He didn’t know how long he’d been seated in the same position: reclined, head back, with a block wedged between his molars, and drool rolling down his chin. At first he’d tried to watch, but the blazing white light overhead was nauseatingly bright and all he could pick out was the blurry shadow standing over him. Occasionally, the metal tool being used to rip apart the inside of his mouth would be traded out for another torture implement, reflecting the light from the glowing orb above as it passed from hand to tray with a soft clatter.
The night of the Hanover Harvest Festival was still something of a muddled blur to him. Rasp remembered the incident at the fountain and then being pursued, but the events afterwards tangled together into a knot that was simply too painful to unravel. For some inexplicable reason, when he finally awoke days later, sore in places he didn’t know existed and missing a good number of his teeth, he’d expected to find Faris at his side. But, like everything else in his miserable life, it had simply been too good to be true.
In his state of delirium, he’d mistaken Hop, the third and final member of their small traveling party, for Faris. Truth be told, it wasn’t a hard mistake to make. They were both fauns, their cloven feet went click-clack wherever they went, and seemed inexplicably committed to keeping him alive. There were differences between the two, of course. But Rasp was simply too miserable to even think about the many, many ways in which Faris was infinitely better.
Unfortunately, trying to will his overactive mind into a state of blank emptiness was having the reverse effect. The pang of loneliness came crashing down, filling his insides with the insatiable urge to peel off his clothes and run as fast and as far as his legs would carry him. Rasp would have, too, if it were not for the fact that he was currently laid up with his lower jaw pried wide open, getting the remnants of his splintered teeth ripped from his mouth.
“Try not to move,” Hop’s voice said from above him.
Stifling the instincts screaming at him to either fight or take flight, Rasp settled on the only other option available to him: be as annoying as possible. Some days, it was the only part of his personality that remained. He clung to it for all he was worth, afraid if he didn’t, it too might slip away.
“Are ‘ou un ‘et?” he managed around the wood block wedged firmly between his molars. His tongue, numb from the gel, navigated his mouth like an inebriated slug, idly pushing frothy spittle up and over his bottom lip without regard for how stupid it made the rest of him look.
“No. And again, please refrain from speaking while I have my fingers in your mouth.”
Rasp sputtered for breath as he fought to stifle his laughter, nearly choking on the excess saliva that pooled around the edges of his sluggish tongue. Hop, bless his big, naive heart, had yet to grasp the nuance of phrasing. Even after months on the road together, the poor sap still couldn’t wrap his head around why the word ‘masticate’ sent Rasp into a fit of giggles each time he used it.
The dark, blurred shape hovering over him drew back with a sigh. “I suppose I walked into that one, didn’t I? I mean it, though. If you move your tongue during this next part, you stand to lose it.”
It was a good thing Whisper was out, otherwise Rasp was certain his mentor would have interjected something about the lack of tongue being an improvement.
Coughing the last of the spit from his throat, Rasp sank his head further back into the cushion propped behind him. The tooth extraction process did not hurt nearly as much as he expected it to, thanks largely to Hop’s numbing gel. It was the tedious sitting for hours on end unable to shift and fidget and, more importantly, complain, that was getting it him. Not to mention the boredom.
Bored, bored, bored…definitely not sad that Faris isn’t here, but bored…bored…
Immobile, unable to speak, curse, or otherwise fight, Rasp was helpless against the internal demons steadily clawing to the forefront of his mind. The pressure built behind his eyes until, eventually, he had no other choice but to acknowledge the truth of the matter–this was the most miserable he’d ever been. Everything hurt, inside and out. A cloud of constant lingering dread weighed over him. It served as a cruel reminder that this was what life had become. And no matter how hard he tried, Rasp couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t going to get any better.
Mother would have known exactly what to say to pull him out of his slump. But she was gone too. Separated not just by distance, but existence itself. Rasp missed her most of all. The thought of her death caused an involuntary twinge so strong, he flinched to avoid it.
“Sorry,” Hop said, mistaking Rasp’s flinch for a different kind of pain. “That last root was being stubborn. The good news is they’re all out now. Ready for the next part?”
