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Kingsley couldn’t rest for the life of them.
Maybe too many nightmares, or the lack of sleep from the night before, leading to constant napping and exhaustion throughout the day, the whole cycle of insomnia was killing them from the inside out. The child couldn’t stand it, tossing and turning in sheets too heated to cool the racing thoughts filling every crack and crevice in their brain, writhing in their own skin with discomfort, fear, disgust, visions in their mind of rotting flesh seeping into sizzling pavement, reeking in the dry, hot air, flames taking their fill of licking each building, fir tree, living thing in the Grove, screams of its inhabitants, reaching the skies and above with the cries of wrath, of discontent, of fear. Fear, that sickening feeling, forming runes in burning chains of iron forced upon their wrists and dragging them underneath the ground, to become that seeping, rotting flesh for whatever beast was displeased enough with their existence to end it in one, blinding, suffocating gulp.
And when Kingsley’d had enough of waking with a start and a heart attack at the wickedest hours of the morning, curtains open and blaring the light of stars onto their damp pillow and shaking form, something would have to be done about it. Whether it was sleeping in the same room as somebody else who was patient enough to deal with their insomnia, or simply dealing with the exhaustion that would come with giving up on rest entirely.
No matter what would happen, Kingsley was not suffering with this any longer.
Awakening from their half-doze, they crept slowly and sleepily out of their bed, yanking the covers off them with as much sleep-deprived strength as they had in their body. If Kingsley were being honest with themselves, they wanted nothing more than to leave the confines of their scorching room and run off into the cool, damp forest, barefoot and unchained against the gentle zephyrs running through their hair and fluttering their lashes, guiding their steps through patches of moss and branches. They’d rather be among the corpses of trees than creatures.
The floorboards under their feet felt warm to the touch, as if there was blood flowing under them, the cabin a living being that cradled them to sleep, soaking in bitter tears and echoing lilting laughter.
Something about that unsettled the child, chilling their spine to the very marrow in their bones.
They just needed to get out of here.
Wandering in the hallways of their cabin around midnight had always led to some sort of trouble, Kingsley remembered as they continued to do so anyways, steps as silent as the ghost of wood mice, trembling a little with every step down the darkened path, because, per usual, they were too frightened to turn on the light, afraid to upset any creature that might have been sleeping, and found peace in such horror as midnight.
They could barely see the set of stairs in the distance, having to squint due to the visual snow clouding their eyes. A mild annoyance, until their eyes adjusted to the blackness, at least. For the time being, they would have to use their other senses, relying on touch and instincts instead of what was often temporary, their sight. The child would feel around the walls and corridors, often having no trouble with the otherwise frustrating way of navigation, depending rather on the familiarity with their household, its walls were their skin and breath, how close it had become.
But of course, the other part of this process was having to trust their feet to step where they were supposed to, and not on anything or… not on anything, which was a heart-racing endeavor for Kingsley as they slowly guided themselves past the set of stars that seemed all the more taller and dangerous to fall down, up, and onto. Please don’t fall, please don’t fall, they chanted in their head, as if it were going to help with the fact that in the dim light they could not see where they were going.
Yet, somehow and someway, they reached the bottom with no broken bones or shattered egos. Audibly sighing with relief and hugging their goosebump-covered arms, bare of their bandages for the night, so they were mildly sensitive to the fresher air they breathed than the one under blankets and cloth, stuffy and comforting nonetheless.
Eventually, their eyes grew used to the utter darkness, the dim light finally revealing their location: just a few feet by the kitchen, where a light glimmered from what seemed to be the dining table, flickering with the winds from the small kitchen window. The child was also nearsighted, not that the ridiculous thing was their fault in the first place, so they would have to get a closer look…
A soft voice caught their ears before they could find its source, perking their ears in recognition and soothing the once-tense muscles of their shoulders into something more settled, a small smile lifting the corners of their mouth at the gentle song that was sung by none other than the very Peregrine.
They were sitting in one of the chairs, unblinking, watching a tealight candle as it died down with the passing minutes, leaning back and crossing their arms as if trying to comfort themselves, humming and whispering the lyrics to a more depressing version of And the Hound—the reprise, Kingsley realized, as they listened closer to the lyrics in Felicity’s native tongue of English, the words almost instantly translating to their language of origin in their mind.
