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Grian kills Bdubs, and then comes after Scar with the fury of a man scorned. As he should. As is his right.
Scar does not begrudge him this. Scar kneels, waist deep in murky water, and bares his throat, and says, Kill me. And then he says, hot and desperate, We’ve won, Grian, we’ve won. Can’t we both win?
Grian, his head full of whispers, bares his teeth beneath the rising full moon, and says, No. He says, The ghosts demand a fight.
And Scar, on his knees, smiling, says, Who cares what they have to say? It’s just us here now.
And Grian – a fool, always a fool – listens to him.
They go back to Monopoly Mountain, together. They fix the house. Their fortress returns to them, slow and painstaking, brick by sandstone brick. They build back better this time. Stronger. More comfortable. Meant to last.
It’s got to be a proper home for us, after all, Scar says, and Grian smiles at him, wide and wild, his teeth gleaming under the noonday sun.
So they build the house. They build a home. They build Pizza a better grave.
They build a farm, a proper one, tended to by Grian on his hands and knees in the dry soil. He gets dirt under his nails, and in the cracks of his knuckles, and sunburn across the bridge of his nose. The wheat sprouts slow, reluctant, and then blooms all at once, unfolding pale green to golden under the encouragement of the cloudless sky and hiss careful hands.
Scar goes fishing, and comes back with fat cod and pink salmon, and strange little water-beasts he found under the rocks. They keep the fish, for cooking and pickling and smoking. Grian crushes the little water-beasts beneath a rock, one by one, methodical, and watches them squirm as they die.
Together, they eke out a life for themselves, under the hot desert sun – snapping and snarling at each others’ throats by day, as their red lives demand, and sleeping curled close to one another at night on their single mattress. It’s to conserve heat. Night gets cold in the desert, bitter and vicious as a blade, and neither of them have made panes for the windows yet, despite the abundance of sand. The fire in the kitchen does not reach up to their bedroom, at the top of the fortress’s tower.
And, besides– there’s only one bed.
They could make another, but neither of them have.
They don’t talk about that. They don’t talk about the way Scar smiles as Grian guts the fish he brings back, turned red up to his wrists with gore. They don’t talk about the way Grian’s nose presses, cold, against Scar’s collarbone at night.
Scar talks to the ghosts, sometimes, by day. They linger still, voices on the wind; waiting for a fight, maybe, that they will never get. Sometimes they talk back. Not often, though. And as the days and weeks pass, fewer and fewer speak at all.
In the end, only Martyn remains, sullen in death and quiet with it, mourning the loss of his king.
Why don’t the others talk any more? asks Scar, one sun-drenched morning, as he fits panes of glass in the fortress’ windows. It is delicate work, methodical, but not laborious. He is slick with sweat, nonetheless, the desert temperatures climbing higher and higher with the rising of the sun.
They’re not here any more, says Martyn, a whisper on the breeze. They moved on.
And Scar asks, Moved on where?
And Martyn says, Home. And then he says, quieter, as though sharing a secret, back to H̴̭̬̿e̵̯̚ȑ̸͚͍̾m̶͕̪̿i̵̻̿t̴̯̐̒c̶̜̬̋r̷̗͊a̶̧̋̄f̸̡͉̊t mostly. That’s where you should be.
One of those words makes no sense, to Scar. One of those words makes his head hurt, puts pressure on his eardrums, like a needle threatening to pierce.
But this is my home, Scar says, instead of thinking about that. He looks out at where Grian is stood amidst the waist-high wheat, harvesting it, pink-red with sunburn on the back of his neck and the tips of his ears, tanning nut-brown everywhere else. His hair’s gone close to dirty gold, after after days upon days of long hours in the hot sun. Freckles have risen across his nose, his cheeks, a scattered constellation of slowly-bronzing stars.
Scar counts them at night, sometimes, when he cannot sleep. They still share one bed.
He is my home, he says, and means it.
Martyn sighs, and says nothing, and Scar thinks of Dogwarts – gone up in flames and gunpowder, three weeks back, Grian whooping and giddy with the joy of destruction – and the red cloak that burnt along with it. Of the diamond axe that did not. He does not press, but he thinks, perhaps, that Martyn understands.
Except his curiosity gets the better of him, and he asks, Why are you still here, then?
And Martyn sighs, again, and says, I stayed to Watch. They made me.
And then he says nothing more, no matter how Scar pesters him.
Grian talks to the moon sometimes, by night.
He slips out of bed when he thinks Scar is asleep, and pads out of the room, down the stairs, out of their house. He walks across the sand, barefoot, his hair golden-wild and his eyes dark, bruised, sleepless. He stands right on the sheer-drop edge their mountain’s cliff, toes curled over the crumbling overhang of it, and he stares up at the moon full in the sky. And he speaks to it.
Scar watches him, sometimes, from the window – always pretends to be asleep when Grian returns. Does not flinch, when Grian’s night-cold nose presses into the hollow of his throat. Does not shiver, when Grian’s sand-chilled feet tangle with his own.