Rasp offered him a halfhearted thumbs up. Any pain Hop was capable of inflicting paled in comparison to the self-imposed torture taking place within his mind.
“You sure you don’t want a break first?”
“N’uh. ‘Ust ‘o it.”
While the words themselves sounded nothing like Rasp meant, Hop understood the overall sentiment. There was a soft, metallic clatter as he traded his current torture implements for another. “Alright. We’ll move on to placing the implants then.”
“Tal me th’o it.”
“What?”
Rasp repeated the same line with limited success. His hand gestures weren’t any better, but he tried anyway. He lifted his left hand and mimicked the movement of a mouth using only his fingers and thumb.
“You want me to talk?”
He nodded.
“You, who insist I blabber your ear off on a daily basis, suddenly wants to hear me ramble on about nothing? Do I have that right, Rasp?”
Rasp offered his best ‘I’m an asshole, pity me anyway’ look.
“My gods, you must be desperate.” Hop’s blurry shape drew closer once more. “I suppose if it will help you get through this without stabbing me, it’s the least I could do. It does make me wonder…”
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Oh, yes. This was far superior than being stuck inside the downward spiral of emotions whipping about his head. Hop had that boring, droning kind of voice that was easy to get lost in. Rasp breathed a small sigh of relief as he relaxed into the chair, ready and willing to leave all of his pesky thoughts to sort themselves out.
“...Do you recall that watchman that was hounding you a few towns back?” Hop carried on. “And how you told him to, and I quote, ‘stop tongue wagging’?”
Rasp made a half-hearted so-so gesture with his hand. While he didn’t recall the incident specifically, it did sound like something he would say.
“Would this be the opposite of that, I wonder? If you could speak, would you ask me to wag my tongue harder?”
A violent laugh caught in Rasp’s throat, causing him to lurch upright as he hacked his airways clear.
Hop thumped Rasp’s back, struggling to conceal the mirth in his voice. “This is an inopportune time to point out you’re rubbing off on me, isn’t it?”
The bastard was doing it on purpose! There was no way anyone could possibly have been this oblivious. Dear gods, laughing had never hurt so badly before. Tears streamed down Rasp’s face as he gasped desperately for air, ignoring the impulse to yank the wooden block from his mouth and whip it at the person responsible for his pain.
“Wha’ is wron’ wif ‘ou?”
“You just seemed more sad than usual. I was trying to, you know, lighten the mood a little.”
Well fuck. Apparently Rasp was so deep in his funk even emotionally oblivious Hop was starting to catch on. Why did that make him feel more sad?
“It’s out of my system now, I promise.” Hop pushed Rasp back down into a reclined position. “From here on out, I’ll keep it as tediously mundane as possible.” His hand moved back to Rasp’s upper haw. Seconds later, Rasp felt pressure as something blunt pressed into the tender gum line. The flesh of his mouth put up a fight, briefly, before the object slid neatly into place.
“You’re going to feel a little heat, but it shouldn’t hurt. And whatever demented thing you’re about to say, don’t. Stay. Still.”
Something blue glowed just below Rasp’s line of sight, not that he would have been able to tell what it was anyways. A warmth pulsated across his palate, the source of which was centered around the base of the false tooth. Just as the heat was beginning to grow uncomfortable, it stopped, and Hop withdrew his hands from Rasp’s open mouth. True to his word, the faun kept Rasp’s mind occupied by going over in great detail how each false tooth had carefully been crafted from blah, blah, blah substance, hardened through science-y sounding process, and finished with blabber, blabber, blabber powder. Rasp assumed it was all top-notch work, as he understood absolutely none of it.
The next three implants went similarly and it was not long after that the wedge block was removed completely. Sadly, the torture was far from over. Once the implants were set, Hop checked and rechecked the alignment several times, grinding and filing each individual implant as needed to ensure a proper bite. Rasp was nearly about to call it quits and make a break for the door–regardless of whether or not he knew where the damn thing was–when Hop finally declared his handiwork complete.
