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He can still hear his brother's screams echoing in his ears, as they drag him away. Castor's wings ache, and the many wounds burn and bleed onto the tiled floors, and he can barely keep his head lifted for how weak he feels, but he wants to struggle. Desperately, he wants to scream, wants to tear himself free from the Lantern Guards with arms clasped tightly around his upper arms (enough to bruise, enough to press against the cuts and scrapes painfully) — but all Castor can do is clench his teeth and try not to cry.
Through the hallways, they drag him. Across cold stone, feet and calves scraping against the stone all the while, and Castor only grits his teeth and stifles whatever whimpers attempt to escape. (He fails. He has not faced nearly as much pain as Pollux has had to endure, with the Transformation Rituals, and it is painfully apparent with how all of these wounds are enough to turn Castor into a pathetic, paralyzed bird.)
He's dragged through hallways and corridors, deeper and deeper until Castor is sure that he is far, far away from the sun that had so warmly fallen across his and Pollux's feathers, in that brief, beautiful period of freedom. They take him to a row of cells — so far deep beneath the ground that Castor can almost feel the pressure of it, pressing down against him. The cells are small, and it's cold, down here — Castor can see each breath, as he exhales, and the lit purple candles make an eerie sight as the shadows deepen.
Castor is roughly shoved into a cell, and he starts at the feeling of something cold and viscous against his skin. Juliette had said the Pools of Sin — this was the Lightbearer's blood, then? (He'd have thought it would be warm, the way his own blood had been, the way Pollux's blood had been when Castor had carefully pulled broken feathers from the wings. This blood is only cold.)
"Please," he tries to say, as the black blood starts to seep into the fabric of his robes, as it sinks into his many bleeding wounds and burns. "Please—"
"Silence. Sinners are not permitted to speak, even the Divus." One of the Lantern Guards snaps at him, reaching from somewhere unseen to clamp manacles onto Castor's wrists. Another tightens manacles upon his ankles, and Castor kicks out — to no avail. The chains are tightened, enough that he would not be able to walk out of the cell, and then — they leave.
The holy blood, that blackened liquid thick like tar and cold as ice, shining faintly in the candle light, seeps into his injuries further still. His calves burn, where it touches. His lower back aches, from the wounds there and that blackened blood seeping in. His arms and shoulders burn with their own wounds, and his ribcage feels slightly misaligned. The skin of his upper chest is covered in scratches, as is his neck, and Castor can faintly feel cuts on his scalp from where he'd been roughly dragged with hands gripping his hair. (His hair, too, has been cut somewhat — a quarter, perhaps a third, has been roughly cut short from one of the blades that had swung at him upon his and Pollux's recapture.)
It hurts, but Castor can't stop thinking about Pollux's screams. About the sickening crack of bone broken and tearing of skin and muscle and sinew. About the way Pollux had slumped there against the ground, limp, blood gushing from the wound in such a way that Castor did not know if his brother was even alive. It hurts, but Castor can't help but worry.
(He does not know it, but this moment — it is the beginning of hell, and he truly must have been a sinner, to suffer so deeply.)
Time passes. Slowly, but steadily all the same. Castor starts to lose track, but he tries to time it by the amount of maids that come. He had asked, once, how often the maids were sent to bring his meals, and one must have taken pity on him, for she had answered that they were sent once per day. So, he tries to keep track in that way — scratches carefully carved into part of the stone wall behind him, hidden by his body when he sits. (It's not as if it's very visible, either way — his talons are filed short and not very sharp, and he struggles to scratch into the stone properly. It's the thought that counts, though, surely?)
He tries to ask about Pollux. None of the maids ever answer him. One pauses, setting down the plate holding his meal just out of reach, and fixes Castor with a look that holds such terrible sorrow. "The Divus Castor should not worry about his brother." She says, clasping her hands together. "He came here to seek the Lightbearer's forgiveness for his sins, and he should focus on achieving purity and regaining righetousness. Does the Divus Castor not remember his duty?" There is a fervent glow in her eyes, and Castor knows — this maiden, at the least, truly believes in Castor's divinity, in his holy nature.
(He wonders what Juliette told the Lantern, about his role in this cell. About what happened to Pollux. He wonders if she told them anything.)
