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mateodeavalor-blog · 6 years ago

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An Oath By The Blood Of My Hand

Mateo and Naomi set out to stop Arawn and break the Cauldron’s spell. (November 2nd, 2018)

@arawnprydain

@someonespecial-naomi

[trigger warnings; death, murder, gore, blood, violence, and dark shit all around.]

MATEO

Mateo guided himself and Naomi towards Enchantra. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you looked at it, the zombies had all mainly flocked to the town where everyone was concentrated. The farther they got from the buildings the less zombies they had to worry about, seemingly. The occasional one popped up in the dark of the eternal - apparently - night because oh yeah! That was his fault, too! Having let out some terrifying monster that made the moon turn from its usual eerie soft glow into a grim bloody color. And it was going to look like that for forever unless they did something about it. But they also had to stop the zombies from turning everyone in town into Arawn’s minions, and from Arawn taking the Cauldron anywhere else to spread the disease.

Mateo didn’t know what to feel, honestly. There was too many things crowding around inside him trying to get the spotlight. Usually he could manage his emotions, they ran their course and did what they needed and he could move on when they were done. This was just overwhelming. It was everything all at once and yet he knew that if he let it all in that he wasn’t going to be able to keep moving his legs. He would just have to ignore it all for now, wait until he fixed this whole mess, and then he could let the crushing weight of guilt bury him in his grave that he had dug for himself.

He stopped at the tree lining, listening for footsteps that weren’t his or Naomi’s now that they were standing still. There was only the steady flow of water next to them that the river was just a ways next to them. Mateo turned to look at Naomi before casting his eyes to the ground, ashamed that she was with him and not with Elena. That she had to be here at all, helping clean up his mistakes.

He pointed weakly towards the forest.

“Uh, it should be... just this way,” he said, glancing up at her from under the rim of his glasses. “We’ll have to be careful, though. He probably has himself surrounded by those...those things.”

NAOMI

It should probably worry her that she felt more at peace now than she had in weeks. The dead were walking, the sun had stopped rising, Mateo’s master had shown his true colors, and the world might very well be ending. And Naomi felt totally centered and calm.

Chaos was her normal, now. At least she had a plan and a weapon in her hand, and her best friend back beside her. (Not that she wasn’t still mad at Mateo, because oh boy, was she mad at Mateo. But at least he was around for her to be mad at.) She had her mission, and thus, her purpose.

She’d probably have to examine that later.

For now, Naomi was creeping alongside Mateo as they made their way through the forest. She wasn’t as graceful above land as she was under the sea, but she was still one of Pachamama’s best for a damn reason. Any zombies they had run into had been quickly and efficiently dealt with by a quick knife to the back of the neck, severing the spine so a quick hit knocked it right off the rotted neck.

Naomi stopped by Mateo at the edge of the forest, looking into the darkness and feeling nothing but the familiar rush of adrenaline and the blood pounding in her veins. Hearing Mateo’s voice again after a month of silence still made her heart leap. He was alive. He was alive. She kinda wanted to punch him again. “I’ve faced worse,” Naomi said, not elaborating as she began to make her way through the forest. “So what do we need to do to stop this cauldron thing?” she whispered, keeping close to Mateo.

MATEO

Her confidence was jarring. Even though it shouldn’t have been because this was Naomi Turner he was talking to, who he knew was far more qualified to be doing this than him. But it was his mess to clean. His thumb ran over his palm, bandaged now, but he could still feel where he had willingly given a part of himself up to make all this possible.

Naomi had also always known that Arawn wasn’t what Mateo thought he was. Mateo, all the way up until the very end, had trusted the man, had looked up to him in a way that made him feel a physical pain in his chest. The same man who had taught him how to properly extract a memory on the first try had held a knife to his throat because he hadn’t cared the entire time. It had all been a ploy to get him down there to unleash the dead on the living.

She had warned him, tried to reason with him, and Mateo hadn’t listened. Why hadn’t he listened? He knew the answer to that question, but he hated it too much to fully examine it. Another apology wanted to crawl out of his throat but he didn’t let it because they couldn’t get into that right now. There would be time for that later. He would have a whole lifetime to make up for this whole thing.

“Honestly?” he sighed, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I only ever heard about it from... from him and I didn’t think to-” Mateo grit his teeth. “If we... if we can stop him then that should stop the zombies from doing what he wants, so that should buy us some time until I can... figure out how to stop the Cauldron. Or, if we’re lucky, stopping him will stop everything altogether.”

He paused, then laughed something bitter and humorless, “It’s never that easy, though, is it?”

NAOMI

Naomi looked at Mateo and felt… sad.

She had wanted to be wrong. About Arawn. She had wanted to just be paranoid, to be able to tell Mateo that yeah, he was right, she was wrong, that she was so proud of him for finding a master that could really appreciate the wonderful person Mateo was. Someone who could help him become the amazing sorcerer Naomi knew he could be.

She didn’t like being right. Didn’t like that the world could be so consistently cruel.

She reached over silently, taking his hand in hers and giving it a brief squeeze. “No, it’s not, but if anybody could pull it off, it’s us,” she said to him with a small, confident grin. “I’ll take care of Arawn, you take care of the Cauldron,” Naomi said with a small nod, her expression going dark. Her nails had long gone sharp and deadly, and she knew the skin on her back had turned rough and dark in patches.

“I have words for that man.”

Hopefully, Arawn spoke ‘knife’.

MATEO

He looked up when she touched him, surprised that she would want to to that. That her touch was reassuring and gentle, that of a friend he did not deserve after what he had done. It made his throat tighten and his eyes sting enough to where he closed them to force the tears there from falling. Mateo clutched her hand back, maybe holding on a little too tight.

With a sniffle he smiled, laughing a little as he nodded in agreement. Mateo didn’t want to talk to Arawn. He didn’t want to face him ever again. But he didn’t really have a choice here. It was the only way to put an end to the zombies and get the people who had him and that demon in their heads out from under the spell.

“Deal,” Mateo agreed, and began walking forwards again.

The green fog thickened as they got closer, swirling around their feet until their shoes disappeared beneath the smog. He took them along the river until they were in view of the scene he had escaped from.

Only with some new, undead, additions.

NAOMI

Mateo clutched his hand back, and just like in that nightmare in the arena, she wasn’t afraid. This was going to end, one way or another.

(This wasn’t a dream, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. If you die in Mateo’s arms now, you won’t wake back up.)

They walked together, hand in hand, as the fog got thicker and the smell of rot and death got heavier in the air. Even out of the water with her senses dulled, it got to Naomi’s head; she could smell the blood, making shivers run up and down her spine. Naomi pulled her knife out of its sheath, gripping it tightly as they began to see figures in the distance. They stopped, Naomi gesturing for Mateo to get low.

“Is it worth trying to surprise him or should we just rush him?” she asked. “You could get rid of the zombies with the Tamborita while I go after him.”

MATEO

He ducked down when Naomi motioned for him to, squinting through the brush that they were now eye level with. Her question had him clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, letting out a breath as he tilted his head with his indecisiveness at it. Mateo didn’t know Arawn anymore, did he? He hadn’t ever really known the man at all. How was he to know if he was powerful enough to sense them coming? If he would even have to lift a finger with the dead army he had surrounding him.

“I-I-I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head more violently. Using his magic? Was she crazy? That never went to plan. And the only reason it had been working recently was because of the person they were here to take down.

