Chapter Text
You’re not in my memories
You turn into a breeze and touch my cheeks
The wasteland was, as the name suggested, a rather deserted piece of land, just outside the city. Jon had grown up in the country, and he remembered the terrifying tales of mages and wizards that older children would tell – all of which had the Waste as their setting.
The last buildings were a few refuges for shepherds, in case they were caught in a blizzard, and even those did not dare to approach the imaginary border between human territory and Waste.
Truth be told, Jon had grown out of his fear, and now merely regarded the place as a desolated, uncharted portion of a map. He had no first-hand experience of sinister happenings there, and every story he’d been told (mostly by Rosie, who enjoyed this sort of tale immensely) came from a friend of a friend whose mother heard this from her hairdresser’s daughter’s colleague who got it from- in what became a chain of gossip impossible to track down. Chances were some kids had once got lost in the Waste and people had kept building stories upon stories.
As it was, the place seemed to be disturbingly underwhelming, the soft grass giving under his feet as he tried to keep up with Sasha. He was still reluctant to use her sight at all times, and only did so when she requested it – usually when they were crossing a particularly steep path.
They’d been walking all morning, having set out at dawn, and the bundles they’d brought to keep their things were beginning to weigh down on them. Rosie had insisted on giving Sasha enough food to last two days, seemingly buying into her family emergency story, and while they’d already stopped for a quick snack of cheese and some fruit, Jon’s shoulders were aching already.
They weren’t quite high enough to feel cold, but the temperature was noticeably lower than in the city. Even the layered dress he was wearing, paired with a thick set of tights, was not enough to keep him from shivering. Still better than his usual blouse and breeches, though.
Sasha had complimented him on the green of the dress when he’d bought it, saying it brought out his eyes. That morning she’d helped him put a bandage around his head, covering them from sight until they’d get far enough from people.
He’d insisted on not drawing attention to themselves, after all, and suddenly opaque, white eyes tended to surprise strangers as well as old acquaintances – one more reason why he hadn’t gone to Rosie’s, not even to say goodbye.
“Mind your step here,” Sasha directed, skipping over some stones on a small creek they were going to have to cross. “There’s a rock on your left but it’s very slippery-”
Under her careful advice, he managed to get by without faltering.
“I still think you should be looking-”
“And I still think it’s better to keep that for times when I actually need it. I’m fine, Sasha, don’t fret.”
She snorted. “Don’t fret- that’s easy for you to say, your best friend wasn’t left terribly blinded with a curse by the most powerful sorcerer in the world.”
He nudged her shoulders in a silent apology, and resumed walking. He knew she only wanted to help, but the idea of being in her head, spying her inner and most private thoughts didn’t sit right with him. As he trod the rocky trail in front of him, he had slipped a couple of times, his feet tripping over a stone or root, and he had inadvertently Seen, mind reaching out instinctively as he felt himself fall, only to retract a moment later, horrified.
What kind of monster could use other’s eyes without guilt?
With a sigh, he took her arm again, tact finely tuned to catch her every movement to follow.
Jon knew what the two of them were doing, so hell-bent on doing and finding and solving to avoid focusing on feeling, on dealing with what had happened.
Sasha hadn’t said much about getting into the shop to find him bloody and cursed, but there was something in the way her fingers tightened around his arm, as if she feared he would slip out of her grip, or fade into thin air the moment she wasn’t paying attention.
In response, he would squeeze her elbow, grounding himself as the darkness – although that wasn’t quite right, since it was a complete absence of anything – threatened to swallow him.
“What time is it?” He asked after a couple of minutes of silence, their slight panting barely covered by the wind howling above their heads.
“Sun’s up, I would say it’s past noon. Want to stop for rest?”
He didn’t need to see her to know it was a request more than an actual question, and he nodded.
“There’s a clearing on your left, we can sit on the grass. We should eat too, at least it’s some weight off.”
