Chapter Text
Some words aren't real until they're felt. Language is a bit ephemeral like that sometimes. It's like, in theory the word makes sense, but its practical value is lost until it's touched, tasted. Visceralized. That's not a real word, but-- it's like you can hear the word awesome, and it's not until you're looking off the side of a mountain, taking in the edges of an endless world, that the word awesome has punch. Keen is dull until you've cut your hand on a blade or a friend's wit. Power is nothing until your hands are blooded by redstone, clenched around the pulse of the universe.
Deep and dark are greyscale until bellowed from a Warden's throat.
Etho is learning a new word today. Actualizing it. Realizing it's full weight and meaning. It paints his grin, his teeth. Twitches his limbs. Jolts his ribcage.
The word he's learning is bloodlust.
He thought it was a word he'd known before. He was a survivor by nature. He knew what it meant to kill or be killed. He knew the thrill of the hunt, of the pounce before the prize. He knew what it was like to be red, dangerously close to the end. He'd misplaced these as bloodlust in the time he'd felt them.
Joel is bloodthirsty. It's an unquenchable thing, like sand in your throat, it sticks and it grates, and Etho is discomforted by the feeling. It's contestant now that they're red, a stickiness in the back of his throat like he's never had water a day in his life. Joel is unbothered. He moves the same. Talks the same. Etho spends a lot of time swallowing and clearing his throat.
When Joel starts chasing Pearl, snarling and screaming, Etho runs with him. First on foot, then on horseback. He's swinging his sword and there's not a single thought in his head, outside the giddy, open-mouthed feeling of chasing something that knows it can't escape. It fills his chest, makes him lightheaded. It sings through his muscles, his lungs, everything. Joel plunges his sword into Pearl's back, and the singing is like a fever in Etho's head, and Joel is grinning at him and Etho realizes -- this is Joel. The way this feels. The way it compels. It's Joel. It's the way their souls are linked.
Etho is learning the meaning of bloodlust. He's heady and euphoric and he feels bad, because Pearl was just messing around, but he also feels good. Sated. The back of his throat doesn't stick.
Some words are nothing until they're felt. Really felt. Etho had never felt bloodlust before. Joel wears it like a second skin. He squeals and he laughs and he screams and he's unhinged, and his kicking Etho off his own hinges with every word.
Etho decides he enjoys this feeling, like wolves chasing ravens, open-mouthed and panting. He will chase Joel wherever he goes, chasing satisfaction. He can't wait to sink his teeth into it again.