Chapter Text
“They trusted him. They trusted him and not me?” Owen’s voice shakes, he’s desperately confused, he’s right, isn't he? Demon’s must be destroyed, for everyone's safety! There’s no choice. He's right about this! He was doing Exactly what he’d been trained to do.
Gods he’s confused, why? He’s right! He knows he is, he Can’t be wrong, he’s not wrong!
It’s becoming harder to think straight.
He can feel it, the heat, the promise of pain, of death.
And his head just won’t. Stop. Pounding.
“And now What! I’m just stuck. Stuck in this forsaken cell with nothing but a few Random objects it was deemed I could keep! Left to die while those THINGS are still out there,” The growl in Owen’s voice would be audible, were anyone to care enough to listen, but no. There’s no-one. No one cares, no one will come, no one! Nobody Is even willing to hear him out, not anymore.
No one except the voices.
But now they are against him too, telling him that he is in the wrong, that He is terrible, that HE isn’t the Owen they know.
“Not the Owen you know,” the incredulity clear in his voice, “So you want that- that Child, That idiotic child that can’t tell his enemy when it’s standing right in front of him, the one that can’t tell not even when he’s talking with one of them! You want that weak idiot-”
A small voice cuts him off mid-rant
“He knew who his friends were”
Magic
Magic, Magic, Magic
That Spineless coward trying to tell him about friends, the very same coward who lied about who lead the second clearing for a murderers ego, the same coward who let said murderer back into the clearing after she’d previously been left for dead by them, the same complete coward that sided with that Thing out there that should be dead.
“Did he? Because it really doesn’t seem like it right now” Owen pushes up the trapdoor like bars installed into the cell, all former fervour from his rant leaving with a point of focus provided.
The momentary silence following is tense and tinged with loss as Magic seems to come to terms with the version of her friend in front of her, a man that is so unrelentingly certain in his purpose that he can’t even hear that it could be wrong.
“You murdered Apo, Guts and Rasbi! They were your friends. They cared about you, and you would’ve done the same to Krow, how could you?” Her accusatory tone quickly shifts to one of grief, becoming barely audible by the end
“I did what I was supposed to, what I was trained to do. And now you’re going to what, throw me away? Now? When I’ve only partially fulfilled my purpose? Just throw me to the side when you’re done with me like everyone else!”
The outburst catches both off guard. Owen seeming almost offended at such a moment of weakness coming from him.
Magic for her part is surprised by it but also confused and partially indignant because those are her friends he’s talking about like they were nothing more than pests, they had been his friends as well, so why?
She wants to question him further, find out why and when he started thinking like this. When he stopped being her friend but she can’t, it’s become noticeably hotter since her coming down here and she knows she has to say what she originally came here to.
“I just, came to say goodbye, I know I shouldn’t down here but I just came to say it so,
Bye”
Her farewell is small, small and quiet even by her standards, but still so solid and loud in the hall between them. Although her back is turned she hesitates, as though searching, searching for a glimmer of the person she called her friend in the man they’d locked down here in the already scorching heat.
No answer comes though. No, because Owen has already put her goodbye behind him as a lost cause, and so unhindered Magic leaves. She walks through the hall now almost cracking in the heat, and climbs the ladder that’s almost too warm to the touch, and climbs out.
With Magic gone Owen focuses on trying to escape, to free himself because they’ve all, all of them become corrupted by those vile creatures that parade as people.
He checks the walls again. Still blocked, he checks the door again. Still locked, he checks the chair beneath the bars. No good, he even checks the dumb cat statue he threw away. Nothing!
Owen takes a breath, it’s getting too hot, he can’t think. His head is still. Pounding.
He takes inventory of what he still has.
“Allium, useless. 3 Plums, useless. Flower pot, useless. Water bucket, useless. Torch-
Wait. Water bucket. A water bucket.
They left me with a water bucket.
Of course, Of Course! A water bucket, haha hahahahaha, Why didn’t I think of it earlier! They left me with the ONE thing that I can so easily escape with, They’re arrogant. Those creatures think that they’ve won! They are So certain of their victory that they’ve left me with everything I need!” Owen is in hysterics at this point. Whether due to his prey’s blunder, the unbearable heat, his head still trying to split in half, or some unholy combination of all three, he can’t tell but he can escape with this. He can leave. He can still get rid of them .
So, breathless, and with hands still shaking with his own hysteria he places the water in the space between the bars and the wall keeping him in. He swims through the gap, the coolness of the water- no matter how temporary, providing immense relief from the heat.
And he runs, stumbling like a man possessed through a hall with bricks now cracking and revealing the angry red and orange glow of magma slowly, excruciatingly bubbling its way through.
And he reaches the ladder, now so unbearably hot, scorching to the touch, and he screams.
A pained, rage filled thing akin to a final death knell from a man so enraged by the world that even his death is a violent and raging thing. This scream, one so honest and broken, is heard, across the whole clearing. Even reaching those already leaving through the final gate. And those that care to mourn the death of Owen, a man killed before he even died.
But of course, Owen isn’t dead, not now. No he refuses to die down here in this pit.
So he climbs, as fast as he’s capable of, but it’s still so agonising, so slow, so painful.
But he perseveres because he will not die here .
And as the lava starts to fill his would be tomb, Owen. Only. Just. Escapes.