Jon made a pillow of the scarf he’d been wearing and rested his head back, letting the sound of chirping lull him, sunshine warming his cheeks.
“I wonder if you can see through a bird’s eyes,” Sasha said around a mouthful of bread. “You should try.”
Jon flinched, appalled. “How can you suggest that kind of thing? It’s- I should keep this curse within, not use my ‘powers’-” He bitterly spat out the word, grimacing. “- to have fun.”
Sasha sighed, throwing him a crumb.
“Look, at this point you might as well do it. I said I don’t mind, I said it’s cool. You can’t help it, at least use it.”
He swallowed some of the cheese she’d handed him before nodding curtly.
Reaching out once again, he opened the door keeping that wave of Sight and Knowing at bay, his mind searching for something to latch onto. He felt suddenly aware of every single life form around him, the clearing bright with hundreds of small lights, pulling at the edges of him and tearing at his attention. It was almost overwhelming, being so thoroughly everywhere at once.
Finally, he found a bird – a proud cardinal, at attention on a branch that he knew would give him a chance to see the entire valley below. Cautious as he could be, Jon opened his eyes through it, and thanked his good stars he was sitting down, as the wave of dizziness that hit him would have surely made him fall to his knees otherwise.
The cardinal didn’t seem to be aware of his presence, and kept scrutinizing the ground underneath the tree, its sight so profoundly different from his own that Jon was almost overcome with the sheer amount of sensations running through him: colours he’d never seen before hitting his eyes with violence, focus shifting rapidly enough for him to lose track of where he’d already glanced before.
As he tried to get used to the onslaught of input, he began categorising every single snippet of world he could get from the cardinal, noting the colours, the unusual attention paid to small patches of grass, the way there was always a sense of being ready to leap and take flight at the first sign of food- even the primal urge of feeding, finding shelter, was unfamiliar to him. It was a rather unique experience, and as much as a voice in his head whispered to get back in his own body before his consciousness was forever lost, he longed to feel the bird fly, dreamt of the wind beneath its wings lifting it up.
A gentle hand shook his shoulders, and he was violently thrown back into himself.
“Jon!” Sasha cried, obviously not expecting his strong reaction. “Jon, are you alright?”
It took a moment to catch his breath, and even longer to get used to not seeing any more: a part of him mourned the loss of vibrancy.
“Yes, yes, I just-” He stuttered, still trying to find his bearings. “I wasn’t expecting the entire thing to be so… intense, I suppose.”
“Sorry,” Sasha helped him back to his feet. “It’s getting late, we need to get back on the trail if we don’t want to spend the night here.”
Jon froze.
“H-How long was I gone for?”
“I wouldn’t really know for sure, but around thirty minutes?” Sasha explained tentatively. “But it gets dark early in this season, and- Wait. How long did you think you were unresponsive for?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, fingers almost itching for some sort of release. He found a coin and began to furiously rub it between his fingers, the rough edges providing what little distraction they could from his racing heart.
“A couple of minutes. I was looking- There was a cardinal, staring at the valley.”
Sasha didn’t reply, but she placed her hand on his forearm as she had done that morning when they were just starting their journey. After seeing through the small bird’s eyes, time made little sense to him, but the touch grounded him, and his frantic movements eased down.
“Look, I was thinking we could get you a stick or something, that way you can know what the ground is like.” She tried again, guiding him towards the path. “I know it’s not the best place, but it could help. Also, we could use it as a weapon, in case something tries to come after us.”
He almost wanted to tell her that there was little a cane would do against the mannequins or wax figures he’d seen, and it’d surely do nothing against the Watcher himself.
Still, the image of her hitting Elias on the head with a stick brought a smile on his face and he nodded. After all, a bit of extra protection wouldn’t hurt.
He heard footsteps moving around, as Sasha looked for an adequate cane near the trees and bushes he’d seen through the cardinal, followed by some soft grunting as she tried to get it to untangle from the twigs and leaves. A loud curse, and then sounds of shuffling as she walked back towards him.
