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The sun was setting over the mountains high in the sky, out of vision from Sausage's eyes. Yet the sky was clearly a burning orange, reaching the tip of the cliff. Maybe another hour before sundown.
Sausage lifted a hand into the air, letting out a hum as the cooling wind brushed against his palm. He'd just stated his prayer and plan to Hermes and was now debating on what to do next. Most likely head back to the others, he supposed.
They were... nice. Yeah. That worked out, didn't it? Owen was quiet for the most part. He often trailed near the edge of the four when they travelled around the bridge the Feather Holders had claimed, and in new areas he would stick to Apo like a parasitic worm.
Apo was also a bit distant, but Sausage could easily see her becoming the leader. He felt similar to her; in a way he couldn't distinguish. As if they had trekked a similar path once before. It made him feel closer to her, even if he didn't know the truth.
Pearl was the last of the three, and she puzzled Sausage the most. Whatever could've happened to someone to make them so deranged? She's been laughing her damned ass off in the battle against that Nobody guy, yet Sausage and her clicked very well. He'd argue he was closest to her out of all the other Feather Holders.
All interesting people that Sausage didn't mind, to be fair.
Different, yet bonded by... something. Friendship? Sausage wouldn't admit it, but he didn't think of himself as a "friend". Do friends matter when they're all going to die once more in the end?
Yeah. He didn't know.
Sausage pulled his legs over the cliff, dangling them and letting them swing as he hummed to himself. He carefully grasped the keychain around his belt; the one thing he really cared about. The gift from... him.
Carefully, Sausage unclasped it from the leather belt and fiddled with it in his palm. A small feather crystal that was stolen from a travelling merchant that was pushed into his chest with a happy grin. He'd kept in his clothes even up until that fateful day; begging the guards to keep it to which they mercifully agreed to with the promise of compliance to his death.
Was it worth it?
Once again. He didn't know.
As he spun the chain of the feather on his fingers, he suddenly felt a bit light-headed. Looking down he felt a drop of fear upon seeing the chain had vanished, the tips of his vision slipping into darkness.
"Pearl!" He called out.
The feeling dissolved quickly as Pearl popped up next to him, with a cheeky grin on her face. "Heyyyyyy~"
"Hello Pearl." He nodded. "As much as I like that feeling, I might pass on it for now."
Pearl's eyes dropped to his palm, Sausage realizing then he still had the chain in his hands. "Ooh, what's that?"
Sausage bit his lip as he slowly clipped the feather chain onto his belt again. "Ah, just a gift from a friend. Nothing special."
Unfortunately, Pearl was curious. She leaned forward and watched with a sharp eye as Sausage re-attached it to his belt with a soft CLICK! Sausage was half-convinced she would suddenly dart forwards and try to steal it.
She didn't, though. Instead, she tapped Sausage's shoulder with a chuckle. She didn't notice the flinch he had from the contact, however. "Well, Apo told me to fetch ya! She's workin' on something for us to all eat together so she made me come get you since Owen went to grab some ores. Also 'cause I tried to slip a poisonous flower into the soup, hehe..."
"I'm not surprised."
"Aw, I'm getting old!" Pearl chuckled. "Gotta come up with some new ideas, hehe... but are you coming back with me or not? Apo's working surprisingly hard on a group dinner for you, me, herself and Owen."
Sausage nodded. "Of course!" He pushed his body up, brushing his shirt off. "Let's go."
Pearl quickly bounded off, practically dragging Sausage by the hand without actually holding his hand, the two sliding down the side of the hill to the bridge. The room to the main place that the Feather Holders set up in had two rooms; one to sleep in, one for just daily life as they all decided.
"Hello!" Apo waved at them. "Thanks for fetching Sausage, Pearl."
Sausage nodded as Pearl giggled. "No problem!"
Sausage decided to sit by himself in the makeshift home that the four allies had made in the past few days. At the moment, Apo was busy with working on something for the four to eat together while Pearl was now sitting in her own corner with her knees up and messing around with a huge pile of straw, grass and wool, making a bed if Sausage tried to guess.
He felt like he should probably help out at least somehow, but he highly doubted any of his skills would be useful in day-to-day life.
Speaking of everyone else, Owen trotted in from the doorway about a minute later, coming back with a bunch of rocks in his hands for some reason. Sausage knew at this point it was best not to question Owen's shenanigans as she headed over to whereq Sausage was sitting, pressing against the wall before sliding down and moving into a position as he dumped the rocks onto the floor.
“You good, girl?” Sausage asked.
“Talking to me?” Owen asked, tilting his head.
“Y-Yeah.” Sausage said.
Owen nodded softly. “Yeah. Just thought you’d enjoy some company at the moment before dinner. And your presence helps me know I’m not alone, I suppose.”
