Chapter Text
Wirt wakes up.
He can't see.
Something dark and damp presses in around him. He can’t move, and yet there is no clawing sense of claustrophobia, only a dim, contented calm.
Warmth seeps into him, binding him closely, pleasure and euphoria, dull but intoxicating mingle in his chest and fill his skull. It sinks into his bones and makes a nest there. It blooms in the broken columns of his soul, filling him with blossoms and flowers of plenty, vines, like deft ribbons coax his bones back together. Warmth pours like a fountain into his hungry soul, enticing life into it, filling it, and guarding it.
Sorrow and fear peal away, stripped by the gentle comfort twisting its way through his fingers.
He likes it here. All is well. He wants for nothing. He fears nothing. Everything will be taken care of.
Dimly, Wirt realizes that someone is humming.
The song billows up around him, through the eaves in his body, and embraces him tightly. It refracts around him and shifts and whirls through him, dancing like light through stained glass. He thinks he knows the song, but that's not possible. He’s never heard it before, and yet, every dip and rise of the melody feels familiar.
Like something he once knew intimately but has since forgotten.
Like an old friend calling his name, like a lullaby sung in his youth, like coming home after many years, it reminds him of walking through the Unknown- with its half-remembered paths and dream-like world-
It reminds him of camping trips with Greg and hot chocolate with Sara, of autumns with colorful leaves and warm fires. Like the smell of soup cooking or cookies in the oven-
Something cold and metal sheaves between his ribs.
He gasps for air only to find it doesn't come. His ribs quake and quiver, heaving, and he hears voices. They’re too loud, too sharp. He can't make sense of what they’re saying. It's just noise, too loud, too acuate, too disjointed.
He can’t hear the song .
He wants to weep at suddenly being cut off from that lovely hymn but find no tears come.
He wants to yell, to demand the voices stop so that he can hear the song again.
His chest shudders.
Something gentle and soothing reaches out to him, wrapping around his soul, softening the harsh voices and bringing the song back into focus.
They’re clearing dirt off him.
It’s too hot, too bright, too colorful, too much. He wants to squeeze his eyes closed and bar himself against it but finds he can't.
Something reaches for him, delves deep into the ground, and laces itself around his hands.
It scoops him gently out of the grave, fluttering and moving, cleaning the dirt off of him.
He shrugs off the embrace of pumpkin roots for the embrace of corn-silk ribbons.
The ribbons swim and pull him close, and all he can see is green, all he can hear is the song, all he can smell is autumn, all he can feel is soft ribbons against his bones.
The ribbons draw back, and the world is no longer as bright, the colors have softened, the light has dimmed, it no longer seems so sharp and painful, now that he’s tethered to the song. He feels... happy, like a fluttering in his throat. Pleased and wanting for nothing.
His bones are covered by hay and vegetables and autumn leaves.
The world comes swimming into focus.
He finds himself staring up at a familiar maypole, its face pulled into a grin.
His jaw clacks against his teeth.
“Enoch?” He forces out around bone.
“There you are,” Enoch’s voice is warm and gentle, the song pauses for only a moment as he speaks, but Wirt does not panic because somewhere in his heart, he knows that the song will return. The song is sweet, tucked within his bones, it’s rapture. “I was wondering when you’d turn up, lad. I suppose your brother will follow shortly.”
Enoch smiles at him, and Wirt finds himself at a loss for words, so caught up in the euphoria of such a being gazing at him, soothing him, singing for him.
How had he been so blind the last time he had been here?
Why on earth had he wanted to leave?
“I suppose you’re not much of a lad anymore. 83 or so on the day of your death?” He whistles gently, his voice teasing as if he’s sharing an inside joke with Wirt. “A mighty feat, especially for one who dwindled in our little corner of the world here.”
Wirt wants to say something, anything, to keep this wonderful being’s attention on him.
His jaw clacks voicelessly.
Enoch continues to smile down at him, ribbons stroking gently over his pumpkin clothing.
“It's alright, lad. Most of the dead don't find their voice for a few days. Since you’ve already managed to speak, I’m sure it will come back to you soon.”
Wirt nods shakily, and another of the pumpkin folk walks forward and takes his hand gently.
He’s hesitant, shying away from the stranger. He doesn't want to leave Enoch’s presence.
He clings to a ribbon desperately.
The Harvest Lord chuckles gently.
“It's alright, lad, I won't go far. Besides,” Enoch’s voice is like a safety blanket, draped over Wirt’s shoulders. “You know Mr. Leftlin, if I’m not mistaken, you dug him up, lad.”
“He did indeed,” The man gently holding Wirt’s hand says. “I’m mighty grateful to you, sir.” The man addresses Wirt. His voice, though gruff, is gentle.