“I can’t,” Mateo told her, turning his head to face her. “I can’t. I’m not-. I’m not powerful enough. We shouldn’t have split up. I shouldn’t even be here he probably knows I’m here already and-”

NAOMI

He was spiralling.

Naomi reached out, grabbing the back of Mateo’s neck firmly, grounding him with her touch as she pressed her forehead against his temple. “Mateo,” she whispered. “You can do this. He can’t hurt you, I won’t let him.”

“You are better than him,” she continued. “And don’t tell me it’s not true, because it is. You are a better person, you have a better heart, and you are stronger than him. You have me, you have all of our friends, and Arawn has nothing. He had to raise an army of the undead just to have some fucking friends; we love you, magic or not, no matter what. I can’t do this alone, I need your help, Teo. You know the Cauldron better than any of us, you can do this.” She rose up a little from her crouch, kissing his hair.

“I’ll protect you,” Naomi reassured him.

MATEO

Mateo clenched his jaw, biting down hard as she spoke. Slowly, over the course of her words the tension there loosened. His breathing evened out to something more attainable. Her touch was soothing, as was her voice. Familiar and kind and everything he didn’t deserve but needed in that moment. And he knew she was being genuine, he could see it right there in front of him, glowing brightly underneath her other emotions.

When she pressed her lips into his hair he leaned into it, squeezing his eyes shut briefly as he focused on the contact and the encouragement.

She was right, in a way. Mateo couldn’t leave her to clean up this mess alone. He couldn’t just stand by and let this chaos persist. He had done this to the town, he was the reason any of this was possible and he would be responsible for cleaning it up.

“Okay,” he whispered. Then repeated, a little louder, “Okay.”

Mateo gripped his Tamborita tighter. “I’ll distract them.”

He moved to run off, to leave her there but he faltered on his second step. The last time they had done something like this she had come back to him bleeding to death. Mateo knew Naomi was more than capable of handling herself, he knew, but Arawn wasn’t a bunch of scared kids fighting for their lives, either. He turned back, holding her gaze, “Be careful, okay? I’ll be right behind you soon.”

NAOMI

Naomi didn’t have to be a sorcerer to know what Mateo was thinking about when he turned back to her, and she smiled at him confidently as she twirled her knife around her fingers. Naomi Turner from District 5 wasn’t Naomi Turner from Avalor; didn’t have a childhood of being trained to be a Huntress, of fighting for two years in the civil war that had taken over her home, of making her way alone across the ocean not once, but twice. She was malnourished, Naomi wasn’t. She was injured when she had faced off against Rita and Maru, Naomi wasn’t. Naomi had killed malvagos before. The only difference was this time, she was really going to enjoy it. “Mateo, I’m hurt. I’m always careful,” she joked. “You get their attention. I’ll show that malvago why your friends are scarier than his.” With a final wink, Naomi melted into the forest, moving silently as she made her way around to get a better angle.

MATEO

He smiled at her retreating form before turning his gaze back to the undead bodyguards. After a minute, giving Naomi a head start to be completely out of his vicinity, he took a slow breath - in and out, stood to his full height and calmly stepped out from their hiding spot.

“Hey!” he yelled, causing heads to turn in his direction. He walked slowly, waiting for them to attack him. Waiting for them to come forwards in an effort to bite him or tear him to pieces. Finally, one of them moved. And then the next, and like a domino effect they all came stumbling forwards towards him. Mateo moved, too, cutting around the edge of them, so they were making a giant circle around one another so that in the end Mateo was standing where they had been and they were standing off of their posts.

“Vetzi,” he shouted, clapping a hand against his Tamborita. A yellow wave of magic came out, knowing the ones closer to him down. But it wasn’t enough to harm them in anyway, just slow them down.

Mateo backed up, walking backwards until his back hit something. He turned, on the defense, hand raised at the ready.

ARAWN

He had known the boy was on his way. The map of his had told him where he was.

The girl’s dot had ceased to exist now that her soul string had been clipped and the immortals was no longer within the town’s limits for him to follow. Didn’t matter, he only cared to watch the boy’s.

When he saw it moving back towards the forest he had called off the search in the town, let those return to the task of allowing the sheep that lived there to be reborn into creatures with purpose. No longer flocking around one another with dead eyes for now they would have a meaning.

Arawn sat on a throne of bones derived of bodies that had formed into the seat on his command. His grin sharpened when the boy’s voice sounded out from just beyond the way. He looked up in time to see one of his pathetic spells pass through the air.

Then the boy himself appeared. Arawn opened his arms up when he turned to face him.

“The prodigal son returns!” he bellowed, raising from his seat. “So kind of you to return, boy, did you realize resisting me wasn’t worth the waste?”

A dark chuckle bubbled up from deep in his chest, echoing into the night. “Or are you here to beg to be apart of all this just for me to spare your pathetic waste of magic and life?”

MATEO

Hearing that voice again sent a chill down his spin and he shivered as a result of it. He quickly aimed the drum wand at Arawn, following his movements with it so he could strike if Arawn attempted to throw something his way first. His heart picked up speed and he could hear the groans, the stress of bones against flesh as the zombies moved behind him but he didn’t look over his shoulder. He knew Naomi would hold up her end of this plan.

Mateo did look around him, trying to find the Cauldron, eyes darting every which way. The magic radiating off of it was hard to miss though and eventually his eyes found it in the dark. It was sitting just beyond the throne Arawn had stood from. The green mist was flowing out of it steadily.

“This is wrong, Arawn!” he said, because at the end of the day Mateo had cared about this man. He had trusted him, followed him into the depths of the Underworld, had learned necromancy from him, all because he thought the best in people. He knew, somewhere, that there was no hope for a sorcerer like this. A malvago who had gotten so addicted to the dark magic of the world that they couldn’t see the light anymore. But maybe all they needed was someone to pull them out of it.

It was also a selfish attempt at justifying himself, hoping, praying, that maybe there was something decent still left in this man. Something that he had seen that day they had met that told him to accept the offer to become his apprentice. That there had been some form of kindness lodged in there, that it hadn’t all been a ruse.

“You can’t justify hurting people like this!” Mateo said and stepped forwards to close the distance between them. “End this. Now. Please. You can’t... you can’t honestly believe this is how the world should be.”

ARAWN

Laughter followed the boy’s attempts at reasoning with him. It was an airy, mocking laugh that came back as he threw his head back, his arms still out to the side of him.

Suddenly he went silent, head snapping back down to pin Mateo down with a glare.

“What do you think this is?” he spat, seething. “I seek no redemption from you! From this world! From anyone! This place has been nothing but a cesspool! War after war. Genocide. Toxic sludge poured into the Earth as if it was not the source of life itself! People preach, they plead for the Mundus to stop, for peace to reign, and for what?”

He laughed again. “For what reason do we have to keep them around, boy? Any of them? Mundus and Magick alike who have betrayed this world to its very core. I am giving this planet a second chance at life. I am the one who will see our species through.”

With a few long strides he stood before Mateo, not caring to stand out of the way for his silly little wand. Arawn tilted his head, eyes narrowing at the boy as he softened his volume.

“When this world is cleansed of those who have soiled it I will guide us all into a new age. One far better than the one we live in now.” His tone was still cold, sharp enough to cut steel. “Can’t you see that? What I’m doing has to be done, Mateo. And just because everyone else is too pathetic and weak see that makes it my responsibility to see this through. For everyone’s sake.”

