The Forest

-30-

The light was fading fast by the time the landscape began to change. Shadows stretched over turned earth and silted snow, a breeze whistled through the thinning trees. There wasn't much further to go before they would reach the lakeside.

Silk sneezed. He rubbed his palm into his sore eyes and groaned faintly. A flush had been steadily creeping up his neck since the moment he awoke, and he had been nursing a sore head for the last half-hour. If they didn't reach the lake soon, the clang of footsteps would drive him mad.
"Oh Silk..." Robin winced. "You look awful."
"Thanks."

He was aware he was shivering, probably pale and clammy too. But he didn't feel cold. A fire teemed somewhere inside, and its heat broiled beneath his skin, seething to be let out. Every sweat-drenched muscle screamed for him to tear off his furs and take a dive into the snow. But through the delirium of the fever, he could feel himself shrinking away from the wind's edge. His limbs ached with swollen bruises and the exhaustion of a constant shiver.
Fine, he panted to himself, let the wretched thing come to Hawthorn. Poisons and arrows would follow. Just let him be taken to where there was soup and medicines and bed.
He flopped against his sister's shoulder. "I'm melting..."

Robin pursed her lips. She rubbed her hand on his shoulder, but said nothing. Silk had a raging temperate that fizzled under her hands, his speech was foggy and delirious. All signs indicated a chill, caused by a night spent buried in snow. She had been lucky to have the shelter of the cage while her brother braved the night with gritted teeth and icicles in his hair.
"You should have gone back." She murmured, too quietly for him to hear. Of course he wouldn't have. The two of them stuck together, always. But now he was suffering the consequences, and there was nothing she could do to help. Not while he watched them.

"You're burning up." The voice gave them both a terrible jolt. Silk drew into her, and she tucked his head beneath her chin without a word. The heat of him was startling, it was terrifying, and his damp hair stuck on her neck. Gentle whimpers laced his haggard breaths. Robin gulped. It hadn't spoken to them for quite a ways, not since passing Freshet's Dell. She gathered the courage to behold his eyes, and turned her face skywards.

Avery bore down on them. His eyes were liquid, his lashes fragile as spider silk and fair as sunshine. Hues of an evergreen woods fractured to colour his gaze; Browns, flecked with green. Somehow his innocence made him all the more frightening. He would splinter their bones and think it a game. Think them a game. His childish merriment would turn them into playthings.
"I can feel it through all your coats and things."

Silk pressed his face into her furs. She could feel him trembling. Can you feel that too?- she wanted to sneer at him. Robin hugged her younger brother to her chest in some listless attempt to soothe his fear. Gods knew the last thing Silk needed was to be in a state like this when he was already so sick. But how could anyone, even Rosin Magnolia, resist trembling in the face of this?

"Can I do anything?"
"No." She whispered sharply. "He's fine. Just keep walking." Not much further, and they would be safe.
The boy nodded and walked on.

How could a person not quiver at the sight of this ghoul? This boy whose mere breath violently swept the hair from her shoulders, whose hands were instruments of savagery, destruction— could clench tight at any moment and wring the blood from their insides.
A monster. The word had lost its weight as she grew older. Beasties under the bed were reduced to forgotten clothes, wights and wraiths became shadows and breaths of wind. Her fears were make-believe things for excitable children. But this was real life. A monster, that she could touch and see and feel and hear, that existed in this world with her. Warped to unnatural proportions. Strength unimaginable, an immortal and unbeatable creature.