He stumbled out of the shadow of a boulder and into bright, stabbing sunlight. The light blinded him, and he couldn't see, couldn't tell where he was, couldn't run another step. He tried, but he stumbled again, and this time fell, hitting his hands and his knees painfully on hot earth. The ground was sun-warmed, at most, but it felt scorching to his freezing palms. Even so, he endured it with a hiss and a wince: he was too tired to jerk back.

And he knew it was only sun-warmed, at most. Sun-warmed couldn't hurt, even if he felt half-frozen, too cold to shiver. He folded down, face and chest and legs against hot-- warm-- earth, and tried to breathe. If only he could pull some of that heat inside, take off some of the chill, bake in the sun or the heat of a fire somewhere, anywhere-- or curl up next to someone's body heat-- but everything was cold, cold, cold. So cold he was surprised he could even feel his palms-- he couldn't feel his fingers or does, or the end of his nose.

Everything was quiet, too. Uncomfortably quiet. All he could hear was his own harsh breathing and the faint sound of the wind. That was all. It felt like the quiet was pressing in on him, pressing in heavily, stiflingly. He wasn't used to quiet-- maybe... maybe he didn't even like quiet. The quiet made it hard to breathe. Made it hard to think.

Talk to me, he thought, chest too tight to actually make the words out loud. Why aren't you talking to me?

No one answered him. He lay in the sun and panted, trying to get breath in his lungs, the heat of the ground below and sun above and air all around him finally slowly, almost reluctantly soaking into him. It made him shudder, bursting into spasmodic, near-painful shivers as the numbness turned into actual coldness.

"T-t-t-talk to me," he stuttered, trying to resist the impulse to curl up into a ball to conserve heat. There was no heat to conserve, in himself-- it was everywhere else, and curling up only meant less of him to drink it in. "P-p-p-please...."

Still, the silence. He couldn't tell whether it was a silence of emptiness, a silence of anger, a silence of waiting... a silence of death... but it was silence, and he hated it.

"N-n-never should've-- n-n-never should've--"

Never should've what? He didn't even know anymore. Never should have left? Never should have kissed her? Never should have thought she might want him to kiss her? Never should have learned magic? Never should have learned to read? Never should have bonded? Never should have, never should have, never should have....

Never should have, never should have....

Never should have....

It was too quiet. Still shivering, or maybe he was trembling now, he pushed himself up to his hands and knees again, squinting into the terrible brightness. He could see-- a little-- badly. Everything was bright and dull at the same time, brown with a washed out sky, hills in the distance and boulders, sticker-bushes, and strange, tall things like skinny humans with their arms upraised. Was this a desert? There seemed to be no shadows here, and yet he knew there was, because he had walked out of one. And he, like all things in the light, cast one.

Though it was silent.

They were all silent.

Too quiet--

Too quiet--

Too quiet.

"Why aren't you talking to me?" he asked again, into the emptiness. Whimpered, really. So long, with noise, with arguments, with lies and truths and random losses of control or consciousness-- wishing for silence, but comfortable with noise. Now he had silence, and it made him feel even more alone and afraid.

Nothing answered.

Why?

The only time he needed that companionship, that inner monologue from a dozen different minds, was the time it fled him. He knew why-- he knew what kept them silent. He just wouldn't, couldn't accept it. Couldn't face it, not alone, not after everything, not when it meant... it meant....

No. It couldn't mean... he wouldn't let it. He wouldn't.

He'd run, because he could. Before, he'd had nowhere to run, nowhere to escape to. Or hadn't he? He wasn't sure if he'd run before-- he thought he remembered frenzied flight-- but he couldn't be sure if he'd really run, if he'd imagined running, or hallucinated running.... If he'd run before, She would have brought him back, and he didn't remember a punishment for running away. He didn't remember. But that didn't mean anything. Someone else might remember, because he might not have been there, he might have fled in other ways, he might simply have forgotten, because sometimes he did forget... sometimes it was too hard to remember....

And no one else was there to ask.

"Talk to me," he whimpered, fists digging into the hot sand, fists where he could feel his fingers-- they hurt-- and eyes squeezed shut against the light. "Yell at me, scold me, mock me, I don't care-- just talk to me...."

Still, the silence. Because they were all hiding, the way they hid before, last time, the time before the last time, even the time before that last time. Or they were all dead, to come back to life when it was over-- or be replaced by someone new when it was all over. He didn't know. He couldn't remember who had been with him forever, or if anyone had been with him forever.

The thought of them all dead made him whine, a wordless, animal sound that She had mocked, too... that made him nervous and her sad and... and made him curl in on himself, no longer too cold for it to do any good, with a shudder that had nothing of chill in it. Except soul-chill, mind-chill, the chill of fear and lost and loneliness. He couldn't have her-- he couldn't have Her-- why couldn't he at least have them? The ones who said they were to protect him, to befriend him, to be Her or her or Him or him when he couldn't have them?

Why? 

Why couldn't he?

"TALK TO ME, DAMMIT! WHY WON'T YOU TALK TO ME??"

Silence. Silence from two closed mouths, two sets of curving lips, two pairs of knowing, blaming, ancient eyes.

He knew why they wouldn't talk to him. Maybe they were dead, in the face of that silence. That silence. He'd run from that silence. From that. From them. Because if he hadn't... he couldn't face that. The change, the certainty that all would be ruined, destroyed, dead-- worse than it already was-- he couldn't face it. Not her, not him, not them. He couldn't. Death, destruction, ruin-- no. Not her, not him, not them.

So it would just be him, himself, his own mind that they ruined. He could face that. It terrified him, but not the way the ruin of others did. They had lives, they had futures, they had family, they had sanity-- he had nothing. He was nothing. A monster, a burden, an irritation, an annoyance. A pet, a servant, a slave-- no, not that. Not even that, anymore, because he couldn't have Her. Because he couldn't-- because he didn't--

Because-- he didn't--

He didn't--

--want--

Twin shadows fell across his back, chilling him in the midst of the feverishly hot desert air. He hiccoughed in sudden fear, sudden terror, and buried his head under arms, hands, hair, even sand, though that left him choking and coughing and feeling gritty.

Twin shadows. Hemming him in, one on either side.

Leaving two paths: forward... and back.

He couldn't go back. Ruin and destruction and death.

Not to her, not to him, not to them.

He couldn't go back.

He bolted the only way he could go.