That maiden, though kind, is swiftly replaced with another. (She had been kind. Castor mourns her, wherever it is that she went — she had been kind enough to gift Castor with an apple. It was sweet, and crisp. It distracted him from the pain, if only briefly.)
His questions about Pollux are never answered. Some maiden, perhaps a month in, snaps at him, asks who he is to ask about the Divus Pollux, asks what right a sinner has to say that hallowed name. Castor has no idea if she is unaware of his own status as a Divus, or simply doesn't care — either way, it needles at him.
He's left in the cell, all the while. The Lightbearer's blood has spread onto all of his flesh — he had tried, in the beginning, to keep from getting it anywhere that it had not already touched. The blood was cold, and burned within his wounds, and Castor was not so strange as to enjoy pain. He had failed, though. Eventually, he'd succumbed to exhaustion — and asleep, he had no way to stop himself from laying on his side, on his stomach. (He'd woken, once, to the blackened blood slowly seeping into the space between his ribs and that thin membrane protecting his organs — it had burned like fire, had choked the breath out of him, and Castor had had to roll onto his back and could only carefully, slowly, breathe through the pain until it lessened, even as pain anew was born of the blood working its way into his feathers and the gashes on his flesh.)
It felt like his soul was dissolving. It felt like he was being melted, corroded like iron placed in acid, burnt to a husk of himself like a Wick turned to a speck of silver.
The maids stopped appearing, soon after Castor's final question about his brother. He can't say whether it was for the better or the worse. (In hindsight, he will look upon these moments, and solemnly declare: it was by far for the worse.)
His talons grow, sometime between the meaningless cycles of waking and sleeping. His hair, too — black growing long long long, until it brushes the floor, gleaming faintly purple and sheening green in the light. It's brittle, and Castor tries not to break any of the strands the same as he had accidentally broken several feathers. The holy blood continues to seep into Castor's skin, his clothes, his very soul. His flesh is eaten away and then restored by the very blood that corrodes it, and Castor finds himself in one of two states — either numb to the pain, numb to any feeling at all, attempting to get up and move however he can, or burning so much that the pain is all his mind will allow, left breathing carefully on the cell floor, manacles cutting into his wrists and ankles as the days pass.
His wings itch. The skin beneath the feathers itch terribly, and Castor cannot help but scratch at it because the incessant itching, but that only opens further lacerations and sometimes, on worse days, deep wounds. (His talons have grown out long, and sharp — thick and unwieldy. It's difficult, to judge what amount of force is too much or not enough. It hurts. It always hurts.)
The maidens must be arriving when Castor is asleep, for plates holding meals still arrive. He doesn't know if it's daily, anymore, or if it's more or less frequent — the ability to track time is slipping away from him, as Marsh's hand had slipped from his when they'd ushered Castor and Pollux both from their beds on that fateful evening. Still, the meals do still arrive. As do new clothes, on occasion — always the same simple, plain white robe, long enough to cover Castor from chest to ankle but not thick enough to provide any warmth or softness. Silk, because it is always silk, but never enough to soften the harsh metal manacles, the weight of the chains holding his arms and legs down on the worst days.
Sometimes, Castor will wake to a bucket of water placed within his sell — a new set of robes and some simple soaps placed beside it as well. The chains will be loosened, on those days (never enough to walk through the cell door, were it to be opened, but enough that Castor can move, properly, for once). It's strange, but Castor would rather it be given than it not. He has no earthly idea of how to bathe himself, at the beginning (maidens had always been in charge of bathing Pollux and himself, as the Divus they had never needed to do such mundane things), but he tries. Trial and error is a harsh teacher.
He had started with cupping the water in his palms and attempting to rub the grime off — by the third time he'd been given a bucket of water, and that same violet-scented soap, Castor had developed a sort of ritual all for himself. Strip off his clothing, take a handful of water and wet his face. Work some of the soap into a lather, and apply it to his skin and feathers, then wash the soap and grime off. Then, with whatever water and soap was left, begin the process of gathering soap lather and working it through his hair — this took more time and focus, as his hair only got longer, and it tangled if he wasn't careful. Still, Castor was proud of himself for this. Small an achievement it may be, he'd taught himself how to bathe — and that was one skill he had not had before.
