we only know this light; caius

[Caius]

when is a monster not a monster? oh, when you love it He misses the wings, sometimes. He could never fly with them – they had not borne heavy things aloft – but when he was granted them Vanquish had been so proud, had tried to teach him to fly. He misses that – the pride, the joy, the feeling of acceptance. (All a lie, in truth – he is a soldier who has not fought for his kingdom, who wore false wings. He is not his father. He is not proud.) What’s left – the open craters, the memory of wing-joints – hurts no more or no less. He wonders if these wounds will close, in time, or if they will weep the way the wings had. He is no stranger to pain, does not mind overmuch, though sometimes he tries to recall what it was like to walk unburdened and finds he cannot. God but he’s missed her touch, even if her touch falls upon the ugliest parts of him, he’ll take it, crave it. “Beqanna took its magic back from the unworthy,” he says, voice tight but fair – to call himself unworthy to her – to turn her gaze to it – hurts, but it’s true. Besides, he is not the important one here. “How is Elanor?” he asks, a knot of shame in his belly – his only daughter, and he doesn’t know where she is, if she’s well, if she’s even alive. (She must be alive, at least. Surely if she wasn’t he’d have seen her ghost.) c a i u s vanquish x chantale