Swan Song
I scramble back as Phoenix rapidly approaches. With his teeth bared and his eyes glowing with rage and fear equal in measure to the desperation burning throughout his entirety, he makes for a predator who feels almost as dangerous as the Siren, despite how I know that the Siren possessed a far greater capability for damage. Something about the hard set to Phoenix sets me on edge, but I can't blame him, not knowing what's about to happen and that I cannot do anything about it.
"Ky!" Phoenix shouts, voice pitching into something pleading as he skids to a halt beside his brother, driving his nose into his brother's side so hard that Ky nearly rolls over from the force, though he flops back to his side.
Phoenix's panic bottoms out into sheer terror. His eyes widen, pupils blown so wide that I can hardly see his fiery irises.
"Ky, please," Phoenix begs. "Ky, wake up!"
I take a step forward, about to step in, but then I lean back and set my hoof down in place, deciding against speaking.
I can tell Phoenix is on the edge, teetering back and forth on the brink of explosion. He's so close, just a breath away from combusting. He's shaking, pacing back and forth as he tries to get Ky to wake up, as he tries to awaken his dead brother.
How do I tell him in a gentle kind of way that Ky will never wake up? That he has just lost the last living member of his entire family when he is hardly not a child? How do I tell him that he has lost everything when he's so young? How could I tell anyone such a thing and not have it destroy their whole entire world?
When Phoenix finally turns his attention to us, he's crouched over Ky's body, holding onto him in a kind of hug. Anger and rage broil in his eyes, and his flames make him look all the more lethal.
"What did you do?" he demands, long upper canines glinting in the light and reflecting his fire.
"None of us did anything," I say slowly. "Remember the Siren?"
"I do," Phoenix drawls, voice lilting in a sarcastic kind of way.
"Ky used his illusions to defeat the Siren."
"And how would he have done that?" Phoenix asks, disbelief clear in his words. "Answer my fucking question, and then tell me how the fuck you are gonna wake up my brother. Cuz Arcane ain't here and Alex ain't around. Who knows where she's gone and fucked off to."
"I do not know exactly how," I reply, ignoring the sharp biting tone of Phoenix's, "but I do believe that Ky took the Blood Demon's power and sacrificed his life to defeat the Siren and prevent its Lullaby from harming as many as it could have. I think that Ky—."
"Do not put words in Ky's mouth," Phoenix snarls. "Do not put words in his mouth. Ky can speak for himself. Wake him up and he will show you that he is perfectly capable of doing just that."
The black cat pushes himself up as if to give Ky room to stand, but Ky does not move, even when Phoenix has sat up fully.
"Come on, Ky," Phoenix says, an edge to his voice that tells me he's still in denial but knows in some small, far-off corner of his mind.
"Ky won't wake up," Katelin whispers, and I don't know if it was to Phoenix or for herself.
She holds herself tight, arms banded around her middle.
Phoenix spits and snarls and hisses. His tail lashes and he snarls, eyes squeezing shut.
"No," he says, voice suddenly far less angry, far less sure, far quieter. He sounds like a kitten. He sounds a decade younger, all of a sudden. "That's... that's not right. Ky will wake up."
Phoenix looks at his brother, wrinkling his muzzle and flicking an ear. He noses at a patch of blood on Ky's shoulder, then licks it away, careful with his long upper canines. There's such care in the moment, such familial intimacy between the two brothers, that I feel perhaps I should look away and let Phoenix have the moment to himself, knowing it's one of the last he will have with Ky, with his brother.
I can scent on the wind Ky's body and his dead body. He's gone, brought under Lucius's claim the moment he died and his heart stopped beating, but the rest of him remains, dead, gone, no longer here, passed away, moved on.
What words describe Ky now? I don't know.
Phoenix brings me back to the present.
"Tell me," he demands, a foreleg around Ky.
I pause, remembering how Ky had said that he'd kept Phoenix asleep so his brother wouldn't have to see him die, because there wasn't time to say goodbye. How could I explain that to Phoenix in a way he'd listen to? I don't want to step wrong and make a mistake. I only get one chance at this, and I must get it right.
Phoenix bares his teeth and snarls. "Tell me!" he spits.
I take a breath. "Ky..." I start.
"Yeah?" Phoenix tilts his head and lifts an eyebrow in a challenge. "What about him."
