11-17-2019, 06:26 PM
<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Playfair+Display|Source+Sans+Pro' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> <style type="text/css"> .brigade_container { position: relative; z-index: 1; background: #28271a; width: 600px; padding: 0 0 0 0; min-height: 500px; border: solid 1px #000; box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px 1px #000; } .brigade_container p { margin: 0; } .brigade_image { position: relative; z-index: 4; width: 600px; } .brigade_text { position: relative; z-index: 6; width: 560px; margin-top: -100px; margin-bottom: 20px; background: #00000070; border: solid 2px #252521; box-shadow: 0px 0px 20px 1px #000; } .brigade_message { position: relative; font: 12px 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify; color: #797971; padding: 24px; line-height: 1.45em; } .brigade_name { font: 50px 'Playfair Display', serif; color: #252521; line-height: 0.8; padding-left: 20px; letter-spacing: 20px; } .brigade_quote { font: 10px 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; color: #797971; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 1px; padding: 10px 0 20px 0; } </style> <center> <div class="brigade_container"> <img class="brigade_image" src="https://i.postimg.cc/httFVHP6/brigadetwo.png"> <div class="brigade_text"> <p class="brigade_message"> The pain that comes next is not his own, but it is visceral enough that it feels like it is.
He can feel the hooves pounding him—can feel the way that they collide with his body, can feel his eyes roll back into his head and the blood that begins to flood up onto his mouth. The copper of it is bitter and yet rich and he swallows it, feels the water rush in to flush it out, even though it fills to match it. At the same time, he can feel the jaws of the wolves around his throat. The way they tear and shred him apart.
His mind nearly splits apart trying to hold the two realities and, were he awake, surely he would pass out from the sheer force of the pain that slams into his chest—the physical pain of it that takes his breath away. But he isn’t asleep. He isn’t alive. He is trapped in the amber of this moment, suspended in his own pain and his own agony, and he is forced to feel every minute detail of it, every last fiber of the pain.
When the ground beneath him gives way, and he crashes into the water, he knows what to expect.
He knows what to expect even though he has never lived this before.
So it is not surprise that explodes as he falls over the edge the waterfall but a dull kind of acceptance. He goes lax as his body slips down the treacherous edge and then goes crashing into the shallow pool that waits for him at the bottom of it. A piece of his antler snaps and his leg fractures and he grits his teeth as he cries out—the sound that of a young boy. He calls for his mother and she comes to him. She, too, is broken and battered, bleeding and bruised, but she stumbles to where he lay underneath the pounding of the water and kneels by his head. “Brigade,” she whispers between the sobs, dropping her head to press kisses to his bleeding skull, her lips trying to wipe the blood but only smearing it across his blaze.
“My beautiful, stubborn boy,” she cries, her body trembling with the emotions that roar in him.
He looks up at her, the whites of his eyes showing.
“Am I dying? Can I die if I am already dead?”
She shakes her head, silently mouthing ‘I don’t know’ although nothing comes out.
They both jerk when they hear the words of the Nikkai, but Brigade cannot find it in him to life himself. He can’t find anything except the exhaustion that races through every corner of his soul.
“You have to go back,” Pyxis cries, brushing her forelock back. “You’re so young still,” but Brigade is already shaking his head. “I am so tired,” he says, his chest expanding and then falling. He wonders if his lungs have somehow collapsed, if it even matters when he’s already in the afterlife. “I’m so tired,” he repeats and there are tears that run down his red cheeks as he thinks about what he’s left behind.
“Dad needs you,” he says, cutting off her protests. “Wonder needs you. May and Phesque do too.” He gives her a sad smile, that acceptance creeping into his voice again, into his light grey eyes.
“You have to go back for them. There’s no one who needs me on the other side.”
She opens her mouth again but he cuts her off again.
“Let me go, mom. Just let me go.”
And, sobbing, she does. She leans over and kisses her boy goodbye.
Mourns for the pain she knows is to come. </p> <p class="brigade_name">BRIGADE</p> <p class="brigade_quote">when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache <br>but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake</p> </div> </div> </center>
brigade is sending his mom back.
He can feel the hooves pounding him—can feel the way that they collide with his body, can feel his eyes roll back into his head and the blood that begins to flood up onto his mouth. The copper of it is bitter and yet rich and he swallows it, feels the water rush in to flush it out, even though it fills to match it. At the same time, he can feel the jaws of the wolves around his throat. The way they tear and shred him apart.
His mind nearly splits apart trying to hold the two realities and, were he awake, surely he would pass out from the sheer force of the pain that slams into his chest—the physical pain of it that takes his breath away. But he isn’t asleep. He isn’t alive. He is trapped in the amber of this moment, suspended in his own pain and his own agony, and he is forced to feel every minute detail of it, every last fiber of the pain.
When the ground beneath him gives way, and he crashes into the water, he knows what to expect.
He knows what to expect even though he has never lived this before.
So it is not surprise that explodes as he falls over the edge the waterfall but a dull kind of acceptance. He goes lax as his body slips down the treacherous edge and then goes crashing into the shallow pool that waits for him at the bottom of it. A piece of his antler snaps and his leg fractures and he grits his teeth as he cries out—the sound that of a young boy. He calls for his mother and she comes to him. She, too, is broken and battered, bleeding and bruised, but she stumbles to where he lay underneath the pounding of the water and kneels by his head. “Brigade,” she whispers between the sobs, dropping her head to press kisses to his bleeding skull, her lips trying to wipe the blood but only smearing it across his blaze.
“My beautiful, stubborn boy,” she cries, her body trembling with the emotions that roar in him.
He looks up at her, the whites of his eyes showing.
“Am I dying? Can I die if I am already dead?”
She shakes her head, silently mouthing ‘I don’t know’ although nothing comes out.
They both jerk when they hear the words of the Nikkai, but Brigade cannot find it in him to life himself. He can’t find anything except the exhaustion that races through every corner of his soul.
“You have to go back,” Pyxis cries, brushing her forelock back. “You’re so young still,” but Brigade is already shaking his head. “I am so tired,” he says, his chest expanding and then falling. He wonders if his lungs have somehow collapsed, if it even matters when he’s already in the afterlife. “I’m so tired,” he repeats and there are tears that run down his red cheeks as he thinks about what he’s left behind.
“Dad needs you,” he says, cutting off her protests. “Wonder needs you. May and Phesque do too.” He gives her a sad smile, that acceptance creeping into his voice again, into his light grey eyes.
“You have to go back for them. There’s no one who needs me on the other side.”
She opens her mouth again but he cuts her off again.
“Let me go, mom. Just let me go.”
And, sobbing, she does. She leans over and kisses her boy goodbye.
Mourns for the pain she knows is to come. </p> <p class="brigade_name">BRIGADE</p> <p class="brigade_quote">when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache <br>but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake</p> </div> </div> </center>
brigade is sending his mom back.