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The Long Quiet turned back before he left, hand in hand with the princesses. The voice saw him turn, not through The Quiet’s eyes for once; through no eyes at all. This must be how He saw everything, he thought dimly.
Then The Quiet’s eyes focused on something, and he smiled. “Thank you. And goodbye, Hero.”
And then there came a strange sensation that the voice had never felt before, as he raised his hand to wave goodbye. His… hand. The Quiet’s eyes crinkled with mirth as he raised his own hand to wave back, and with that he and the princesses stepped through the door, and were gone.
The voice stared at his hand, and realised he had eyes to stare with. He blinked. Blinked. And with that realisation he was suddenly aware of every sensation: the ground beneath his feet, stone and wood and dirt all at once; the familiar weight on his shoulders, that he recognised as his breastplate despite having never felt it before; the cool air against his feathers, damp with sweat under the warm metal of the armour… there was just so much.
He wanted to slump to the ground and wrap his arms around his head until he got used to it all, and was about to, until he remembered the others. He needed to find them. As strange as it was to feel things firsthand now, it was even weirder to be alone. If someone had asked him before, he would’ve told them he wanted to have his mind to himself, but now that he did… everything was too quiet. He actually missed all the arguing.
Actually, speaking of. The voice (voice? He wasn’t just a voice anymore, but what else would he be?) started towards the stairs. The contrarian one had been with them before, right? He must’ve stayed behind in the basement, which was why he wasn’t in the cabin (it crossed the voice’s mind that he might be the only one left, but he quickly shoved the thought down before it could take root).
The door creaked as it opened, and then the cabin was silent. “Hello?” He called.
There was a tense pause. Then, finally, an answering, “Hello?!”
The person in the cabin let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. That was unmistakably the contrarian’s voice.
“Is that you, Hero?!” The contrarian shouted. His voice sounded simultaneously as if it came from miles away and just around the corner. “Hang on, I’m coming up the stairs!” That was followed by the sound of footsteps, echoing so that they sounded like they came from every direction at once.
The person in the cabin remained in the doorway. How long were these stairs? The first time going down seemed to take seconds and years, but the second time was only a minute. He wondered how long it would take for-
And then there was a familiar, grinning face a foot from his. The person felt his feathers puff up as he stepped back, hands coming up instinctively.
The contrarian looked both alike and unlike The Long Quiet: he had feathers and wings and talons, but only one pair of wings, which sprouted from his shoulder blades, and his feathers stuck up at strange angles. He was slightly smaller than The Quiet, too: shorter and narrower at the shoulders. Most strikingly, his feathers were stark white.
It struck the other then that he didn’t know what his own body looked like. He’d assumed that he resembled The Long Quiet, the only body he’d ever known, but now he realised that he was significantly taller than the contrarian, and for the first time in his life he wished he had a mirror. His hands had looked normal when he’d seen them before..? A bit calloused, but he hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.
“Hello, Hero!” The contrarian said, tilting his head. “Fancy seeing you here!”
The other huffed, smiling. “Mate, you have no idea how good it is to see you. Even if it is so weird to actually, y’know, see you.”
“Aww, did you miss me that much? I’m flattered.” The contrarian said. “I’m glad to see you too, Hero.”
The other one groaned. “Please don’t make that a thing. That’s like the most conceited name ever.”
“Too late!” The contrarian stepped into the cabin. “What, would you prefer ‘Prince Charming’? ‘Knight in Shining Armour’? ‘The Noble One’?” He laughed as the other’s feathers puffed up more with every nickname, resisting the urge to hide his face in his hands.
“Never mind. I’d rather you just stuck with ‘Hero’ actually,” Hero sighed.
The contrarian grinned as he perched on the table, the very picture of innocence. “You sure? I think Prince Charming suits you.”
“Please don’t call me that ever again.” He sat next to the other one. “And if we’re gonna have names now, then I’m calling you Contrarian. It’s what I’ve been calling you in my head this whole time.”
“Alright,” Contrarian said easily. “Then that’s my name.”
Hero side-eyed the other one. He looked back, as nonchalant as ever. “You seem to be back to your old self. How are you so composed?”
Contrarian shrugged. “I mean, you’ve got to go with the flow at this point. This entire situation makes no sense, but clearly it’s happening, so we’ve just got to accept it. I’ve made it this far; I’m not going to shrivel up into a ball on the floor and let myself crack just because, what, we found out we were a god? And now we have our own bodies? And we still don’t know where the rest of us are?? This is fine!” His voice cracked over the last sentence in a way that told the other he very much was not fine.
Hero chuckled weakly. “Honestly, I think I’m in shock. I think otherwise I’d be huddled under the table crying and screaming.” He sighed. “But we should probably go looking for them at some point, shouldn’t we.”
Contrarian made a considering sound. “I feel like I should disagree with that on principle.”
Hero actually laughed aloud at that, lying back onto the table. “I mean, I wouldn’t argue too hard. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired.” He paused. “…I don’t think I’ve ever been tired.”
Contrarian tilted his head thoughtfully. “You know what, I think you’re right. Apart from the time He made us exhausted to keep us in here, but that doesn’t really count. I guess we really are mortal now.” His face turned more sober, almost contemplative. “It feels weird to say that. We only just found out we were a god, and now we’re not.”
