Tamlin's account of what had happened to him prior to the Rift was uninteresting and didn't provide Otem's mind with any new information about whether or not it was possible to get back home. Still, she supposed that it's asn't entirely Tamlin's fault. So with a gentle rise and fall of her slender shoulders, she let him off the hook. "There was black smoke that gradually started to choke everything out ... if you didn't move, it either killed you...or I suppose in your case, forced you along with it. And then everyone was shoved into the Rift." In Otem's mind she saw her mother bursting apart into a cloud of pure white light. The memory made her heart sag in her small chest, and she tried to stifle the whimper that wanted to leave her lips.
Luckily it turned into a gag which wasn't something she needed to hide. "What-" Otem spluttered, her eyes darting from the shrivelling plants to the dead animals scattered all around. "Why-" She tried again, but it seemed as though the smell of the dead had found their way to her eyes, which were now watering. Otem half reared, wings splayed as if she could somehow get fresh air if only she was a little taller. "Tamlin!" She scolded, ears back as she landed with a soft thud. Focusing on one of the closest corpses, Otem began to grow a thick layer of grass to cover it. She then moved on to a second and a third, gradually trying to blanket the rotting things with layers of grass which would take their nutrients from what was left on the corpses.
Now that Otem had a minute or two to think, it made sense that with Tamlin's garden there would have to be his necessary sacrifice. But couldn't he have killed them elsewhere? Or at least buried them?
"How can you even stand that smell?" She whined, holding her wings to her nose to try and filter the air.
"Hey that one-" Otem mumbled, catching sight of something which almost looked like a weed, but definitely wasn't. She remembered it from a visit to the Edge. It could heal once it decided to bloom - which it only did during the full moon. "-I remember that one." She said, offering Tamlin a rare genuine smile.
He stopped instantly in front of her. Like a foal interrupted in his play. He glanced at the mayhem around him and for the first time he really saw what he had done to this little patch of land. The smell reached him too, as well as the sound of the buzzing flies. He gagged, barely able to keep his lunch down, and lowered his head in shame. The shaggy stallion watched Otem from under his tangled forelock as she worked on covering the rotting bodies of the strange looking critters. The smell improved with every patch of grass she grew, but she could not erase it fully - which she seemed to point out by asking how he could stand it.
Tamlin lifted one of his front hooves which created a suction noise as it left the ground. He looked at the hoof and the slur of mud and blood that covered it - once more he had to fight to keep the content of his stomach down. He hurriedly put his hoof back down and shot a sideways glace at the autumn colored girl whom he had kind of filly-napped in a sense. Grown stallions whisking away little fillies to places of horror had to count as such, no?
“Well… I… I don’t… I” he mumbled, unable to explain himself. But Otem was already leaning over one of his creations and a sliver of his former excitement returned.
He went over to her, hooves making those awful suckling sounds as he walked. “Oh, you do? I think it is native to the Edge, but I don’t quite recall.” Was it was native to the Edge.
Tamlin could not shake the thought of his home this time - a sign that the drugs were wearing off. He could feel the frustration and anger creeping closer, ready to take over when the memories of the trauma returned. He looked to Otem, he ought to make her leave now, but somehow he did not want that. She was one of few he had spent any amount of time together with in several years and part of him knew that it was what he needed. If he ever wanted to be clean, he had to make meaningful connections, have horses around him that he was willing to quit for. Not that he had ever touched on the thought of quitting, but still.
“Otem.” he said, ambiguous emotions in his voice. “Maybe it is time for you to go to your family now. A young girl should not be running around with strangers. I bet your father would beat me to a pulp if he found out I took you to this place.”
It was easy to hear from his words that his mind was clearing. He sounded more sane and less like an overgrown child. But soon the irritation would come and the headaches and all those other feelings and emotions that made him into the beast Otem had met the first time. He did not want her to meet that Tamlin again and how ever strange it felt for him to actually care about someone else, it was what he did in that moment. No matter how backwards it was, the deadbeat stallion knew she had less to fear from him high than sober.
Fucking hell, I should not be around children - that’s for sure!
"Oh don't be like that-" Otem said dismissively, misinterpreting his flickerings of mental clarity for shame or embarrassment. She was just giving him a hard time. Yes the smell was bad, and yes he was a bit of an idiot for leaving all the scraps of sued up magic just laying around to rot, but it wasn't that bad. The smell had dissipated somewhat, and besides, she wanted to see what else he had grown. Perhaps if she had looked up, seen the subtle changes occurring on his voice and taken the time to hear the intonations in his words she might have been aware that something was happening with this would-be prince she had found, but she did not. Instead her eyes darted from plant to plant, hungrily take them in with her eyes to feed the nostalgia of her soul. Even though it was covered with death, this was like home.