“It’s stuck. Care to lend me some of your manly strength to get it out?”
After a good deal of convincing—‘No Jon, you will not be forever haunted by guilt if I ask you to use my eyes for one damn minute’—he acquiesced and blinked slowly, mind reaching out until his vision filled with colour again. He spotted the branch Sasha had eyed, and in a most peculiar effort, he moved his body as he stared at it from behind, his friend following him ready to steady his steps in case he faltered.
Their hands reached for the stick at the same time, unspoken agreement to start pulling at the count of three, and suddenly Jon was using all his strength, tugging and yanking, and the stupid branch wouldn’t budge.
“This isn’t working,” he finally panted, grateful that he couldn’t see the dirty look Sasha was giving him. “We should– reorganise. Regroup and come up with a better strategy.”
“It’s a piece of wood, not the enemy army.”
Still, she seemed to agree with his statement, because she took a step back as well and stared at the bush. It seemed harmless, if surprisingly stubborn. Perhaps it was the influence of all the wizards wandering the Waste: even the plants were bound to get some unnatural aspects to them.
“Do you reckon you could Know how to get it out?” She asked after a good few minutes of intense staring which had, strangely, not managed to do much.
“Maybe. I don’t- I don’t know how to Know things, though. I know that I can, it’s just a bit out of my reach.”
“I think you’ve said the word ‘know’ so many times it has stopped making sense. Just focus on the stick and see if anything comes to mind.” She patted his arm reassuringly, and the small touch startled him out of her mind enough to jump back into his body, the experience as unpleasant as it was sudden.
“Keay better do a great job at un-cursing you, otherwise I’ll have a few words with him.”
All in all, Jon mused, he could have had it worse. The Watcher was powerful and terrifying, but an angry Sasha made Elias look like a harmless lunatic.
“Right then,” he whispered to himself, his mind whirring as he reached the unfamiliar door behind which his powers seemed to hide. The static filling his ears grew more intense as he imagined himself taking a step forward, fingers reaching for the handle and turning it just enough to get it to move, and washed over him with alarming force once it did open, Knowledge pouring out of his mouth uncontrolled.
cardinals live up to three years in the wild common floral species at this altitude include black yarrow, wolf’s bane, crimped bellflower, white hellebore, maidenstears temperature drops at night record low -7 degrees average low 1 degree snow is common in this season hypothermia tends to kick in after as little as five minutes frostbite can lead to the loss of fingers or limbs –
A sharp pain interrupted the constant flow of information, his hand instinctively reaching for his heated cheek. Sasha was panting audibly next to him, crushing him in a hug as soon as he stopped talking.
“Jon you nearly gave me a heart attack– come on, let’s do something for your eyes. Forget about the stick.”
“My eyes?” He hesitantly asked, throat raw. “What’s with my eyes?”
With a nudge, he slipped back into her mind, staring at himself and choking as he did so.
He’d been crying blood. Apparently, that was a thing he did now, and by the stars he was too tired to properly consider that. Instead, as he tried to calm his breathing, something seemed to whisper in his ear.
Need more leverage. Need to put pressure on middle part of the branch, then lift from below.
He cleaned his face with his sleeve, shooting Sasha what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’ve got it. Come on, help me back to the bush.”
He could hear her mumbling—something about people being careless and not stopping even when they were literally bleeding from their eyes —but ignored the sound, hands placed on the spots he now Knew to be best to lean on.
With an ominous creak , the branch began to rise, and Sasha quickly rushed to help; their combined efforts managed to untangle the stick from all the twigs that had grown around it, and with one last pull it jumped up and out of their hands, sending them both to the ground.
Borrowing Sasha’s eyes again, Jon could only let out a sigh.
Of course his walking stick would turn out to be a seemingly sentient scarecrow.
Of bloody course.