11-19-2018, 11:52 PM
He does not expect this mercy from the demi-gods who sent them here to this place, does not expect the warm winds that race out to greet those who crawl like the dead from a cold, black sea. But there is no other way to explain it, no reason he can think of that this wind has lost all its biting teeth. Still, no reason he can think of that they should have shown such kindness. Was it not because of them, because of these very people gathered in shivering clusters along the shore, their friends and families and fellows, a collection of poor choices and misbeliefs that led them here now to fix an unmade world?
None of them deserve this warmth, this wind, this almost reprieve from the bitter cold and wet clinging to their skin. But he is greedy and he is broken, so he accepts it anyway. Closes his eyes and bows his head until this warmth feels tangible, a nose pressed to his cheek, warm breath fogged against the dark of a jaw permanently clenched. Until it feels like the sleek ivory and black feathers of his beautiful wings, a warmth across his shoulders and the ribbed furrows in his sides. Until he nearly, nearly forgets why he is here at all, that he too, has been unmade for a purpose.
He is good at pretending.
There is a subtle shift to the warmth, an edge of cold that drags weary fingers beneath his drooping chin. He lifts his head, those dark eyes sharpening suddenly with suspicion. There are horses on either side of him, some drifting forward already, and when his focus settles there next, he understands why. Two paths, two choices, no clear indication of which they are to take. Is it a game? Some kind of manipulation to an end he cannot see? It makes him wary, guarded.
But there is no time to dwell on this, no time to try and understand why those demi-gods would not have told them which way to go, because the weather shifts suddenly and the island is swallowed in air turned cold and white. He does not hesitate on the beach - knows that there is no more warmth waiting for him, that to stand here with the cold of the ocean waves beating against his back would be no better than heading further inland. There is no good choice to make, no clear one. So it makes it an easy one.
He takes the path to the right.
After all, how could the right path be wrong.
In the fast building snow-drifts, he makes his way to the path he chose, the one to the right, finding it beneath his dragging hooves by the strange, deliberate smoothness of it. He can no longer see anyone else through this storm, no silhouettes through the too-bright, too-dark, too-wrong of this arctic world. There is only the frozen air in his throat, dragging dry, bitter coughs from spasming lungs. Only the fur around his nose freezing together with each goddamn inhale, each snorting exhale.
There is nothing to see, only a world erased and through eyes that burn and tear at such desperate, furious cold. So it is by accident when his slow, shuffling strides carry him close enough that his nose brushes the frozen flank of someone heather grey and crusted with white. He pins his ears, pulls those pale lips back from paler teeth, flat and furious until he remembers himself a beat later. Remembers that he is not the man she would have made him to be. That he only wants to hurt them when she is inside him, pulling his strings and making him dance. That he would never want to hurt someone.
Right?
Except these beliefs aren’t quite what they used to be. Too changed, too shattered, completely warped by violence.
She’d had a name, you know.
He nearly leaves this woman, nearly trudges past her with his feet dragging along a path so unmistakably carved out by years of use. But it is less bitterly cold like this with a body at his shoulder, shared heat between the two of them, easy to pretend that he stays because of his aching cold skin, the glass in his lungs. That it is not because this world they’ve battled their way into is some strange kind of lonely apocalypse. That they could be the only two left alive in the entire universe and he would never know the difference.
It’s just them now, just them until the storm breaks and his eyes mean something again.
Just them, and if this is to be his eternity, he would choose not to spend it alone.
---
illum takes the right path
None of them deserve this warmth, this wind, this almost reprieve from the bitter cold and wet clinging to their skin. But he is greedy and he is broken, so he accepts it anyway. Closes his eyes and bows his head until this warmth feels tangible, a nose pressed to his cheek, warm breath fogged against the dark of a jaw permanently clenched. Until it feels like the sleek ivory and black feathers of his beautiful wings, a warmth across his shoulders and the ribbed furrows in his sides. Until he nearly, nearly forgets why he is here at all, that he too, has been unmade for a purpose.
He is good at pretending.
There is a subtle shift to the warmth, an edge of cold that drags weary fingers beneath his drooping chin. He lifts his head, those dark eyes sharpening suddenly with suspicion. There are horses on either side of him, some drifting forward already, and when his focus settles there next, he understands why. Two paths, two choices, no clear indication of which they are to take. Is it a game? Some kind of manipulation to an end he cannot see? It makes him wary, guarded.
But there is no time to dwell on this, no time to try and understand why those demi-gods would not have told them which way to go, because the weather shifts suddenly and the island is swallowed in air turned cold and white. He does not hesitate on the beach - knows that there is no more warmth waiting for him, that to stand here with the cold of the ocean waves beating against his back would be no better than heading further inland. There is no good choice to make, no clear one. So it makes it an easy one.
He takes the path to the right.
After all, how could the right path be wrong.
In the fast building snow-drifts, he makes his way to the path he chose, the one to the right, finding it beneath his dragging hooves by the strange, deliberate smoothness of it. He can no longer see anyone else through this storm, no silhouettes through the too-bright, too-dark, too-wrong of this arctic world. There is only the frozen air in his throat, dragging dry, bitter coughs from spasming lungs. Only the fur around his nose freezing together with each goddamn inhale, each snorting exhale.
There is nothing to see, only a world erased and through eyes that burn and tear at such desperate, furious cold. So it is by accident when his slow, shuffling strides carry him close enough that his nose brushes the frozen flank of someone heather grey and crusted with white. He pins his ears, pulls those pale lips back from paler teeth, flat and furious until he remembers himself a beat later. Remembers that he is not the man she would have made him to be. That he only wants to hurt them when she is inside him, pulling his strings and making him dance. That he would never want to hurt someone.
Right?
Except these beliefs aren’t quite what they used to be. Too changed, too shattered, completely warped by violence.
She’d had a name, you know.
He nearly leaves this woman, nearly trudges past her with his feet dragging along a path so unmistakably carved out by years of use. But it is less bitterly cold like this with a body at his shoulder, shared heat between the two of them, easy to pretend that he stays because of his aching cold skin, the glass in his lungs. That it is not because this world they’ve battled their way into is some strange kind of lonely apocalypse. That they could be the only two left alive in the entire universe and he would never know the difference.
It’s just them now, just them until the storm breaks and his eyes mean something again.
Just them, and if this is to be his eternity, he would choose not to spend it alone.
---
illum takes the right path