Sausage gave a thumbs up. The he realized his mistake and placed his hands into his lap. “Well, I’m glad that helps you feel better?”
“It does.” Owen told him. "Nice to not be left in the dark that much."
As they spoke, Owen picked up the different rocks and seemed to be sorting the iron and coal into separate piles. Sausage spun his body around to help Owen with the rocks, to which she responded with a small nod and allowed the help from Sausage.
"Sausage."
He asked, quickly glancing at Pearl and Apo, who were also locked in a conversation. "Yeah?"
Owen seemed to be trying to find the right words to say to him. Eventually, she landed on something simple. "I guess... are you alright?'
"Me?" Sausage was a bit taken back but did his best to keep it in his stride. "Yup. I'm fine. Finer than marble plates, you see. Amazing. Top-notch."
The other person let out a nod, still sorting the ores. "Okay... just checking in. Just feel free to talk to me, I'm all ears."
"Alright. I will."
</>
...
A field.
Flowers. They swayed in the breeze. Pale white with yellow stems and pink insides that fully covered any emerald slivers of grass.
The wind tickled Sausage's face, blowing his hair and beard in the morning wind. Right. It was the morning. The sun had just pierced the sky, leaving it a pale orange that had had him hypnotized, like the harpies he heard of in tales of the sailors from the city's dock.
He leaned against the tree.
A tree?
There was a tree behind him. Looking up, Sausage saw large green leaves that were as large as his palms, the shadow casting over his body and leaving him feeling a bit cold. His hands lay in his lap, and in that moment, Sausage wanted to just rest there for eternity. If this is what Hades was really like, Sausage could spend eons in this peaceful afterlife.
Just relaxing.
Just breathing.
How nice.
Footsteps. To his left, which made him confused. Sausage opened his eyes (when did he close them?) to see a blurred figure striding up to them, quickly kneeling down on the grass. Trying to make out this stranger's face was like trying to stare at a mist-covered mirror, all the features a mess and blurred.
"Hey." Their voice sounded distorted, making Sausage's head suddenly feel very dizzy. "Thought I'd find you here."
"Who..." Sausage asked. Shouldn't I know this person?
The person tilted their head. "Are you alright, ███████? You look like you've seen Medusa herself, pale as a statue."
Their blurred figure lifted aqn arm up and laid it around Sausage's shoulder. It felt comforting, even though his current fuzzy head left him without the memory of this person. Still. He leaned against them, letting out a sigh.
"Ha, you're never usually this touchy. Tired?"
"You could say that." Sausage chuckled. "I think you'd call me insane if I told you everything that happened since you di█d."
"Died?"
Died.
Sausage blinked.
"Sausage?" They asked. "I'm still alive. I'm not dead, sorry..." The person laughed awkwardly. "You've really had a rough day, haven't you?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Sausage?"
He realized now. He realized why this person felt so familiar.
"...Nicky?"
The person tilted their head. "Yup. That's me. That's my name." Nicky now had recognizable features; the trace of a faint, slightly uncomfortable smile. "That is who I am. Yes."
"This isn't real."
Sausage shoved his brother off his shoulders, getting a shocked *oof* from Nicky. "No-how are you here? You...you're meant to be dead! I saw it! You're not here. This..."
"This is you overreacting." Nicky always took everything in his stride. Always. Even in the fights during the streets that they somehow always got dragged into, he'd happily adjust and either attack back, defending himself while helping Sausage get out, or help him reverse the roles and Sausage would step in without a doubt, putting complete trust in Nicky and his actions.
But Sausage knew the truth. He continued to look at Nicky with confusion and fear. Fear of knowing the next thing that would happen to him. Nicky tried to reach out but Sausage pushed backwards, stumbling backwards and then he fell.
He was falling. Falling down, down, down, down...
Black. A pure void.
It reminded him of the darkness of the Underworld.
Until there was suddenly a light. It was an evening, and he quickly picked up on where he was.
Sausage was walking down a hallway, his hands behind his back in tight handcuffs that he knew from experience were impossible to wiggle out of. Two people were behind
Oh gods.
Not again, please.
He knew it was better to not fight.
He knew it was better to obey as the guards shoved him forwards, and being knelt on a stage with a wooden box as he heard the whoosh of an axe and a thud.
Followed by a void of pain and red.
</>
The world was spinning. At least, it felt like it when Sausage woke up, eyes jolting apart and looking up to see a black screen.
He shoved his body up fast, pulling himself into a seating position in record speed, hands immediately wrapping around his neck and pressing for any wounds. Sausage expected to feel blood, pouring from a slit, making him unable to breathe, staining his clothes and everything a shallow red.
