02-20-2021, 04:54 AM
<center><div style="width:500px; padding:20px;font-family:times;font-size:12px;line-height:14px;background:#F5F5F5;color:#000000;text-align:justify;border:1px solid #000000;"><I><b>what have I done, with my heart on the floor,
I must be out of my mind to come back begging for more -- </i></b>
She doesn’t sleep.
Instead, she stares into the dark of Hyaline and thinks how Beyza told her that the reason for Este’s seemingly incurable weakness was because the sun was gone, and she can’t help but feel that this is some version of punishment. She has loved the dark for as long as she can remember; not the kind of dark being eyeless left you in, but the kind that made homes inside of hearts that light never breached.
A dark god and a twisted angel creating a daughter that would eventually die in the darkness—maybe it’s a sign, but she’s never been the kind to heed warnings. She only wishes that the punishment landed on her and not her daughter.
The night itself seems to breathe, and she swears she can feel the way the chest of some unseen beast rattles with its exhale. Shadows twist and crawl, and she no longer uses her infrared vision to see what they are. Some are indiscernible, neither hot nor cold, while others are things she would rather not see, wishes them banished from her memory. The unease that this causes is what stirs the memories of Selaphiel trembling alongside Mazikeen’s broken and bleeding body, the girl dying from the wounds inflicted by the things the eclipse had unleashed.
He is still not the same, and it breaks her.
She stares at him where he sleeps on the ground at her feet, next to his twin sister that is now so weak that sometimes Ryatah isn’t sure if she still breathes at all. He sleeps but she can see that it is a haunted kind of sleep, the kind that is restless and primed for nightmares.
She doesn’t sleep, and instead, she watches the way the dark slowly destroys them.
When she first hears the voice—that thin, faint cry of distress—she almost thinks she had imagined it. Lifting her head from where she rested against Atrox she stares into the endless shadows, casting the world into the various shades of infrared and still finding nothing. Nothing but shadow and dark, and the creatures that she has convinced herself that if she does not acknowledge them then they do not exist.
But her heart will not settle, because there is something about the voice that echoes in her mind, in her bones. She does not know the voice and yet it feels as though it is calling to <i>her</i>.
So she follows it, and if Atrox says anything at all when she leaves she does not hear him, but she trusts that he will not follow. The children will need him if something decides to lurk too close, and he knows by now nothing stops her from making poor choices.
Like setting off into the dark alone, as if the teeth of the shadows are not clicking at her heels as she walks away.
It soon becomes clear that she is being led to the mountain, and only then do her steps begin to slow while simultaneously her pulse quickens beneath her skin. Carnage did not usually lay traps for her—if he wanted her, he simply took her—but it was impossible to forget that the last time she was here he had slit her throat.
She wavers for a moment, uncertain and torn by the idea that following the voices to the mountain would anger him again.
She never forgot the way her blood tasted on her tongue every time he spilled it, but it never seemed to be quite enough to keep her from making the same mistakes over and over.
When she arrives at the base of the mountain there are others gathered already, and she is reminded of that day on the beach; the one where she had begun as a mortal and returned as the undeserved angel she is now. Her pale wings pull closer to her sides, and she is suddenly all too aware that she is brighter than most in the dimness the eclipse cast over them. Her golden halo still glowed above her head, illuminating those almost black eyes that are currently doing their best to not look too closely at the faces here.
It is not until she hears him speak—a voice that she would know anywhere—that she looks up. Her heart leaps into her throat at the sight of Firion, and then it breaks when it reaches her tongue. “Firion,” she whispers his name, and already she is at his side, pale lips on his cheek despite the flesh that peels from it. She forgets that she was called here by someone else, and instead lets herself be consumed by the grief at seeing her son in this state. “Why didn’t you come home?” Her voice cracks with all the fractured pieces, wondering where she had gone wrong for him to think that he had to endure this alone.
Sela is broken and Este is dying and Firion is hardly even a shell of what he used to be.