Peregrine’s voice was trembling, even with its now low, collected tone, speaking of foolish majesties and losses of light in the face of a lie, as their leg bounced against the carpet of the floor, the soft thump-thmp-thump against the surface out of sync with the song, more reminiscent of a heartbeat as frantic as theirs looked.
They were trying to soothe a panic attack, Kingsley assumed.
The eldest glanced up from their incessant staring at the small candlelight, now noticing the quivering child standing in the doorway, not so much as flinching at the sudden sight, but instead slowly humming, barely audible in the sounds of the winds fluttering the thin curtains of the kitchen window, and though it wasn’t near big enough for a person to so much as climb through, Kingsley still wondered how it didn’t already put out the tiny candle comforting their friend.
“Perry,” the attempted not to whine the words, more concerned for the other than themselves now, but knew that Peregrine wouldn’t so much as let the child near them if they tried to sympathize, “I… can’t sleep.”
Peregrine sighed, not meeting their gaze, but instead tapping the seat next to them with a tired, shaky finger, continuing to peer into the flames of the candle, as if it would tell them something if they looked long enough, something of their past, their present, their future. And leave them with grace, understanding, rather than longing for more of the warm, easing light.
Kingsley didn’t waste the opportunity and immediately sat next to them, who leaned their head on the table and let it rest there, hugging their knees under the table, in the kind of position that was so comfortable it looked anything but, slowly blinking their chestnut and olive eyes into the fire, so close to the candle Kingsley was worried they would singe their lashes off.
For a few minutes, the two just sat there. Peregrine, with their longing stare into the light, and Kingsley, with their patient stare at the other, holding their hands absentmindedly near their chest, fiddling with their fingers and rubbing their palms together, trying to crack their knuckles once, but to no avail, and took to fidgeting with their shirt, its color the deep, dark green of moss-infested bark, oddly reminding them of their cloak, though, that was mainly for costume, had become a constant item of clothing. It was something that defined them, felt more so like Kingsley than the youngest Lark, and much to the delight and amusement of Peregrine, who often tended to wear their own costume on an almost daily basis, the fur and feathers nearly molded to their skin, with how much they wore the costume representing their Harker.
“We’re far too old to have sleep trouble,” Peregrine murmured after a bit of silence between the two, their words gentle in the crisp, evening stillness, as if asking the night for a rite of passage to make their voice clear, and still not receiving a sure answer.
Kingsley smiled. They couldn’t help but do so around the other, “Yeah, I guess we are,” they breathed in the peacefulness of tranquility. No one but them was awake at the ungodly hours of ebony sky and whistles of critters in the fields, and there was a sort of freedom that came with the late hours that smothered the clouds above in darkness, blessing yet cursing their morning ahead, “But.. then again, it’s not so bad, hm?”
“No,” Peregrine agreed, voice a smidgen lighter than before, but only noticeable in such a quiet, “It’s… not. Not that bad, I mean. There… isn’t as much noise as there usually is.”
“I guess that means I’m not the problem,” Kingsley giggled softly, reaching down to tap Peregrine’s hand, a light gesture, asking them to hold it.
They scoffed, “I doubt it, Kings,” but let them firmly grasp their hand, observing from their gaze tilted by the table how the other gave them a dopey, lopsided grin, more content in this moment than they would ever be in three lifetimes over. Lucky, Peregrine thought, with what they hoped deep down in the very core of their soul wasn’t bitterness.
And it wasn’t. Not really, no—it was something… less awful than malice.
Peregrine sat up from the table as the candlelight started to dim, as the wax melted into nothingness as quickly as it had been lit. They adjusted the hands of the two, loosely placing them on the table and intertwining the fingers above their palms, resisting the urge to flinch as Kingsley subconsciously rubbed their thumb on the back of their hand, little circles as their periwinkle blues reflected the dying light, as the child’s gaze also began to linger on the glow.