It's only occasionally that he will be given bathing water, though. There is more than enough time in-between, for the black blood to once more seep into his robe, into his skin and feathers. He can hardly tell, some days, where the Lightbearer's blood ends and the skin of his hands begin, for some days his skin nearly looks black in the darkness.
His wounds do heal, eventually. Closing up, even as the burning never quite seems to leave his skin at all. Castor isn't sure when the itching starts, either, only that it does — for several miserable days, and poorly-slept nights, Castor itches, and the corrosion and healing continues as it always does. It's only when pinfeathers begin to grow that Castor realizes just what has become of those wounds, why there was so much itching — instead of scars, his body had made feathers. (He won't be identical to Pollux anymore, he realizes with a sinking heart. Not with all of these feathers, where Pollux and he had had none. Even were he to lose his wings, there would be no mistaking him for his brother.)
His hair grows ever-longer. His talons continue to grow, thick and sharp and to the point where he has to scrape them against the stone walls in hopes it will dull them down. (It only halfway works.) The feathers continue to grow in — the manacles cut into his wrists and ankles, and then the pain that he'd halfway gotten used to gets worse, again, as the black blood seeps into those newly made cuts. (Castor is less surprised, later, at the feathers growing in at his wrists and ankles, as he otherwise might have been.)
Castor has no real way to tell the passage of time. Instead, he starts to measure it by the times he moults — a painful, itching, agonizing experience. As if the skin of his back and chest and everywhere had been lit aflame, needles stuck into any piece of exposed skin, it was agonizing even for Castor's now warped perception of agony — but it was, at least, somewhat consistent. He didn't moult until every feather had fully grown in, and had been grown in for some while. Only some of the feathers are ever freed from the waxy coats that the pinfeathers grow in — Castor cannot easily reach his back, or some of the feathers on the outer side of his wings. (Those pinfeathers join the pile of contour feathers and down — part of Castor considers keeping the down for warmth, but he knows that the cold of this cell will never go away, no matter what he does.)
The fallen feathers, Castor sweeps to the corners of the cell. The Lightbearer's blood feasts upon those feathers just the same as it feasts upon him. The days(?) pass, with no word or sight of another person. Castor stops speaking, as well. There is no point to the action.
(His hair is long, now. Too long. The ends are still black, but Castor sees strands of white within it — small streaks, irregularly placed. He can't say why. It fills him with dread regardless.)
Time passes. Castor becomes increasingly less sure that he will ever be freed from this cell. (Perhaps that is what Juliette had wanted. For him to suffer eternally, seeking pennace for sins that could never be forgiven.) He thinks of Pollux — prays, desperately, that Pollux is less injured than Castor, prays that Pollux is still well. He thinks of Marsh — mourns, some days, for that kind soul who had died to give Castor and Pollux a few precious seconds that could never be enough for them to escape the Lantern Knights. And Castor is always, always alone in his cell.
He wouldn't be able to tell you when they started, the hallucinations. Time had long since lost all meaning, and between the numbness of his body and the crawling of his skin and the way his heart beat too quickly or not quickly at all, Castor was far too much of a mess to make any attempt to keep time to begin with. He knows how they started, though — knows which face was the first he'd seen.
It had started softly. Almost gentle in how subtle the sights were. Bars that bent out of shape only to snap back into rigidness when his eyes fell upon them. Twisting shadows and strange creatures in his peripheral.
He almost wishes it had stayed that soft. But Castor has learned that wishes are never answered. (Not his wishes. Never his.)
"They've got you chained up pretty tightly, huh, kid?"
Castor lifts his head, weary. The sight before him is a hallucination — must be. Marsh — Marsh had died. Marsh couldn't be here. Not with that hole through their chest, collarbones and ribcage on display. Not with those twisted limbs. "You're not real." He says, softly, disappointment turning the shape of his words flat. They're rough, those words, scraped from a throat that has almost forgotten how to speak.
Marsh just smiles at him, sad. Bittersweet, almost. (It was a smile they had worn frequently, towards the end — towards the plans of freedom that Castor and Pollux both had tried to iron out, tried to fulfill.) "I'm not." They agree easily. "But you still see me."
Castor bows his head in a nod. Doesn't respond.
Marsh just sighs, shifting in the corners of his vision. "I'm sorry." They say softly, and reach forwards to pat the top of Castor's head the way that they and Juliette often did when Castor was younger.
