Milo - Dreams

A/N: This month we are going to focus on the Ro's dreaming of home.

“Ever. Ever.” The little girl's laughter flitted among the crimson branches of the trees as she bolted from limb to limb. The light of her soul bounced across gold dipped leaves, tumbling down towards the ruby brethren that glittered within the bows. “Ever,” Milo hissed again. But she was too fast. He had been chasing her for what seemed like hours, his lungs tightening with exertion and his legs feeling like jelly beneath him.

The Crimson Forest was vast and thick, the ground covered in the telling signs of fall, paving each path in an auburn light. Milo felt the leaves crunch beneath his bare feet. The wings on his back hummed in his ears, occasionally catching the wind. Not that they lifted him from the ground. Milo was starting to find them quite useless.

He didn’t know how he and Ever came to be here within the forest. The thick and sweet scent of apple’s made him nearly forget. He wasn’t supposed to be doing this, right? Ever had burst from the large trunk they called home, breaking through the window their mother had left open, before darting through the orchard and into the forest. Milo was supposed to be watching her and if he returned home without his sister, he was sure he would be sent to bed without dessert. It would be all Ever’s fault. He had just wanted to go look at the new mounts within the stable. The bees were not often at rest, and he knew that within days they would be back, pollinating the apple trees. He just thought he could ride one. Just once.

“Mabon?”

Milo turned as a small hobbe came out of the thicket, a bushel of acorns in her hand. Milo looked around for whoever she was addressing, before spotting her expectant look. “That’s not my name,” he told her.

The hobbe rolled her eyes. “Ye need to be takin’ this back ta yer mother now, ya hear?” She set down the bushel of acorns. “Ye are late on pickin’ them up. Ye aren’t a child any longer, Mabon. Time to start bein’ more responsible.”

Milo frowned. “I am responsible.” It came out as a sullen protest. A child stomping their foot. But he was responsible, right? Weren’t there lights he was taking care of somewhere? People depended on him for more than just the acorn deliveries?

“Ye are out here chasin’ after a will-o-wisp. That’s not responsibility.”

“That wisp is my sister,” he protested.

“Aye, and she’s on her own journey. Ye are on the journey of acorns.”

He shook his head, growing angry at the hobbe. Roots, he called her. Lady Roots. He had a scar on his knee from when he was just a sprite and he had crawled through her garden and got tangled within the walls.

“Aw, Roots. I’m not gonna be doin’ this acorn thing forever. I’m gonna save people.”

She snorted. “You? Savin’ people? Ye can’t even brush yer hair properly, boy. How do you think ye’d be savin’ people?”

He puffed out his chest, giving her one of his patented grins. “No one ever believes in the hero, Roots. Ye know that.”

She shook her head fondly at him, three more buckets of acorns appearing at her side. With a sigh, Milo reached up, breaking off one of the white birch branches of the tree, making sure the branch was straight as he looped the handles of the buckets on either side.

“I hate to break it to ye, little one. But ye don’t have the selflessness for bein’ such a thing. It’s not a bad thing. Yer mama would prefer ye not to go on those types of adventures. Bein’ a hero is for the lonely. Ye don’t want to be lonely, do ye?”

Torn from his mother during the depth of a rainstorm. The apple tress were split in two during the lightening strikes as he clung to her skirts, screaming at her that he didn’t want to go. She clung to him, the soft scent of dough and sugared apples surrounding him, drowning out the rancid smell of smoke and bourbon. She was angry, yelling into the dark that he was hers. He was too young. Milo’s siblings were all inside, hiding beneath the bed. Unknown to the man that was standing at the gate with a glowing orb in his hand, calling down the fury of the heavens.

Milo looked at Roots. “No, I don’t want to be lonely.”

She smiled softly at him. “Then best be not worryin’ about others. Go back to your mama, little one. She’ll be missin’ ye by now.”

Roots disappeared back in the trees as Milo hoisted the baskets up over his shoulders. Ever still giggled in the background, but he couldn’t follow her. Her story was her own to tell. His belonged here. Mama depended on him, after all. With the pups at home, she needed him to be stronger for her. To help. The lanterns hanging from the trees were tattered anyway. He didn’t need to look at them for long.

“But you did this to us.” A woman stood at the edge of the forest, her feet buried in mud. Her hair was wild and kinky around her face. Her eyes nearly black. Singed, necromantic hands were wringing out the folds of her skirt as tears tracked down her face. “You did this.”

“Hazel,” he whispered, dropping the acorns. They scattered like broken dreams all over the forest floor. “I didn’t– I didn’t know. I just wanted you safe. You’re the only family I ever had. I didn’t want you to die.”

“I don’t matter!” she screamed.

“You do! You always have! You are my sister. The one who saved me. I wouldn’t even be alive without you. And even if none of that were true, it was the right thing, Hazel. Saving everyone was the right thing!”

“You’re a murderer,” she hissed, skin melting with her tears, dripping from her jaw to form a waxy puddle beneath her. “Nothing more than your father.” Except it wasn’t Hazel’s voice this time. It was a woman with gold eyes and freckled skin. Her hair the same honey blonde as his own. She smelled of sugared apples and home. “No son of mine,” she hissed. “You’re his. Always has been his.”

He was so small again, his wings not carrying him. Why couldn’t his wings ever carry him? “No, mama,” he shook his head. “No. I’m yours. He took me, remember? I didn’t want to go with him. I couldn’t hold on.” He tried to keep his fingers fisted within her skirts. But he knew what would happen. All the children upstairs would die if he didn’t go. He just needed to step away from her. To go to his father on this one last journey.

“You are not my son,” she told him.

Milo felt his throat close, his eyes welling with tears. “No, mama. Please. I want to be yours. Please…”

The trees lit on fire above him, the red leaves burning to bright hot embers. The hobbes began running from inside the roots, scattering around the forest floor in a blur. Milo looked this way and that. Ever was crying, stuck somewhere.

“Ever!” He ran through the forest, feeling his wings burn on his back. “EVER!”

She flickered in front of him, pale lips forming desperate words that asked Milo to save her. One translucent hand reached out to take his, but she sunk through the forest floor. Milo fell to his knees, digging at the loamy ground. The smoke was filling his lungs and the screams rose within the night sky. A lantern fell near him, flickering weakly. But Milo continued to dig. He would save his sister. His life was not worth much in this world, but he would b e able to give her a second chance. Maybe that was the reason he had been born. To make sure that others could live.

His fingers began to bleed, nails tearing from his skin as he pulled at rock and root, digging deep into the earthen ground. The dirt was breathing. The deep rise and fall of a chest appeared, and Milo dug harder. Pulling at clumps of grass and old bone. Uncovering the long dead.

Malcolm lay at the bottom of the grave, his eyes closed in sleep. His arms were wrapped around the screaming bundle of a baby Ever, her face screwed up in pain. Next to them, was Hazel, the thick green veins of control bright like spring leaves against her wrists. She held her brothers hand, staring unblinking at Milo. And around all of them, was Night. Holding them in their arms to protect them from the fires Milo had created.

Milo laid on top of them all, Ever squirming beneath his chest. “Hold me,” he begged. “Please. I want to be with you. I don’t want to be here anymore. Please just–”

Lightening cracked above, the acorns heavy on his shoulders. Milo blinked. The forest was alive once more, dripping with gold and red leaves. A sweet wind with the scent of apples swayed through the branches. He could see the porch in the distance. The big wrap around one that he had helped make. It circled the entire tree.

Ever sat on the porch with faceless children, all of them sharing an apple pie. And in the doorway, was his mother.

“Pup,” she called. “You ready to come home yet?”

Milo couldn’t answer.