“You think we could light another one?” Kingsley muttered, head tilted as they watched the candle take its last breath and flicker into nothingness, “Talk while it burns, or something?”
“Um…” Peregrine considered the thought before shaking it out of their head, “No. We need to sleep. Rehearsals are tomorrow, ‘member?”
They sighed in disappointment, “Ugh. Rehearsals.”
The other let out a small chuckle at this, “That’s new. I thought you loved singing, Kings?”
Kingsley groaned through their teeth in irritation, sinking into their seat as they stared at the ceiling, “I… do. But not when I’m exhausted all the time. There’s…” a pause, contemplating, “There’s something wrong with my room or something—I can’t sleep there anymore, I don’t know why.”
They watched as their friend frowned in confusion, irises shadowed by brows that further deepened in thought, glaring at the dead husk of the candle and tapping their fingers against Kingsley’s own, humming something familiar under their breath, so the silence wasn’t as wrecking or dead.
“How about we find out?”
“...wot?”
Kingsley, though they did not want to be, was back in their room.
And this time with an unusually curious moose in tow.
Peregrine suggested to help find the cause of their fear of sleep; it was set over two tests, each one of which would simply be the child falling asleep and seeing if anything was to happen after the “removal of the object of disturbance”, and partially depending on the hopes and prayers that it wasn’t anything terrifying or permanent and not-to-be-removed.
“We look around the space, adjust some things, and try to get you to sleep,” they had offered with a faint smile, and Kingsley wondered if it was solely to distract them from their own thoughts, or if the eldest of the Lark actually wanted to conduct the rather nonsensical experiment—at least it was in the child’s eyes. Nothing should have been wrong with their room, in a logical sense, though Peregrine thought otherwise.
“You need to clean your room, bug,” Peregrine had sighed the moment they entered the space, hands on their hips and shaking their head in disappointment, “As soon as possible.”
“It’s not even that bad!!” Kingsley swiftly defended. It was true; only a few stray clothes were cluttering the space, not to mention the mass of plants and trinkets haphazardly shoved onto dressers and shelves—but besides that, the room was clean.
“I disagree fully,” the moose-child continued to mutter and began walking around the room, seemingly searching for something or another. Kingsley… hadn’t a clue what was supposed to be necessarily off, and in all honesty, they were… confuzzled.
“Knells. I can’t find anything in here,” they grumbled, kneeling on the floor to peer under the child’s bed, before something near the window caught their eye. They stood in a blur of motion that Kingsley couldn’t fully track with their vision, as their friend was now standing by the curtains, accomplishment beaming on their face for the first time that day, and in a way that the child had to admit melted the anxiety swirling and writhing in their gut for a moment.
“D’you consider maybe closing the curtain?” they asked, gesturing with a thumb to the open window, the lights of both lanterns and stars illuminating the darkness, casting gentle shadows across the room from objects tall enough to catch the glow and steal it from the rest of the cozy place.
Kingsley hadn’t, and felt a bit stupid for not thinking of it sooner, “Will… that work??”
“I’m not exactly sure,” they admitted, ever thoughtful as they reached quickly to close the curtains, ripping the room of its light and dragging the child into blindness again, “But do we really have a choice? It could be the excess light, and you never know until you try it. ‘Course, I, umm… could stay here until you fall asleep—just in case—”
Oh. So that was why they were so eager to conduct this ‘sleep experiment’ of theirs. Did Peregrine just feel… lonely?
“Is this just an excuse to cuddle, Perrine?” Kingsley raised a brow, crossing their arms and shifting their weight a bit uncomfortably. However, that feeling also disappeared when the other froze completely and suddenly, back still turned to the child, but their hitched breath and tense shoulders told everything they needed to know.
“...no,” Peregrine obviously lied, stammering in search of a response, “No, I-I… NO. Shut up,” they hissed, ears turning a deep shade of rose when Kingsley started to snicker, then fully laughed, the sound phosphorescent in the darkness.
“No-no-no, it’s fine,” they managed through their fit of giggles, much to the embarrassment of the fuming moose, refusing to meet their gaze, and instead facing the drawn curtains and sinking into themselves as if the earth would get the message to swallow them whole, “It’s okay, Perry!!! You’re okay!!! Alright? You…” a mildly painful wheeze, “You look so angry.”
