Work Text:
He doesn’t see the bolt coming at him until it’s too late, of course. He feels it piercing his stomach, someone is screaming, it might be him-
He blinks. He’s lying on the ground. He is definitely screaming now, his throat feels raw and dry. The bolt is still in his stomach, he feels it poking into the dirt under him, and the battle still rages over him. He coughs, and he feels the blood coming up his throat.
Janaff realizes, with a start, that he’s dying.
His chest shudders as he tries to muster a plea for someone, anyone to hear him, save him, his scar throbs for a moment as the primal desire to survive, to keep fighting grips him, but it only seems to force more blood out of him, he didn’t know anyone had this much blood. His wings flick out of his control, he howls again but it’s drowned out by the battle above, and he is dying…
Another blink, and it’s dark. He’s still bleeding. He’s dizzy. He thought death was supposed to be quick. The battle is long over, no one’s come looking for him. He feels like he can’t even lift his hands anymore. His face is damp from tears, but he can’t cry anymore. Every shudder of his chest brings more pain. He hears a song on the wind - a mourning song. Reyson’s. He wants to raise his voice, he’s not dead yet, damn it all!
He can’t muster more than a shaky sob. He knows that even if he wasn’t hurt (no, dying), they wouldn’t hear him screaming. Reyson’s voice was a different kind of powerful, the kind that the wind itself would bend to lift…
He wants to be angry with them. They’ve left him for dead. Rage bubbles in his blood-filled throat, but he can’t force his fists to clench, his face twists in agony, and he sobs as his own funeral song wraps around him and drags him into darkness.
But somehow, that’s not where this lifetime ends. No. There’s something else here for Janaff to see.
He forces his eyes open, like he’s been asleep for way too long, but his infallible sight is blurry, tinged with purple. He looks around- he’s upright. Standing, with his wings dragging on the ground behind him. He blinks a few times, the blurriness fades but not all the way, and he can see he’s in a twisted forest. There are so many eyes on him. He glances towards them, meeting each of them in turn. These three recognize him, his broken form, but he can’t place their faces… The blond man has buried his face in his hands, his wings and shoulders trembling. The scarred one is nearly unreadable, though Janaff can make out horror in his eyes, and the one in the middle… A tall hawk, slender, blinking back tears. They’re staring at him. He wants to ask who they are, but his voice is only a hollow rattle in his throat. The one in the middle reaches out a hand, hesitant, and he can only stare back.
Janaff stumbles suddenly, the slender hawk lunging to catch him, pulling him close, though Janaff can’t feel his body at all. The other hawk tilts Janaff’s head up to look at him, he didn’t know anyone could be this careful with him… He feels a strange sense of familiarity, like he had known these people lifetimes ago, and they somehow remembered him from eons and eons ago. He doesn’t know why this makes his form shudder with wheezing sobs. The other hawk wraps his wings around them, all effort of stopping his tears forgotten.
Janaff suddenly hears a howl behind him, and he wants to look, but he doesn’t have the strength to fight against the other hawk’s embrace. He closes his eyes, and-
Janaff opens his eyes again. Every time he tries to sleep, the memories of a life that he hasn’t lived haunts him. His dearest friends leaving him for dead, becoming a puppet of Izuka, Ulki holding him, so tightly… He shudders again, the oppressive terror of not remembering who his dearest friends are weighing on his chest. He sits up, one hand instinctively resting against his stomach, almost like he’s making sure he’s still whole.
He remembers that fight. That bolt could have killed him, but he’d spotted it seconds earlier, and been able to duck out of the way. He sighs, resting his face in his hands.
Janaff is exhausted.