The Wildness Within

Lesson 2 - Love 1

AN: Efnisien *and* the Raven Prince? Not a great combination!

It only took twenty minutes for Gwyn to find his cousin, because his cousin had set up camp nearby. Gwyn crept towards it, feeling sick with dread. He'd tried to hang onto Augus' words, but in the end, he knew this was his only option.

Gwyn escaped because he needed to get back to his cousin. He couldn't explain it to them. They didn't understand. Or worse, Augus did understand and it still wasn't enough.

He didn't know how he could be so sick with fear, yet so certain he was doing the right thing. His cousin would call him a cowering dog, and he would be right. Once a dog knew its master it would return over and over again, no matter how badly it was beaten. Gwyn wanted so badly for Ash and Augus to be his masters, but they were too sweet to sully with his presence. They'd taken him in and hadn't shown any sign of wanting to hurt him. They just didn't know him well enough yet to understand how he was supposed to be treated.

Augus wouldn't like it, but how could he understand?

His cousin was reading a book, leaning against an oak tree. Gwyn made himself think the word Efnisien and shuddered. He went down to his hands and knees and crawled before Efnisien even acknowledged him. Then as Gwyn came closer, Efnisien closed his book and looked indulgently down at Gwyn, smiling, eyes glittering with a level of malice that curdled in Gwyn's chest and belly.

'Greetings, cousin,' Efnisien said, warm and cheerful and sounding as happy as he did when he had a knife in Gwyn's gut. 'I knew if I just waited long enough, you'd return to me.'

Gwyn nodded and crouched a little lower to the ground. There was a stick hurting the palm of his hand, but he didn't move it. This was probably the most comfortable he was going to feel for a while. Then maybe Efnisien would kill him, as was his right.

Efnisien dropped the book carelessly and stood up, another few steps and Gwyn blinked at leaf litter when he felt Efnisien's boot resting on the top of his head.

'What trouble you've been causing for the family,' Efnisien said pensively. 'For all of us, really. It was so simple, wasn't it? You got to run the wilds like the dog you are, and every now and then I'd bring you to heel and you'd remember your place. And then off you went again. It was a good life for you, Gwyn. Better than you deserved.'

Gwyn nodded again. Efnisien was always right.

The kick to his gut was violent, the point of Efnisien's boot finding organs, bruising and hurting them. Gwyn was thrown a metre across the floor of the forest, curling around the pain of it.

Efnisien crouched over him, golden and smiling, looking so pleased with the situation. Gwyn responded to that. He wanted Efnisien to be pleased.

'You talked for them, so you'll talk for me, cur. None of this foolishness now. I know you can talk. So talk. Tell me how good you feel that you ruined your mother's life. She's miserable because of you.'

'I'm sorry,' Gwyn said, the words croaking out of him.

'Not yet, you're not,' Efnisien purred, stroking his hair in a parody of affection, then slapping him across the face, nails scratching four lines into his cheek.

Gwyn didn't let himself think about the cold and warm brothers. He didn't let himself think about how good things had become. The whole point was that he was course correcting. He was making things right again. Right didn't always feel good, but that was the way things were supposed to be.

*

Twenty minutes later, he was tied in rope that was rough and awful and didn't remind him of Augus as much as he thought it would.