“Except we didn’t just find out, did we? Or, it doesn’t feel like that at least, now that we’ve got our memories back. It’s like we’ve always known, at the back of our mind,” said Hero.
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t make it feel much better,” Contrarian huffed.
“Doesn’t it?” Hero sat up, shifting one leg onto the table so he could lean on his knee. “Do you miss being a god?”
The other one’s mouth opened, then closed again as a look of realisation crossed his face, followed by confusion. “I… don’t remember? That can’t be right.”
“I think you do remember. Or, well, I assume you remember as much as I do. It’s just, when you think back far enough, it’s not so much ‘remembering’ as ‘knowing’, is it?”
Contrarian nodded thoughtfully, and Hero was relieved to see he wasn’t alone. He continued, “We were The Long Quiet, but we weren’t always: The Narrator—or the echo, or whatever you want to call Him—created us. Except He didn’t, but we already know that.
“Before He came along, we were part of The Shifting Mound—or, She was part of The Long Quiet, or we were part of each other. He said He ‘wove’ us, but it’s more like He sliced us into pieces and hemmed the edges. And I remember him doing that.
“But before that, I don’t really remember anything. I know we were a god, and I know we were part of The Princesses, and I know we were the god of birth and death and growth and decay and change and stagnation, the same way I know how to breathe. I know we existed like that for… well, forever, but I don’t remember any of it. And I assume you don’t either.”
The other nodded slowly, apparently reaching the same conclusions as he spoke. “Because there’s nothing to remember. We were everything.”
“Exactly,” replied Hero. “It was like a constant state of being. We were everything and we were nothing, and it cancelled out. We make memories based on landmarks like locations and events and the passage of time, but that doesn’t work when we are every place and event and time at once.”
“So what you’re saying is,” Contrarian said slowly. “Godhood’s fucking dull.”
Hero smiled. “Pretty much, yeah.”
The other one’s face broke into a grin again. “I’ll admit that cheered me up a bit. I think I prefer being mortal, even though I don’t have much to compare it to.”
“And you know the other positive of becoming mortals?” Hero asked.
“What is it?”
“There are more of us,” Hero stated, sliding off the table and finding the floor further away than it had been. He held a hand out to the other one. “But we need to find them first.”
Contrarian groaned dramatically. “I should’ve known you’d say something like that.” He placed his hand in Hero’s, then pulled it back sharply. Neither moved, surprised, until Contrarian laughed. “Sorry, that’s just… so weird.”
He took Hero’s hand again, and the other saw what he meant. When they were The Quiet, they held the Princess’s hand a few times (though thinking back he realised they almost never touched without intent to kill), but that was different; they’d felt everything The Quiet did, but it was like they felt it secondhand, as if through a layer of cloth.
Touching Contrarian now felt strangely… intimate, for lack of a better word. Which it shouldn’t have, because they’d literally shared a mind until a few minutes ago. It was so weird to think that none of them had actually touched each other before, despite all they’d gone through.
Hero pulled his hand back as soon as the other’s talons reached the floor, then his feathers prickled in embarrassment as he realised what he’d done. He smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, it’s… this is gonna take some getting used to.”
“Well, we don’t have to do it alone,” said Contrarian, his smile genuine.
Hero considered touching his hand again, but his pulse picked up at the thought and he decided against it. Instead, he held the door open and gestured for Contrarian to go ahead. “After you.”
“Oh, aren’t you a gentleman? Are you sure you’re not the lovestruck one?” Contrarian teased as he stepped out into the night. The hero followed.
It was cold outside. He’d never noticed that before, probably because he hadn’t been able to. The cool air was refreshing, prickling his throat and making his feathers stand up. It was night, but the black of the sky was almost entirely blanketed by stars, the hill awash in white light that highlighted every blade of grass in crisp detail. It felt so much more real than everything they’d been through before, like he was stepping out of a dream. It was nice, but also a little terrifying.
Something touched Hero’s shoulder and he leapt a foot into the air.
“Sorry,” Contrarian said, holding his hands up placatingly and sounding not sorry at all. He held the pristine blade loosely, like it was a pencil and not a weapon that had killed Hero countless times. “Found this outside the window and thought you might want it.”
“Why would I want that?” Asked Hero.
“I mean, I could let the cold one have it if you’d like. Or maybe the stubborn one; I’m sure he’d love to have a weapon.”
“…on second thought,” Hero said, taking the proffered blade. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have a knife on hand.”
“Dagger, actually,” Contrarian corrected.
“You’re infuriating, you know that?”
“Of course I am! It’s my nature. Just like it’s my nature to distract you from the things we’re supposed to be doing.”
It took a few more seconds than it should’ve for Hero to realise what he meant. “Oh, right, the others. We should… probably start looking for them.”
Silence from both of them. Neither had any suggestions.
“Right, well,” Hero sighed. “I’m guessing they must all be somewhere in the construct, and it can’t be that big. I suppose we should start with the places we know.”
Contrarian gave a dry smile. “So, back to the path in the woods?”
Hero grimaced. “We’re getting out of this place as soon as possible.”