Part of the blame could go to Mereus' father for ejecting his own son from his home. It had been two days now, and this had been the second morning he'd woken in the street, forced to face the reality that had become his life. It wasn't bad enough that Resa was gone.
He had kept his eyes closed as long as he could, even as consciousness slowly crept back into him. He could hear people shuffling outside, shouting, laughing. The air smelled of dust and filth, and early in the day it already began to grow hot. As long as his eyes were closed, Mereus could still pretend that he was back home, and not curled up in the remains of some old ruined structure. His sister, still alive and healthy, would be singing as she made breakfast for her father and brothers.
The thin blanket he'd used to keep himself warm during the freezing desert nights ultimately began overheating him, until Mereus had to tear it off and thrust it away from him. He opened his eyes drearily, giving a bitter, cursory glance to the ruins around him and the golden, early morning sky above.
For a long while he sat there alone, his thin frame propped against a sandstone wall, contemplating his dreary existence. He wasn't meant to live like this—and that's exactly why any of this happened at all. It wouldn't have gone that way if he'd been allowed to stay home just a few more days. He wasn't in his right mind.
The greater portion of the fault belonged to that woman, the Chaktawe who came into the city that day. What was she even doing there? They were nomads, weren't they? It never made sense to Mereus. If someone needed to visit the city to pick up necessary items, why not just live there?
It wasn't her first trip into Ahnatep, clearly. She knew what she was doing. Mereus could see her from where he'd been standing in the alleyway, on the edge of the ruins and closer to the functioning, "normal" part of Ahnatep. Hanging from a strap on her arm, she carried a painted bag, decorated with beads and feathers. Whenever she purchased something from the stands, she would reach in and draw out a handful of glinting coins.
When she concluded her business and turned to leave the stands behind her, Mereus slipped further into the alley, tucking himself around the next corner. She either didn't see him, or didn't care that he was there. There was nothing very imposing about him. He wasn't a thief, anyway. He was just down on his luck, starved and dirty.
Mereus was taking a drink from his waterskin when she actually passed by him. This would be easy—it should have been easy.
The canteen was dropped, insured by the rawhide tether attached to his belt. In the same instant, Mereus surged forward and grabbed the bulk of the woman's bag, and then attempted to bolt further down the alley. The bag fought back, and Mereus was nearly thrown off his feet when it wouldn't come with him. He turned and faced the woman, who had a surprisingly strong grip on the bag's strap.
She yelled something at him in Tawna. Still struggling to pull his prize from her, Mereus stared into her eerie, black eyes. Her face was adorned by a white stripe, contrasting against her copper skin in a way that reminded him that they were not the same.
"Let go!" he shouted at her, twisting away violently. The strap on her bag tore and broke off, and Mereus stumbled forward as her grip was severed. Victorious, he began to flee with his newfound fortune, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he realized she wasn't chasing him.
When the strap had broken, the Chaktawe woman had stumbled as well, but she tripped over a sandstone block and fell back. She was on the ground now, and wasn't moving. As Mereus lingered to watch her, a new brand of panic began to well in the pit of his chest. Near her head, he saw an odd, red patch on the ground.
No. You can't. Mereus was frozen in place, unsure of what to do. This wasn't his fault. "I told you to let go."
A quiet whimper sounded from somewhere nearby. Mereus turned his head, spotting a young boy emerging cautiously from another alleyway. He spoke a simple, pleading word in Tawna, one Mereus knew. Mother.
The boy then turned to look at Mereus, his little black eyes widening into saucers. If they aged the same as humans, he couldn't have been older than four or five.
Mereus held up his hand. "Wait…"
He didn't. The child turned and began to run in fear.
"Wait!" The contents of Mereus' new bag rattled as he darted after the child. He couldn't let him run away, not yet. He would probably tell a guard, or something. What if his father was nearby? Mereus couldn't get in trouble with the Jackals, not on top of everything else that had happened. It would be too much. "Hold on!"
The gap was closed in only a few strides. His hand closed around the boy's little arm, eliciting a sharp scream. Mereus' other hand clapped over his mouth to silence him. He held the young child's squirming body close, trying to keep him quiet. Mereus' dull hearing could pick up traces of voices nearby, indicating that someone had heard the commotion and came to investigate. More present, and fervent, was the spirited cry of a nearby crow, cawing loudly as if to express what the boy could not.