The hand doesn't leave any trace, of course. Even if he sees and hears them, Marsh isn't real.
(Castor wishes they were. He's not sure how much more of this he'll be able to bear.)
Time crawls by, as it always does. A new bucket is placed, and Castor bathes. (He wonders if the scent of violets will ever leave, or if it will be burned into his skin the same way it is burned into his memory.) His hair gains more and more streaks of white, until it seems less like black hair streaked with white and more like white hair streaked with black. (His feathers, at least, retain that stygian color, even as they turn dull and the green sheen fades. Even brittle, his feathers remember what color they're meant to be.)
It is Pollux, on some nameless day, that visits Castor next.
This, too, is a hallucination, because Pollux is still fully-winged — he visits Castor in the shape of his young self, free from any wounds or tears like Castor had seen him last.
"What did they do to you?" He sits outside of the cell bars — close enough to yearn for, too far to touch.
Castor merely blinks slowly.
Pollux sighs, pursing his lips the way he always does when he's annoyed. (Or — did. Does Pollux still pout like that? Has his face changed, the way Castor can feel his changing by the day? Has Pollux lost all of the childhood fat, as Castor has?)
Pollux leans forwards, pressing his forehead against the bars. "You're thinking too hard." He tells Castor, wings loosely spread out behind him. They gleam in the candlelight, those wings, black showered in an emerald hue, so lush and soft and healthy the way that Castor's wings are not. "Tell me something."
I want to, Castor doesn't say. Can't. He has truly forgotten how to speak, now — he fears that if he opens his mouth, only weeping or wails will escape, if it isn't a noise born from suffering scraped across stone.
He blinks, and as he does, Pollux changes. His wings dissappear, in a flash, and Castor's younger brother is covered in wounds and blood. The steady drip of blood against stone is maddening. His eyes are glowing emerald, blood smeared onto his cheeks and hands.
Pollux leans closer. Reaches out to grasp Castor's hand. It's useless, Castor knows, but he reaches back still — and his hands pass through his brother's like smoke through lungs.
"Why didn't you save me, Castor?" Pollux asks, softly. "You said you would keep me safe."
I tried. Castor wants to scream. I tried. I'm sorry. His lips part but no sound escapes, only a choked absence of voice.
Pollux's tears drip down his face, turned red, turned purple. "You have to free me again." He says, gaze never wavering away from Castor's. "You have to get us both free. You can't let the Lady Lantern get away with it. You can't let my pain be for nothing, you can't let Marsh's death be for nothing."
Castor is helpless, beneath the ghost of his brother's gaze. I won't let it be, he promises silently. I will find out freedom. Even if it costs him his life. Even if it takes him years.
Pollux disappears, soon after that, as sleep claims Castor once more. (It isn't the last time Castor sees this ghost of his brother. Nor is it the last time he sees Marsh's ghost — nor is it the last time he sees shadows make himpossible shapes, sees eyes growing within his chest and between his feathers, nor is it the last time he feels razor wire tearing into his skin even as the flesh is left unbroken.)
Castor takes to tugging on feathers, when there is pain with no cause. It's easier to focus on the real pain than the fake pain, somehow. Easier to focus on things he does to himself than what his mind does to him. (Tugging at the feathers turns to tugging out the feathers, but Castor can't stop. Doesn't know how. His feathers are brittle and weak regardless, all of the feathers on his wrists and forearms, thighs and calves, lower back and neck and chest, all in easy reach. It's easier to pull out feathers and let them be eaten away than to let his mind eat away at himself. Pain is a familiar friend, after all. He is a sinner suffering for a chance of redemption.)
An ageless time later, Castor is taken out of his cell. Is brought to bathe, it bathed by those maidens who look at him with hidden scorn or hidden wonder. His hair is carefully combed through and cut, and he is dressed with fresh, silken robes, softer and longer than he had had before, matching pants and collar given to him as proof of his place as one of the Divus. (His wings are untouched. It seems that none know how to groom his feathers — and Castor's skin itches enough at the touch, at the sighs, unused to human presence.)
He cannot speak his brother's name, but asks of freedom with those handsigns made in long-past childhood — his brother does not know him, cuts with a sharp tongue, and it is heartbreak anew that sits in Castor's breast. Still, still, he keeps the hope of freedom alive.