MATEO

His heart was pounding in his chest as Arawn stalked closer. He held the Tamborita higher, put his palm closer to the drum. Mateo felt something he didn’t normally feel, something that was hard to pull out of him. It made his chest burn and set his teeth on edge.

Anger rose in up. It took hold of him as he listened to Arawn talk about people like they were nothing. Like they were the reason this world was so terrible. And maybe that was true to an extent; looking at Arawn now he knew there were bad people in this world, but he also knew there were far more good than bad. People just tended to harp on the bad because it was harder to dismiss.

He knew because Isabel talked about her schoolwork and excitement colored her something wonderful, the future forming for her as she spoke on knowledge and goals that made her happy. That when his mother called him in for dinner and pulled him into a hug, brushing his hair away from his face with concern that he was wrong. That when Elena got angry at something on the news, her passion blinding him enough to where he knew he should look away but couldn’t, that there was still hope left to make changes. And he knew he was wrong because if Arawn was right then Naomi wouldn’t have followed him into the dark of the night to fix his mistakes.

Arawn was wrong because, hey, maybe the world wasn’t perfect. People weren’t perfect. They fought and they killed and they did unspeakable things day after day. But there were those that helped their fellow man, who risked their lives to protect strangers or animals that had gotten caught in tragedy. Mateo knew that Arawn was wrong because he had seen it. It’s why he still had the ability to carry on.

“You’re wrong,” Mateo replied sincerely, his voice tight with emotions. “And if you can’t see that, then I can’t help you.”

He moved then, pulling his hand back and landing a punch across Arawn’s jaw. When he pulled back he laughed and then shook out his hand because oooww.

ARAWN

Arawn could see the anger. It was pure, concentrated. He wanted to reach out and take it for himself. What an achievement this was, to see the boy who had been nothing but a bleeding heart harden.

Perhaps Arawn hadn’t failed the boy as much as he had originally thought. Pity it was too late to matter.

He rolled his eyes at the statement directed at him, and when he returned his eyes to the boy it was just in time to see the fist coming down.

Arawn stumbled back from the impact, a hand coming up to console his jaw. He touched his finger to his lips, pulling away to find his own blood staining the pads.

“You rat!” he growled, jerking his head up. Arawn pulled the dagger from his sleeve, flipping it round so he was holding it comfortably. Then he moved forwards, lunging at Mateo with it, not caring where it hit as long as it hit some form of flesh.

MATEO

At Arawn’s outburst he looked up from his hand and his eyes widened at the glint of metal. He stumbled to the side, and dropped his Tamborita in favor of gripping onto Arawn’s arm to keep the dagger from getting near him. The line on his neck had begun to scab over, the line across his palm had a bandage over it now.

For a brief moment Mateo had some weird sense of clarity where he wondered how this came to be his life. How he, some kid from Avalor who got snapped at for taking too long to answer a question, was standing here playing a game of tug-o-war with a literal psychopath who he had once would have defended with his dying breath. It was stupid, none of this should be happening. He and everyone else should have been back home by now, carrying on like always.

But they weren’t. And this was real.

He struggled, trying to twist Arawn’s wrist the wrong way to get him to let go of the dagger.

NAOMI

The tension was thick in the air as the two sorcerers fought for control of the knife, pushing against each other like opposite ends of two magnets, literally fighting over the fate of the world. Master versus apprentice, good versus evil, skinny versus skeletal.

And Naomi interrupted it by taking the zombie head she had just snapped off its body and throwing it as hard as she could at the back of Arawn's head.

“OYE!” she hollered, whistling to get Arawn's attention. Once his attention was away from Mateo for a split second, Naomi pushed off from his creepy skeletal throne where she had been Chillin’ and closed the distance between them in an instant. Her blade sliced through the inside of his elbow of the arm holding the knife, weakening his grip enough for Mateo to wrestle it away while she caught Arawn in a chokehold and kicked one of his knees out from under him.

While Arawn had been monologueing about how awful and hopeless the world was and how pathetic Mateo was - the ass - and Mateo had been hitting his former master with his best right cross - hot damn, Teo, go off - Naomi had been wiping out his little battalion of undead bodyguards. Working her way through them silently, one by one.

It was a good way to work off her fury at all of Arawn's comments directed at Mateo, each one making her blood boil hotter and hotter. She was going to enjoy hurting him.

(Again, something she should examine. Later though, later.)

“You talk a lot of shit for a guy who got his 'Take Over the World’ plot from the rejected script of a C-list horror film,” she told him casually as the tip of her knife pressed under his jaw against his throat, easily breaking the skin for no other reason than to let Arawn know he wasn't the only one with a Big, Pointy Knife.

“Also, next time, maybe workshop your evil monologue with a friend before you pull this shit, to make sure it's at least worth losing all your little bodyguards while you blather on. Because right now-” Naomi hissed in a breath, letting it out as a hum, “it's really not.”

ARAWN

Arawn had been using his entire weight to press the dagger forwards, watching with gritted teeth as it only got closer and closer to the boy’s stomach. Only a few more inches and it would sink into Mateo’s body and the pain alone would make him release his grip so Arawn could complete his task and be rid of the boy forever.

Then another voice sounded out among the forest, loud and obnoxious, followed by something clocking him in the back of the head.

Of course he looked, turning his head to see who would dare to defy him among his army that should be under his complete control. He gawked at the girl who was walking towards them.

His eyes moved around them, commanding silently upon those he had told to remain here to protect the Cauldron. But there was no one else left standing to answer his call. Just the three of them.

“How dare you-” he started as she approached but cut himself off as a yelp of pain came out instead as his skin was cut open. His fingers uncurled from around the dagger’s handle as he tried to pull away, to retreat in order to examine his wounds.

She did not let him, though.

He clawed at her arm, his feet kicking wildly to be able to plant themselves. Arawn hissed, attempted to yell but the pressure on his throat choked it back and spit spewed from his lips in his fury to be heard.

When the knife touched the skin of his neck he stopped, frozen, the only movement coming from his shallow breaths at his body’s want for oxygen betrayed him.

Death had always been his friend. He had seen it as nothing to be scared of, welcomed it willingly into his home and into others. Then he had taken it for granted and defied it, becoming a God among men as he brought back people from the afterlife, as he pulled soul strings into his hands one by one.

Now, as Death loomed over him he only felt fear and panic. The things he had yet to do, his plans for the world, lost to the blade of a knife and two children who thought they knew better.

MATEO

Mateo took Naomi’s distraction for what it was and pulled the dagger from Arawn’s hands as he let go. He stumbled backwards, holding it up to look at before letting it fall to the ground like it had burned him. He didn’t move to pick it up, instead he bent over to pick up his Tamborita and stepped over to where Arawn was squirming in Naomi’s arms.

And, he had to say, it was satisfying to see.

“Thanks,” he told her in between pants. Briefly he glanced down at the head that had rolled to the side, opening his mouth to say something to her about it but thought better of it since now was definitely not the time to address that. Zombies were still running around outside, surely some were on their way here now that their master was in peril.

Instead he turned his attention to Arawn. Mateo pointed behind him, using the Tamborita, at the Cauldron.

“How do we stop it?” he asked. “Tell us, and we won’t hurt you.”

He didn’t look at Naomi for consultation, even though he knew she would want to disagree, he held his gaze on Arawn. The fear that had developed there was something he thought the man incapable of, both before and after learning what he really was, but Mateo could see it staining, like he was bleeding from an open wound.

