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The jagged scar across his stomach shines pale even in the dim light here, wherever here is. He’s not sure now, and doesn’t know if he’s ever been sure. The place is underground, he usually thinks. Usually there is a faint light that allows him to see himself, and, occasionally, other things. Sometimes, though, it is pitch black.
Sometimes. Even when he can see, his surroundings are uncertain. The shape and size of his chamber change whenever he’s not looking, and sometimes when he is. It shifts: claustrophobic to cavernous, natural stone to that shaped by hands to that ruined by time. Sometimes it is too cold, sometimes it is too hot.
Sometimes his scar is in another place. Over his heart. Across his neck. Sealing the space over his missing eyes.
Sometimes he thinks there is a reason behind all this, that he could figure out why this place was made for him, why he is trapped in ice and chains and gut ropes, if he only had time, more time, before the pain.
For there is always pain.
He hears the flap of eagle’s wings in the distance, and grits his teeth. This pain will be one of the more familiar ones. And though he cannot prepare, cannot ignore, the familiarity may allow him to think. To try to remember.
Why is the eagle flying toward him now, with sharp talons and sharper beak? Why will it reopen the scar to eat his liver, as it has done so many times?
Chiefest and oldest of shadows, driving back the rest at the sides of the new ones, new beings all light and color, oh how grand, how grand, to fight for a better world, a world where mortals could be safe, a world where mortals could create and build and…dream. At the side of the shadow a being all joyous light and warmth, purest and most precious inspiration.
And when they had defeated the last shadow (ah not the last, not the last) they had turned to each other and said how good this dappled world is, how good, how good. And they made themselves bodies of clay, and they put them on, and they lay down together under the dark sky bright with stars.
And they forgot about the others. The bright and the dark they lived among the mortals in the flesh that had once been clay, but even then the bright one still inspired and without knowing he taught the mortals many things, and the shadow was pleased, for why should his bright good love be kept from doing what he did best?
Still, the others found them eventually.
The eagle lands on the rock next to him. As soon as it is steady it tears open his scar and digs its beak into his viscera, searching for his liver. It does not comment on how his screams have changed over the years, from those of one who cries out for help to those of one who simply cries out in agony.
You stole him, they said. You stole our precious one. How could we have been so blind? For as long as you remain there is yet one shadow.
As clay they could not resist. They took back the bright one, and they locked him away with all their powers. For how could the intentions of shadow towards light be anything but foul? He must never escape. Never.
The eagle lifts its bloodstained head from his body, as if it’s heard his thoughts. It swallows the gobbet of meat in its beak, and glances down to the already healing wound.
It leaves without finishing its meal. He has no idea why. As the physical pain fades, he is relieved. The eagle is gone, his memory is here.
Soon, he realizes why the eagle does not return.
The talons of his memory are sharper.
You must never touch him again. Did you seek to darken the world? How could you have stifled him like this? In this awful sweating dying clay? Were you going to watch him die? Were you going to bury him to rot in the earth? Be buried then yourself! Feel the pain we have felt without him!
No, he thinks, remembering. No, I have not done the last. I loved your precious one, your bright one, your flame, in a way you never did. I have felt your pain tenthousandfold.
There are no more eagles. There is no more ice. There is no more serpent venom.
There is only no escape for the chiefest and oldest of shadows. Now, it is more than enough.