Even as he settles back into the role expected of him, as one of the Twin Divi, Castor knows he will never be whole the way he once was. Shadows dance in the corners of his vision, some times. On the worst days, he will be visited by the ghost of Marsh, by the ghost of his brother's younger self, even as Pollux sits before him. They speak to him, the ghosts, and it is all Castor can do to not react. He has to maintain an image. He has to stay with his brother, ghosts aside. Castor cannot reach for freedom for the both of them if anyone thinks he is broken beyond repair — he is, he knows he is, but as a Divus he is not allowed to be anything less than perfect, and so Castor crafts himself a mask of quiet blankness. It is not nearly so perfect as Pollux's practiced, rage-hiding smile, but it is enough.
(The hallucinations never quite go away. Even at Mythag, he knows that after what he's told is eight years alone in a cell, that damage is not so easily repaired. Even still — Castor does his best to make his peace with it, and with the ghosts. To live. He shies away from large crowds still, and sometimes touch makes him nervous — he hides away in tight, cramped spaces on the worst days, and his voice is sometimes hoarse and stolen away from him, but Castor does his best to live. To enjoy the freedom that he and Pollux had suffered so much for. It is all he can do.)
"Do you regret it?" Pollux asks him one morning, a steaming cup of tea held between his hands as they both sit at the small table in their room.
Castor merely blinks slowly at his brother. "Regret . . . what?"
Pollux sighs. His face does not change, from its flat, emotionless set, but his shoulders fall slightly. "Sacrificing so much for our freedom."
Castor wants to protest, wants to deny that question — but he bites his tongue. Pauses, until he knows that his words won't fall out of his mouth in a senseless tangle. "You were. . . the one who sacrified the most. For our freedom."
Pollux frowns, then. Softly. "I was lectured on theology, personally taught by — Juliette." (The pause, in saying her name, does not go unnoticed. It goes uncommented on. Both of them bear their scars, still.) "You. . ." Pollux's face makes a complicated shape, for what must be complicated emotions.
Behind him, appearing within the blink of an eye, Marsh sighs, leaning against the windowsill. "You two have both been hurt badly." They mutter, eyes never leaving Castor's. "Poor things."
Pollux doesn't miss the way Castor's focus drifts. "You're doing it again."
"Hmm?" Castor looks back as his brother. At that face, softly frowning, eyes shining with trepidation.
"They hurt you." Pollux says softly, into the morning air — hands clenching around the ceramic mug, knuckles turned white. "They locked you away like the worst of sinners and deprived you of other faces for years. Your hair went white. Your feathers were so brittle. You see things that aren't there, you told me about the ghosts. You're seeing one of them again, aren't you?"
Castor. . . can't deny it, not when Pollux lays it out plain and asks so simply like that. ". . . yes."
"May I. . . ask who?"
Castor breathes. His feathers itch with the weight of phantom blood (D-slime, Mythag says it was called), and blinking brings forth another ghost. This one that maiden who had given him an apple — always voiceless, but eyes shining so fervently regardless. "Marsh." He manages, as the ghost — hallucination — in question smiles at him and waves a hand through the air. "A maiden. She gave me an apple, once. I think. . . she may have been a Wick. I never . . . saw her again. Living, I mean."
Pollux listens. Waits for Castor to finish. He sets the cup of tea down onto the table, properly. Leans forward, and reaches with gentle hands to take Castor's own hands (blackened skin, sharp talons, long feathers shimmering softly green) in his. "Does it bother you? Seeing things that aren't really there?"
Castor closes his eyes. (He can't. . . answer. Not if he's being looked at like that. So gently. With such clear concern, such worry. He was supposed to keep Pollux safe. Is supposed to keep Pollux safe. He is the elder twin, that is his duty, and to be reminded that he has failed so often — it cuts like a knife.) "I. . . manage." He admits. It is not a lie.
"Do they hurt you?" Pollux presses, fingers clutching tightly to Castor's own. They're warmer than his, just slightly, his brother's hands. Less calloused, less scars carefully hidden by lines of feathers and down.
"No, no. They don't hurt me." Castor promises. This is entirely true. He keeps his eyes closed, all the same. "I am. . . used to it. They don't come to me when I am in battle, or when there are many others around. Only. . . when it is. Quiet."