NAOMI

Naomi leveled A Look at Mateo. Deep down, she knew he was right. Arawn should be taken to court, to be tried for Peach's murder and the whole 'Bringing back the dead' thing. He should suffer in jail.

But after everything he did to her family, the suffering he had caused them? What he'd done to Mateo? It didn't seem like enough.

Nothing would ever seem like enough.

But she sighed, pulling back her knife just a bit so it was no longer piercing the skin; a small trail of blood beginning to roll down his neck and against her arm. “What he means is, the faster you answer, the more I’ll consider letting you live,” she whispered in his ear, tightening her hold around his neck just a hair. She could feel him trying to scratch at her arms and rested her foot against his leg in reply. “Keep struggling, and I get to show you how they teach the girls in Avalor to walk through someone’s kneecap.”

Her knife continued to hover by his neck, a light pressure that reminded him that one wrong move, and his head was off his shoulders.

ARAWN

He kept his mouth firmly shut which resulted in his breathing to be sharp as it struggled to pass through his nose. His eyes struggled to look down far enough to see the knife, try and make an estimate of whether or not he could knock it from her grip.

Arawn glared up at the boy as he returned into his field of vision, eyes narrowing at him as he spoke.

And suddenly clarity found him once more. Hope being spoken before him. He had leverage over them due to what was in his head. He smiled, then began to laugh only to cough violently, the arm around his throat closing around his windpipe.

“Fools,” he sneered, amusement in his voice. Anything he said could be a lie, it could be the truth, it could be nothing at all and they wouldn’t know because they had failed to do their research before coming here.

He stopped moving when the girl spoke, closing his eyes against the sound of her voice in his ears as he forced himself not to shake with fear. Arawn wasn’t scared, his body was panicking, trying to figure out a way to survive while his brain was working into overtime on how to turn this around for himself.

The only thing keeping him from lying was the boy. A sorcerer he had trained himself to be able to see, and with his heightened state the fear he knew was on him now would only give him away. No matter, the truth of the situation would be enough. That was the beauty of this plan, after all, no one could stop him in the end.

A smile appeared on his mouth, blood coating his front teeth to match that under his chin. “Nothing can destroy the Cauldron. You idiot. It was forged by sorcerers from molten iron and raw magic to entrap a soul, and it has been sitting in the Underworld for centuries. An eternity down there, accumulating all that it had been exposed to. There is nothing that can combat it.

His smile sharpened as he let out an airy sound, one that communicated that he knew he had won. “Killing me would not stop it, either. I’m attached at the soul and will remain in control, body or no, I shall remain connected forever.”

He tried to right his weight, the angle at which she was holding him uncomfortable but she gave him nothing. Arawn sighed, glancing at the Cauldron from over the boy’s shoulder.

“There’s only stopping the spell, and that-,” he cut himself off with a chuckle, turning his eyes back to the boy, “would take someone willing to sacrifice themself to the Cauldron, never to return to this world or the next. A Fate worse than Death, as they say.”

MATEO

As Arawn began to talk Mateo began to feel more hopeless.

If not even killing Arawn, which Mateo was reluctant to do despite everything because there was just too much bloodshed in his life for him to want to kill the man, the spell would remain. The zombies would still be linked to him, and soon the world would turn into a terrible dystopian movie that no one wanted to be a part of. He wanted to cry, to fall to his knees in defeat for having been as stupid as to think he could do this.

But then Arawn laughed, a sound that would ring in his ears every night before he went to sleep from here until he was eventually turned into one of those who heard the Cauldron calling to them, and he told Mateo the answer to everything.

Someone would need to jump into the Cauldron of their own volition to put an end to the spell. The catch being they would be lost from every world. There would be no afterlife for them. No meeting with lost loved ones or waiting to greet those that would eventually come to join them. There would be nothing for them. An emptiness, like the black nothing that one saw when they looked into the Cauldron itself.

Mateo lowered his Tamborita and looked down at it in his hands, then he turned and looked over at the Cauldron.

“It has to be me,” he said softly to the drum wand that had once been held by his grandfather, hoping that somewhere he would hear him.

And he knew what he had to do. This was his mess. This was his fault. He didn’t want to sit by and watch his friends turn into mindless servants. He didn’t want the whole world to be in the hands of a man who didn’t know what was really there.

He looked back at Naomi and took one step back, towards the Cauldron.

“It has to be me,” he told her. “It- it has to be me, Naomi.”

NAOMI

Yeah, no, she wasn’t buying it.

Naomi didn’t trust this man nearly as far as she could throw him, and she didn’t believe his whole ‘Someone must sacrifice themself to the Almighty Cauldron’ bullshit either. The man knew he wasn’t going to walk away from this unless it was in handcuffs, and was bullshitting anything to buy himself more time.

That’s what Naomi was thinking when Mateo had whispered those five words that had made her heart stop dead.

Her head snapped up towards him, although even in her shock, her grip on Arawn didn’t loosen. “What- no! Mateo, come on, he’s lying,” she said in Spanish, eyebrows furrowed together. “No one’s sacrificing anyone else to a pot today, not even yourself. This bastard already killed Peach.”

“You’re not the only way we can find out more about the Cauldron, smartass,” Naomi reminded Arawn, putting pressure on his leg with her foot. “I’m sure Goliath has a book on it or something.”

She looked up at Mateo, meeting his eyes and giving him a small smile. “We’ll figure this out, Teo, with or without him. We’ll make this right.”

MATEO

“He’s telling the truth,” Mateo said, turning his eyes to Arawn, knowing Naomi would know what he meant. It was among the fear and the mirth sitting in the man. In someone else it would have set him at ease to see, in this instance he wished he hadn’t spent days memorizing the shape of it in order to impress the master he never had in the first place. “I can...I can make this right, Naomi. It’s my fault, it has to be me.”

He took another step backwards, looking up at Naomi. After this he wouldn’t be able to screw up anymore, he wouldn’t have to hurt anyone else. It would all be over and Mateo de Alva would cease to exist.

“Tell my mom…” he trailed off, smiling as he thought on Rafa and Marlena. “Well tell her the truth, I guess. We both know no one could ever lie to her.”

Mateo took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling in large movements as he released all the tension that was starting to form. He couldn’t think about this decision, there was no time to examine every little detail or wonder about the what ifs. There was nothing left to do but what had to be done. He opened his mouth to ask her to tell Elena that he loved her but changed his mind because, well, he could only hope that she already knew. Even if she hated him now.

“Everything’ll be okay,” he reassured her, smiling brightly because it would be. What was his life compared to that of the whole world? To that of the people he cared about most of all? He would do anything for them, and this would only prove it. “I promise.”

He turned and took off then, running before she could get the chance to chase after him. Mateo had never been the athletic type, and now he never would be, but he crossed the distance to the Cauldron within seconds. He caught himself against it, palms gripping the rim as the green fog rolled over him.

“And I’ll keep it this time!” he yelled over his shoulder to her. And with that he hiked his leg up on the lip of the Cauldron. He gave his Tamborita one last look before letting it go, resting it up against the side of the Cauldron.

In a very Mateo fashion, his foot slipped, dipping into the Cauldron as the handle of the drum wand fell from his hand. He blew out a breath as he looked down, but he didn’t regret it. He was ready and willing. The world deserved better and Mateo was going to give it the chance it needed.

He let go.