But there's nothing. Just the faint roughness of a scar.
Quickly, his eyes scan the room he was resting in. The dim light provided enough information; he was still where he was after falling asleep, where Apo lay directly across from him, Owen to his left and Pearl to his right.
He's not waiting to be executed.
He's not handcuffed.
He's not dying.
...But Sausage can't shake the feeling of the axe cleaving his head off. The memory of Nicky dying in front of him is burned into his psyche: like a mark from the temples, claiming who works for what God. It makes him shake; it makes him want to run away, to leave, to avoid confrontation.
Sausage remembered briefly that he needed to be quiet; everyone else was still asleep, and he didn't need to wake them up with his own issues. He decided on a whim it was best to leave the other three in their slumber.
Slowly, Sausage peeled the sheets of the mattress Pearl had knitted them from wool, tossing the white cloth aside and standing upwards with slightly shaking legs, taking a moment to breathe before walking to the door that he himself constructed, pushing it forwards with a small creak.
"...mmm..."
Sausage froze.
"...Sausage?"
"I'm fine. Just need a bathroom break, I'll be back soon." He told Pearl, recognizing her odd accent. She grumbled and he heard her shuffle, but not for long as he quickly left the room and shut in behind him, leaving the three in darkness once more.
And giving him time to breathe. Sausage leaned against the door, letting the air fill his lungs. Subconsciously, he fiddled with his belt as he pushed himself off the doorway and walked over to the middle of the bridge, thinking about how the view could calm him down a bit more.
The first thing he did when walking down the bridge was unclasp the silver keychain on his belt and clutched it tightly, spinning it around his fingertips to make him feel more comfortable. It was something he used to do up until his own death, and even now it still made him feel somewhat better.
Somewhat.
More like barely, Sausage thought as he leaned on the back of the bridge and took a deep breath to steady his nerves. The wind was far cooler than the evening before, now making his body shiver.
...
He didn't know how to feel. He was alone at the moment; he could vent his frustrations to the wind if he wished tor.
Sausage dangled the keychain from his finger, watching the moonlight make the silver flicker and shine like the stars in the sky.
But the spiral in his mind was relentless—a twisting, sickening loop of thoughts that dragged him deeper into despair. The images of Nicky's death haunted him, stuck in his head, spinning around like it was stuck in a current of strong waves.
The thought of telling his friends felt like a burden too heavy to bear, a sign of weakness he couldn’t afford to show. Fear clenched his chest, squeezing out every ounce of courage he had left, leaving him alone in the dark with only his torment.
Tears prickled in his eyes, heating up his face as he slid down against the bridge's railing, folding his body up into a curling position with his knees up. Nope. He wouldn't cry because of a nightmare at all.
He wouldn't cry. He was not weak.
He was not weak.
</>
“...po.”
Apo was awoken by someone poking her side. Gently, not too rough to jolt her awake. “Apo. Apo. Apo.”
“What…?” She mumbled, still half asleep. For some reason, her brain wanted to fall back asleep into the dull darkness she’d been in before a few moments before. Apo wasn't a heavy sleeper before, but now she wanted to just keep her eyes locked shut for at least another four hours.
“Apo.” That same person poked her shoulder, and she rolled away with a grumble, doing her best to shut her eyes. “Apo.”
“Lift ya arm up slightly; you’re above her shoulder, and then just slap her.”
“That’s mean, though.”
“Just do it, or I will!” She heard a cackle that belonged to one person and one person only. Pearl.
Apo just sighed, wanting to go back to sleep and blocking out the conversation between the other two. Before someone outright slapped her in the face. That got a reaction, finally, as she pushed herself up from her bed to look at a brown-haired, closed-eye friend of hers. Owen. Pearl sat crossed legged in her bed, playing with the sheets in an apathetic manner while Owen knelt right next to her.
“What?!” She asked. Owen, being Owen, held no emotion on his face and instead just faced forwards at Apo.
“Sausage is missing.” She told her. “Pearl heard him leave a few minutes ago.”
Apo rubbed her eyes, glancing over to Sausage’s bed. True to his word, the bed that Sausage had fallen asleep on was empty, his stone sword still lying in a sheath next to the pillow. His sheets had been practically thrown to the side, making Apo wonder why he’d left them in such a mess.
“Did he go outside for a... well...” Apo blushed slightly from saying her theory. “Release?”
“That's what Sausage told me, but he woke me up like twenty minutes ago.” Pearl explained. “I highly doubt it takes that long to piss. I got Owen up maybe seven minutes ago after failing to get you up, like seriously, you're a heavy sleeper. I made Owen try and wake you instead."
"It took you seven minutes to get me up?" Apo wondered.