Wirt still clutches at the ribbons hesitantly, and Enoch chuckles, warm humor burbling and washing away any shame Wirt may have.
“Here, lad,” And he tears off one of his ribbons and binds it around Wirt’s wrist in a sloppy bow. “I promise I won't go far, and if I do happen to stray further than you’re comfortable, you’ll have a piece of me.”
Wirt reluctantly releases the maypole and allows the man, Mr. Leftlin, to lead him away.
The festivities pass in a blur, fuzzy in his mind, Mr. Leftlin stays close by his side, only ever parting from Wirt to push up his pumpkin and clack jaws gently with his husband.
Time and time again, Wirt finds his gaze drawn to Enoch, who seems to be the only thing in focus in the barn, the only thing without fuzzy edges blurring into everything else. Enoch is a startling clarity of a melody drifting through the chaos.
After a few half-voiced attempts, he manages to vocalize this sentiment to Mr. Leftlin, who assures him it's always like that, that everything else comes into focus eventually. Wirt is doubtful, but Mr. Leftlin clearly has more experience being dead than Wirt.
In one of his repeated observations of the Harvest Lord, he notes something strange, something that being newly risen had distracted him from.
Tied up high with droopy bows in the maypole’s ribbons is a familiar lantern.
If Wirt had still been in possession of a beating heart, he’s sure it would have jerked at the sight of it. Instead, as fear begins to rear its head, contentment chokes it out and settles between Wirt’s bones.
The Beast’s lantern.
He hasn't seen it in decades and had barely spared a thought to it in years.
It's tressed up delicately in his ribbons, with utmost care and reverence.
It makes him think of panic and fear, of coldness and hunger. Memories of Greg with edelwood clasped around him, of surfacing from an icy lake tear through his mind. A panicky sick feeling embeds itself in his bones.
His boney hands click as he clenches them, fretting the hay between them.
Wirt stares at the lantern.
Contentment wells up from the song around him, pulling away his unease and comforting him.
It's dead, as dead as it was the last time he had seen it.
There's a thin hairline crack running up the width of its glass face.
Later that evening, when all of the other Pottsfeilders have gone home, and only Wirt and Enoch are left in the barn, he finds himself staring at the lantern again.
“Do you miss him?” His voice is still shuddery and hollow and punctuated by the clacking of his jaw, but he’s getting there.
“Oh, terribly,” Enoch says, voice uplifting and warm, despite the sorrow of what he says. “Sometimes I forget, I simply think this is the time between our meetings, that any day now he will turn up along the border, and then I remember, and it hurts nearly as much as the first time I heard the news, which is why I carry the lantern. To remind myself.”
They lapse into silence.
When Wirt speaks, his voice is timid.
“Are you mad at me?”
Enoch sighs, low and full of sorrow.
“No, I’m sure whatever happened in the woods happened for a reason.” A stray ribbon comes up and caresses the lantern, lovingly, distractedly, like a bad habit Enoch can't shake. “I’m sure he must have seemed like quite a monster to you.”
Enoch shakes his head, and all of the maypole ripples.
“Perhaps he was, but we are not human. We do not see things the same way you do. I am sure you felt justified in whatever part you had in his death, and I do not blame you for it. You are only human, and we are something else entirely.”
Wirt swallows thickly.
“H-how long has it been?”
That causes the Harvest King to pause, and he taps idly at the place on the maypole where a chin might have been if he had been human.
“Let's see, you dug up Mr. Leftlin 14 years before his husband came up, and Mr. Thistle came up 60 years before Madame West,” The Harvest Lord begins to murmur to himself, considering and comparing numbers. “Let's see, perhaps 189 winters now? I’m afraid I don't have much of a head for dates. If you truly want to know, Clara probably has it written somewhere.”
Wirt’s hands skitter between the hay, now cushioning his bones and picking at his new vegetable donnings.
“And he’s gone? There’s no one doing,” He pauses, searching for words, anxiety soothed by Enoch’s ever lilting song of contentment. “What he did…?”
The Harvest Lord tilts his head at Wirt curiously.
“There's a new winter warden of sorts. I don't much care for them,” The ribbons swipe restlessly, and the Harvest Lord’s voice dips into something hollow and saddened. “Nor do they much care for me, but they do not quarrel when Pottsfeild must expand, and they do not ask for the lantern, so I suppose there are worse neighbors to have. I might be a touch unfair when they do blow around these parts, so perhaps the fault is mine.”
Slowly, the autumn lord’s attention swings back to him, refocusing.
The maypole’s face twists.
