06-28-2021, 12:49 PM
He never left the dark, or perhaps it was the dark that never left him. But as soon as the world was right again and so many were content with pretending that the evernight hadn’t carved away some vital piece of innocence, some crucial piece that still made them kind and gentle and good, Sorren realized he no longer fit here. Not in the light, not in a world with rules restored. Where things like manners mattered, where diplomacy was once more just as important as strength. He couldn’t pretend like the dark hadn’t changed him, like killing had not left some kind of black imprint on his heart.
So he gave himself to other things, to hunting the creatures that did still remain, to finding their nests and destroying them because there was nowhere else for this broken fury inside his chest to go. The only relief he found was sinking claws and teeth into meat or carapace or whatever the hell these things were made of. It didn’t matter that what they bled tasted bitter and vile and left him feeling ill for days afterwards.
He fought because if he didn’t then his demons might find him.
He fought because if his demons did find him, he might be crushed beneath the weight of them.
One of them, these creatures, the everdark remnants, one of them had worn the face of his sister. Something cold and mutated and snarling. It even had her voice. Too small and fragile for the violence in her eyes, too gentle for the blood streaked over her mouth and down the front of her chest. He had known it wasn’t his sister, his twin, some vital piece of his ugly soul, he had known how the beasts evolved to be so clever. To draw prey in more easily, to kill more effectively.
He had destroyed it with more fury than any storm, more violence and fury than even the scald of fire. He had felt nothing but satisfaction when the body tore beneath his claws because he knew it wasn’t her. It wasn’t Splendora.
But then days passed, and months.
Years?
She never returned. Not even when the sun finally climbed out from behind the moon to cast a shy kind of hazy light over a world scorched by death and dark. She never came back.
It was enough to plant a seed of doubt, enough to make him wonder at his own madness. Had he truly killed a beast? Or had it been her. Had it been Splendora. He couldn’t remember now how violent and wrong the thing with her face had been, how it had chittered and spit and leered at him. He can only remember her face and her voice and the way the body had torn.
The way she was still gone.
The seed inside him blossomed as seeds are wont to do, it grew and grew until the memory of what had happened scattered like ashes in the wind and left him with no sureness of what had happened. It chased him here to the forest, here where the beasts were still themselves and no one ever ventured close enough to meet them. If the tangle of trees didn’t stop them, then the bone crushing cold usually did. It was safe here. Here where he is safe, where he can hurt no one like he must have hurt Splendora.
It is why he doesn’t realize that Cheri is herself when she lands nearby the tree he rests beneath. A more scarred and mangled version of the manticore she had met those many years ago. It is why he rises and retreats in the blink of an eye, feeling that familiar fury wash over him like cold fire. He limps silently through the trees at the perimeter of the small clearing, though this pain means nothing to him, and appears from the shadows four feet to the right of where the creature with Cheri’s face stares at the tangle of roots where he had been resting, dying, it was hard to know the difference any more.
“Bold of you to assume I won’t kill you while you wear the face of someone I would never touch.” He says, and his voice is something low and furious, a note of raggedness from the sick that always follows the kill of one of these creatures. He is two days in and it feels like his heart is a stone in his chest, like it is too hard to pump anything but death through him. He is not afraid of dying though - there are worse things for the world than that - and so he staggers closer with a low snarl, his armored tail curling up over his back with the barb aimed for her chest.
But he is a liar.
He thinks of Splendora and how she never came back, thinks of Cheri who had been so full of fire and sass in a way that left him amused for many days afterwards. He doesn’t want to think of her body, now grown and beautiful, broken in this forest. Even if it isn’t really her.
“Maybe I’ll just let you kill me instead.”
So he gave himself to other things, to hunting the creatures that did still remain, to finding their nests and destroying them because there was nowhere else for this broken fury inside his chest to go. The only relief he found was sinking claws and teeth into meat or carapace or whatever the hell these things were made of. It didn’t matter that what they bled tasted bitter and vile and left him feeling ill for days afterwards.
He fought because if he didn’t then his demons might find him.
He fought because if his demons did find him, he might be crushed beneath the weight of them.
One of them, these creatures, the everdark remnants, one of them had worn the face of his sister. Something cold and mutated and snarling. It even had her voice. Too small and fragile for the violence in her eyes, too gentle for the blood streaked over her mouth and down the front of her chest. He had known it wasn’t his sister, his twin, some vital piece of his ugly soul, he had known how the beasts evolved to be so clever. To draw prey in more easily, to kill more effectively.
He had destroyed it with more fury than any storm, more violence and fury than even the scald of fire. He had felt nothing but satisfaction when the body tore beneath his claws because he knew it wasn’t her. It wasn’t Splendora.
But then days passed, and months.
Years?
She never returned. Not even when the sun finally climbed out from behind the moon to cast a shy kind of hazy light over a world scorched by death and dark. She never came back.
It was enough to plant a seed of doubt, enough to make him wonder at his own madness. Had he truly killed a beast? Or had it been her. Had it been Splendora. He couldn’t remember now how violent and wrong the thing with her face had been, how it had chittered and spit and leered at him. He can only remember her face and her voice and the way the body had torn.
The way she was still gone.
The seed inside him blossomed as seeds are wont to do, it grew and grew until the memory of what had happened scattered like ashes in the wind and left him with no sureness of what had happened. It chased him here to the forest, here where the beasts were still themselves and no one ever ventured close enough to meet them. If the tangle of trees didn’t stop them, then the bone crushing cold usually did. It was safe here. Here where he is safe, where he can hurt no one like he must have hurt Splendora.
It is why he doesn’t realize that Cheri is herself when she lands nearby the tree he rests beneath. A more scarred and mangled version of the manticore she had met those many years ago. It is why he rises and retreats in the blink of an eye, feeling that familiar fury wash over him like cold fire. He limps silently through the trees at the perimeter of the small clearing, though this pain means nothing to him, and appears from the shadows four feet to the right of where the creature with Cheri’s face stares at the tangle of roots where he had been resting, dying, it was hard to know the difference any more.
“Bold of you to assume I won’t kill you while you wear the face of someone I would never touch.” He says, and his voice is something low and furious, a note of raggedness from the sick that always follows the kill of one of these creatures. He is two days in and it feels like his heart is a stone in his chest, like it is too hard to pump anything but death through him. He is not afraid of dying though - there are worse things for the world than that - and so he staggers closer with a low snarl, his armored tail curling up over his back with the barb aimed for her chest.
But he is a liar.
He thinks of Splendora and how she never came back, thinks of Cheri who had been so full of fire and sass in a way that left him amused for many days afterwards. He doesn’t want to think of her body, now grown and beautiful, broken in this forest. Even if it isn’t really her.
“Maybe I’ll just let you kill me instead.”
sorren
i'll take my heart clean apart if it helps yours beat
@Cheri