When she manages to tear her eyes from him to look at the mountain she can only hope that the answer they all needed was here.
<p align=right><b>-- ryatah.</b></font></div></center>
I must be out of my mind to come back begging for more -- </i></b>
She doesn’t sleep.
Instead, she stares into the dark of Hyaline and thinks how Beyza told her that the reason for Este’s seemingly incurable weakness was because the sun was gone, and she can’t help but feel that this is some version of punishment. She has loved the dark for as long as she can remember; not the kind of dark being eyeless left you in, but the kind that made homes inside of hearts that light never breached.
A dark god and a twisted angel creating a daughter that would eventually die in the darkness—maybe it’s a sign, but she’s never been the kind to heed warnings. She only wishes that the punishment landed on her and not her daughter.
The night itself seems to breathe, and she swears she can feel the way the chest of some unseen beast rattles with its exhale. Shadows twist and crawl, and she no longer uses her infrared vision to see what they are. Some are indiscernible, neither hot nor cold, while others are things she would rather not see, wishes them banished from her memory. The unease that this causes is what stirs the memories of Selaphiel trembling alongside Mazikeen’s broken and bleeding body, the girl dying from the wounds inflicted by the things the eclipse had unleashed.
He is still not the same, and it breaks her.
She stares at him where he sleeps on the ground at her feet, next to his twin sister that is now so weak that sometimes Ryatah isn’t sure if she still breathes at all. He sleeps but she can see that it is a haunted kind of sleep, the kind that is restless and primed for nightmares.
She doesn’t sleep, and instead, she watches the way the dark slowly destroys them.
When she first hears the voice—that thin, faint cry of distress—she almost thinks she had imagined it. Lifting her head from where she rested against Atrox she stares into the endless shadows, casting the world into the various shades of infrared and still finding nothing. Nothing but shadow and dark, and the creatures that she has convinced herself that if she does not acknowledge them then they do not exist.
But her heart will not settle, because there is something about the voice that echoes in her mind, in her bones. She does not know the voice and yet it feels as though it is calling to <i>her</i>.
So she follows it, and if Atrox says anything at all when she leaves she does not hear him, but she trusts that he will not follow. The children will need him if something decides to lurk too close, and he knows by now nothing stops her from making poor choices.
Like setting off into the dark alone, as if the teeth of the shadows are not clicking at her heels as she walks away.
It soon becomes clear that she is being led to the mountain, and only then do her steps begin to slow while simultaneously her pulse quickens beneath her skin. Carnage did not usually lay traps for her—if he wanted her, he simply took her—but it was impossible to forget that the last time she was here he had slit her throat.
She wavers for a moment, uncertain and torn by the idea that following the voices to the mountain would anger him again.
She never forgot the way her blood tasted on her tongue every time he spilled it, but it never seemed to be quite enough to keep her from making the same mistakes over and over.
When she arrives at the base of the mountain there are others gathered already, and she is reminded of that day on the beach; the one where she had begun as a mortal and returned as the undeserved angel she is now. Her pale wings pull closer to her sides, and she is suddenly all too aware that she is brighter than most in the dimness the eclipse cast over them. Her golden halo still glowed above her head, illuminating those almost black eyes that are currently doing their best to not look too closely at the faces here.
It is not until she hears him speak—a voice that she would know anywhere—that she looks up. Her heart leaps into her throat at the sight of Firion, and then it breaks when it reaches her tongue. “Firion,” she whispers his name, and already she is at his side, pale lips on his cheek despite the flesh that peels from it. She forgets that she was called here by someone else, and instead lets herself be consumed by the grief at seeing her son in this state. “Why didn’t you come home?” Her voice cracks with all the fractured pieces, wondering where she had gone wrong for him to think that he had to endure this alone.
Sela is broken and Este is dying and Firion is hardly even a shell of what he used to be.
When she manages to tear her eyes from him to look at the mountain she can only hope that the answer they all needed was here.
<p align=right><b>-- ryatah.</b></font></div></center>