Dreamroot

Perry's nose burned and his throat felt like he'd swallowed acid. 

He didn't hear Mal approach or feel his hand as it touched his forehead. He did feel his fingers when they gently prodded his arm. Perry let out a scream that turned into a cough. 

"We must stop the bleeding," Mal said, his voice as calm as ever.

"You killed her," Perry mumbled. 

"It would have killed you," Mal said matter-of-factly. "I did not think to bring anything to bind wounds."

"You killed her," Perry repeated, his mind unable to process anything else. 

There was a tearing sound and when Perry looked, Mal had taken off his outer robe and was tearing it into strips. 

"This will hurt," was all the warning he gave before he started to wrap the strips tightly around Perry's wound.

Perry screamed. He grabbed Mal's arm, tried to beg him to stop. Tried to ask him to explain what had just happened. All he could process was pain. So he screamed. 

When Mal finally stopped, Perry collapsed back, all his strength drained from him. Mal got up and Perry heard the sound of something being cut and of Mal cursing in a language Perry didn't recognize. 

Perry's wounds throbbed as if they had a life of their own. They poked at his brain with tiny sharp claws, demanding attention. 

"I hear you," Perry mumbled. "I hear you."

He tried to push himself up using his good arm, but his hand slipped on something. His stomach churned thinking it was blood, his or the girl's, it didn't matter. But when he raised his shaky hand, it was… snow? When had it…

Perry glanced around, shocked to discover that everything around him seemed to be covered in a light and powdery layer of it. Snow. It was snowing. When had it began snowing?

Perry stretched up his hand and caught some of the delicate snow flakes that fell from the sky. He rubbed it between his fingers, studying the stain they left behind. Snow and ash. 

Just like in that dream. Or was it memory? 

Someone approached. A man. He knelt down next to Perry. Perry blinked at the impassive face crowned by the faint light that survived the journey through the dense canopy and snow. From Perry's angle, his honey-colored hair somehow seemed lighter in the faint light, halloed by a fiery crown.

"Your eyes." Perry stared at the crimson orbs that gazed coldly at him. "I've seen…" In a dream. In a memory. "I know your name." 

The man continued to stare at him. "You called me."

Was he a man? Or maybe a god? Perry had never seen a god and the men he had didn't remotely resemble the one looking down at him. 

"Did you come to save me?" Perry asked, his words slurred. His mind felt like it was slowly being filled with cotton. 

He couldn't feel the snow slowly swallowing him up. He could barely feel the wounds that had been the source of so much pain just a minute ago. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this was bad. But he was almost asleep. No, already asleep. Dreaming. Or remembering. 

The man didn't answer and Perry let his eyelids slowly close. That was okay, Perry didn't mind not being saved. It wasn't like he was worth much at that point. He'd lost… he'd lost… something important. 

So it was okay if the man left him there to die, Perry wouldn't blame him. In the end, it had all been Perry's fault anyway. And he was almost asleep. Almost…

Warmth surrounded him. Perry could tell the snow was gone. A fire crackled nearby. Was he home? Was he safe? A wolf howled outside. No, not safe. 

"Are you awake?"

Perry tried to think. Was he? He couldn't hear the wolf anymore.

"I… think so?" His voice was scratchy and his throat felt dry. He opened his eyes slowly and blinked, trying to make sense of his surroundings. They weren't in the woods anymore, but in some kind of cabin. He was lying on something soft. Maybe a couch or a bed?

"Then I shall try to make this quick before the dreamroot takes hold of you again." Mal. That was Mal's voice. 

"What happened?" Perry tried to push himself up but pain shot up his arm and back and everything around him spun. 

Strong but gentle hands held him down until Perry stopped squirming and settled. "The creature that attacked you, they commonly ingest and paint their claws with dreamroot. It will cause you to hallucinate."

"Oh." Truthfully, Perry didn't know how to react to all of that. "You killed her."

"I did." Mal's answer was short and detached. As if Perry had asked him a simple question. 

