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It was over.
The reign of tyranny that had come with Xornoth was gone. It was over. It should have been over. The next page turned over to reveal what should have been a happy ending. Fairy tales always had to end perfectly. The sword slew the dragon, and the knight carried the fair maiden into his arms back to the palace to live their happily ever after.
So why was Scott feeling like sin in his white and golden robes?
Phantom pain ghosted over Scott’s stomach, ravelling then unravelling. His insides twisted, constantly curdled in and out. His head ached, dull and with a continuous throb. Spine curved over the balcony fence jutted out of the large palace, decorated in ancient runes of carved spruce.
Long fingers clutched against the white robe, ushering it close and wrapping it around to protect from the elements. Clutching tight, despite the significant lack of energy coming from the elf.
His eyes drooped, blinks became slower. Once. Twice.
Scott shook his head before his internal clock could count to three.
Long nights of staying awake, long days of rubbing his eyes and catching a few concerned glances. The bags weren’t going away; he had barely slept in months.
Was it months? How long had it been since he stabbed himself to save his friends? How long since he heard his own guts squelch against the ground? The cries he heard Xornoth moan and whimper in those last moments? All the while surrounded by red tendrils that kept crawling closer to his ankles, threatening to halt him still before witnessing what could have been a massacre. The idea of bodies at his feet, screaming apologies to an unforgiving abyss.
He couldn’t escape. It’d haunt him every night. Every time he closed his eyes, it was always the same nauseating cry of a wounded animal. It was a worthwhile sacrifice, yes. He wouldn’t have done it any other way. He couldn’t have done it any other way.
The cold whistled, snow tracing down his cheek as his teal hair lay stringy at his shoulder. It wasn’t as soft; it hadn’t been lately. Nothing about him had been soft or exactly inviting, maybe for the first few days after ‘returning’ to Rivendell, but not for long.
He had heard no mention of the House of Blossom, or the Ocean Empire. . . as if they were just erased from history.
Rivendell simply hummed underneath the starless sky; the occasional glow of candlelight would catch his attention before being snuffed out by the cold. Long rows of stairs and narrow ways amongst the crest of the mountains would glow, just ever so softly.
It was much larger than he remembered.
He was high up, yet everything felt so small. A world he knew his parents had built, not him. The statue of Aeor stood still against the mountain, his head almost bowing towards the prince.
You did what you had to do.
It spoke silently. At least, that’s what Scott thought it said.
Did Aeor know? Was the God he had to put his faith into knew of what was to come?
Was he a martyr?
Was this punishment for the mistakes he had made, for the friends he had hurt? Or was it a reward for being honourable?
He didn’t know. He didn’t know anymore. His head was crumbling. His thoughts constantly whirred like machinery, the pedelumn foreboding.
It wasn’t real, it was real.
It was one or the other.
A sudden creak against wood made Scott’s head jolt up, his ears perking up against the nightly snow tinkling against the wooden beams. His senses on high alert, threat, friend, who-
“Snow Owl, why in the blimin'’ heck are you out here so late? You’re gonna catch a cold!” Came out as a very tired groan. It broke away against the silence, the hammering thoughts against Scott’s skull.
When the Elven Prince turned back to the doorway glimmering in gold, all he could see was the sight of a very disgruntled and tired Codfather, Jimmy Solidarity. His buttercup hair was bedraggled, hazel eyes that could glimmer in gold under the summer sun. Everything about him screamed gold. He perched against the doorway, staring at Scott while his fists clutched against his usual bedclothes, while his fins only just reached his elbows as they curled against themselves for warmth.
One thing never changed between each reality: how beautiful the codfather looked in gold. It was his colour, no matter how much the Codfather said otherwise.
Oh, Jimmy. Sweet, Sweet Jimmy.
The snow could clear for him and him alone; he was the ray of sun. The one consistency. No matter how much it pained him to not know how he came to bear the ring on his finger.
Scott’s heart ached at the thought.
“Oh, er, yeah, Jimmy. . . Sorry... I’ll be inside in a moment.” The elven prince, usually ever so confident and sassy, felt nothing like who he should’ve been. The mask, playing pretend, didn’t feel so easy under the cusp of night. His eyes could only try to glance towards the white tower for enchanting, watching as it faintly sparkled against the white snow and black sky.
Well, he certainly tried to ignore the nagging feeling that kept lurching at his mind.
As soon as his head slowly moved back, he felt something warm grasp his right arm before gently tugging it back. His head spun backwards, exhaustion almost causing him to tumble.
Honestly, he just tried to mentally believe that the Codfather got really strong to explain how he caught the smaller blue-haired elf.
It was easier to lie than to tell the truth.
“No, no moments, Scott, you look, well. . . I don’t wanna say it,”
“...Just say it,” was all Scott could murmur, wincing at how weak his voice sounded. Hypocrite, his brain screamed at him. He could see the seven layers of regret all pass over Jimmy’s face.
