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"so," selios begins, her booming voice echoing on quartz pillars, hushing the many conversations. "night swan is back to terrorizing the mortals."
jack shifts on the floor, his knees knocking into brezziana. she looks at him in sympathy, nudging him as a sign of camaraderie. he is aware he is the least liked, the council's disregard for him almost rivaling their disregard for sara. jack, due to his heritage as the son of night swan, and sara due to her own mortal status.
"our heroes," she gestures to the the four of them piled around wanderlust's throne, "seemingly only chased her off last time, instead of getting rid of her as was their duty." her glare seeps into his skin, setting him alight from the inside. part of it is embarrassment, that he could not finish it, but another part is the shame that they might think him a traitor.
(after all, he betrayed his mother. who says he wouldn't betray the rest of the gods?)
"jack rose, why don't you go? she is your mother, after all." the last part is a whisper that echoes throughout the court. his mouth goes dry as his head begins to spin.
he wishes sara were here, wishes she were allowed in the council room. but she is only ever allowed in when the gods are debating her right to go before them; only when she has done something to relieve them of their own forsaken duty.
the other gods are quick to agree, jack too slow to protest with the way his tongue feels like it's moving through molasses.
"wait, hold on!" wanderlust interrupts, words falling from his lips like he's scrabbling up a sheer cliff, straining to offer help before he loses hold. "i can go with him--"
"no, wanderlust," the traveler chides, "you have work here to do. besides, this is a task better suited for one."
the throne room is silent.
"well!" selios claps her hands. "if that's settled, then i do believe, jack rose, that you have a job to do."
his skin crawls with the weight of everyone's gaze as he stands up. jack stands, bows, and leaves for his room as fast as is polite.
footsteps echo on the gilded marble, a tap-tap-tap he has to refrain from flinching at, even as he knows they're his own. instead he shrinks into himself, flinging his door open and shut in the hopes his heart will stop trying to escape his chest.
it doesn't.
but jack has a quest--for whatever value that word is meant to hold--and he grabs a bag from his closet, stuffing ambrosia into one of the side pockets. he throws open the door to his closet, contemplating before tugging out a red hoodie.
"hey," wanderlust says from the doorway, spooking jack. "you'll be alright?"
"yeah. yeah, i'll be fine." the words lay heavy on his tongue as though they are the key to his coffin, his grave. jack swallows, fear sinking to rest in his gut.
"i could still come with you," wanderlust offers, "what my father doesn't know won't hurt anything."
jack shakes his head, turning back to stare at his bag, clutching it until his hands turn white with stress. "no. it's better i do this alone. besides, don't you have work up here?"
"not if you need me."
his heart flutters in his chest, a soft smile crossing his face for a second before he wipes it away. "i'll be fine."
and with one last look at the marbled pillars, jack descends down the mountain.
---
time
passes.
it drips
and drips
and drips through his fingers
like the blood that drips
and drips
and drips from the hole in his chest.
pain radiates, rising and falling like his own leitmotif, haze fogging his memory.
(no one is coming.)
(no one is coming.)
(no one is coming.)(no one is coming.)(no one is coming.)(no one is coming.)(no one is coming.)
(no one is coming.)
he sits;
lazes;
waits
in the glass jar
(in his glass tomb).
---
it's been a year and a month since jack left.
brezziana is starting to worry. while a year is not necessarily an unexpected timeframe for this kind of mission, or any dealings with night swan, it is worrying when it is a year and a month in which jack has not talked to any of them.
a year and a month in which he has had to worry about his mother. alone.
she wanders around the courtyard, drifting to jack's favorite hiding spots. wanderlust's footsteps speed past her, jarring her out of her trance. brezziana jerks her head up, watching as he stares at the stack of papers in his hands. watching as he shuffles through them with barely a glance at the printed words.
"hey wanderlust!" she shouts, jogging to catch up with him.
he's distracted when he replies. "what."
"i'm getting kinda worried about jack," she admits, knowing mentioning him is a surefire way to get wanderlust's attention. on account of his crush.
his eyes snap to hers. "he's still not back?" wanderlust groans. "i wish i could go looking for him, or even gone with him, but i'm swamped with work."
"i'll go. i'll bring him back."
"really?"
