03-17-2021, 12:30 AM
<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> <style type="text/css"> .firion_container { position: relative; z-index: 1; background: #0d1417; width: 600px; padding: 0 0 0 0; border: solid 5px #2e404d; box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px 1px #000; } .firion_container p { margin: 0; } .firion_image { position: relative; z-index: 4; width: 600px; } .firion_text { position: relative; z-index: 6; width: 560px; border-left: 1px solid #243035; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: -300px; border: 1px solid #243035; background: #0D1417; } .firion_quote { font: 11px 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; text-align: left; color: #2e404d; padding: 10px; border-bottom: 1px solid #2e404d; letter-spacing: 0.5px; } .firion_message { position: relative; font: 12px 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify; color: #434952; padding: 20px; } .firion_quotetwo { font: 11px 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; text-align: right; color: #2e404d; padding: 10px; border-top: 1px solid #2e404d; letter-spacing: 0.5px; } </style> <center> <div class="firion_container"> <div class="firion_text"> <p class="firion_quote">that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried</p> <p class="firion_message"> Firion is aware that his mother leaves him—aware that he is again by himself—and the part of him that is still a young boy breaks. The part of him that is still the golden, jaguar-dappled son of Ryatah and Atrox wants to cry out, wants to hit his knees, wants to wail for the unfairness of having his mother see him like this and then be ripped away from him. But the only sound that he can make is a gurgling groan, the sound unsticking from his throat like rust and agony, shaking its way into existence.
He takes a stumbling step forward again, trying to focus filmy eyes on the fairy before him.
A headache begins to brew somewhere deep in his rotted mind as he focuses on the unearthly thing, but he does his best to listen—to try and take in the instruction that he can. He had promised, after all. He had said that he would distract and he would do his best to uphold that promise, even though he very much doubted that he would be able to do much more than he was currently doing—which was to say little.
He follows the fairy through the veil and is alone with them on the other side. The pain intensifies and it’s all he can do to swallow it down. But he is aware enough to see the ground beneath him glow and he leans his head to the side, trying to eye the path that splits. He hears the rest of the instructions as through underwater and begins to stumble forward again, his broken flesh dragging in the wind as he continues.
Firion can hear the murmur of the monsters again, thick-throated and loud, but there is no fear that rises in response. There is nothing but an echoing sorrow that reflects back at them. He, too, is a monster, he thinks. He is nothing if not the same as them and his breath whistles out of him as though calling to them—as though beckoning them forward, as though murmuring his understanding.
When something crashes closer to him, he blinks slowly up at it—trying to make out the figure of the thing that had stumbled into his vicinity. It is a dead thing, but so unlike his kind of dead. It was a pale figure, nearly translucent in spots, and he blinks again, trying to focus in on it. There’s something familiar about the way that it stares at him. Something familiar in the scars across its throat, the empty socket where its eye should be, and the humanity in him shudders, balking against the understanding that comes.
<i>“Murderer,”</i> it cries, its voice thin and reedy, and he shakes his decaying head.
“Shh,” he tries to mouth, tries to form the syllables with a tongue that will not cooperate. “Shh,” he says again, but it stumbles closer. <i>“Murderer. Murderer.”</i> He swallows dry saliva, looking away with a white-ringed eye before looking back, and feels a sense of knowing settle like a stone in his rattling chest.
She was the first thing he had killed when under the curse.
She was the first victim of him succumbing to this terrible disease.
Its voice gets louder and his pulse would skyrocket if he had one at all. “Stop,” he croaks, knowing that he has to be quiet, but her shriek has taken on a terrible pitch—and he closes his eyes against it. Tries to forget the way she looked when his predator teeth had sunk into her throat. When her blood had splashed against him. When he had ripped out her eye in a kind of savagery that he never knew in the day.
She screams again and he lunges gracelessly forward.
He blinks and she is on the ground again, her blood painted on him.
He blinks and she is gone and it is just him.
Shaken, confused, agitated, he moves forward again, doing his best to not look back again—keeping his eyes trained forward on the glowing path that twists and turns in front of him. There is nothing but the sound of his ragged hooves muffled against the dirt and the harsh breathing of he monsters that move further in the darkness. Nothing but the sound of nothing—an endless supply of it echoing around him.
When that silence breaks again, it cracks like bone.
His head swivels to the sound of soft tears, a furrow in his peeling lips. It’s off the side of the path and he feels himself moving forward again when the intensity of the cries increase. He hesitates, looking forward and then back toward the source of the sound. He opens his mouth to say “Hello,” but he can only make the first letter before it dies in his mouth. It carries on the wind, nothing more than a quiet breath.
But the cries pause.
<i>“F-Firion?”</i>
Hearing his name like that startles him, nearly breaks through the stupor of the curse, and he takes a step back, more inclined to flee than investigate further. <i>“Is that—is that you?”</i> He shakes his head dumbly, but that doesn’t stop the girl from stepping closer, illuminated by the glow of the ground below.
He remembers her.
Remembers the young girl who had grown up in Taiga, the forest bordering Hyaline. She had been witty and charming and had always known just how to make him laugh. She had eyes that were a startling green and a way of telling a tale that made you want to listen for hours.
He remembers doing just that. Hours.
He remembers finding her in that same forest—after the wolves had done the same.
