[private] swear you recall nothing at all, phae

[altar]

get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god

How long since the Darkness?
(This is how she gauges time, you see, because the Darkness was the last thing that mattered.)

How long since she last caught a glimpse of the brothers? And where have they gone?
(And she wonders if perhaps they have disappeared to some place that she cannot follow.)

The last thing that mattered was how she’d seethed; how she had hated Obelisk and yet had been so grossly unwilling to let him die. And then?

She has no memory of what followed. No memory of the light that had not splintered across the horizon but had exploded across the sky all at once. No memory of the strange creatures who’d emerged from the sea, from the sky, the warring between them. 

Perhaps it is better this way.
Perhaps the things that had followed are better off not remembered.

But she wanders to Pangea now (unaware as she is that it had been plunged into some other world, erased from the map as if it had never existed there at all, and then brought back again as if it had never gone.) She is not a thing made for wandering, really, but what else is there to do here, now? 

They all seem to emerge, blinking into a world made new again. And she watches them and realizes that she is no different than them, a new thing, born again. She flicks her tail, lazy, scattering stars and exhales a short breath of stardust as she watches.
 

ALTAR

[achille]

What does Achille know of the darkness that fell upon Beqanna? What can he say other than I’m sorry, over and over again? He watched from the highest tower in the skies above as war and bloodshed befell an innocent world.

(This world is not innocent, and perhaps the war was some karmic retribution for the chaos that exists in Beqanna; but all Achille can see is sorrow, endless sorrow in every face. Some painful projection of his own inner turmoil.)

Perhaps that is why he wanders so aimlessly, as many do in Beqanna. But to him, his wandering is the most painful, the most meaningful. He longs to return to quietude, to a life in which he slept upon a cool cloud and awoke to the brilliant sun. Achille knows he must punish himself, though—no creature as cowardly and pathetic as he deserves to live in any form of comfort. So often he walks until his limbs feel as if they’ll crumble beneath him.

Such gruesome wandering is why Achille is in a foul mood between the canyon heights of Pangea. Even the sight of another ethereal thing does not lift his spirits (it baffles him, like it once did before—but instead it baffles him that so much beauty could exist in so many different ways). He stops and looks away from her, shielding sorrowful eyes as if he is not allowed to peer at Altar at all.

“You,” he growls suddenly, swallowing a bout of anger tearing up his throat. He walks closer, still not looking directly at her.

“How can you look like that?”

achille

a little bit of bad thing never hurt anyone

but too much of a good thing

is like a hand on your neck

@altar

[altar]

get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god

What an unusual thing it is that growls an accusation at her and she blinks those dragon eyes in his direction. They flash a crimson red as she considers him, the way he averts his own gaze, and she stares at him unblinking. 

Typically anger begets anger, especially when it is directed at her, but she merely studies him as he edges closer. As if he has any right at all to approach her, to accuse her, to speak to her in any way at all. But she does not bare her sharpened, predator’s teeth, she does not lunge for him the way she had Obelisk. 

She has never seen a feathered thing, not a thing like this. She understands that there is something otherworldly about him, too. She tilts her head, the eyes softening to a pale orange as she studies him.

“Me?” she asks coolly, unfolding those nebulous wings and then settling them back against her sides. He is a winged thing, too, though his are solid, tangible. She draws in a breath, the remaining stardust sliding back down her throat. Across her haunches, the galaxy writhes.

“What is it that you’re asking?” she counters, narrowing her gaze. “Is it a compliment or an accusation?” The corners of her wicked mouth hitch in the beginnings of some smug grin, though it never reaches its full potential before it dissolves completely. 

 

ALTAR

@achille

[achille]

Achille seethes with a rage he does not understand. So rarely does his depression evolve into fury that he is almost certain it never has. He was always a quiet boy growing up, more interested in how his magic worked with nature than how to wield it for violence.

But oh, does such wicked violence call to him now.

The lightning in his blood crackles and hisses, so incredibly loud that it rings like TV static in his ears. All he can hear is that never ending hissing, so much of it that the noise morphs into the words, the words into images in his mind.

You were never good enough, boy. What would your father say about this? Mother never wanted a baby son to coddle. You’re the reason that she died. You’re the reason that they all died. They’re dead, Achille. They’re dead. They’re dead they’re dead they’redeadtheyredeadtheyredead.

The feathered stallion’s breath hitches, his head shakes, the feathers all over his body stand on end after startled end.

“An insult.”

Achille’s head snaps up suddenly. His emerald eyes sharp and bright with sudden clarity. He doesn’t feel like himself, robotic—the sad, self-deprecating version of him trapped within a cage of lightning, of violence, protected.

“How can things like you exist here, in this world, when all I’ve ever known is dead? It makes me sick.”

Deep down, Achille knows that Altar is impressive. He knows she is beautiful, that the tone of her voice bodes more of a threat than he ever has. But he can’t stop himself as he walks forward, can’t stop because if he does his knees will crumple beneath him. He’ll bow down to her in worship, desperate for someone else to take his destiny out of his own control.

So he stands. He steps close. He whispers.

“I’m tired of feeling sick.”

achille

a little bit of bad thing never hurt anyone

but too much of a good thing

is like a hand on your neck

@altar

[altar]

get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god

She watches with a kind of detached amusement as he is consumed by his emotion. She cannot know the root cause of it, cannot understand what it means for him to wrestle with such fury. (Though it had been an insult, there is some flattery in knowing that she has garnered his wrath purely with the audacity of her mere existence. She delights in knowing that the fact that she draws breath at all is enough to elicit such rage.) 

She does not understand that his fury comes from grief. She has never cared enough about anything to mourn its death. Not even her brothers. (Perhaps she would delight in their deaths, missing them only because they could not serve any significant purpose were they dead.) 

She tilts her fine head as he edges closer. Those draconic eyes flash vivid red, though she does not back away. She notches up her chin as he staggers, as he whispers something that sounds like a plea. (Does she know that she could heal him, if she chose to? Can he smell it on her? But there is no ice present and surely the glaciers in her gaze do not count.)

“The world,” she answers plainly, smoothly, her tone level despite the way her eyes flash, “does not care that all you have known is dead. The world goes on existing whether you want it to or not.” It is a dismissal, certainly. Not of him but of his grief. She is not a sympathetic thing, Altar. She feels absolutely no sorrow for the magnitude of his loss. 

(She is intrigued, though she would never willingly admit it. Curious about his sickness.)

“Why are you sick?” she asks, despite herself. 

 

ALTAR

@achille