“Oh, you probably meant the edel trees,” Enoch shook himself. “I am not sure. I have not encountered new trees. I have stumbled across a few of his groves, though.”
The lapse into silence, the maypole’s ribbons curling and uncurling with discomfort.
The maypole shakes itself.
“I believe we have spoken enough about the unwalking. You must tell me of your life, Little Pilgrim,” The maypole’s face twists into a grin. “I have heard from a little bird you have become the Little Poet instead.”
Wirt grins awkwardly, without flesh or blood, though his smile is hidden by the pumpkin covering his head.
“Yes, I published some of my poetry, and people seemed to like my poems-”
“Don’t be humble lad, I’ve heard you composed quite a few songs as well,” The Maypole gently encourages. “I do hope you’ll be willing to share them.”
“Er, I’m not much of a singer- and I haven't really gotten my voice back-”
“Its alright, lad, I’m content to wait. We have all the time in the world.”
A comfortable silence fills the barn.
Wirt breaths in deeply and the sweet smell of cider embraces him. He only dimly wonders how he can smell without a nose before the feeling is quashed by the delightful feeling of contentment running between his bones.
He feels almost tired, pleased, and lazy but without the clawing weight of tiredness on his eyelids and the fatigue that usually clung to his body.
“Can I even sleep anymore?” He asks through his hollow, rattling voice.
The maypole considers this.
“I don't quite know yet. Some Pottsfeilders can, and some can't, and not all those who can do. Some like to keep the habit of it, and others prefer to use the nighttime as their leisure hours, and some simply can't get into the rhythm of it without their heartbeat lulling them to sleep. You’re welcome to try.”
And try Wirt does.
He can't close his eyes; he doesn't have eyelids anymore, but there does seem to be a trick to not seeing anymore. He manages it a few times but is always so surprised at his success that he jars himself into seeing once more.
It's strange trying to sleep without being able to close his eyes. He can't quite get to that edge of half-consciousness.
Instead, he finds himself tracing the maypole with his eyes.
Guilt wells up in him as he stares at the lantern and grapples with contentment.
“I’m sorry.” He murmurs.
The maypole tilts slightly.
“Don't be, lad. I've had plenty of time to mourn; I’m not mad anymore, just saddened. He was monstrous, and perhaps a bit foolish for only keeping his soul alight in a single lantern. It was a predictable end.”
Silence falls uncomfortable between them.
“Say, lad, what happened with your little sweetheart?”
“Oh, Sara?” The maypole hums, and Wirt is suddenly struck by a thought. “I never told you about her-”
The maypole chuckles.
“I've spent eons with mortals, doing the work of satisfying them, lad. I recognize a longing heart when I feel it.”
Wirt would have blushed had he still had the flesh and blood to do so.
“We got married.” He sighs dreamily at last. Then he rushes to amend that. “Like not right away! I mean, we dated for a while, but we broke up to go to college, and when we came back, we decided to get back together, and then…” He trails off he’s rambling.
The maypole laughs warmly.
“Little pilgrim, little poet, little lover, so many titles whatever shall we call you?” The Harvest Lord teases, ribbons rippling.
“She was still alive when I died. Do you know when she’ll come here?”
When Enoch speaks again, his voice has a touch of remorse.
“I’m not sure she’s even one of mine, lad.”
Wirt feels like he should be upset, but contentment wells up where sadness, confusion, or anger would typically bloom.
He stares hollowly up at the harvest god.
“But she might be?” He asked at last.
The maypole’s smile tugged wide.
“Of course! She could be in the dirt under our feet as we speak, or she could be a few years coming.”
Eventually, Wirt speaks up.
“What if she’s not?”
“If she doesn't turn up in two centuries or so, and you’re missing her, I’ll find whoever claims her soul and make a bargain.”
“You will?” Wirt asks, hope edging his voice.
“Of course, lad, wouldn’t be the first time I reunited a pair of lovers.” As he says the word lovers, a single ribbon dances up to clutch at the lantern, wrapping up around it and pulling it closer against the maypole.
The maypole follows his gaze and tilts its head down to see where the ribbon has wrapped around the lantern.
“I’m sorry,” Wirt says again, and knows how dumb it is, to apologize even after he’s been explicitly forgiven, but there's a distress that settles in his bones whenever he looks at the lantern.
“It's alright, lad.” Enoch murmurs, voice soothing and comforting. “Everyone loses someone in life. I just happen to be one of the unlucky few who will not reunite in death, but you needn't worry for me nor yourself. I’ll see to it that you and your Sara are reunited. Now rest, lad.”
And this time, Wirt can.
Peace folds itself about him, contentment holding him close in a warm embrace.
He dreams of Sara, of lovers and lanterns.