I take another breath to calm my nerves. The last thing I want or need right now is to react in such a way that I do not have a fully level head. Ky deserves my very best effort, and Phoenix needs that, too. He might be more prickly than usual, but he just lost his brother, something he likely already knows but needs spelled out. I cannot rise to his challenges, no matter how hard he pushes.
"It's about Ky," I continue.
"I assumed as much when you literally just told me his fucking name," Phoenix hisses, venom laced through every word. "What about my brother, Brook? Spit it out or leave us alone. I'm waiting for Ky to wake up."
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I close my eyes and wish that Ky would just wake up, that this was some terrible nightmare, that the King hadn't just taken countless more lives, far too many who didn't deserve to meet Lucius this early. I wish that the King wasn't a monster, because a monster is the King
A breeze blows by, stirring up Ky's fluffy fur, and he looks like a kitten, not much older than Astra. And he isn't, really. If Astra hadn't lived in the Field, she'd be ten— she looks ten. Ky is only a decade or so older. For him, he had just lost his parents and sister ten years prior, what must've felt like yesterday. What must feel like yesterday to Phoenix.
"Ky won't wake up," I find myself saying softly.
Phoenix's body turns rigid, hard as stone.
"You don't get to say that. You don't get to lie."
"I wish with everything in me that I was."
"Ky is not dead," Phoenix hisses. "He is not."
Phoenix shakes, flames burning bigger and brighter in response. He lashes his tail, sides heaving with every breath. He covers Ky's body with his own as he buries his nose in the ruff of fur on his brother's neck, a forepaw by Ky's muzzle.
"Ky is gone," I whisper.
I watch as Phoenix begins to cry. His sides begin to shake, and his breaths turn ragged. Steam rises from his eyes as the black cat sniffles. His tail curls and his ears pin as he presses his muzzle further into Ky's fur.
"There is no way Ky is gone," Phoenix croaks, voice crumbling and shattering across the words. "He can't be. He's right here. Can't you see him, Brook? Ky's right here. He's right here. I can see him. You can, can't you? Brook, Ky's right there. He can't just be gone."
Phoenix's sides shudder with a sob, the first time I've ever heard him make such a horrible, painful sound, filled with such agony that I don't know if I should offer to move in closer to give comfort or offer to give space.
"Ky can't be gone."
My eyes widen, my ears draw back, and I swish my tail with realization; Phoenix is beginning to realize himself that Ky's gone, dead, brought under Lucius's claim, their permanent hold in their realm.
Phoenix lost his parents and sister when the King ordered their murders a decade ago. They died, and he and Ky spent the subsequent ten years hunting down the King. Now, Ky died saving Phoenix and as many as he could from the King's actions summoning the Siren.
Phoenix lost his entire family to the King, and my stomach twists in my gut, nostrils flaring as I shift on my hooves, throwing my head.
What could I possibly say to ease the pain? There isn't anything. Nothing could take away that agony, that kind of ache and loss of losing someone Phoenix had a bond with someone that a word as simple as brother could not describe. It's not big enough, nowhere near vast enough to cover such a relationship that went so deep, had been through so much, was so unbreakable and I know not even Lucius's claim could ever hope to touch.
Drawing in a huge breath, Phoenix screams. He roars, head thrown back, jaws parted wide, eyes squeezed shut tight. Tears turn to steam on his cheeks and his flames blaze in a twisting inferno, so violent it creates its own wind currents. Phoenix's howling cry breaks in his throat as his voice cracks, grief shattering something within him.
People stop at the sound of Phoenix's yowl. They turn around to bear witness to the black cat standing over the body of his brother, body locked up with rage and grief and agony tumbling through his body in a churning, boiling mix with nowhere to go but explode. There isn't anything that can be done but bear witness to the black cat's anguish and torment at the loss of his brother, the one he was closest to, the one who understood how it felt to lose his entire family because he had, too. Something within Phoenix breaks because I can almost see it; I can nearly see the fractures splinter across the surface of the black cat's body.
Something breaks within me, too. Tears drip from my eyes. I see the blurriness in my uninjured eye, and I feel the wetness on my cheek below the eye I can no longer see from.
Bad eye, someone had tried to tell me.
It's not bad, I replied. It's not good or bad; it just is. I will adjust. That is what anyone does in this world. Everyone adjusts. Everyone tries to get by.
What a sad life.
Without the King, perhaps the world could be kinder.