“There, finished.” There was an audible click as Hop extinguished the glowing head lamp nestled over the curl of his horns. As fascinating as the lamp was, it barely scratched the surface compared to the other tools the faun kept in his leather satchel. During the slower evenings, Hop would go through them with Rasp, explaining each item’s purpose and how it worked. In the end, all explanations basically boiled down to the same common denominator: magic.
Not Rasp’s kind of magic, either. Hop was an artificer, someone who used a combination of magic and science to manipulate common materials and substances into acting uncommon. Or at least that’s how Rasp understood it. There was probably a lot more to it, but that required actually paying attention to Hop’s long-winded explanations.
“How do they feel?” Hop asked.
First, he had to make sure his jaw still worked. After a few experimental stretches, Rasp attempted to run the tip of his tongue along the edge of his teeth. All he succeeded in doing was pushing a dribble of saliva up and over his bottom lip. “...Uh?”
“That will wear off soon.”
He wiped the spit from his face and then traced the outline of his new teeth with the pad of his thumb. The implants certainly felt better, not splintered in jagged little pieces or missing altogether. This was going to make eating so much easier. Biting, too! Seeing as he couldn’t yet verbalize his gratitude, Rasp threw his arms around Hop’s neck into a hug instead, nearly pulling the startled faun into the chair on top of him.
“Not the face!” Hop squirmed to get away before coming to the swift conclusion that Rasp’s intentions were not violent in nature. “Sorry. Little jumpy. I’m never sure if you’re going to hug me or hit me.”
Faris would have known.
The thought caught him by surprise. Well, it would have, if it were not such a recurrent one. Rasp often thought of his best friend, and where he was, and what he was doing, and why the fuck he wasn’t here yet. Hop was a decent substitute, but he would never be the real thing, no matter how many times Rasp absent-mindedly called him by the wrong name.
“You’re welcome, Rasp.” Hop patted Rasp’s arm nervously, adding, “Do you think you could let me go now?”
Hop stood and it was not long before Rasp heard the metallic clink of his tools being gathered and taken across the room for cleaning. “I put a charm on the new teeth,” Hop called from wherever he was, undoubtedly sanitizing his equipment very, very meticulously. “It’s going to take real force for one of those to pop out. And that’s not a challenge, so don’t try too hard, okay?”
There was a knock on the door in a familiar, rapid pattern. Hop’s clacking hoof steps hurried to unlock it. “Oh dear,” he said, sounding crestfallen the moment it drew open with a creak. “You have that look on your face. It’s time to move already, isn’t it?”
“We have to depart immediately,” a new voice said.
Rasp saw the telltale silhouette of a person framed against the light pouring in from the doorway. They moved swiftly inside, which made tracking their movement by sight difficult as their muddled form blended in with the rest of the cabin’s blurred interior. It did not take brilliance to know it was Whisper employing yet another of their many mortal disguises. The fae often changed their look from one place to the next to keep their pursuers in a constant state of confusion.
“I knew this place was too well kept to be abandoned,” Hop said with a sigh. “Are we expecting another angry homeowner?”
“No,” Whisper said. “I was not the only stranger in town. No one approached me outright, but they were certainly watching. We need to put as much distance between us and this place in the event they try to follow.”
Rasp felt another small tinge of sadness. It had been kind of nice having a roof over his head, even if it was only for a few days. Such was life on the run, however. They never stayed anywhere for long. Rasp pushed from the chair onto his feet, his question directed at Whisper. “See’thers?”
“What?” Whisper said.
Right. That’s still not working.
“Seekers,” Hop translated as he scurried about the cabin, gathering their sparse belongings.
“Ah. I do not know, little bird. But a number of them were magical in nature.” After a pertinent pause, Whisper addressed Hop. “Why is he speaking like that?”
“I paralyzed his tongue during the dental work.”
“It’s a marked improvement. You should consider making it permanent.”
Rasp extended his middle finger in Whisper’s approximate direction. “Fu’k ew.”
“I see you got some of the fight back in you,” Whisper said. “Good. We may need it.”
That sounded like the opposite of good actually. Rasp may have had the will to fight, but his magic hadn’t fully recuperated yet. It was a small miracle he was even standing at this point.
“Worry about it on the way, little bird. We must leave, now.”