"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
He ventures. He ventures out even though he’d stay forever by the monster’s side, but no, it wouldn’t do – wouldn’t please him, and Rapt is a good boy. So he leaves even though it feels like his guts are being wrung out, even though it feels as if his bones have been replaced with lead. But he is bravegood. (So good, he promised, I’ll be so good.) The world is wide and strange to a boy who is not particularly smart, who knees sometimes still shake. But he tries not to let it seep inside him, he smiles (and maybe it looks more like a grimace, maybe it looks more like a corpse’s rictus, but never mind that, never mind). The land pours out before him, great and terrible – unlike the desert sands he’d been born into, unlike the forest where he met the monster – it is fecund and open, and he feels too vulnerable. He’s growing, this boy, adding on years so the foal’s scruff of mane is gone, replaced by something smooth and pale, like cornsilk. He shines a pale gold in the meadow’s abundant sunlight. He sees a man, rough-hewn, and for a moment he thinks it is the monster – but then he edges closer, realizes with something like disappointment that it is not. “I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is soft. “I thought you were someone else.” .
08-10-2016, 01:50 PM (This post was last modified: 08-10-2016, 01:51 PM by Eight.)
no matter what they say, I am still the king
How often do you mistake things for your monster? How often do you see his face in the passing strangers before you – hear his voice in the dulcet sounds of the wind – taste him in the sweet pools of morning dew? How often does he still haunt you (is it truly haunting if it’s what you ache for?) – still call to you from the gritty slumber of your dreams? You may wander, dear Rapt, but you will never be able to stray from the aching of your own soul.
The world is wide and dangerous to a boy with doe-eyes and a quivering core. The world is a gaping jaw set wide before you, like the split open canvas of a circus tent that calls to you with a cacophony of sounds. Come play with us, Rapt. Become one with us, Rapt. But the circus tent is a lion’s den, and there is not always a welcoming of acrobats and clowns and a smattering of applause. Sometimes there is something much darker waiting for you there, maw open wide in a careening smile. Come play with me, Rapt. Become something for me, Rapt.
A soft tumbling, like daisy petals falling with the last rays of summer sun – your voice - small and almost shivering. An opportune moment ready to be plucked from the ground – how could Eight say no? “Who, perhaps, did you think I was?” His head snaps towards you, akin to a move so unnatural. He watches you closely, as tendrils of magic waft towards you, crawling into your skull, swimming around the gray matter that made up your wants and wishes and past and dreams. Ah yes –this will do. Something fresh and bright, a pulse that throbs throughout your mind – your monster. Ever so briefly, the magician’s face phases into something you may remember so well; a scythe slice opening his mouth wide, splitting his black face into a smile wide like the canvas tents. An invitation to step inside.
You are sorry? If only you knew, little thing, how sorry you could be.
∞
and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in
there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever
He is the kind of boy who would waltz into a lion’s den with a smile on his face. The kind of boy who would love the lions, sink fingers into fur gold as sunlight even as teeth sink in. It will be his downfall, sure as anything, but he’s a boy bred to love disastrous things.
(His father bled where wings once were; his mother, a face wracked in scars. Bodies and faces he loves but forgets.)
He feels something, a presence alike and unlike the monster, feels tendrils creeping in his mind. He lets them, does not fight it, is open and willing before the stranger. There is nothing to hide, nothing to fight – he is a boy meant to give what should not be given.
He is not a particularly smart boy.
And then the man transforms, quick as a blink – and he is the monster! Rapt’s face breaks into a joyous smile, and he surges forward, unquestioning.
“It is you,” he breathes, and dips his head, as if in a bow. He is close enough to smell him, and no, maybe the monster doesn’t smell quite how he used to, but Rapt – such a stupid boy – does not question it.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave me.”
rapt
caius x else
wasn't sure if he was still resembling pollock so playing it like he is BUT can change it if you want <33
