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Pain- so much pain. He feels as his abdomen is torn through, as muscle and flesh are sliced apart. He feels as hot blood pours from the gaping hole through his midsection, how his intestines unfurl, onto the table under him.
Occtis hates breathing.
Well not breathing- just the act of it, the reminder that now sits in the base of his chest as he tries to do so. Breathing used to be something he never had to think about, it was compulsory, it was something that the sleeping part of his brain did without thinking.
Now he had to think through every breath, had to urge his lungs to inhale and exhale, flexing his diaphragm felt like a work out all in itself, some lesson he'd never been taught before now.
He pulls air into his lungs, feeling as it shifts inside of him, then slowly he exhales, releasing what he just took from the air around him. It feels pointless, but the act of Not doing so feels worse.
All he can see is Ethrand's face looming over his. All he can hear is his own blood rushing in his ears. He can feel his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest, some desperate attempt to make up for the insurmountable blood loss.
Its not even pain anymore, it all hurts so much that the pain itself is fading, fading faster than he wants, because the pain means that he's still alive, that he can still feel-
Occtis knows that he is dead. Or alive. Or some strange middle ground between the two. He knows he doesn't need to breathe. That his body doesn't need that from him anymore, but the act of not breathing felt like accepting that he was dead.
Accepting that his brother killed him. If he thinks too hard he can feel the space where his heart used to be, empty in his chest, the blood no longer flowing through his body.
Occtis presses a hand on his chest, feeling the stillness of himself. The stillness that he saw in Thjazi Fang's body, but Thjazi was dead, dead and gone, and Occtis was not.
Why wasn't he dead? Was it the stone? The stone that Vaelus wants so badly? Or was it his blood, his family, his magic? Some horrid mix of it all?
He feels as the world dissolves around him, how his heart gives up, slowing to nothing in his chest, his eyes dilating, the small movements that he was capable of in life gone, he stills to nothing.
Would it have been better if he was dead? Did he cheat the afterlife in some way, the dead shapers?
Pin rubs his face against Occtis's hand, breaking his concentration. Occtis looks down at the little fox, Pin didn't breathe either, he never needed to. He picks Pin up, setting him in his lap, the creature chirping slightly. Pin never asked to be alive did he? Occtis just simply brought him into being without thinking, just to see if he could.
Was he alive still when Ethrand put the stone in his chest? Was he dead? He swears he remembers the feeling of his brother's hand twisting around in his chest, of cutting his heart free and replacing it with something hard and still.
The fox stares up at him with his big empty button eyes, despite them being so very empty, Occtis can swear he sees love in there. Is that what made Vaelus so drawn to Pin? His emotions? His being? Did Occtis still feel? Did death take that from him?
"There's always been something wrong with you."
Occtis shifts himself backward, just enough so he can sit on the floor with his back to the wall. He takes a deep breath in, feeling his lungs expand, his diaphragm contract. He exhales, slowly, his breath tastes like death.
Across the room, Thaisha's chest rises and falls in time with her slow breathing. He watches as she does it effortlessly, even in her sleep. Its not something conscious, something that requires focus, it just happens for her.
"GO BACK!" The way those words broke through death, ringing in his ears-
If Occtis tried to sleep now, he's not sure what will happen. Is being alive a conscious decision like breathing? If he stops thinking about how still his chest is will it kill him all over again? Is he living on borrowed time that will burn up? He doesn't want to sleep because sleeping means that he won't breathe- and if he doesn't breathe then he will be well and truly dead.
The thought of Thaisha waking up and him being dead all over again would stop his heart if it already wasn't missing from his chest.
Once, when Occtis was younger, he'd gone to a funeral, dragged along with the rest of his siblings. It had been fine, up until they were burying the casket, up until Occtis realized that the body was going to be stuck there, stuck under all those layers of soil. He'd always been told that his family held some dominion over death, but even if the person's soul passed on their body was stuck in that casket, under all that dirt.
He kept just imagining dying one day to wake up lying in one of those caskets, dead but not, stuck in a layer of wood and suffocating under soil.
There is something still in his chest- Occtis reaches for it, pulling the stillness from his rib cage.
And now he was dead but alive. Suffocating but not needing to breathe.
Pin twists in his lap, getting himself more comfortable. He lays himself right over where the gash down his abdomen was, right where his life spilled out onto the table. Pin's body is so small, his fur is soft and comforting. It's strange to think that Occtis would make something scary, Pin was better like this, patchwork and all.
The little fox doesn't need to breathe, his heart doesn't beat, lungs don't expand, yet he feels so very real, so very alive. Maybe Occtis is almost the same. Maybe if he stops his shaky mockery of breathing it won't take his humanity with it.
He looks across the room, watching Thaisha's chest rise and fall in her sleep, he exhales along with her.
And he doesn't inhale again.
Occtis Tachonis is dead, and maybe that was okay.