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“Brave choice, Ren.”
Ren tries to ignore the stench of blood that fills his nostrils the second he tries to breathe in. The world around him is pitch dark, no light source but no shadows, no smell and no noise.
He looks around, looking for the voice to no avail.
There’s that red fog again. The one he tried to ask Martyn about this morning already but the blond seemed so confused Ren had to play it off as a joke. Martyn’s Martyn, but Ren doesn’t think even Martyn thinks that was just a joke.
“Regicide from your hand? That’s new.”
Ren tries to spin around, but the voice is disembodied. It almost sounds like the fog is speaking, but then Ren focuses in on two red dots deep in the fog.
“Most people kill someone else to find me.”
The voice is modulated, still seeming to come from the fog. Ren can’t tear his eyes from those dots.
They blink.
Ren blinks.
“I’m not scared of you.” Ren is surprised he even still had his voice. The second strike was nasty.
The voice… laughs?
“I know you are. Everyone has always been. I know your kind better than you think, Ren.”
The fog constricts around his throat for a second, and Ren feels a searing ring of pain whip around his neck and throat, making his hands instinctively rise to protect himself.
“Although, you are a weird case.” Those red eyes are back, closer to Ren now as Ren feels around his throat, realizing a jagged scar now zigzags around his necks and throat. “And I’ve never been to a taiga before. Dogwarts, was it called? Fair enough name.”
“It’s an honourable name.” Ren feels the need to defend himself, and he can’t for the lives of himself understand why.
“It is.”
The red dots materialize into a face, then a body, that looks strikingly as Ren’s own.
“Good skin.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The red dots-turned-Ren lean close to him, and scan Ren upside down. “No seriously, nice skin.”
Ren’s expression gives it away.
The person? thing? scoffs, leaning away from Ren again.
“End, your kind is insufferable sometimes.”
They tip Ren’s chin up, tracing along the jagged scar with another finger. Their touch is so light Ren almost doesn’t feel it, but it’s freezing cold, sending instant shivers down his spine.
“Your hand’s a weird one. He has this… this air around him. Like he’s cursed by some gods. Maybe even the Watchers themselves.”
“Martyn is perfectly fine, thank you.”
“Never said it was a bad thing. Personally, the Watchers suck.”
The fog is growing colder, and the scar is freezing cold compared to the rest of his body, almost as if it was a metal ring instead of old healed tissue.
Ren feels the crown he thought he’d put down when Martyn raised the axe lift off his head, and the red dots-turned-Ren turns it around a few times, inspecting it.
“It’s old.”
“I didn’t know that.”
They put the crown on their own head, and Ren briefly had to shut down the wave of disrespect that hit him. His crown, on someone else’s head.
He tries to swallow the feeling or shove it to the back of his head. This is for the greater good.
What greater good?
“Solid gold is an interesting choice.” They look up, as if they would be able to see the crown balancing on the head, uncomfortable by the ears just like how it’s always been with Ren.
“You said it was old,” Ren blurts out, slowly getting worse at concealing his feeling of disrespect.
A shrug. A chuckle.
“I like you, Ren.”