"Hey, did you watch the new Barbie movie?"

"I did." 

Or something like, "Did you try that new ice cream flavor yet?"

"I did."

"What… why…" Perry tried to think of a question that would help him make some kind of sense of what he'd seen. 

He remembered the tail, the teeth, and the claws. The pain of them tearing his arm open and the blood. But he also remembered the girl, how she had cried and begged for mercy. 

Maybe he couldn't find the right question because some part of him didn't really want to know the answer. Girl or monster, Mal's casual indifference to taking a life made him want to get as far away from everything that had happened as fast as he could. 

Given Perry's current state, that wasn't happening anytime soon. 

"My arm?" Perry asked, settling on a question he thought might be safer for his sanity. 

Mal glanced at the arm in question and frowned. "I have done the best I can, but I admit my knowledge is… limited." His frown deepened and if Perry wasn't considering tearing his own arm off to stop the pain, he might've found Mal's frustration kind of endearing. "I did not anticipate how fragile you would be."

"Hey, that's… a fair assessment." Perry hissed and grimaced as he shifted to a more comfortable position, the wound on his back reminding him it was very much still there. "I wasn't made for anything more adventurous than sneaking into the movie theater without buying a ticket. Wait, did you say hallucinate? As in, see stuff that's not actually there?"

"Yes. And quite possibly do things that you would not otherwise do. Dreamroot, under controlled situations, can be used to induce lucid dreams. It is very popular among the seers as it can be used to heighten their abilities," Mal said.

"Fascinating. What's the antidote?" Perry was trying very hard not to panic. 

How bad could this root thing be, really? So maybe he'd see some pretty colors or think the trees were talking to him. That didn't sound so bad, right? He might even get up and do a silly dance. That was okay. Embarrassing, but okay. 

Mal shook his head. "There is no antidote. You must wait for it to naturally make its way out of your system."

Okay, that didn't sound so bad. "How long do I have to wait?"

His arm chose that moment to throb painfully and Perry raised his other hand to press down on it, but Mal grabbed his hand and shook his head again. "Do not trouble it. As I said, my knowledge of your fragile physiology is limited and poking at it might undo all my hard work."

Annoyance tickled the back of Perry's mind. "You know, there's really no need to keep repeating just how fragile I am. I'm fully aware."

Mal was quiet for a moment. "But you are. So, so very fragile."

His voice was smooth but there was something hidden there between his words. Perry couldn't exactly say what it was, but Mal didn't just look frustrated, he looked almost angry. 

Perry felt compelled to apologize. He had, after all, ignored Mal when he'd told him not to get any closer. But Mal blinked, and his eyes changed color. 

"Red," Perry mumbled, mesmerized by the shift. No, red wasn't a good description, it wasn't enough. But he lacked the proper vocabulary. 

Cold seeped slowly into Perry, starting with his fingers and feet, then his arms and legs. Soon, it would consume all of him. He would die there, buried in the cold. 

It started to snow again. Perry blinked up at the ceiling, but it was gone. A dark gray sky stretched endlessly over him, almost merging with the horizon. Everything around him was gray, covered in ash and snow. 

The red eyes called to him. The man-god leaned closer and the fiery crown on his head illuminated his features. Perry had never seen anyone more beautiful. 

"Did you come to save me?" Perry asked through chattering teeth. At least he could still shiver. He had some time before the cold took him completely. 

"You called me here." The voice sounded as solid and old as the frozen lakes Perry had explored in his youth. 

"I know your name." Somewhere in the back of his mind, Perry realized the words weren't his. His mouth was moving, he heard his voice echoed in the sentences, but it wasn't him. 

The strange feeling made him feel detached from himself. He felt himself leave, his essence, the very thing that made him Perry, slowly ebbed away. He slowly seeped into the air, the ground, the cold that swallowed him. 

The man-god widened his eyes and tried to reach for Perry but he vanished at the same time that Perry felt himself dissolve.