a dead and dying thing

[Tatter]

Burn everything you love then burn the ashes.
In the end everything collides;
My childhood spat back out the monster that you see.

Tatter has no true power of his own, and yet he had fought for the Chamber with every living breath until he was struck down in war, far from his home’s soil. The Valley War had been a brutal one, and his death at the hands of the telekinetic woman hadn’t been the first that day, nor was it the last. From there, it had been years upon years in the Afterlife, conversing with few other than those of his immediate family who had come to join him. He had quite reunions with so many of them - Frostreaver, Fey, Nocturnal, Eliska, Frostweaver, and others; lovers and too many children and even a grandchild, little Strangelet.

It is no surprise that another war had pulled him back to the world of the living; war was something as intimate to him as a lover, and he had thrown himself back into the battle’s embrace. Once the war was done, he had faded again; not dead, but not truly living anymore. Was he a ghost at that point? He supposes he could’ve been then.

He doesn’t know the ghosts speak to her, whispering stories of his past into her ears. The Chamber he had been raised in was one in which magic was scorned by the kingdom herself. He had watched as the Chamber bucked and fought against Set’s very being after his alliance win, denying him keeping the throne any longer. The Chamber had threatened to tear the champion’s magic from his very being, willing to rip him to shreds to force him to give it up. Instead, the stallion had chosen to abdicate, and leave the throne to his children.

The mare before him asks a question, and his yellow eyes gleam as he turns to take everything in. “I ruled it,” he responds, looking back to her, “for nearly two decades.” It’s her eyes, he decides, that seem so familiar. Amber, with an intensity that could probably bring a lesser man to his knees. “What’s your name?” he asks suddenly, not that he would recognize her simply by her name. He hardly remembers Straia and her sister Araby, let alone any of their children.

Tatter.

@ Iris