Mereus pulled the boy into a shadowy niche, sinking down and holding him tightly against his own body to avoid letting him alert the passersby to their location. The child began sobbing once he realized that struggling would not help him.
"Shh, it's okay. It's okay. Be quiet." Mereus was panting, feeling in shock from the drastic turn of events. Just a mere minute ago, everything had been relatively fine. This wasn't real. It couldn't be happening. "This is your mother's fault. If she didn't fight back, she wouldn't have fallen. Look, I'm sure she's fine. She just hit her head a little. She'll be fine." She'll be fine.
The boy probably didn't know any Common. It was never certain whether he understood what Mereus was saying.
The crow continued its rasping song.
"Wish that stupid bird would shut up. AHH—" Mereus pried the skin of his palm from the young boy's teeth, and blood quickly began to seep into his hand, mingling with dirt. "You petching little monster!" He clapped his other hand over the boy's mouth, this time forcing his jaw to stay shut. The boy tried screaming through his nose, so Mereus pinched that shut too. "Just be quiet! Let me think, alright? You can't tell anyone."
The boy did not stop struggling, so Mereus did not let go. He held on, easily much stronger than the child, held on until the boy's strength waned.
Then he stopped moving at all.
Except for the incessant crow, the moment had grown quiet. Mereus swallowed, moistening his dry tongue, and tried to get his breathing under control. The boy did not try to wriggle free, but instead hung limply in Mereus' arms.
Mereus slowly let go, his mind too numb to think. The boy's weight sank and sagged off to the side. Gently, Mereus set him on the ground, staring at his round, tear-streaked face. The paint on his eyes had been smudged in such a way that it told the story of how Mereus' hands had held him. His black eyes stared out, empty.
"This is your fault," he whispered quietly, running his fingers over loose strands of the boy's black hair. "It didn't have to be like this. I said to be quiet. You just had to listen."
Setting down the woman's bag, Mereus reached into his own pack and drew out the thin blanket he'd been using the past couple of nights. If anyone found the little boy's body just lying here like this, someone would panic. They would never understand what happened, that Mereus didn't really want to hurt anyone. He draped the cover over the boy's tiny frame, completely obscuring his shape. It would take a while for anyone to be curious enough to pull back the blanket to discover who was there.
Maybe it was better this way. If the boy's mother was dead, he probably would have starved to death anyway. Someone might have seen this as a mercy. Mereus, at least, could see the good in this. Everything happened for a reason, right?
Mereus rose to his feet, picking up the bag again and clutched it to his chest. The tighter he squeezed it, the less he could feel his hands shaking. Although he couldn't tear his eyes off of the now concealed corpse, his sin was easier to look upon as a nondescript lump beneath a brown, fraying blanket.
This was how he would hold this image in his memory. Not a boy's frightened face, smudged in white paint, but a lumpy bundle of old linen forgotten in some dusty alleyway. That's all it was.
He forced himself to turn around, purging the thing from his vision. Although it felt as if his shoes were caught in pools of molasses, Mereus managed to remove himself from the niche, stepping back into the unforgiving sunlight. He glanced upward at the sky, illuminated by Syna. She saw nothing, he reminded himself. It may as well not have happened at all.
"What didn't happen?" he asked himself. A short, nervous laugh erupted from his throat.
That bird was still cawing away, filling the air with its hoarse cry. It suddenly changed in volume and tone, accompanied by the flutter of wings, as the glossy crow entered Mereus' line of sight. He jumped, startled, then glared at the animal with sudden ferocity. The bird, unfazed, hung open its curved beak and berated him relentlessly.
"Gods! Just shut up!"
Mereus thought he could hear voices again behind him, so without looking over his shoulder, he began to jog down the alleyway. All of the recent ugliness was left behind him, someone else's problem now. It was impossible to change the fate of passing strangers, so he tried not linger on it. The future now looked bright; Mereus was now significantly richer, not just in coin, but also everything that woman had bought at the stands. He'd eat well tonight.