“I am,” they sighed, then glanced behind their shoulder, “But I do want to help—a lot less now, no thanks to you, Kings.”
Kingsley simply shrugged, all too knowing eyes squinting with fondness that only seemed to annoy the flustered figure glaring daggers into a shield of bark and affection.
“Stupid,” Peregrine scoffed.
The child frowned, not a hint of fury underneath the expression, “Wow. And I didn’t even say no yet.”
The other’s head immediately turned, eyes once flinty, now softened with shock. “Wait, ‘no’?” they sort of bleated, the hushed question akin to that of a whine, and Kingsley could only imagine the curses foul that ran through their mind. It brought another chuckle to their throat.
“Well… if you don’t want to…”
“I do!!” a swear left their lips faster than the exclamation did, and in its place, regret took hold, “N-never mind. You need sleep anyway. I’ll keep watch.”
That was that, the child supposed. Though something about the casual statement of “keeping watch” sent a decent chill down their backbones, startlingly icy against the warmth of the room that fogged the now covered windows. What would they need to watch, guard the younger from? Nothing could have been that dangerous if it had been simply dwelling in their room; maybe Peregrine was mildly overreacting, or…
No, Kingsley shut down the idea, Perrine doesn’t overreact. Ever.
Something was going to happen that night. Something shattering, terrifying, a disturbance in the force of peace. The child had a gut feeling, an awful one, and such feelings had only been wrong possibly once in their lifetime.
Only that time, things had been far worse.
“Stickbug,” Peregrine called from the corner of the room, and Kingsley was violently pulled out of their thoughts, blinking as they saw the other now sitting and hugging their knees on the farthest corner of their bed, which was far since the mattress had been rather small, “You’re just standing there staring into space.”
Oh. “Sorry, sorry,” they shook their head, hesitant to blurt what was on their mind and clouding their consciousness with a murky fog of absolutely not, “I just—”
Forget it, just get it off your chest before it’s too late, “I don’t think it’s safe anymore.”
“What isn’t safe anymore?” they softly prodded, tapping the spot by the pillow next to them. Kingsley’s exhaustion was getting to their head, yes, but the very concept of sleep didn’t seem all that appealing to the child; it grabbed at their chest with hands of hot glass still ready to crack and splinter, solidifying into something constricting their breath, movement, bruising their instincts tar black and saltwater sea blue, a few of its places already shining with a scarlet from shards broken off, little inconveniences and such. Nothing like the horror-birthing size of the blade held against their throat, one the child pretended not to see, to feel the sting of, to hear the metal sing when it came in contact with their skin, every step too close for comfort.
Whatever. They shook their head and flopped into bed, burrowing themselves, head and all, under the heavy quilt, positive they would regret it due to the eerie, broiling temperature of the night, and refusing to elaborate on the other’s question. It didn’t matter that they ignored the staining sense of wrongness that the action of squeezing their eyes shut came with, nor did the hand on their shoulder, equally as wary.
Sleep did not come easily, but it did arrive after a while.
And then it left, and the guest that approached after wasn’t exactly... friendly.
Well, it may have been, and the children could have been simply jumping to conclusions. But when Kingsley awoke that same restless night, eyes shooting open, pulse racing without proper reason or demand, while their gaze wandered around the room, past the moose that had lain beside them, having dozed off as the traces of day peeked its face through gaps in the fabric covering the window panes, and in the very corner of their vision a dark, fading figure had its wide, oozing maw grinning in the direction of Kingsley, the very look of the vicious entity told all they needed to know. The paralysis didn’t even need to happen at that point—the child wouldn’t have moved anyway, not in the sight, the range, the reach, of… that.
The beast wandered around the room. Kingley heard it, felt its breathing, hot and wrenching to the stomach, burning the skin on the nape of their neck, as if considering the urge to bite, to tear, to sink whatever filled that bleeding mouth into soft flesh too young to fully know the danger of death, but old enough to fear it—the child feared not for their life, but for their death in that moment. To die at the claws of this monster, hardly real, not entirely imagination, and in the resting face of their—
Peregrine. The thing was behind them, peering into the depths of their sleeping soul as if picking a meal to harvest for winter’s famine, greedy limbs reaching, wanting.