"of course."
wanderlust lets his shoulders drop, sagging over the paperwork his father has given him even as he hugs it close to his chest. for the first time since jack left, she realizes he is a candle being burned at both ends--by his father's endless expectations and his own worry for jack. she hadn't spared a thought to the toll it had taken, hadn't spared a thought to the way his eye bags had deepened, hadn't spared a thought on how he was hanging out with the rest of their friends less and less.
a seed of guilt plants itself in her gut. how can she help her friends when she's oblivious to their struggling?
offering to find jack will be her apology, she decides, regardless of the fact her friends would protest the need for an apology.
brezziana shares one final look with wanderlust before scurrying to her own base of operations. there's no telling the harm night swan might've done if she has jack, or what kind of trouble he could have run into if not his mother--though she doubts jack hasn't run into night swan's claws if he hasn't said a word to any of their friends in the year and month he's been gone.
she's in the middle of packing some bandages and a few healing ointments when mihaly clears their throat. "so. going to rescue jack?" a wry smile paints itself across their face, but brezziana can read the knee jerk worry in their eyes.
"yeah. i'll be back soon, don't worry."
they sigh. "i don't think you realize how difficult you make it not to worry."
worry about jack, she wants to say, worry about wanderlust. i'm not in enough trouble to be worth your worry. instead, she says, "i won't take long. and i won't get hurt. i promise."
mihaly stares her down for a good minute, flicking their eyes as though scanning her for any hint of a lie. finally they relent, turning around to go back to their orchard. "i'll hold you to that."
---
when she finds him, she can barely hold back her horror. he's in a jar, colors muted and corrupted into black. his face sickly pale and his eyes blur past her without recognition.
"jack?" she whispers, putting a hand up to the glass; then, more urgently, "jack?"
his eyes are glazed as his head lolls to glance briefly at her. "brezz," he rasps before his body is wracked by a coughing fit. his arm falls limp to the ground, a flash of dark red glistening on his jacket in the low light. "brezz. you gotta get out of here. warn them, my mother is coming."
"no! no, i won't leave you to suffer more." she presses her hands against the jar, fogging up the glass with her breath. the glass, which is foggy enough already and marbled with dirt and other stains whose origin she'd rather not think of. "i'll get you out. i promise."
(she tries not to think of the promise she made mihaly before she left. tries, because rescuing jack is more important than whatever pain she must suffer for it.)
it's not as easy as she'd thought it would be. no matter how much she kicks and punches the jar doesn't break.
she risks a look at jack.
he looks worse than he did when she found him, and she can't tell if that's due to the way he's curled up in the fetal position or if her assault on his prison is making him worse. either way she has to beat down her rising panic.
finally brezziana figures she'll just have to climb up and get him out the top. somehow. this rescue is more difficult than she thought it would be--but she also thought she would need to fight night swan, so maybe it's not that bad.
or maybe it is, because lifting jack reveals he weighs nothing. his limbs are sharp and gangly, bone barely covered by skin. they poke into her with all the might of dull thorns.
home is not far from where night swan had stashed him, but it is farther than brezziana feels comfortable dragging him. she hesitates, but jack refuses to hear her out. "no," he mumbles, "i'm fine. i can walk, it's no issue."
regardless of what jack thinks he's up to, he ends up leaning on brezziana until he stumbles and his legs collapse underneath him. from then on, she carries him, and she is still carrying him when she arrives to the doorstep of the court where wanderlust paces carelessly.
wanderlust looks up, worry melting from his face into sweet relief--until he sees exactly what kind of state jack's in. then he storms over, wrapping his arms around jack and pulling him into his lap. jack leans in like a cat stretching in sunlight while wanderlust clings like jack might slip away in a heartbeat.
brezziana meets his glare with steady eyes. "night swan wasn't there," she says, "it looked like she hadn't been there in a few weeks."
wanderlust scowls, his grip on jack tightening as he brings him closer to his chest. "yeah, apparently my father didn't feel like it was relevant information that they had a showdown while jack was missing. and night swan went... away."
"away? what do you mean, away?"
"it wasn't really clear? he implied she died, that 'night swan was no more' but. i don't know. he also said she'd be back? also: i learned this from the dumb paperwork he's been making me do, i had to actually ask him."
"so we still have her to worry about."
"maybe." wanderlust looks down at jack, a smile tugging at his lips. "for now, though, let's not worry about her. other people are more important."