“You look horrible, love,” Concern littered behind the tender voice. Gentle, stating a fact. Real. It was real. Webbed hands slowly began to weave through the tangled mess, rivers of blue seeping right through the fingers of the Codfather.
A fish takes to water after all.
And water was just liquid snow.
Scott pressed his face against Jimmy’s chest. A sense of warmth, something at least familiar, to bring him back down to Rivendell. Away from condensation, away where his breath felt like claws scratching at his throat. Black ebbs were trying to invade his mind, and all he had was a meek ray of light to be his shield, to be his protector when he never needed one ever. Was it healthy? No.
Not with the way his stomach also raged at the contact, reminding him again and again with every wave that he didn’t remember. He never envisioned himself to be nothing but putty, mushy in the embrace of the man whom he’d spend lifetimes running for, literally.
This wasn’t his Jimmy.
Was it?
Sure, he did want to fall into the same pair of arms. He wanted to feel this embrace, feel that same sense of sickly sweet warmth he had been yearning for.
But was it the same?
They looked the same, the same sun-kissed hair, the same shining eyes. It was the exact pair he fell in love with so long ago when they first met. The same pair that saved him from the cage that Sausage and Joey had trapped Gem and Scott in. Those same eyes he kept gazing at during that date.
The eyes he saw in his final breath.
…Scott couldn’t mentally bring himself to answer that.
He felt warm hands press against where it hurt, tender and alluring. Palms seemed to guide, slow and steady. Slow and easy. Down his hair, stroking against the nape where his cloak couldn’t touch the Elf’s skin. The snow seemed to part, parting like the Red Sea.
It could’ve been minutes, he heard every grain of an hourglass drop down.
It could’ve been hours, he swore he smelt the sweet scent of poppies long before he met Jimmy.
“. . .Look, let’s just get you to bed? Okay? I know you’re my snow owl, but snow owls still need their sleep too,” Softly spoke Jimmy, his voice being the one to finally break that expanding rubber band of time. It snapped, no longer linear. He’d take it personally.
“‘Kay…”
“Wow, you must be out of it if you’re not saying anything.”
“Too tired..”
“Do you want me to carry you?” It was earnest, something that made Scott glance up. Whether in realisation or instinct would be a different story. How much of the same page was Jimmy to the Jimmy he knew? Was this the same Jimmy?
Obviously not, but sometimes. . . it felt easier to just. . .
To just push it aside.
That’s what he did anyway; there wasn’t a major difference between the prologue and epilogue of a book. The book of Scott Major; living in a mirror of reality.
It was what should’ve been.
Xornoth never got corrupted, and their parents never died. He got to live with Jimmy. This was his reward, the reward for his self-sacrifice.
It had to be, right?
Rivendell’s second son could only glance at Jimmy, stare into those eyes he adored. They were still the same, the same speckles of green and gold amongst brown hues. He could get lost in those eyes all over again; that was something he didn’t mind.
Jimmy could only watch expectantly, one arm cradling his back, the other still petting his hair ever so softly and sweetly.
Like a tender kiss he once knew, he knew to be familiar.
Yet the differences were so stark that it still felt like an imitation.
It took him a second and a little prompt of a nose tap for him to nod his head.
Since when did he become so weary?
It didn’t feel like time had moved by the time Scott was carried from the balcony, down the halls of white and dark browns and all under the watchful eye of the Codfather. It wasn’t long after that that the elf’s head was against Jimmy’s chest and his body was swaddled with a mountainous pile of merino wool blankets. Just like old times, his ear pressed against the codfather’s heart.
Thump, thump, thump.
Scott’s hand curled against the warmth of Jimmy’s skin. Almost whining whenever Jimmy had to move slightly to make himself more comfortable underneath the tuckered sheets, which gave out that similar reverberation of a chuckle he knew to be Jimmy’s. The Codfather’s head laid against the headboard, one hand still stroking between the greasy sea that was Scott.
Thump, thump, thump.
That was his heart again.
Drumming away.
The nightlight was kept on, the room still drowning out those shadows that sometimes Scott could see the glowing purple eyes that haunted him for aeons, sitting there, staring back.
It must’ve been a torturous thing to stare into the void.
Thump, thump, thump.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Hand.
He felt a pair of lips kiss against his forehead, butterfly wings. Sweet, sickly sweet. Sugar and spice and ice, and it was hard for him to describe. Every kiss felt like fire ignited, yet right now. . . it felt like the kiss of ice that exited from his fingers. The same chill outside from their walls, walls that were their shield from the outside. From the masquerade.
“...I know you probably don’t want to talk, and that’s fine, but. . . You know, we have to talk about this one day? This isn’t you, love, I know you. . . and this isn’t you.”
Silence followed, Minus Scott’s breathing and the want for more fingers dancing through his unkempt curls.
How ironic.
“..I love you, I love you so much, I just don’t want you to freeze yourself alone, okay? I’m here, I want to be here with you, in all universes, I want to be with you, my love.”