"Besides, it isn't like we're strangers anymore." She continued, moving easily through the garden of life and death that Tamlin had created. "Oooh that one!" Otem exclaimed suddenly, prancing excitedly over to what looked like vines of ivy laced with blue and silver. A smile tugged at the sides of her lips, making her look positively angelic in her youthful delight. She lowered her head, sniffing at the leaves. They made her nose and throat feel cold as the sweet-slightly-peppermint aroma wafted towards her. "Mmmmm I missed this one." She crooned, turning her ram-horned skull to give a sideways glance towards Tamlin. She was just about to ask him if she could have just one nibble, but as her lips opened to form the words, the sounds died in her throat.
He looked ... well, it was hard to say how he looked, other than exactly the same. But he almost seemed tense - but on the inside. Her youthful brain didn't have any words or images to describe what detox or withdrawal or coming down might be like, all she could think was that he seemed more rigid somehow. Was it his words that had sounded that way? Rewinding the last few moments, Otem tried to remember if there was anything off about his voice. But of course she hadn't really been paying attention, and so these recent memories were fleeting at best.
Tamlin’s jaws clenched together and his body became tense as he fought the need to lash out at the child. For the first time he wished himself free of his addiction, wished that he could just be normal. He took a deep breath to calm down as Otem walked around his garden, and this time it actually worked. He regained some of his calm even though he felt quite sullen.
When she proclaimed that they were not strangers anymore Tamlin contemplated for a moment where the line between strangers and whatever level came next went. Was an exchange of names enough to become acquaintances? For him even “acquaintances” was too big a word to label his and Otem’s relationship with. Sure she had told him about her time in Helovia, but what did he really know about her. And she, she knew even less about him! Was this the moment he was supposed to share some of his deepest thoughts with her so that they could become friends?
She is just a child! You should leave her alone. You cannot protect her. You can only damage her! Tamlin ignored the voice of reason and turned towards Otem. He shrugged his shoulders at her questioning gaze and let slip a few words that surprised even him: ”What’s mine is yours.”
But bitterness and sorrow returned suddenly and washed over him at her childish question. The battle inside him flared up once again. Jaws clenching and body rigid he looked at her with eyes dark and hollow. But there was a flicker of light in those dead pools of his; a flicker of something that was not irritation and hatred towards the world in general. He was begging her, for her own sake, to leave, but still quietly asking her to stay. However it was the darkness that controlled his lips and he hissed at her as his ears pinned to his skull.
”What’s with me?! Have you forgotten everything I told you about my flower?!”
He regained control for a second and backed away from her, turning his head and lowering his neck. I don’t want to hurt you.
”I am sorry, Otem.” he murmured, facing away from her. ”I don’t want to drive you away, but for your sake you should leave now. I am not good to be around. Next time you see me you ought to just go the other way. Ask your companion I am sure she agrees.”
he reaps in blood
- Every kind of violence may be used against Tamlin at all times -
What's mine is yours. If asked, Otem probably wouldn't have ascribed entitlement as a characteristic of herself, but in truth, she had grown quite entitled. Rather than feeling proud or appreciative of the stallion's words, she merely took them at face value as if she had known that it was true all along. A smile spread across the filly's dirt and sand coloured face and her ram-horned head nodded in acknowledgement. She might have indeed lowered her head to try a bite of the plant, if it weren't for the rebuke in Tamlin's tone.
Have you forgotten everything I told you about my flower? Hating to be ignorant or scolded, Otem's mind reeled to try and piece together what it was she might have forgotten or overlooked. But all Tamlin had said was this it was medicinal. Alright, so if it was medicinal that meant he needed to take it to cure something - or to make something better. Well, if he was suffering from something, why couldn't he just take more? "No" She retorted stubbornly, nostrils flaring slightly with childish indignation. "You said it was medicinal." As he tries to give her reason to leave, subconsciously she digs her heels in more. "If you aren't good to be around-" She says, assuming some sort of link between whatever had made him start to act like this, and whatever his medication was meant to do, "-then just fix it." She suggests simply, looking at the ground and concentration for a moment.
A flower the colour of newly spilled blood suddenly bloomed from the soil. Otem tried to make it look as close as she could to the one she'd seen Tamlin create before when he had stabbed her. She'd been fairly shocked back then, and so her memory of the bloom might not have been quite right, but the girl was confident enough in her abilities. And, as far as magic went, both creatures could produce plants that induced hallucinations.
"There, see? And no blood needed." Otem concluded, as if Tamlin's having stabbed her during their first meeting was now an inside joke between the two.
Solanis
he reaps in blood
