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The apple did not fall far from the tree.
It hit the ground rapidly, then slowly rolled down the uneven ground. Then stopped. Unable to go any futher. It laid on the grass like a sole splotch of red in a green sea; a living, breathing sea, with a faint heartbeat within. The organ laid exposed, facing the sun where it rose and where it set, as only for those brief moments had it shed its light onto it. The heart, a temporary fruit, wrapped in dozens of ones fallen just the same. All rotten; not yet, but quite soon to be.
Spoke was there, sprawled out on the grass, feeling the wind sway its tiny strands over his face. They brushed his cheeks for a moment, before retreating back. And again, towards his cheeks, and unfocused eyes. And again. And again. The sunrays always pointed them back, as they snaked from the gaps between leaves, high, high above.
It had been a cold morning, and afternoon, until the evening suddenly warmed the world up. The wind slowed, and smiled at him. He smiled back.
Not all begun to rot at once, and not all did so equally. There was one by his outstretched arm, fresh and shiny. It was soon to touch it, first sparking on the clean outside surface. It would've been brought with the rain, or the early morning, or the wind, that same one which swayed it from its branch, and gently cradled his face.
Another laid a bit further down. It's already had the rot, taking root within its core. The process was slow, as it laid on the ground, waiting for it to commence. But that would take time, and its beautiful, crimson hue had not yet faded; it wouldn't, for a while.
There were also those that caught the virus of decay the moment they hit the grass. Or those that have not known life without it, even as they still safely hung from the tree. Those with nothing inside from the flower they bloomed of, where rot spills freely. They fall, and hardly even feel the moment of impact, already long dead.
"How beautiful," he whispered, eyes following the gentle blowing of leaves, blurring into a cloudy entity. "Don't you think so, Mapicc?"
Mapicc was there, beside him. There, there, on the right. The burnt ends of his headband almost reached Spoke's fingertips, and he'd wanted to reach out for them, to be wrapped around his hand like a bandage would have been. He didn't, of course, because ultimately there was no need for a reassurance of his friend's presence. He was there, laying on the grass under the tree.
"Yeah," he would've said. Or, "What the hell does that even mean?"
Spoke chuckled at that. Not mockingly, or deviously, or however he used to do it.
"You know, I've never— never actually cared for this stuff," he admitted, even though Mapicc had already known that. They both did, because that's how friends were. One apple. Two apples. One, and two, and both, and none. "Like— scenery. But this is nice. This is a nice place."
And it really was, with clouds dancing amidst each other, flowing with the distant water currents. Water, like a river, or a lake, or just another breeze, with fish steadily jumping in and out. In, and out.
Here, and there.
Visible, and not.
With a name, and none.
"…And, honestly," he kept going, and whispering as if just a sound was to disturb the peace and distort the image. "Remember when we'd, like— join the Mafia? Like— like back then I thought that was the end, you know? And it… it kind of was," he laughed, again, even softer than before.
The sun settled lower at the horizon, and the dark shadow under his body stretched out further.
"But nothing ended," he'd hear from his friend. "Not then."
"No," he affirmed, as if it was a statement even worth affirming. He'd come to terms with it a long time before. "No, it hadn't."
Back then, on the Mafia's grounds, they were but a bunch of children running around to serve commands. One, two, and the third. Not a name, hardly a symbol to call their own, much alike fish in a school. Or the apples, fallen down.
Those apples, that have claimed the rot for themselves, for ambition, or even a lack of better option. Some had it in their blood — Ash used to pick them out from the crowd like cherries. Old, ugly cherries. Those used to be his favorite. They were easiest to cradle, gravitating into his arms as the only light this world had given them. Nobody else would do it. Nobody else would want it.
Ash did. Or didn't, even, because nobody did, but he took them in nonetheless. He fed them poison of a sweet taste, and Spoke drank it without questioning.
First it'd been done out of duty, an inevitability in order to fit in. Then, later, he took it into his hands out of own will, wicked in ways aimed at his own friends. Mapicc, mostly. All to protect him, just like he protected them both with a sword in his hand, high on guard all the time. But one time turned into another, and another into more, and they all piled up into something weird that he couldn't control anymore, and they both came crashing down out of no fault other than his own.
Or the poison's. Although it'd been him who was the poison, and the poison that made him. It was no wonder he'd taken it from the hands of others, just the same as him.
The poison tree he'd smiling at must have known that all the same, dropping its cursed fruits around his miserable silhouette, laying on the cold ground. None truly reached him, but some got close; a lone one, rolling towards the side of his head, or another, already having been there for a long while before, right within the nudging distance of his foot.
They must have been closer to him than they were to Mapicc. He didn't turn his head to check, nor would he try to do so, but he supposed it would not have been fair otherwise. Not that they'd ever been fair. He wasn't.
But this was.