Kingsley couldn’t turn, couldn’t move their body fast enough to run, to act, not even to close their eyes again, remaining unblinking and breathing heavily, the distorted creaking of splintering wood and cracking trees ringing in their ears, warmth as if a thousand nostrils had taken their turns blowing gusts of air on their skin, twisting what would have been comfort into terror, fear itself singing against the hairs now raised like the hackles of a wolf. And then there was Peregrine, stirring gently in their sleep with a furrowed brow, as if sensing the disturbance.
Kingsley decided to ignore the creature entirely, focusing on the embodiment of care, of beautiful, breathtaking, unsteady love, slowly opening their heterochromatic eyes and sweeping a piece of stray hair from each of their faces, gentle, yet holding a weight of knowledge in the touch.
“It’s behind me, isn’t it?” They asked, oddly affectionate and sleepily, as if to soothe whatever horrifying thoughts were swimming in the child’s mind, as if to calm the fear pounding on their temples, their chest, their heart itself, “I think I can feel it. You… can’t move, can you?”
“Can.. can you see it?” Peregrine asked, voice just cracking enough to rip the facade of bravery, so their real emotions could bleed onto the surface. In a way, it soothed them as well.
No, I don’t see it. I see you, I only see you, the child wanted to say, to scream through the arms invisible pinning them to a blank stare of dread, mid-flinch as if expecting a fist to fly across their jaw. They must’ve looked insane, blue eyes wide and stark in the darkness, unblinking, unmoving, unfeeling.
Peregrine paused, pupils scanning the frozen figure of the child, an ocean of thoughts, words, emotions crashing in waves in the slightest of expressions, wondering and worried, courageous and cowardice at once, writhing under a layer of care cautiously tucked at its corners.
“Okay,” they murmured, reaching to the other’s face, but hesitated, “You were right. You knew, didn’t you? Everything, huh?”
“But… that’s alright. It’s—I’ll be here, always.” They cupped the child’s cheek in their palm, a small, exhausted smile tugging the corners of their mouth before they could think about it, letting the touch linger, rest there, like it belonged, “You can rest now, Kings. You can rest.”
The ringing in their ears stopped short, as if time itself’d been breathed into life again, and Kingsley could move. First, their jaw, as a sort of test, had been a bit harder to shift than usual, but they could. Then, their feet, legs, shoulders, arms, fingers, nose, and everything were free from their clutches of fear.
Kingsley didn’t, for once, know what to do. Whether to sob violently, laugh manically, pull away from the other’s touch, or lean into it, was as unknown as the deepest of waters at the bottom of a river: you’d risk drowning if you went too far, but if you didn’t so much as try…
The child was clueless. Free, yes. Safe, that was to be determined. But any knowledge of what to do after such an experience must have left the archives of little conversations and barely there footnotes at the bottom of pages.
So, for a good while, they continued their staring, lips pressed into a thin line of uncertainty, much to the amusement of Peregrine, who let a chortle slip. Purposeful or accidental, Kingsley couldn’t tell, the sound cool against their beaten, battered, and bruised entity, light in the shadows that refused to fade from the edges of their vision, the ghost of a breath smothered like a flame by their chilled fingertips, and the scent of pine and cinnamon began to, surprisingly, lull the child to a sense of dozing.
Peregrine let out a shaky, slow breath, likely just as relieved that the ordeal was over, slightly flinching as Kingsley buried their head in their shoulder, shutting their misty eyes, and hoping to deal with it all tomorrow.
Now, however, they both needed rest. Sleep.
“Night, Kings,” Peregrine sighed, also beginning to doze, but not without wrapping their arms around the sleeping figure now snoring in their ear.
They were late to a flight the Lark had that day, but for good reason! Clémente had offered to exorcise the room of whatever demon had been stalking them, and shockingly it worked. Somehow.
Kingsley still doesn't sleep alone. And neither does Peregrine.