Chapter Text
Kejota zoned back in as he heard thunder booming outside. His normal vacant stare turned to fear as the ground began shaking: An earthquake. Splinter in the spool! Apollo and Willow were still outside, doing Atraski-knows-what. He quickly drops the canvas he’s been repairing and instead yells “Freya!”
⇛ “KJ! I’m fine! Nothing’s broken!” She replied, from out of view. Kejota looked around. The bar was empty except for them: they had paid the owner to let them take it over for a day. He still had plenty of money after all, and if that ran out he had feyblood. Kejota wasn’t sure how valuable money was anymore.
Instead he climbs off the counter and starts to walk towards the bar. The thunder was getting louder, and the earth still crumbled beneath him. Kejota ducks under it for cover.
Down in the Abyss, he would’ve feared for his life. That fear still struck him here. Without thinking about it, he drew out feyblood and painted a safety rune on the back of his glove. Would it actually save him if this place collapsed? No. Did it make him mildly less scared? Yes!
It’s not the abyss. You won’t be crushed by rocks, and you won’t drown. Get it together. Say something. Is Freya okay?
He would never forgive himself if one of his party died just because his own magic had failed.
It always hurts to pull too much feyblood at once. Kejota couldn’t reach Freya, let alone Willow, let alone Apollo. Atraski-be-damned, what were those 2 idiots doing? Kejota couldn’t save them. YOU CAN’T SAVE THEM.
Kejota pulls his thick gloves off with his teeth, and tries not to look too hard at the charred-adjacent blotches all over his hands. No amount of runes had ever gotten rid of them. Speaking of runes.
He could feel his own energy and mental power sapping, but the feyblood drips down his fingers and pools between his palms. Kejota knew the language of runes, he loved it. But the fear in his heart corrupted it: He could remember all the spilt ink, all the contracts, all the paintbrushes that sealed his fate the same way the wax seals had sealed his soul away to rot in its own fear.
He tried not to think about it as he recalled the rune for stability. Did his hands shake and drip the feyblood away into nothingness? ...Maybe.
He raises a finger. Did he believe he could really ensure Freya’s safety? Never. Did he have the mental fortitude to accept that? Also never. S T A B I L I T Y. A word he’d drawn in feyblood again and again. Every single week, across his skin, in the false hope it would have kept Kejota alive. It didn’t.
But he was still standing, at least.
And maybe that would keep the building standing.
Time was thick and blurry as more and more of his consciousness was devoted to keeping the runes glowing, keeping the slimmest chance of Freya surviving.
He felt hands on his shoulders, voices in his ears. The feyblood was playing with his mind.
Atraski?
A slap to the face snapped him out of it.
Freya was there, was she safe?
His mind couldn’t keep up. Kejota couldn’t feel much of anything other than the hand on his cheek and the grating, ripping sensation of his skin rubbing against the harsh grip on his wrist.
Celeste, where are you?
When his eyes focus, the voices have changed. They’re normal again, not drifting and long-forgotten. The voices belong to his friends: Freya, who was yelling as she pulled him along, and Willow; responding over the wind. Kejota had no idea what they were saying.
Freya looks back, and her pupils thin as she makes eye contact with him. She lets go, leaving Kejota stumbling to a halt in the snow. It was so awfully cold.
...Oh. He’d left his gloves behind. He wraps his arms in one of his many thick layers. Freya had been anxious enough the first time she’d seen the rot, he didn’t need to worry her any more.
KJ breathes. It took a long minute for him to catch his breath. He peels the sleeve up to check the damage. Freya’s grip had ripped the skin on one side, allowing the infection beneath to ooze its black staticky pus over his hand. The remaining skin had wrinkled on one side, separated from the flesh beneath.
He lets himself fall to his knees and wipes the blood and grime and disgusting textures off with a handful of snow. The ice should stop him from pressing too hard. He hates the way it looks when the skin comes off.
Someone calls his name, and he looks up to see Freya at the top of the hill.
⇛ “What are you... Kejota? Don’t do that! APOLLO! ”
KJ wraps his arms with his sleeves and kicks the snow to cover up the filth left behind. Then he gets up and walks towards Freya.
Fate waits for no-one, after all.