The moon, so far as Scar can tell, does not talk back.
Where do you go at night? asks Scar, one day, while they’re in the kitchen chopping vegetables for stew. There’s a new llama, Calzone, sticking its head through an open window to steal carrot-tops from the counter. There’s a cat sprawled lazily out on the kitchen table, catching the last patch of sun as it sets. It feels like home, the kitchen, with the two of them in it.
Grian doesn’t meet his eyes as he says, Nowhere. Sometimes you just gotta go pee! Or get a glass of water. Or– other stuff. Nothing important.
Scar doesn’t call him on the lie. The carrots beneath his kitchen knife take approximately the same amount of pressure to cut as bone does. His old sword hangs on the wall above the fireplace, just below Grian’s. Sometimes he imagines taking it down, and taking it to the back of Grian’s neck, or the front of his ribcage. Not for any particular reason. Just because.
His red heart beats hungry inside his chest, alongside his other one. His softer one. His weaker one.
Who do you talk to during the day, hmm? says Grian, and he says it as a tease but it sounds like an accusation. Grian carries his red heart in this throat, close behind his teeth. When you leave me to do all the farm work. Lazybones.
Scar cuts the carrots, methodical, practised, snick-snick-snick. Oh, no one, he says, no one at all. Just the wind.
Scar wakes one night to Grian sat across his hips, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight. They are dark, and sleepless, but not bruised the way they are when he talks to the moon – instead, they are wide, bright. Watching.
Can I–? asks Grian, and he sounds like a man lost in a desert begging for water. He licks his lips.
Scar does not need to ask him what he is asking for.
So he says, Yes, yes, Grian, of course, yes–, because there is nothing else to say. His voice is loud in the quiet of the night, sleep-rough, stunned and wanting.
And then he says nothing more, because he has no mouth with which to say it. Grian’s lips are sun-chapped, demanding, hiding teeth capable of drawing blood. His hair is soft when Scar threads a hand through it, and the noise he makes when Scar pulls him closer is sweeter than any birdsong. He tastes, inexplicably, of strawberries.
As always, Grian takes what he wants, with a gleeful abandon. He takes what he wants, and does not bother to ask permission again. He has it, now – and in truth has always had it – and that knowledge makes him dangerous in the best possible way.
Scar says no more words, that night. But he noises he makes–
The both of them say no words the next morning, either. The sun rises, and them with it, and they sit at their kitchen table and eat last night’s bread and stew cold for breakfast. They are silent, as the light filters through the windows, as Jellie rouses too and begins to beg for scraps – but when Scar presses his foot to Grian’s, beneath the table, Grian smiles. It looks, a little, like a sunrise.
The sensation of home tightens, like a noose, around the softness of Scar’s weaker heart.
They live. Together, two red lives in a world coloured yellow and green, they live.
Grian tends to the dirt, to the little growing things he plants there. He grows, too, strong and lean with the manual labour, wiry with muscle from hard work and plain food. His hair grows, down past his ears, until he is forced to tie it up to keep it out of his eyes. He tries to take shears to it; Scar stops him.
Scar tends to their fortress, to the house they have made together, and makes it a home. He changes, too, he supposes. The grey of his skin bleaches pale, to the colour of the ash left in their kitchen-hearth each morning. The builder’s callouses fade from his fingers, and he loses some of the hard definition of his muscles, the sharp angles, the edges and corners. He softens. His soft heart grows softer, day by day. The red one beside it quiets, until the bloodlust is but a distant whisper in his ear.
Grian brings them food, each evening, with hands dirty from their farm and a smile white and bright as the moon. And each evening, Scar waits for him with gifts – fresh bread and fish, gunpowder, small creatures for him to kill.
Unlike him, Grian’s red has not abated.
The land outside their desert turns into a web of holes punched into the earth, some down to bedrock, some still burning. No structures survive. The other houses, castles, fortresses were gone within the first few weeks, blown up and burnt to the ground; the village went soon after. Nothing else remains but trees and grass and craters – and sand.
This is their world now. Grian takes dominion over it, shapes it to his will, sets his marks across it as he pleases and whoops with joy at each explosion. Scar, content to simply watch, inhabits it. This is their world, now, and theirs alone. This is their home.
One night, the moon speaks back.
Grian stands on the edge of the cliff, and Scar stands by the window of their bedroom and watches him. And when Grian calls out to the moon and says, Is this it? Is this all there is, now?, the moon speaks back.
The moon says, Y̷̫͎̓ǒ̶̰u̷̠̓ ̷͈̈́h̸̯̭͂̚ą̷͙v̶͕̬͆ȅ̸͓̝̿ ̸̫̇͌n̴̂ͅo̴͔͒̕ẗ̶̞ ̶͈̆̚ẅ̵̞͇o̶̢͗n̵̮̒̿ ̷͙̈t̶̻͉̅ĥ̴̤̞̆e̷̹͎̾͘ ̷͓̉ģ̷̰͐a̷̙̾m̴̲̓e̸̯̐ ̵͖̐̉y̶̙ẹ̸̊t̸̼͐̒. The moon is no longer the moon. The moon has wings. The moon is made of eyes, and they all blink at different times, unharmonised. The moon speaks in a voice that makes the fine bones of Scar’s ears hurt, even from a distance.