Pearl nodded. "Most of that time was spent with me trying to help Owen wake you up. Entertainment at its finest.”
Owen turned his head around to face Pearl as Apo folded her sheets up neatly. “You left me in silence for three minutes, twenty-two seconds and fifty-seven milliseconds.”
“What’s a millisecond?”
“Oh, right, those got invented in the 1790s. That’s my bad.”
“Huh?”
“Guys, focus.” Apo stretched her wings, finally feeling a little bit more awake. “We should probably look for him, shouldn’t we?”
“Most likely.” Owen agreed. “He can’t have gone that far, surely.”
Pearl stood up first, rolling her shoulders effortlessly. "Then let's look for the guy already! We don't have all night."
Apo nodded in agreement, and Owen also look compliant, quickly reaching out to Apo who happily took her hand and lifted him up with a tug. They made their way to the door, which Pearl pushed open with little effort, peeked her head and let out a hum of amusement.
"Pearl?" Apo asked. "You gonna move?'
"Sure! Just letting you know now..." Pearl turned around with a smirk. "We won't need to look too far for Sausage!"
"Huh?"
Apo peeked her head over the doorway, and there she saw what Pearl was talking about.
"Sausage?"
</>
"Sausage?"
A hand was pressed suddenly to his hands that had ended up wrapping around his body.
Sausage's first instinct was to flinch, shove off the person trying to grab his wrists because the firm grip reminded him way too much of the very same handcuffs that they used on him that cursed night.
But then the person tightened their grip, and he whimpered, trying to hide his face from the person to hide his fear. "Don't-don't touch me."
The person pulled back in less than second. Sausage folded in on himself, doing his best to hold back tears. He would not cry in front of someone, he refused to look weak, he was not weak, he was not weak-
A second, much more gentle hand lightly brushed his shoulder, but this time it didn't feel like a threat. It was soft and welcoming, in a way. Sausage took a deep breath to steady his breath and didn't shove this person off.
He felt the person shuffle their body to the right side of him, not letting go of the grip on his shoulder and keeping it soft enough to not startle Sausage. They then slowly moved to his hands and peeled them away from his face, his fear and tears quite visible on his face.
Apo.
It was Apo who carefully lowered his hands and turned her head to someone else before grabbing something and helping to wipe the stream from his face, in a way that made Sausage's insides scream from familiarity of another person who'd done the same a hundred times over.
"Sausage." She smiled. "Do you want to head inside? Pearl and Owen are in there."
He cleared his throat, quickly burying his emotions. "O-Of course!"
Apo helped him stand, albeit a bit shaky from his emotions, and clutched his hand as she led them both inside. Owen and Pearl were both inside, organizing the beds into something else that Sausage couldn't quite tell what it was, Apo guiding him to sit beside her in the soft bed.
He felt something press against his back, something soft. He shot down the thought of curling into a ball to avoid the touch as Owen popped up in his right vision, slowly dragging a blanket over his shoulders and back, pulling it around his shoulders.
"Comfy?" He asked. Sausage gave a slow nod, and Owen seemed to pick up on his contempt and gave a nod back, shuffling to the edge of his bed and folding her legs neatly before Apo and Pearl also joined them. Apo had dragged over some of their straw pillows and angled them in a circular position. Pearl also helped, taking over for the moment as Apo popped the question Sausage knew they all were waiting to ask.
"So. Sausage." Apo told him. "We just found you sobbing into your legs and screeching at us when we tried to help for roughly two minutes."
"Three minutes and twenty-six seconds." Owen chimed in.
Apo nodded. "Yes, thank you Owen." Owen gave a rare small smile on his face as Apo continued. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Did Sausage want to talk about it?
No. Immediately, he had his answer. This was personal, he shouldn't burden his friends with a stupid nightmare.
"I..." Think of an excuse, think of an excuse....
"...Just spiraled out of control, I guess." He laughed. "Bit silly of me, wasn't it?"
"From what?" Pearl chimed in.
Sausage pushed a smile onto his face. "A nightmare. That's all."
Slightly uncomfortable silence filled the room, making Sausage feel like he'd swallowed a cup of poison. Pearl, surprisingly, was the first to speak up. "Ya know you can tell us, right?"
"I-I know..." Sausage swallowed. "It-It's more like... like I don't want to share it?"
Owen hummed, sitting crisscross across from him. "As if you don't wish to tell us for fear of it being far too personal and us to judge you for your fear?"
"Uhm. Yeah. That."
"Understandable." Owen nodded, with Pearl shooting a thumbs up and Apo smiling kindly. "Would you just like some company for now?"
Sausage gave a nod. That would be nice, he supposed.
Maybe he could open up to them? None of them seemed like they would mind that much...
...
...
...
...
Maybe.