Of course not he says, kinda dry and snooty, his face saying different things and his point getting across as clearly as you please. Smart ass.

I coulda shot back to him that at least I wasn’t the one standing around doing nothing of my own volition, that I was sent here by some divine bullshit and yeah, maybe I did take a wrong turn somewhere, but I was still trying to get something done whereas he was….he…

…was crying?

It was so smooth that I didn’t even notice it—I mean, for all I knew, his eyes were just glittering like they usually did, like ice shards set against his face, or whatever. But no, those were honest to god tears welling up in his eyes, sliding down his face quiet like shade, because he wasn’t sobbing or sniffling or doing any of that nonsense. He was just looking down at me like he was just as glad to see me as I was to see him—but he was crying, just letting the tears fall, like he didn’t care, or he couldn’t help them and there they just were.

I opened my mouth—and it kinda stayed open, gaping stupidly as I took in the blurry sight, understanding finally exactly what I was seeing. The guy was wrecked. And I’m not talking like he had come off worse in a fight. It was more like he was…worn down than anything, what with the roughness in the lines in his face and the shadows underneath that sad, sparkling eyes, like there was something sitting on his shoulders that was too goddamn heavy but it was bound to him with chains and there was no way he could put it down somewhere and sit his ass down for a minute, jeez.

I didn’t know what to do (well, that’s new). No, really, I didn’t know what to do. Because this guy—I remember how this guy was just there once, at this shitty place with a whole bunch of shitty sand and a shittier individual and this guy had been the sense in that jumble of a mess. He had been whatever could pass as an anchor in that turmoil of idiocy—and if it wasn’t apparent then, than it sure was right after that, when the darkness came and I fled like the chicken-shit I am sometimes and he was there running right along with me, not really pissing himself like I was but there to offer something to me, like a shoulder to cry the nervous-tears that I was doing my damnest to keep from him.

I know how it feels to suck up tears, man. I know how it feels to have the world crashing down around you and you feel like shit-- no, like filth, that you’ll never get anywhere and you were pointless and everyone who had high hopes for you is just gonna walk off feeling disappointed, like the movie they had paid to see got 2 stars out of 5 and it was full of lots and lots of explosions but there was barely any sense to the plot and it wasn’t worth the cost of admission. When someone looks at you and you notice a shadow flitting across their eyes, like you’re reminding them of something they’d rather not remember, an embarrassing night that was supposed to stay in Vegas but now it’s following them around, sucking their teat and cussing all over the place and causing more trouble than she’s worth and calling them Ma—

Um…uh. Hmm. Well.

The point is, I know what it feels to feel like shit. But I’ve never been so tired before, because I’m young, only like 2 3 years, and I haven’t been around enough to be so tired of whatever failure was creeping up on me that day. And it was that moment I realized how much of an enigma Teeny actually was to me; I didn’t know his name, I didn’t even know how old he was, and he was telling me that the King he used to be was dead (I was still gaping, like that helped any). The King he used to be.

This motherfucker used to be a King!

Used to was the key phrase. Used to. He was old enough to have had a kingdom and lost it; he was old enough to have lived with that particular failure long enough to weigh him down, cause his face to become rough and for shadows to form under his eyes; he was old enough to let his tears fall, because he was weary and he was ”falling apart” and I didn’t know what to do but here was a man who was catastrophe walking and his broken voice and the tears dripping down were the least of his problems and I was the only warm body in so many square miles of frozen nothing that gave a damn that the tears he cried were gonna start freezing on his face if he let ‘em.

I’d…never felt so small before.

“Hey…” I said softly, clearly at a loss, thinking I had to say something or one of us were gonna explode, “Hey…guy….” It was my failed attempt at being comforting and I quickly shut up because I still didn’t know the bastard’s name and this was not, this was not, the time to be asking. But all my words were used up and I still didn’t know what to do because I’ve only ever huddled in this particular pit of darkness by myself; I had never had any reason to try and draw someone out of it.

I reached out to him, with my muzzle. Which was really saying something, by the way, because I love to fight but somehow I hate being touched—but I needed to touch him somewhere, maybe on the point of his shoulder briefly, just enough to make contact and press a piece of his body back together, if he really was falling apart. I needed to let him know somehow that this warm body still gave two-shits about him, and that it would be okay (how the hell would I know that?) and that I didn’t care that there were tears on his face, but it mattered to me that he cried.

“…Come on,” I said, barely a whisper as I drew back from, “It’s cold as hell.”

I didn’t know where I wanted to take him—but it was cold here.




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