04-16-2015, 09:31 PM
I return to the Deserts as the sun begins to sink beneath the horizon, and take with it the scorching heat. The sand is strange beneath my hooves after a day in the Meadow, but as I make my way through the growing shadows I re-acquaint myself with the shift of it below my weight. My ancestors were not made for a life on the sands, yet here I remain; I cannot imagine any other home.
Though this has always been a light kingdom, with my Father’s absence it feels brighter still. He was an ever present storm cloud on the horizon, dark and thunderous and eternally disappointed in me. His death is a weight off of my chest, and though I know such a thought should make me feel guilty, I cannot summon the false emotion. I am not the son that he wanted; Kratos was. I was an embarrassment, shameful, a weakling.
I am not physically weak, of course.
I never was.
But I am not strong in the way that he wanted, not powerful in the way that my mother expected. I was slow of speech and lacked the bloodlust of my twin; did my parents truly expect that there would be any battle-skills left for me once Kratos had inherited it all? I would rather be in company than alone, and I enjoy the mindless chatter that my mother had always scorned as useless diplomacy. But the life of a politician is not a fitting one for the son of Vanquish and Lyric; I should be a warrior.
The moon is a slim crescent in the still pink sky, and I watch its reflection in the still water of the oasis. After a while I break the reflection for a drink, and then stand quietly at the edge of the water as I watch the last of the orange light fade over the western mountains.
Though this has always been a light kingdom, with my Father’s absence it feels brighter still. He was an ever present storm cloud on the horizon, dark and thunderous and eternally disappointed in me. His death is a weight off of my chest, and though I know such a thought should make me feel guilty, I cannot summon the false emotion. I am not the son that he wanted; Kratos was. I was an embarrassment, shameful, a weakling.
I am not physically weak, of course.
I never was.
But I am not strong in the way that he wanted, not powerful in the way that my mother expected. I was slow of speech and lacked the bloodlust of my twin; did my parents truly expect that there would be any battle-skills left for me once Kratos had inherited it all? I would rather be in company than alone, and I enjoy the mindless chatter that my mother had always scorned as useless diplomacy. But the life of a politician is not a fitting one for the son of Vanquish and Lyric; I should be a warrior.
The moon is a slim crescent in the still pink sky, and I watch its reflection in the still water of the oasis. After a while I break the reflection for a drink, and then stand quietly at the edge of the water as I watch the last of the orange light fade over the western mountains.