The moon is no longer the moon, it is a person, and it is the moon, and it is eyes-wings-shapes-pain, and it hurts to look at. Scar cannot look away.
Grian stares at the moon, and says, What happens to the winner?
And the moon speaks back and says, T̵̳͊̄h̴̦̙̒å̵̯ţ̵͐͆ ̶͕̊́i̸͙͔̅͊ş̵̮͆͂ ̸̺͐a̵͚̖̅̚ ̶͓̾͘s̷̝̃u̵̪͒͠r̷̬̳̄́p̵̮͎̅r̴̲͔̓͝i̵̼̋̚s̷̼̣͝ë̵̪͋.
Grian stares at the moon, and does not flinch from its voice. Then what happens to the loser? he says.
And the moon says, T̶̠͒͝h̶̟̃̈́ė̸̼̻ỷ̴̠ ̵̯͆g̵̞͑o̸̟̕ ̵̖̐̿h̵͍̉̌ỏ̸͇͔͋m̸̳͖è̵͚͖͋, and Scar thinks his ears are bleeding.
Grian says, So I’ve got to do it, then, and the moon is silent. He says, Because you can’t have him. He says, He’s mine.
The moon is silent. The eyes are gone, and the wings are gone, and once again the moon is just that – a full moon, hung heavy and quiet in the sky.
Grian stands there for another ten silent minutes, twenty. And then he turns, and leaves the cliff.
When he returns, Scar is back in their bed, and his eyes are closed. Grian’s feet, when they tangle with his, are colder even than the bite of the night air. Grian’s face, when he shoves it into the junction of Scar’s throat and shoulder, is wet with tears.
What did the moon say to you? asks Scar, as they eat fresh-baked bread and cold pickled fish for lunch, sat at the table in their sun-drenched kitchen. Their cat is sat on Scar’s lap, purring, purring. He has named her Jellie. He doesn’t know why.
Grian looks at Scar, and then down at his fish. Do you want to go home, Scar? he says, and Scar laughs.
What do you mean? he says, and smiles. This is my home! Right here. And yours, too.
And Grian smiles, too, but he says, No, but like… home-home.
And Scar frowns at him, and says, What do you mean? This is all there’s ever been.
And Grian looks at him again, no longer smiling, and then out the window at the moonless midday sky, and then back to him, and there is a look on his face that Scar cannot put words to. Horror, perhaps. But that misses the wideness of it, the weight of it, the way it opened up on Grian’s face like a yawning chasm between blinks.
Oh, says Grian, and then, The moon said nothing. Nothing important. What did your voices on the wind say to you?
Scar doesn’t ask how he knows, about the voices, about the wind. He says, They’re mostly gone, now. It’s just Martyn. He says they made him stay to watch.
And Grian says, Yeah. I bet they did. They like doing that. And then he says nothing more.
They eat their warm bread and cold fish in silence, and when Scar stands to accompany Grian for the day’s farming, Jellie mewls her displeasure at being displaced from his lap. There are dirty dishes in the sink, and half a loaf of bread left on the table, and an unclosed jar of pickled fish and vegetables on the counter. Outside, the bright sun catches on Grian’s golden hair, makes an afternoon halo of it as he pulls weeds out from between the budding wheat on his knees.
Scar watches, breathless, and cannot imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else.
Scar wakes one night to Grian sat across his hips, and a sword at his throat. There are tears in Grian’s eyes. There are too many of Grian’s eyes. His irises are red. He looks like the moon.
He looks like his red life is no longer in his throat.
I have to, he says, and he presses down, and the sword cuts through Scar’s throat like his knife had cut through the potatoes they’d prepared together for dinner. The mattress beneath him turns as red as Grian’s eyes.
Scar says nothing. He does not have to.
I have to, says Grian, and presses down harder. It’s the only way you can go home. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll see you again. I think. I hope. I’m sorry. I–
And Scar bleeds out into darkness.
Scar wakes up in his bed, at home. Sunlight streams in through the windows, and there is a cat called Jellie curled up beside him on the sheets, and there are trees outside instead of miles and miles of sand.
He cannot remember why there might be miles and miles of sand; he’s not even sure where the nearest desert is. He cannot think why his body might have been settled, sleeping, into a shape that made space for someone else to curl up close to his chest. He cannot think why the bed feels empty. He cannot think why he feels cold.
He decides to make bread for breakfast, and only realises his error when he has to wait for it to leaven on the warm windowsill. For something to do, he chops carrots, and then potatoes, for dinnertime stew. He cannot think why the action feels so easy, so automatic. He cannot think why it feels like there is something missing.
He cannot think why the name Grian is on his lips, when it is as unfamiliar to him as the desert landscape he sees behind his eyelids when he blinks.
He cannot think why the first thing he thought, upon waking, was I love you too.