NAOMI

It seemed to happen all in slow motion. Naomi was ready to just… talk him down again. Take Arawn in to the police, get back to Goliath’s house, find more info on the Cauldron. They’d wake up tomorrow and maybe it wouldn’t be fixed, but it would be better.

Her eyes went wide as he ran to the Cauldron, yelling over his shoulder with one last look back. No. No no no no.

(Was this how he’d felt, in that nightmare? Racing to catch her before she hit the ground? Time slowing down until there was an eternity between each moment and yet, it was all flying by too fast.)

“MATEO!” she screamed, throwing Arawn aside carelessly as she raced after Mateo, to pull him back. Nonono, she just got him back, no- he couldn’t-

He slipped. Naomi missed his shirt by inches.

Mateo was gone.

She caught herself on the lip, ignoring the chill of the green mist curling around her wrists and legs as she looked frantically into the cauldron. “TEO!” she screamed again, her voice catching in her throat as tears bubbled in her eyes. “No, nononono please, Teo, please,” she begged, searching the surface of the mist for any hint of her friend. Any hope she could reach in and pull him back out. “Mateo!”

(She was in the square, smelling blood in the air as Daya drowned above water. She was in the courtyard, watching Camila take her last breath before a bullet went between her vibrant green eyes. She was alone in the ocean, fighting for her life and feeling each beat of her heart like it was the last.)

Naomi screamed, wordless and echoing into the hidden spots of the forest as the night parted and dawn began to break across the sky.

ARAWN

Before he could react to what the boy was doing he was tossed to the ground. He let out an indignant sound as he made contact, and turned to watch.

Arawn thought the girl would make it, but she didn’t. The fool had gone and done what he thought all the scum of this Earth would never do, give everything for nothing. Not once did he think there would be anyone capable of being his foil, and yet all this time he had been dragging him along at his side.

A fist formed and punched into the ground, grabbing at the grass there. No, no, no. The green fog seemed to pause in its place for the moment, and then began to retract. The Cauldron was pulling back everything it had released and he could feel that pull on his own soul string, hear his army cry out in anguish as their rule on this Earth had been cut short.

And then he saw it, just in front of him was his dagger. He looked back at the girl as she began to scream, then to the dagger.

He reached forwards and grabbed it, then stood. Damn them, he thought as he approached her from behind, damn them all. He would have his revenge on the boy yet. It would be on those he cared for most. Starting with her.

Arawn stood behind her for a moment, just watching. And then he reached out and grabbed her hair, pulling back, ready to slam her forehead into the side of the Cauldron.

NAOMI

Naomi could feel the Cauldron shift the air, feel it start to drag back the corpses that had taken to walking the earth. It tugged at her clothes and at her hair, whipping them around her in the wind.

She didn’t care.

She was still frantically searching the inside of the Cauldron, looking for any piece of Mateo to grab a hold of, to pull back to the surface. She’d dive in after him, pull him to the surface; she was a goddamn mermaid, what else was she good for besides swimming? Tears still rolled across her cheeks as she sobbed, cooling instantly against her cheeks in the wind.

Naomi hadn’t even noticed the sun.

She did notice the hand in her hair. Arawn. Malvago. Murderer.

Something snapped inside her chest, something fragile and sharp like dozens of shards of glass, and her lips pulled back over her sharpened teeth with a howl as she slammed her elbow back as hard as she could at Arawn’s face. As soon as his grip had loosened, she spun around, reaching out with her claws to tear at his face and throat. There was nothing human about her in that moment, her nails tearing through his fragile, pale skin and drawing blood. Not in the spots of darker, tougher skin that popped up along her hairline and around her eyes, or in the animalistic look in her eyes, or her bared, pointed teeth.

She was a shark, afterall. She wanted blood.

“YOU!” she screeched, leaping at his throat with a hiss as she tackled him to the ground. Her nails dug into his throat, hands pressing down against his windpipe.

ARAWN

Suffice to say, he had not seen that coming.

Arawn yelled out in pain, dropping the dagger as his hands went to combat hers. But he was no match, her nails had already dug into his skin. He tried to back away, regretting his decision to not run when she had given him the chance, blinded with his want for revenge.

It would be his downfall it would seem.

The feeling of her nails tearing his skin, the warmth of blood rising up as his body worked to try and heal at a speed that would be of no help to him, was none like he had ever felt since he was always on the other side, listening to his victims cry out for help where none could be found.

No one would come to his aid, even those he had worked his whole life to have stand by his side were vanishing around him.

When he opened his eyes, it was to the sun. The night that had meant to last for the rest of eternity had gone, too. That moth creature had been bested as well, it would seem, so not even she would be coming to help, nor would he at least die knowing the world would never know light again.

Survival instincts kicked in then, and his hands came up to push her off of him. His legs kicked weakly at her. His stature had never been on his side, his muscles were nonexistent. It was why he had relied on magic all his life to get him where he needed to go, but there was nothing it could do for him now.

NAOMI

“Malvago!” Naomi nearly growled, fury and heartbreak fueling her blindly along, lifting Arawn by the front of the shirt. She wanted to slam him into the ground, wanted to drag him to the river and drown him in the mud at the bottom. She wanted to snap his neck and tear his head off like she’d done with his stupid fucking zombie bodyguards.

Even in her fury, there were tears rolling down her cheeks. Mateo… her Teo, her best friend. The boy who had sat so patiently with her, teaching her Spanish. Who had always strived to include her when she felt like an outsider in her own skin. Who had thrown himself so completely into everything he did, who loved with his whole heart and saw the best in everyone.

It should have been her. It should have been her. She was already broken beyond repair, Mateo could be saved. He hadn’t killed anyone with his own hands. He had people who loved him, a family. Naomi would never be herself again; just a shadow, waiting for the woman she had once been to return.

This wasn’t a dream. She wouldn’t wake up from this.

Naomi screamed again, a broken, horrible sound, before reaching out for Arawn’s knife and lifting it high over her head. She didn’t know what she was going to do with it, just that she wanted to make Arawn suffer. Fuck the right thing, fuck Peach, fuck Swynlake. She was going to make this slow.

ARAWN

She screamed a word he didn’t know by ear but the depth at which she said it made him feel it in understanding. The amount of hatred and anger behind it would have been something he would have loved to touch, to pluck from her and let it sit on his shelf in a jar where he could keep it for later.

Arawn gasped, trying to work air down his throat around where her fingers and nails were blocking its way. His hands gripped onto her wrists, his fingers dumbly tried to pulls back the hold she had on him but his fingers were shaking too much to do any real damage.

The girl did it herself, though, when she reached off to the side and released his neck. He sucked in air loudly, gasping, until it reached the very bottom of his lungs. His eyes widened as she pulled back, his dagger in her hands.

He needed to move. So he did. Arawn grabbed her side with both of his hands and shoved, using his weight to throw her off of him and the momentum to roll away. He ended up on his stomach so he had to push himself up with his palms, the soles of his feet slipping against the ground as he struggled to stand.

Arawn was on his feet before her, and instead of running he pulled back and landed a kick to her abdomen. He spit on her, bloody and thick.

“Damn, you!” he cried out as the sunlight peered in on them through the canopy above, as the green mist that had once littered the land was now gone. “Everything I did! Everything I worked for! Gone!”

He pulled his leg back to kick her again.

NAOMI

She was being sloppy, wasn't thinking with her head. If she was, she wouldn't have left his hands free, wouldn't have let go of his neck. In Pachamama she'd been one of the best because she didn't bother with dramatics; she was quick and efficient.