I pull my ears back, bowing my head as I take time to honor Ky's sacrifice.
Lying on his side on the cliffs of Siren's Lookout with his shaggy, tan fur stirred up with the gusting winds, he looks years younger than he is. His oversized ears bend, one pinned beneath him and the other sitting at an awkward angle from how he fell when his heart stopped as the Blood Demon vanished and Ky met Lucius.
Phoenix doesn't look any older.
When Phoenix's scream trails off, he hunches over Ky's body, sides heaving with gasping breaths. He coughs, billows of smoke rising off his fur, then snarls, spitting with such a rage that my fur stands on end and I raise my head, standing up a little straighter.
Anger broils within Phoenix, rolling off him in waves so thick I can almost touch them. He shakes, trembling and jaw chattering. His lips pull back to bare his teeth and he lashes his tail as he draws in seething breath after seething breath, so far beyond just simple anger that rage doesn't even begin to cover what he's feeling. Fury isn't strong enough;
Phoenix covers Ky's body with his own, burying his face into the ruff of fur around his brother's neck again.
I approach, ignoring Phoenix's snarls and growls.
He looks like a kitten, all oversized paws and big eyes. Scared and angry and agonized by losing his brother.
He's lost everything to the King.
Phoenix tries to tell me to leave, but his voice cracks and his words turn into sobs that he presses into Ky's fur. He digs his toes into Ky's body, as if his brother were trying to leave, though I know Ky never would. His sides heave with sniveling cries as he falls apart, the crackling blaze of pain and grief finally breaking through as Phoenix loses the ability to hold it back and it crashes through him like a hurtling wildfire.
"Come back to me, Ky," the black cat pleads, flames dying down as he pins his ears and flicks his tail. "Wake up, Ky. Please."
He won't, I want to say, but I know that Phoenix knows that his brother will not wake up, too.
"Please, Ky. You can't leave. Us against the world, remember?"
Phoenix pulls back, eyes watery and steam rises from the corner as tears meet flames. He pulls back to run a paw over Ky's shoulder and flank as he presses his cheek to Ky's muzzle.
The sun shines in a blazing display that sets the ocean on fire, hanging in the sky at a blinding angle that casts half of Ky's and Phoenix's forms into silhouettes.
Phoenix steps so he's standing over Ky's body, flames hardly longer than his short fur. Eyes closed, he breathes, heavy and deep, as tears drip from his eyes only to evaporate before they fall far. His blue-grey locks of hair that I know are purple fall across his forehead and around the short yellow horns curving up from his skull. He flicks the ear he'd ripped in half to get to Ky when his brother had summoned the Blood Demon, but this time Ky had kept Phoenix from being able to get to him; Ky had made Phoenix sleep with an illusion.
What will Phoenix do now?
What will any of us do now? Ky is dead. Phoenix has lost everyone in his family. The King is winning. He can't win, but it feels like he is. We have to keep fighting, but it feels impossible.
Astra turns around, face sadder than I've ever seen her look before, and she presses her muzzle into my foreleg as she begins to shake, body wracked with sobs.
Using his horns, Phoenix drives Ky's head up, then grasps the bandana in his teeth, holding it with a care that doesn't quite seem to fit, but I can tell it must mean something dear to him as he tugs on it until it comes off from around Ky's neck.
He wrestles with the bandana but manages to get it around his own neck, where it sits around his shoulders, tighter than it had fit on Ky. The bandana hangs lopsided.
Phoenix grits his teeth, growling as he swipes a paw at nothing, then lashes his tail as he paces.
He roars again, from deep within his chest. It echoes in his throat, rolling across Siren's Lookout, so full of pain and grief and agony that I can feel the emotion skittering across my body.
"You're dead, Bryant. You're fucking dead."
Thank you for reading! With this chapter, Brook's Relearn section of The King's Remorse has reached its end, and now the story is onto its sixth and final section! I hope you enjoyed! Please comment your thoughts and consider a favorite/follow
Up top is Phoenix, and down below is Ky. I felt more black and white would work better for this chapter
Poor Phoenix... he's been through a lot
He's got the bandana, though, that Ky always wore. Does anyone remember where it came from?
Where will the group go from here? This was about as bit a blow as they could get
Who will narrate the sixth POV? The character has been introduced, but they're a bit of a different POV
What will happen in the final section?
Happy new year!
-Werewolf14-