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It started with too much.
Too much hurt; too much brutality. Too much to get right and to weather. He knew it had been too much, and too long, and something was happening inside the young devil that scared him; the demon he was becoming could not be offset by half-measures any longer, too significant to be hidden, too hurt to be less cold. Too much grown under affliction to renege on the fact that suffering had been the thing to build him. It had not been his decision, to become like this. His environment, his Naberius clan name and the standards demanded of him by it, had made that determination for him. It was out of his claws.
Kalego knew it had been too much, and today he was sick. Not hurting so bad as yesterday, no—yesterday he’d split head to tail with the delayed onset agony of overtraining—but sick he was nonetheless; and the malaise had settled over suffering to bring a strange calm, an unusual sense of control over himself the likes of which was foreign outside of illness. Kalego’s bed had collected him, and damp with fever, the head of the young Naberius felt blessedly clear.
Today, sick, he could face it. What had become of him.
The gate, the eye in, opened briefly—in he fell.
Kalego! he called inside. A vast space, his voice echoing. He called himself again. Kalego!
He heard a little noise from below.
Looking down, Kalego was huge. He had never been so towering here before; to describe him as monstrous now would be apt, every limb as large around as the great severe trees surrounding his clan’s home complex. Here, inside, he was a giant.
Giant in this iteration of himself, at least. And it had to be mentioned as such because of that small sound the young Naberius had heard. Down, down he gazed, unravelling his vision across the empty space and down his legs, until at his foot he saw him. A figure about the size of a kitten, or a baby bird. A figure bent under his foot. He let his toes up gently.
The boy was inconsolable. Raven hair dwindled down the boundaries of his head to hide his face.
Kalego.
There he was.
There’s so little of you left.
He had needed to grow beyond it, this being. It was required of him. This, here, beneath him, this tiny, pitiable thing that sobbed like a shivering mouse, this was the part of him he’d hoped to protect throughout it all, nonetheless. It was all that was worth surviving. But it was also too tender for Kalego’s world.
Apart from it, he’d had to grow. Casting it aside to face the reality of his raising. Holding it down. And in his time away, Kalego had indeed been molded… as a Naberius, he’d learned to weather hurt. To survive punishment, from wheresoever it arrived, sinking his teeth in until it was over and he could lick his wounds. He’d learned to fight losing battles and to suffer the aftermath without help, because he’d learned there would be no help.
Survive he did. Trust lost; hope lost; grim and resolute, he’d grown. Cold and self-serving, because security and safety did not exist in the young Naberius’s world—he’d had no choice but to transform into a demon who could guard himself, and serve himself, no matter the cost.
He won’t stop crying.
Gently he settled his paws around and under the emaciated figure, lifting it. The little thing so lost in its weeping, it didn’t seem to notice that it had been taken into a pair of hands. Forlornly it shuddered as Kalego watched it with open eyes, towards it exuding a feeling he could not identify. It was balled into the smallest shape it could make, gathered in a heap on its knees, face buried in its shivering paws, black wings tightened around its back. It seemed to be trying to make itself shrink smaller. Kalego was scared for it.
I tuck you against my heart.
This was his instinct. Although he talked and murmured at it, the tiny demon would not respond or even give a hint it had heard, and recognizing the peril the thing was in, Kalego’s chest called to bring it close. It’s cold. It’s sad. It’s barely alive, he felt, aghast that it had come to this. This part of me is on the verge of death. He is as an injured pup, with nothing to do with his hurt but cry.
With both hands he cradled the pup to his heart. He felt his heart beat to it. With his hands he enshrouded it in a warm egg of space, against him.
What do you want? he asked. What can I do for you?
This tender part was hiccuping; something was caught in its throat. Even as it sobbed it wheezed, as if to eject something hidden on its tongue, a part of it that did not match the tender part and yet was of it anyhow, a thing that was scraping its throat for release. With a terrible, strained breath, it broke away from crying and screamed:
Give. Me. CONTROL!
The dejection and anger were fierce in that small voice, like the shriek of a baby bird thrust from its nest and furious. Kalego felt a change. The warm egg was cracking; was seeping against and into him.
At first this scared him too. He opened a few fingers to look at the thing, and this glimpse was all it took to remind him, this is me, and to be at ease again with this change. It was melting in.
That part of him would not be separate. Mine, it said, as it integrated in, as it swam in. My stomach, my guts. My legs. My arms and hands and wings. My neck. My head. My mouth, my face, my ears, my breathing. Mine. Mine. Mine.
I was becoming this for you. I didn’t want to be separate from you. I wanted to protect you. Come in. This is yours. This is for you.
This is mine.
This is me.
Something stopped in his hands, and at first he thought his heart would break.
An empty shell.
He saw himself, that small boy, stiff and still and silent. A shell cast off between his paws. It was warm yet as with life, but the little body had perished, there with him, as the soul moved out and on. A spike of terror revulsed Kalego; but it settled fast as he recognized that everything that which had called the little body home had transferred over into him.
Even so… the death of that body marked a deep sorrow in Kalego. To look at himself displayed with such sadness in death, to look at the being he had known become so withered, something once so alive… that was a mournful thing.
That little body I'd held up to my heart is gone.
It’s stiff and still. But the boy has passed inside of me, so he isn't gone. Just... his tiny, broken body has been left behind, like ashes in my hands.
What a shock to hold something so small and dead. To feel the panic of, "he was just here."
But he hasn't vanished. He's gone inside of me.
He’d known he couldn't survive in that body.
Not when I had grown so large and apart from him. I could only crush him. So he came in. He chose to have control.
He wasn’t going to survive like that. So Kalego had prepared a space for him, and welcomed him in; just in time.
I don’t want to lose you, in this new me, he told it cautiously. Now we’re together again, I don’t want to lose you in what I have become.
This is what you have done for me, he felt in reply. You have made a space for me. I am here now. I have survived. We can both protect me from here.
It was the reconciling of his maturing mind with the child from whom Kalego had grown. In fact his environment had never nurtured his childhood, only hurt it; so now he took it upon himself, took it to be a part of himself, for it to be his own to raise. Yes, Kalego had grown guarded—but now this tender self was within that protective embrace. Yes, Kalego had grown self-serving—because this gentle part of him needed that self to care after it, and now that it swam in his veins, he served it. He didn’t have to push down this part of him anymore. He could grow around it. He had become strong enough to carry himself.
The spirit of him had slipped in again. What a loss: to see that young self sloughed off. That part of him would never be the same.
But what a relief to hold it.
What do you want me to do with this? he asked the young part of him. It gazed at its own past body through his eyes.
I don’t know yet, it echoed softly. It was mourning too.
I’ll freeze it. And later… we can burn it to ashes, or bury it.
They would decide in time. For now, Kalego had processing to do. He laid his head back. He was back in bed.
Kalego? Yeah. Hi Kalego.
Within himself he felt himself, the first time in a while.