Work Text:
Get to Iris
Just get to Iris
Lillium was running, following the path he had seen the winged figure take to the edges of the settlement. His breath stung his throat and forced itself raggedly through his lungs, and his eyes welled at the cold and smoke that mingled in the night.
He had one goal: Get to Iris.
He could see him hovering above the group of spawncampers-- did they capture Dan?-- that were fending off a horde of things Iris had made. Lillium saw Iris watching his horde retreat, and then -- oh. Fuck.
He dived.
"IRIS"
He landed above the spawncamper.
"IRIS"
Lillium ran as if his life depended on it. The winged figure raised his sword.
"IRIS, STOP"
And he did. Lillium allowed himself the slightest hint of relief as he saw the blackened eyes clear in the glow of hypnosis, the ink washing away, finally, his eyes were his own, and... fuck. Were those tears? Was Iris ---
BANG.
Whatever betrayal hung on that face would never be analyzed. The spawncamper below him dropped the now-empty gun to the ground. Lillium ignored her as she crawled from the rain of crimson, catching the mangled figure before it had time to fall.
Whatever noise he made was no longer a name. He wailed, worse than he ever knew a human could. Not that he could hear or think at all right now; his mind had been blown into the same pieces as the body he cradled. Red hot blood burned his skin with a sickening mundaniety as he pleaded incoherently into blood-stickied hair. He was intimate enough with death to know it was helpless.
His sobs chafed his throat and wracked his body. The spawncamper fell beside him, headless, at the hands of another. He barely even registered the thud as he grabbed increasingly desperately at Iris, night-colored cloth eventually twisting and ripping beneath his hands.
Some dwindling flame within Lillium's body remember this was Iris's favorite jacket. He wailed anew, a sickening curl of smoke now filling his heart.
Someone placed their hand on his shoulder. He was shaking, hands frantically ridding themselves of the mangled fabric. Violent guilt propelled him upwards until he stood with empty eyes and looked past everything. His gaze fell on the spawncamper. His fists curled and shoulders tensed as he stumbled to the body of the spawncamper who had done thisand grabbed the collar of the headless form and shook, shook, yelling incoherently until he began to whale the body with bloodied fists.
Someone tried to drag him off. He stood and swung his fist, maybe at the air, maybe at a ghost. He wasn't seeing anything through the haze anyways.
Someone swung at the back of his head. The sudden knock into unconsciousness was the closest thing to mercy he could feel anymore.
Something woke up in the prisons.
It made inhuman noises as it shook the bars and pleaded to empty air. Dirty hands soon lit up with fresh blood as it hit, hit the walls until the rough stone fractured its hands and the tattered bandages frayed and unwound. It tore at its hair, its clothes, its skin, until it collapsed in the corner and sobbed until it no longer could.
Perhaps it looked to the bottle of water laying askew against the wall, and perhaps a piece of sanity flashed through as it considered rinsing the blood, both old and new, from its injured hands. Perhaps it could not bear to rinse off the last contact it would ever have with the one it held so closely.
Whatever being was in that prison cell finally collapsed unconscious after the strain of being alive sapped its energy, and it slept fitfully, dreams filled with ink-stained tears that dripped onto its skin and melted away the remaining roots of humanity.