When it felt like there was enough distance between himself and the busier parts of the city, Mereus came to a stop and sat himself on the crumbling remains of a wall, setting his new bag in his lap. He sent a quick look about his surroundings, content that the area seemed clear of threats, then began to dig through the contents of his prize and measure what he'd won.
After evening fell and the desert began to cool, Mereus eventually found himself at the Pavilion market. He sold the beaded bag for extra miza, then bought a nice, new cotton blanket and two skewers of hot, roasted lamb. At nightfall, he was still homeless and had to stake out a place to sleep amid the Ahnatep ruins, but he was feeling a lot better than he had that morning. His reality was becoming a little easier.
Warm beneath his blanket, with a full, sated stomach, Mereus had no trouble getting to sleep.
His dreams would be violent and unsettling, sickening colors and images set to the haunting, throaty rhapsody of an angry crow. In his mind, his hearing was not so diminished, so the caws were deafening. He could hear a child crying and a woman screaming furiously, their hands clawing at his skin. Frantic and sobbing, Mereus batted at them, trying to twist away, but sandstone walls blocked his escape.
A writhing Mereus forced himself awake, clawing his way back into consciousness. The starry sky quickly appeared and soothed him while he caught his breath, and cool air passed against the sweat on his face.
Every time he tried close his eyes again, he could see that bundle of fabric tucked away in a dark corner. Sleep was out of the question, so he reluctantly sat himself up and began attempting to clear his head.
"I know what you did." A deep voice penetrated the quiet.
"Ah!" Mereus hit his head against the wall as he tried to back further into the stone corner. Gritting his teeth, he snapped his head toward the voice, his eyes wide with both terror and the beginnings of rage.
Leth painted the silhouette of a tall man, perched within the remains of a low lying window frame. It was difficult to make out much in the low light, but his shoulders brandished the feathered mantle of a Chaktawe tribesman. His dark hair looked almost blue in the moonlight. "The petch?! Who are you and what in Hai do you want!" Mereus hand groped around behind him, reaching for his pack. "I didn't do anything!"
"Really? A little bird told me differently." The stranger removed himself from the window, standing fully on the ground.
Mereus scrambled to his feet, his blanket sliding off of him like a snakeskin. Both hands were empty, but he kept one partially hidden behind his back to throw doubt on his defenselessness. "Stay away from me! I have a knife!"
Almost like a bird, the man cocked his head to the side. "That young child did nothing to you."
Mereus shook his head and clenched his teeth, panic manifesting as as a knot in the back of his throat. When he parted his lips to breath, he nearly sobbed. "I had no other choice. He would have told." There was no one else in that alley but that stupid bird. How could anyone have found out?
Becoming rapidly uncomfortable at the idea of debating over what had happened the day before, Mereus suddenly shot himself like an arrow out of his corner, making a desperate run for the exit back onto the street. The stranger moved more quickly than Mereus could anticipate and a strong hand grabbed his shoulder.
"NO!" He shrieked and twisted violently away, his thin frame making it easy to slip out of his shirt and leave it as a decoy while he continued to flee. Nearly tripping, he scraped his hand on the earth as he struggled to keep himself upright. His ankle twisted and he fell anyway, colliding painfully with the ground. The bare skin of his torso was raked across small rocks and dirt. More terrified than hurt, Mereus rolled over and faced his attacker.
There was no one there. He'd left. Mereus' wide, blue eyes darted around in bewilderment, but he couldn't find anyone. Who in Mizahar was that? Was the stranger just antagonizing him?
"I didn't do anything," Mereus whimpered to himself quietly, painstakingly pushing himself back up. Expecting a trick, he kept a wary vigil as he limped back to his belongings. His side and chest, which had slid across the dirt, ached as badly as his ankle, but his shoulder was burning from where that man had touched him.
It was all just pain. It would pass.
A bell or so later, the stranger hadn't returned. A regiment of Jackals never showed up to take him away. Mereus was no longer certain whether the man had even been real, or a figment from his dream. The pain in his shoulder subsided to a nagging itch—irritating, but he'd examine his wounds in the morning.
Eventually, he found the courage to curl up beneath his blanket again and make another attempt at sleep. As circular thoughts and regret pooled in his mind, the numbing resolve he'd maintained through the rest of that day began to evaporate. His body quaked with quiet sobs in recurring rhythms until sunrise.