"Like now?"
Castor opens his eyes, then. Pollux looks vulnerable, in a strange way — his masks stripped off. (It is not the first time he has seen his brother like this, lack of any pretense or image put on around Castor, but it is the first time in a long, long time.) "Like now." Castor agrees, softly. The hallucinations are starting to fade around the edges. Perhaps they'll be gone for longer, when they dissapear. "I feel safe around you. So I don't worry about seeing things that aren't there."
"You don't?" Pollux asks. Cautious, careful. Carefully controlled voice, even as his hands tremble where they hold Castor's, still.
"I don't." Castor smiles at his younger brother, and tries to pour as much reassurance and gratitude and love into the look. (Because he does — he loves his brother. It is as simple as that — they are halves of each other, and even now, damaged beyond full repair and a sinner that can never be free of the stain from divine blood, Castor knows his brother still views him as a fellow holy figure, knows that Pollux still loves and cherishes Castor deeply, knows how protective Pollux is of him. As if it's Pollux's job to protect Castor. As if he has to make up for his two years of cruelty, when the eight years in the cell were so much worse. How can Castor not love Pollux back, with every ounce of his being?)
Castor squeezes his brother's hands, lightly. "The ghosts will always haunt me, but — you don't look at me like I need to be taught what is or isn't real. You. . . you listen, and. . ." Castor tries to fit the words together, even as it's difficult. He can't figure out what he wants to say, and a frustrated noise escapes him.
Pollux pulls his hands away — pushes the still-hot cup of tea into Castor's. "I let you decide how to deal with the hallucinations." He nods, slowly. "And I don't judge you for having them."
A weight falls from Castor's shoulders. Wings unfurl, just slightly, from where they'd pulled against his back. "Yes. That."
His brother hums, and Castor blinks away the last of the ghosts. (Shadows still curl in strange shapes, in the peripherals of his vision, but that's not quite ghosts the way the other hallucinations were.) "Do you — hallucinate often?"
Castor tilts his head. "Why all the questions?"
Pollux won't meet his gaze. ". . . I worry. About you. I don't want you to hurt." He winces, then revises his statement — "I don't want you to hurt more than you normally do." (Left unspoken, is the way that Castor and Pollux both hurt, daily. Their bodies have suffered more than enough, to hurt even without active injury.)
He can't help but laugh softly at that. "Thank you. Really." He sips at the tea. It's good. "They don't. . ." He pauses. Considers the words. "I don't. . . see them often. The hallucinations."
"No?"
"No."
"That's. . . good." Pollux's voice is careful. He doesn't need to be.
Castor sets the cup of tea down. Pushes it towards his brother, slightly. "I'm healing." He says, simply. "Just like you are. We're both . . .healing. From what the Lantern did to us."
Pollux bows his head. Reaches with one hand to hold Castor's hand, again. "I hate them. I hate them for what they did to us." His voice trembles, with anger — with pain. With anguish.
Castor. . . sighs. Pulls his hand away, and stands. He walks the short distance around the table, and sits beside his brother. One wing drapes over his brother's shoulders, wraps around that smaller, more slender frame and pulls Pollux close against Castor's side. "They can't find us here." Castor promises, with a force he only half believes (but oh, he wants to, desperately). "We're free now."
A sigh. "Right. We're free now."
They sit like that, in silent moments. Pollux leans further into Castor's side, and sips at his tea, slowly. "We should perform morning prayers." He murmurs, softly, but he makes no effort to separate himself from Castor's side.
"We can always pray later in the morning." Castor suggests, just as softly. "Did you rest well, last night?"
"I did." It's simple, quiet conversation, but something like this — being able to sit beside his brother, have soft mornings where there is no rush to do anything, where they can talk about old hurts and not have the wounds torn open, where they can simply be — it is more valuable than gold, to Castor. And, he knows, to Pollux as well.
(Castor will relapse to past hurts, just as Pollux will. Nightmares will echo, and on some nights Castor will wake and feel untethered by the emptiness of the room, will crawl beneath his bed and pretend that he is back within the cell where the tight tight walls press against him but keep him safe. Even as he heals, it will take many, many years before Castor can be free of those shackles. But each day is a new day, and Castor will greet it as kindly as he can.)