Excuse her if the sudden, suicidal sacrifice of her best friend was causing her to be a bit sloppy.

Arawn managed to push her off, causing Naomi's legs to tangle together for a moment as she tried to get her body back under control. His kick wasn't enough to crack anything important, at worst she would have a bruise, but it did knock the breath out of her and she gasped in reply. His spit landed on her cheek and her eyes snapped up to his, wide and furious.

When he went to kick her again, she caught his foot instead, slamming her fist wrapped around the hilt of his knife against the side of his knee. She heard something crack. She hit it again. His leg bent at an unnatural angle.

“You’re pathetic,” Naomi hissed as she shoved Arawn back, rising up to her feet and throwing the knife far out of either of their reach. “You talk so much about how ‘weak and pathetic’ the world is, but you are by far the weakest excuse of a creature I’ve ever seen.” Naomi brought her knee up, slamming her heel down into Arawn’s ribs and hearing the bones ‘crack!’

“You pick on the weak and insecure because they’re the only people you can have power over,” she continued, lips drawn back over her teeth and tears rolling down her face. “You meddle with the dead because they can’t fight back. Because it’s the only way you have control. And the second anyone stronger than you comes along,” she began to stalk towards him, watching him struggle to move on his leg, “you become a whimpering, sniveling, coward.”

“You know what I think? I think you were scared of Mateo.”

ARAWN

The girl recovered too quickly and made her move, which was far more effective than his had been. He yelled in pain, shoulders pulling back as the sound was yanked from him. Then he was tumbling backwards, his head bouncing up off the ground. His spine sparked in agony as it made contact with the floor. His hands fisted the fabric of his trousers on the thigh above the shattered knee, as if that would bring him some amount of comfort.

Arawn turned his head to watch his dagger be tossed out of the way before jerking his head back to the girl as she spoke.

Perhaps she was right, but he did not see it that way, so to him she was wrong. Just as everyone else was.

He had worked for what he had become, torn through books looking for the answer to his problems, and did not settle for anything less than what he deserved. The world didn’t deem him a hero because of the world was too weak to know what it needed in order to survive.

His hands dug into the ground, along with the heel of the foot that was not attached to his broken leg, in an attempt to get away from her. Her foot came down on him and he couldn’t even scream at the explosion of pain that she detonated in his chest.

He coughed, turning his head to get all the spit and blood out of his mouth to try and breath. Arawn wrenched, convulsing as he coughed it all up.

“You,” he spat once he had caught his breath, “know nothing.”

A hand came up to wave about them. At the peaceful air of the forest. At how still it was after hell had quietly gone back to sleep.

“How long will this last?” he asked her softly, then yelled, “How long? Until you, and everyone else, is just ash on a battlefield fighting for a cause that means nothing in the end!”

Arawn looked over at the Cauldron as she accused him of fearing the boy who would no longer pose a threat to anyone, lost to nothingness for all of time. He huffed, then winced in pain. Arawn returned to her and smiled. It wasn’t sharp, it wasn’t evil, it was genuine, it reached his eyes, almost wistful in nature. Not for Mateo, no, not as he was, but for who he could have been had he only seen the light.

“He did not know what he had.” And that was the truth. Bare for anyone to see, it didn’t need a sorcerer to pass the test. “He was too blinded, always speaking on other people rather than focusing on himself.”

She cared for the boy, he could tell by her reaction, by her willingness to follow him here. She had caused him pain, so he would cause her some, too. It would make his fate worth it in the end.

“I gave him the tools he needed. Without me he would have been still been nothing, wasting away over old grimoires and journals. Still caught up in wanting to help his friends, people like you, instead of wanting to help himself, on becoming a sorcerer.” Arawn prepared for what would come next, digging his fingers into the dirt, setting his jaw. “A pity, really. Now, because of you, he’ll never get the chance.”

NAOMI

If he thought he was going to be able to break her, if he thought he might be able to find the magical combination of words that would stop her…

He was going to be sorely disappointed.

The image of Mateo falling back into the Cauldron was burned behind her eyes, and despite Arawn’s efforts, Naomi knew squarely who to blame for this situation. For bringing the Cauldron up from the Underworld, for pulling Mateo away from everyone he loved.

He was right, Naomi should have gone into the Cauldron. Mateo should be here instead. But she didn't for a moment forget who had sought out the Cauldron in the first place.

“I'm from Avalor, malvago,” she told him, resting her foot on his breastbone and pressing him into the dirt. “I know about battlefields. I know about war, and I know about how depraved humans can be. And maybe it won't mean anything in the end, but I don't care. I fight for today.”

His smile made the glass in her chest shatter further, and she leaned her weight further against his chest.

“Mateo was my best friend,” she growled. “A handful of people in the world know his heart better than me, and you are not one of them. His magic wasn’t what made him special, and the fact that you couldn’t see that means you’re the one who’s blind, not him. But you know that, don’t you? You know he was better than you, that he mattered more than you. He would have become a powerful sorcerer without you, would have thrived without you. He proved you wrong about the world and I think you hated that.”

“I’ll be mourning him until the day I die,” she told him, her tears landing on his face. “So will Elena, and Isa and Gabe. His family. A nation. Who’s going to mourn you, malvago?”

Naomi reached down, grabbing Arawn by the hair, and dragged him over to the Cauldron. She grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back at an angle that was uncomfortable, but wouldn’t break anything (yet). “You think this will miss you?” she hissed in his ear, forcing him to stare at the cold, dark Cauldron - not even catching the light from the dawn. “You think the dead will mourn your loss?”

ARAWN

He chuckled against the bottom of her shoe, only to stop when her weight pressed enough for it to cause pain. It ran from his knee to his ribs, up through his chest cavity and lingered in the wounds that were still bleeding on his neck and face.

Arawn tensed as the girl moved forwards, thinking this would be the end, that either her nails or his own dagger would sink through his flesh only to bleed out like some miscreant among the weeds.

Her hand in his hair made him gasp. Both of his hands came up to hold onto her wrist, trying to get his weight to be distributed not solely by the chunk of hair she had him by. He yelled as she dragged him along, voicing what his leg felt like as it was moved across the forest floor.

His breath caught as his arm twisted around him, feeling the pressure she was putting on him. Anger bubbled up, hot and itchy, at being held against his will. At feeling so powerless.

It was like he was a lowly apprentice all over again, unable to bottle even the brightest of smiles. Like he was one of his many victims, struggling for their life under his hand. Arawn tried to fight against her but the pain was too much for him to bare, so he stayed still, trying to think on what to do instead of allowing his body to simply panic.

He laughed out right at her accusations.

She was right. No one would mourn him after this. There would be no one who cared nor knew the name that he belonged to.

Arawn pulled a hand up, his finger shaking as he gripped onto her to get some weight off his leg. “You are all too blind to see you make the other vulnerable with these pointless attachments. Nothing will ever get done should we persist like this, plagued by the thought of others.”

It did not matter to him. The point had not been to have people know his name, it had been to touch the Heavens and the depths of Hell at the same time, to have power in every cell of his body. It had been to form the world as he had wished it because the world had not been made for him. It had tossed him to the curb like garbage and he had been on the hunt for revenge ever since.

For a day, that had come true, and it had tasted like the cosmos themselves.

Now all he could taste was his own blood.

“I could bring him back.” Arawn did not want to die, his work was not finished. Death would hold him from this plane, to a world that did not need him as this one did. “If we hurry, I can bring him back. It will have to be to another body, but that can be done easily. If you kill me, he will truly be lost forever.”