"You're right, it didn't… end with the Mafia," he spoke again, voice hoarse and starting to tremble. The sun set even lower. "I think it was sometime after. Like— like there's been some stuff. Like, it wasn't Leowook at that lighthouse, with Jamato. But you… you know that already."
Because Jamato had told him, while handing him the sword.
"I do, yeah," was just what Spoke had wanted to hear. "It was you."
"It was me," he confirmed.
It was always him.
"But not always," he added, quickly. "It was also Ash. And Jamato. It was Jamato, too, you know?"
The wind picked up again, making him shiver a little. It still felt cold over his body.
"It's all Jamato," he insisted, even if Mapicc had likely not been listening anymore. "He had… his Null army. That's how they always found us. He, like— threatened me, you know? For you two. You and Jumper."
He'd lied to her as well. Not as much, but maybe just as much, when she was there instead of Mapicc. Another apple. Beautifully pristine before suffering at his hand. Now, she probably should have ended up in the same place as the two of them.
He silently hoped she was okay, watching the bunny–shaped clouds hop over the leaves.
"He told me everything," he'd heard from Mapicc, and he knew he did, because it remained embedded into his mind as if forcefully carved into it with a dagger. As if someone had split his skull open, spilled the blood and molded it to their own better judgment. Like Ash. Except Ash didn't need to go as far, when Spoke had been his striking image since the beginning.
He took the exploits, and the armor, but none of that existed anymore, and so he was free. It should have left him by the time they both collapsed onto the field, saving his poor soul from how it had withered. That's what Mapicc did, every time they sat down together on a quiet day. He hadn't known — shouldn't have, at least not to the full extent — of how he was the light, the anchor, the hand steadying Spoke's shoulder. And Mapicc was there, on the grass, right beside him, so everything was fine again.
"Yeah, I— know he did," he chuckled, voice gentle and hesitant, struggling to get out of his throat. "But he— he lied too. He did it to me. So, probably… probably to you too."
"Probably," was what would've been heard.
It kind of stung, knowing his friend would've gone back to serving another cruel soul right after breaking free of him. He'd take the same poison only from a different vial, handed by a different pair of hands. Just as Spoke had taken it from Ash, and passed it to Mapicc. All the same toxin. But at least Spoke held it out lovingly, out of care; sweetly, as its taste.
He wasn't cruel to Mapicc. It just so happened that they had fought, over nothing of significance; it wasn't aimed at Mapicc, even if he took the brunt of the force. But that's what Jamato had wanted, and what he'd orchestrated, so in the end it hadn't been Spoke's hand to deal the hit. Not at Mapicc.
"But, you know, it's— it's nice," he repeated, again, gaze following how the leaves waved with the wind, tiny apples still hanging amidst them. It should've been them, too, hanging alongside. "I like it here. A lot. A lot, really, even if it's cold, and windy, and…" he swallowed, "and all that."
Distantly, he'd heard the weak cry of a lamb calling out to its mother. No response came for its solace.
"Hey, Mapicc," he whispered, at last twisting his head half an inch in the direction where his friend laid, "do you also see the stars?"
There was not a sound of acknowledgment of the question. But Spoke knew Mapicc was seeing them, too, with eyes wide open and glued to the sky. He hadn't moved an inch, so mesmerized.
The sun had set a long time ago; it'd never been up, as long as they laid there, yet the shadows kept spreading further and further. Deep, dark shadows, in which he could submerge a finger for it to come back weird.
His eyes had nearly fluttered closed, watching the stars fly by through the open sky. Open, enclosed by two walls; or more, on the left, and on the right, and in the front, and in the back. Some curled within, others spread out. He'd never bothered to remember. It was all the same stone, just like the rough ground polished by a ruthless hand.
The stars, then, blurred, as if they'd suddenly started falling. And sure they would, because no stars belonged in the void, and the sky above was just as much a part of it as the abyss below. The Farlands weren't. Hence they allowed them to hang so long; by ropes tied around necks, waiting for them to decompose enough to fall. Much alike the apples.
The apples; one laying on the ground, the other right beside him, ends of his bandana in the reach of his fingertips. Two, and one, and two.
Spoke, despite the pain, and the blood, and the fading consciousness, tugged closer to Mapicc's cold body. Mapicc hadn't moved to retreat, nor to lean towards him. It was only the wind ruffling his hair, as it always used to whenever they stood at the edges of mountains.
Their blood pooled and mixed together, until there would've been nothing left. One, spilling from a wound in the heart, the other out a hole at the side. Both dealt by Mapicc's blade, but Spoke's hand. Only he had the guts to bring himself to do it. Mapicc, though given lies, and a sword, and an armor set from Jamato, would not have even tried.
And that's what Jamato knew, just as Spoke did. And that's why he's been watching, albeit with his back turned to it all.
But he did not matter, because Mapicc had still been there as both the sky and the stone figures went dark and foggy. The maggots would've found them together, and feast on their flesh all the same, just a couple dusks and dawns away.
Just that and the children were gone, memory marked only by the rot from within their minds.