This time, the scars on her throat are not from him, but he still shakes as though they were. He still trembles and when her pale face crumbles with confusion, he stumbles back. “No,” he croaks. “Stay away,” he warns—and he is not sure if he is warning her away from him because he may hurt her or she may hurt him, but it doesn’t matter. She calls out again and he turns away, head pounding.
No, he thinks. He didn’t kill her.
He didn’t kill that one.
He didn’t.
Right?
The thoughts blur together, the pain ringing in him, and when he finds the split in the path, he doesn’t even hesitate to follow it toward the sound of the crashing river.
The only sound that could drown out the screaming in his own head. </p> <p class="firion_quotetwo">so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried</p> </div> <img class="firion_image" src="https://i.postimg.cc/SQJBb2f8/firion.png"> </div> </center>
He takes a stumbling step forward again, trying to focus filmy eyes on the fairy before him.
A headache begins to brew somewhere deep in his rotted mind as he focuses on the unearthly thing, but he does his best to listen—to try and take in the instruction that he can. He had promised, after all. He had said that he would distract and he would do his best to uphold that promise, even though he very much doubted that he would be able to do much more than he was currently doing—which was to say little.
He follows the fairy through the veil and is alone with them on the other side. The pain intensifies and it’s all he can do to swallow it down. But he is aware enough to see the ground beneath him glow and he leans his head to the side, trying to eye the path that splits. He hears the rest of the instructions as through underwater and begins to stumble forward again, his broken flesh dragging in the wind as he continues.
Firion can hear the murmur of the monsters again, thick-throated and loud, but there is no fear that rises in response. There is nothing but an echoing sorrow that reflects back at them. He, too, is a monster, he thinks. He is nothing if not the same as them and his breath whistles out of him as though calling to them—as though beckoning them forward, as though murmuring his understanding.
When something crashes closer to him, he blinks slowly up at it—trying to make out the figure of the thing that had stumbled into his vicinity. It is a dead thing, but so unlike his kind of dead. It was a pale figure, nearly translucent in spots, and he blinks again, trying to focus in on it. There’s something familiar about the way that it stares at him. Something familiar in the scars across its throat, the empty socket where its eye should be, and the humanity in him shudders, balking against the understanding that comes.
<i>“Murderer,”</i> it cries, its voice thin and reedy, and he shakes his decaying head.
“Shh,” he tries to mouth, tries to form the syllables with a tongue that will not cooperate. “Shh,” he says again, but it stumbles closer. <i>“Murderer. Murderer.”</i> He swallows dry saliva, looking away with a white-ringed eye before looking back, and feels a sense of knowing settle like a stone in his rattling chest.
She was the first thing he had killed when under the curse.
She was the first victim of him succumbing to this terrible disease.
Its voice gets louder and his pulse would skyrocket if he had one at all. “Stop,” he croaks, knowing that he has to be quiet, but her shriek has taken on a terrible pitch—and he closes his eyes against it. Tries to forget the way she looked when his predator teeth had sunk into her throat. When her blood had splashed against him. When he had ripped out her eye in a kind of savagery that he never knew in the day.
She screams again and he lunges gracelessly forward.
He blinks and she is on the ground again, her blood painted on him.
He blinks and she is gone and it is just him.
Shaken, confused, agitated, he moves forward again, doing his best to not look back again—keeping his eyes trained forward on the glowing path that twists and turns in front of him. There is nothing but the sound of his ragged hooves muffled against the dirt and the harsh breathing of he monsters that move further in the darkness. Nothing but the sound of nothing—an endless supply of it echoing around him.
When that silence breaks again, it cracks like bone.
His head swivels to the sound of soft tears, a furrow in his peeling lips. It’s off the side of the path and he feels himself moving forward again when the intensity of the cries increase. He hesitates, looking forward and then back toward the source of the sound. He opens his mouth to say “Hello,” but he can only make the first letter before it dies in his mouth. It carries on the wind, nothing more than a quiet breath.
But the cries pause.
<i>“F-Firion?”</i>
Hearing his name like that startles him, nearly breaks through the stupor of the curse, and he takes a step back, more inclined to flee than investigate further. <i>“Is that—is that you?”</i> He shakes his head dumbly, but that doesn’t stop the girl from stepping closer, illuminated by the glow of the ground below.
He remembers her.
Remembers the young girl who had grown up in Taiga, the forest bordering Hyaline. She had been witty and charming and had always known just how to make him laugh. She had eyes that were a startling green and a way of telling a tale that made you want to listen for hours.
He remembers doing just that. Hours.
He remembers finding her in that same forest—after the wolves had done the same.
This time, the scars on her throat are not from him, but he still shakes as though they were. He still trembles and when her pale face crumbles with confusion, he stumbles back. “No,” he croaks. “Stay away,” he warns—and he is not sure if he is warning her away from him because he may hurt her or she may hurt him, but it doesn’t matter. She calls out again and he turns away, head pounding.
No, he thinks. He didn’t kill her.
He didn’t kill that one.
He didn’t.
Right?
The thoughts blur together, the pain ringing in him, and when he finds the split in the path, he doesn’t even hesitate to follow it toward the sound of the crashing river.
The only sound that could drown out the screaming in his own head. </p> <p class="firion_quotetwo">so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried</p> </div> <img class="firion_image" src="https://i.postimg.cc/SQJBb2f8/firion.png"> </div> </center>