NAOMI

Out of everything he had said so far, that was probably the most insulting. ‘I could bring him back’.

He had already told them that whoever sacrificed themself to the Cauldron was lost forever. ‘A fate worse than death’, he’d said. Mateo was gone. Her fist tightened in his hair as her shoulders shook with her silent sobs. Whatever Arawn thought he could bring back wouldn’t be Mateo, and it infuriated her that he thought she would let him try. That she couldn’t see through his transparent attempt to save his own life. That she didn’t already know the damage his kind of magic could do.

“No,” she growled, hand shaking in his hair. She drew her fist back, dragging his head with it, before slamming his face against the Cauldron. Blood streaked down the side of the Cauldron and sprayed back against her arms and face. “I warned him to stay away from you,” Naomi said before drawing his face back again. Slam. “I told him I’d protect him from you. So, malvago...”

“You-”

Slam!

“Will never-”

Slam!

“Touch!”

Slam!

“Him!”

Slam!

“AGAIN!”

She drew Arawn up onto his limp legs, blood dripping down the front of his face and the Cauldron in a gory display that would have rattled her four years ago. Now, she felt nothing. “You’ll never have power over anyone again,” she whispered, looking in his one good eye as the light began to fade from it. “You die as you lived; a weak, pathetic creature alone in the world.” She spit in his face, making sure the last thing he saw was her glare and bared teeth, before tossing his body at the Cauldron.

ARAWN

‘No’, the girl said, and his fate was sealed.

Though, he supposed, it had been written like this from the moment his soul string had been constructed.

After he had first tied a string to the body, pulled that man back from slipping beyond the Gates. Often there were those who would describe their magic by saying that it pulsed within them, striding along side their hearts to beat to the drum of life. He did not experience that. Even when performing spells anyone could cook up with the right ingredients.

His sucked in heat, sucked in movement, sucked in light. It felt like creeping darkness, like nothingness if nothingness was the dark red of his blood pressing against the rune that matched the soul he was holding by a thread.

In all his time he had not thought on how, if faced with Death, could he fight it. The one thing he had not anticipated was finding the only thing he had thought his ally to sign on the dotted line to his proposed truce.

His face made contact with the Cauldron and he did not have time to make a sound as he went back in for a second beating. Then another, and another. Blood splattered, painted the side red against its sheen black. It moved on its own, like rain drops on a car window slipping sideways from the wind. Only these moved up, crawling inside the Cauldron as it commanded.

He had no power here. Not anymore. It felt as though it had been swept up with the rest of his army, taken into the Cauldron.

Her words fell on him heavily, weighing him down as she pushed him back into the Cauldron where it welcomed him hungrily. It had tasted flesh when the boy had sacrificed himself, but it needed something more.

The last of the green fog engulfed him, the force of it tearing the flesh from his bones. He screamed then, loud and guttural. Magic sparked around him like flames, cutting through him like it was nothing. It pulled the muscles and tendons, dissected him until his bones were all that was left. But the Cauldron wanted those, too. It wanted everything.

Including the soul string that it plucked from the very root to pull down inch by inch.

A puff of the green fog floated from the opening, his screams echoing from the walls of the Cauldron. But soon those ceased and everything that ever was Arawn Prydain was gone.

The Cauldron sat still in the silence, then, satisfied.

NAOMI

Naomi had stood back and watched, numb, as the Cauldron devoured Arawn easily, not even hesitating to rip him to pieces. His scream had echoed in the forest long after it had ended, after the fog had stopped and the oppressive feeling of dark magic had dissipated.

The zombies were gone, the sun was rising, Arawn was dead, and Naomi had never felt emptier in her life.

The mermaid dropped to her knees, hands resting on the outside of the Cauldron as she hunched over, sobbing in earnest now. It wasn’t worth it. The day was saved and it wasn’t fucking worth it. She didn’t care about the zombies, about the eternal night.

She just wanted Mateo back.

“Please,” she whimpered, fists flattening against the surface of the Cauldron. “Please…”

The forest, and the Cauldron, were silent.

Naomi cried out to sky, giving voice to the grief that had fractured inside her chest. She let it consume her, let it rip her to pieces. Grieve now, let it out, so she could get back up. So she could move forward. Someone would have to tell Elena, tell Isa and Gabe (if they were able to find him). Someone would have to get word to his mother and sister. Tell them Mateo had given his life for the world, that he had died a hero.

(In Pachamama, she wouldn’t have had this moment to grieve. Tomorrow, she’d cry. Always tomorrow, the day that never came. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow. She would mourn Daya tomorrow. Camila tomorrow.

She was out of tomorrows, out of space to store her grief. Today, she would cry for Mateo, and maybe tomorrow, she would stop.)

Naomi wasn’t sure how long she had knelt there, shaking and sobbing to the indifferent world, when there was a deep rumbling. She barely looked up in time to see the Cauldron begin to sink back down, returning to the Underworld. “No,” she croaked, eyes wide as it buried itself again. “No! Please!”

She grabbed the sides, desperately trying to keep it from disappearing, from taking Mateo’s soul away forever. It was useless, and soon Naomi was left on her hands and knees over a mound of fresh dirt, no sign of the Cauldron left behind (though that patch of the forest would always remain dead and lifeless). Tears hit the dirt, and Naomi dug through the top soil for a moment, frantically, before giving in and collapsing onto the ground. She was soaked in gore from the zombies as well as Arawn’s blood, and was sore from all the fighting and running.

She just wanted to sleep.

But no. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would sleep.

Today, she walked back to Swynlake.

MATEO

The world came back in broken mirror fragments. A bite at the back of his head, this sick, scraping kind of drag, a thud that just into his side. He thought he could hear himself groan, and there’s a flicker of light, blasted bright enough to feel like a firecracker laced into everything else. His eyes wouldn’t cooperate. They were hollow, like he had pits rather than eyes, and every time he tried to open them cracks splintered further into his skull. And he knew something was wrong. Something was so wrong.

Oh, right. He remembers then. He was dead, that’s what’s wrong. It’s easier than thinking about the fact that he isn’t dead, and he had to fear becoming dead. But...actually he isn’t dead and the fear rocketed through him like a bullet train, and it wouldn’t let go.

After he jumped in there was supposed to be nothing. Infinite nothing. Mateo de Alva should have ceased to exist. He gave everything up in order to put an end to his beginning and there wasn’t supposed to be an afterlife. Just emptiness. He guessed it should have been similar to the end of an album or playlist when suddenly his headphones cut off and his ears were left ringing and his mind was blank for that split second. Mateo thought that’s where he was supposed to go.

And maybe he had been there for a while, an eternity even, but he wouldn’t have known because to him it felt like one minute he was slipping into a metal Cauldron and the next he was sputtering in an airless place trying to bring oxygen into his lungs where it could not be done.

When he does finally pry his eyes open as his senses sliver fully in his vision is blurry. He reached up to feel for his glasses but his movements felt heavy, weight down by something. It was the air itself. Or, not air. Not air at all. It was another element altogether.

Water, he was underwater. Mateo kicked his legs, reached a hand up, going for the surface should there be one above him. His blood was rendering through him like he was going to burst as he didn’t think he was going to make it because, you know, maybe this was the nothingness that Arawn had described after all. But then his hand breached the surface, cool air hitting his palm.

