steadily. "Out for one, two..."
Again and again, the man's voice in the coffin repeated the mantra. Alistair was unable to follow right away, ruled by the panic that overtook his body. Through grit teeth, he willed himself to at least try, desperately focusing on the voice to guide him through this.
"Have you ever considered meditation?" Bo's voice cut through in his head after his voices calmed.
Alistair swore to all the gods above, which included Bo, and Renerre, his future self-- if he and everyone else got out of this alive and unscathed, he would take up meditation. Maybe.
Relaxing the tension in his body, Alistair fell flat onto the floor, his breaths having calmed after many guided exercises.
"...Thank you," he whispered tiredly, acutely aware of the irony that a voice in a coffin was helping someone on the outside breathe.
"Of course," the voice said quietly. "What's your name?"
Alistair lifted himself to sit up, his back leaning against the bars again. "Alistair," he answered absently. "You?"
"Shane," the voice said. A pause. "Your... your name and voice are a little familiar."
Alistair rolled his head back, exhaling a deep breath. "Have we met before?"
"I don't think so," Shane said slowly, like he was thinking through this in real time aloud. "I know a-- I know someone with a twin brother named Alistair. Your voice sounds a bit like his."
Alistair couldn't help but huff out a wry breath of a laugh. He and Alan's lives had split so long ago, it felt like ages since anyone mistook the two of them together.
"You met Alan," he mumbled. "You and everyone else in Ruddlan."
"You're really Alan's brother?"
Joy. He loved hearing this question.
"That's--" Shane stopped himself short. "...Did he get you in here somehow, too?"
Alistair didn't react right away, not understanding what he meant by that. He slowly lifted his head, eyes glued on Shane, the talking coffin. "What?" he breathed out. "No. He's got nothing to do with all this. I'm worried he'll get involved because of me." He paused, feeling unsettled. Cautiously, he asked, "What do you mean, too'?"
"He--" Something caught in Shane's voice, and once again, he sounded dangerously close to tears. "We were friends. At least, I thought so. But I just learned the reason that I'm here is because he was really just spying on me and my family, and he handed over the information that got me kidnapped to Sparrow."
The words hung in the air like a heavy blanket. Alistair had no idea what to say or think about that. He almost wanted to comment that this was absurd and untrue, but he...
He didn't know. He didn't know anything. Never did. Especially when it came to Alan's personal affairs.
"...You didn't know?" Shane asked faintly.
"No," Alistair answered quietly. "I'm sorry. I... I don't know anything."
There was a heavy silence for a few moments.
"Then I'm sorry too," Shane said softly.
Alistair swallowed thickly. "For what?" he whispered.
"This... shouldn't be the way you find out that's what he really does," Shane said weakly.
"No, it's..." Alistair muffled a faint, mirthless laugh that bubbled out of him.
Was he seriously about to openly talk about his insecurities over his relationship with his brother out loud to some man in a coffin? He had never spoken this out loud before. He hardly even allowed himself to think of this because it felt too betraying.
The fear of tomorrow constricted his chest again, reminding him of the situation he was in. And suddenly, Alistair was desperate to talk about anything else. Anything to take his mind off subjects that would send him spiraling again.
"I love Alan," he whispered, tightly crossing his arms as he sunk lower into the cage, "but we've been on our own paths for some time now. Sometimes it feels like he only sees me out of obligation." He dropped his gaze, guilt and shame creeping up on him now that the confession was said aloud. "I don't know if I really know him anymore."
"I don't know if I ever really knew him at all," Shane agreed quietly. "Not like I thought I did. Even though I love him too."
Alistair squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping his arms around himself even tigher. "I don't think he really knows who he is either," he said softly. "I figure he's lost his way. But..." He stared into his open palm, bruised and battered from the guard being rough when tying him up. "He knows that my arms will always be open for him, no matter how far he's gone or how much time has passed."
"I've got a brother too," Shane said quietly. "We just reunited after he went missing for over two years. Sometimes, even when you don't know when it'll happen, the act of merely being ready to offer support can mean the most to them when they do end up needing it."
Yeah. Alistair was that naive once, too. And he still fucking was.
"I'm sorry you're in a coffin," he said instead. "I thought I was cramped. It's even smaller than the cages."
Shane let out a weak laugh that sounded a little choked. "Just my luck," he said. "I'm injured, so I guess it's... incentive not to move and hurt more."
Quietly, Alistair fell to his side, torso laying on the cold ground again. He sat up to have a conversation, but frankly, talking to a coffin directly was fucking depressing.
"How did you get in here?" Shane asked after a minute.
"I can't tell you," Alistair answered thinly, losing the will to care about anything anymore. "They're wanting to torture me to find out, though."
"They want information that bad?" Shane asked quietly.
Alistair sighed. "I guess so. But I think they're also sadists, so who knows."
"Can confirm," Shane said faintly. "I don't know if they have bigger plans in mind for either of us. It seems limited to... wanting to wear us down, I guess."
Alistair wrapped his arms around his chest, Renerre's haunting voice replaying in his mind. Bo was going to save them, but he didn't know anything else.
He wanted to tell Shane that there was hope, that he didn't want to be naive. He couldn't bring himself to instill hope that came from a dream, from a dragon whose arms he cried in, to be saved by a different dragon who he hardly knew.
"Yeah... Yeah," he whispered back. "I don't know either."
