[ back to where we started ] — open; waking up

[daniel]

He’d expected death. A bit morbid and perhaps not the outcome he’d wanted so early, but Danny was nothing if not a realist, a manner of thinking that was utilized to keep his natural pessimism at bay from his own anxieties. And realist thinking stated simply that if you got your jugular severed by an angry, vengeful yellow demon, bleeding out until there was nothing left was a high possibility, for most of the time, that is exactly what happened. Even shoving gauze and poultices and whatever else in the wound didn’t ensure a victory, he could have died on the metaphorical operating table. But Harland had said it best, even if in the back of his mind there was heavy doubts, Danny was strong, and he did make it.

And though he didn’t know it, not at the moment still caught in time as he gradually reintroduced himself to the present, Danny had done what a young boy so alike himself, buried within the mountains of a land lost to war, had not, did not.

He lived.

A hidden cycle had broken immediately at the return of a stable heartbeat, a first step forward towards recovery as the gods had mercy upon him and allowed him the chance to continue. Violent and tranquil images alike assaulted his brain while he still remained unconscious, snow replacing sand, mountains carving up the sky taking place where that same sky met sea, voices both new and familiar echoing in a memory that was not his own. He thought he was only dreaming again, but the presence of two faces that he knew made him sick to his stomach in a way that could only be explained with grief and nostalgia striking him too strongly.

Harland? Albeit younger, smaller, lacking the injury that repressed his voice. But he knew what he saw and understood what he heard was indeed the bombay, but he’d only ever known the man as the adult he was now, following behind him like a young duckling would follow their mother. But that wasn’t what made him react so strongly he was practically knocked awake. He’d been here before, or so his brain had said, traveling with a companion on either side of himself, he’d seen it in his more nostalgic dreams, but never could get close enough to see. He’d been just as cold upon a ground that was somewhere beyond the beaches of the archipelago, and he’d failed to make it out. Someone had offered their comfort and someone had cried at the sight of his limp body the way Vayne had, but he still didn’t know who that person once was, though something deep in his soul remembered what his brain did not, if the tears at his eyes were any sign of that.

Danny awoke with a start, gasping sharply before wincing as the pain at his neck reminded him of why he had been unconscious in the first place, heart thudding against his rib cage. As his eyes adjusted he realized dimly he was in the temple, a long but weakened low whine being the first noise to leave him before any words had a chance. Leaving seemed like a bad idea, and he didn’t have the strength, his body working overtime to replace the blood he had lost, and there had been a lot of it.

But he was going to make it after all. Spat in the face of the grim reaper and would live to tell the tale.

Anxious, shy, quiet and kept his head down, to his chagrin were perhaps not aspects of a personality one would assign to a tough survivor, but then again, no one would have placed any bets on the kid to shed some blood of his own. Yet he did, yellow fur and black blood still caught in his teeth, a slowly healing wound beneath his fur that should have been his demise and a ragged brand upon his shoulder to let the world know he was not going to be put down so easily next time. If only his mother could see him now.

[glow=black,2,300]— ❤ —[/glow]