His head followed after, and he gasped for air, pushing himself further out of the water until he inevitably was pulled back down by gravity. Mateo still couldn’t really see, glasses lost to wherever he was. And it wasn’t just the water that had Mateo feeling heavy, it was a lot of things accumulating to make him want to sink back down under the surface.

But the water had other ideas. It pushed him towards shore until he was laying face first in the dirt. His lower half was being lapped at by the waves, and he knew he should have stood, but he couldn’t bring any part of him to move yet. So he laid there, chest rising and falling almost like he were actually dying, just trying to breath in a mix of the air, the dirt below him, and the water trying to push him back to his feet.

NAOMI

Eventually, she had pushed herself up. Naomi had left the clearing - empty now, the Cauldron and Arawn’s throne long gone - and began to make her way back to Swynlake. She was numb, now, all her tears spent into the soil and her grief let loose into the sky. With every step, she could feel it in her chest, the shards dragging along her ribs and heart, but she had to get back to Swynlake. To Elena and Isa and Goliath and Sofia. Maybe Gabe, once they found him.

She had to tell them.

First, she had to wash Arawn’s blood off of her arms and face.

Naomi changed her course, heading back towards the river where she could slip in and maybe swim back to Swynlake instead. At least get the blood off of her; the gruesome reminder of what she had done. She didn’t regret it, not for a moment, she just didn’t want to lay that on her friends too.

‘Hey so, Mateo died. Yup, tossed himself right into the Cauldron to stop the zombie apocalypse. Oh, and I brutally killed a man in cold blood with my bare hands! Yeah, that’s a thing I’m capable of now.’

Yeah, would rather not do that.

Naomi passed through the treeline surrounding the end of the river and stopped, starting wide-eyed at the body laying half in the river, half on the bank. No… it couldn’t… How did…?

Did it matter?

“Mateo?” Naomi called softly, voice rough from screaming and sobbing, as she began to walk towards the body. Then jog. Then run. She was at his side in a moment, not minding the blood covering her as she pulled him up further onto the bank. “Teo!” she repeated, grunting as she pulled him up out of the river. “Teo, talk to me!”

MATEO

Mateo’s eyes snapped open at the sound of his own name because that wasn’t right either. No one here, in the nothingness, should have known to call him that. It was his mind playing tricks on him, probably, conjuring up Naomi-, because that was Naomi, to make him feel at ease with the whole dying thing. Which was a little weird, cause no offense Naomi but he would have for sure thought his mom would be the first person who came to mind for safety and comfort. This whole dying thing was too weird to process right now, he just really needed to lay here and think about it. Ponder all the ways this was wrong, about how he couldn’t even get dying right. Literally one of the only things everyone had in common and he was the one person who could screw it up so completely that his damnation to nothingness had made him end up here.

Where that was, exactly, was still yet to be determined.

But then someone was yanking on him forwards and he sputtered, coughing, getting all the excess water he’d been breathing in out of there so he didn’t choke. Not that he guessed that mattered if he was dead, right?

Or, no, wait he had figured he wasn’t dead. This was all so confusing for someone who until recently wasn’t supposed to be alive anymore.

“Naomi?” he asked, voice rough and scratchy. He squinted up at…someone. He couldn’t exactly tell because his glasses must have either been left in wherever he was or the water had swept them from his face. But they looked like the fuzzy image of Naomi he could remember seeing when he didn’t have his contacts or glasses on. “Talk to you about what?”

He paused, then clumsily pushed himself upwards, one hand slipping against the slick bank of the lake. “Wait-! What’re-? What’re you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here.”

NAOMI

That lying, rat-face bastard. She was going to dig up the Cauldron herself, bring Arawn back, and kill him again for lying to her.

Later though.

Right now, she was trying to process the fact that, against all odds, this was definitely Mateo; alive and well and soaked to the bone. The realization broke over her in waves, each one kickstarting a new emotion in her chest. Eventually she just gave up on trying to understand them, or how it had happened. She just tackled Mateo instead, crying as she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and hung on as tight as possible. “I shouldn’t be here!? You threw yourself into a Death Crockpot! Teo, what the fuck!?” she asked, sobbing.

She only pulled back enough to press little kisses all over his face, just like she would sometimes do to Elena or Isabel. Just to prove that he was really here, that it really was his heartbeat she felt under her palm, that he had really come back.

“Don’t you ever do that again!”

MATEO

He couldn’t process what was going on, it was too much too soon. Mateo was spent, he was confused and tired and he knew if he continued to open up the door he wasn’t going to stop in trying to figure out what the heck had happened until he drove himself into the ground. So, for now, he was going to let it be until his brain didn’t feel like it was going to take a nosedive if he so much as thought about something past basic human functions.

So he didn’t really think when Naomi pounced, he just did. He pulled his arms around her and squeezed, one hand running back and forth across her back in the hopes that it was soothing. The pattern was comforting to him, at least.

He squawked at the kisses, not really knowing how to react besides embarrassment flooding his system as it felt like he was a child being pandered for doing something stupid enough to-. Oh. Right.

“Okay,” Mateo agreed wholeheartedly as he nodded vigorously. He sighed in amusement, smiling because he was crazy and stupid. Relief took him over, washing away all the tension and worry that were sure to tread over him in the coming days. Mateo released one of his hands from her to strike through the air with his hand, “No more giant cooking utensils. Got it.”

NAOMI

Having him hug her back really cemented the whole ‘He’s really here, he really survived’ thing, and Naomi tucked her face against his neck as she began to sob harder. “You can’t do that to me again,” she whimpered, curling up against his side. “Don’t you ever!”

Her grief was still rattling in her chest, like it was trying to find a way to escape. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face as he fell back into the Cauldron, and hugged him a little tighter.

“It’s over,” she said quietly, both to Mateo and herself. “When you... all the zombies got sucked in, the sun came back… Arawn is dead,” she whispered. She didn't elaborate on how he had died. The blood all over her was telling enough.

(She didn't want him to know the monster inside her too well, didn't want him to ask for details.)

“The Cauldron sunk back down to the Underworld too, I think… it's gone too. It's over.”

MATEO

Mateo shrunk back because he could tell that he had really hurt her, it was in her voice but he could see the pain in her, too. Albeit blurry, but he knew it well enough now to know what it looked like, even without perfect vision. He also felt bad that he was wet because he knew that he was transfering that onto her clothes.

Then again, she was a mermaid, so maybe it was comforting to her.

He breathed in deeply as she pressed in tighter, blinking up at the sky because would you look at that, the sun had come back out. That meant that the other team had been able to do their job, too. He froze when she said the next three words. Slowly he turned his head back down, looking at her with large eyes because it wasn’t hard to imagine how that had happened, which he didn’t allow himself to do. Mateo frowned, and not because of the thought that she had killed him but at the thought that he had left her there alone to deal with him. He knew that she could, but it didn’t mean that it was right that he did it at all.

He didn’t regret it, though. Even if he hadn’t come back, however that had happened, he wouldn’t have changed his decision because it had put an end to the Cauldron’s magic. And sent it back to the Underworld, hopefully never to be sought out again.

“It’s over,” he repeated, softer, pulling her just a little bit closer. He allowed them another moment to sit there in the sun, listening to the water and their shared breathing that had synced up before interrupting the silence.

“Come on,” he said, “the others will be waiting.”

#an oath by the blood of my hand #naomi turner #arawn prydain #tw death #tw murder #tw blood #tw gore #tw violence

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