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Infinite fell to the ground, his knees splashing in the brown puddles as rain soaked into his hair.
"You can't do this. Not you, anyone but you." Infinite growled. Fingers buried into fur.
"Why would- how- how could you bring yourself down to someone like me ?! Why on Mobius would you be willing to stand within 5 feet of someone... someone as... as weak as me."
He threw his face into his hands. Shaking. Giving up on holding everything together as it crashed around him. He choked and heaved on his own tears. How cruel for him to feel them hot before they mixed with the rain and trailed down his face.
Everything was scrunched tight, tighter, tighter. He wanted to see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. Maybe when he opened his eyes again, every last feeling and memory would be squeezed out of him.
Maybe when he opened his eyes, he would be alone.
A touch, on his head.
"Raise your head, my dear companion"
Slowly, slowly, hands lowered, ears perked, and eyes opened. He was not alone as he had feared hoped expected.
Golden robes, glistening despite the rain, stood before him.
The jackal raised his head until their eyes met.
"Hear me Infinite, for you are not weak, you have never been weak. Am I to think a river is weak because it is not an ocean? Am I to think the wind is weak because it can not move a mountain? Should I allow myself to be pelted with rocks because they are smaller than boulders?"
Ishi Tib had never spoken so seriously before, but there was no harshness in his voice. Gentle yet stern, calm yet unrelenting.
Infinite could only gaze up upon him from his place in the mud.
But Ishi Tib seemed dissatisfied, as he opened his beak soundlessly, before crouching down to meet Infinite's gaze evenly.
He placed his hands over Infinite's, and picked them up as gently as if he was holding the most precious thing in the world.
"You hold such strength, dear one. You should not think yourself so lowly as to be unable to walk beside me..."
Infinite's eyes lowered, slowly, shakily. They rested on Ishi Tib's beak.
"...for I want to walk beside you for as long as we are both able..."
The rain was playing tricks, surely, as it seemed as if the space between them was shrinking.
"...if you would-"
Ishi Tib never finished voicing his thought, as dozens and dozens more seemed to take its place.
Two minds and hearts, so very different, had come together as one. Just for a moment.
It could have been hours, it could have been seconds, before they came apart, and Ishi Tib lifted the jackal from the ground.
Infinite found no part of himself willing to protest against the bridal carry. He could have excused it as fatigue, but they both knew better.
Ishi Tib didn't mind the rain, and Infinite allowed himself the small comfort of burying himself close to the amphibian. He listened to his companion's steady heartbeat.
Thump thump thump
Despite the cold, despite the rain, there was warmth, there was light, and at last, there was strength.