11-14-2015, 01:28 AM
KINGSLAY
These moments are not what he was made for.
He was made of lies and magic. The gnarled tips of witches’ fingers kissed him and made him a god. He was made to bathe in the warm blood of the dying. He was made to curl in the innards of the things he had slaughtered; forged from the fires of hell, grafted from the bones and ash of the things that once were. He is not made for these moments. He is not made to wade a sea of grass for something he does not intend to ruin completely. He is not made for close proximity – to be close enough that the clouds of his breath will fuse with hers until they become one, to feel the thrum of her pulse so deeply in his bones that it feels like his own.
He is not made for this.
And yet it breaks him to have it end. And yet, she pulls away with a sigh and it leaves his body reaching for something he cannot begin to comprehend. “Oh,” she says, and the hurt is palpable even if he cannot understand it. She has grown. She has changed. The sun rose and, and it set, and the transition cast shadows on her skin that have left her vastly different even if the shade never could reach him. She has grown, and she has changed, and he is still the same thing that he has always been. There is still a creature in his bones that is hungry for the living. He still needs to watch the life drain from their eyes. She still needs three words he cannot say.
He is not made for this.
And when she pulls away there is a breeze that will pull through her hair that sifts through the cloud of breath and smoke, and it will make his ribs rattle. “I’m sorry,” she says, and his lips will curl because she reeks of betrayal – because she reeks of the living, because she reeks of him (of nights without death or fire, of conversation, of possibilities that exist without him).
He is not made for this.
He thinks about the crack that echoed through the grass when he broke the rabbit’s neck, and it reminds him of her too-large, dark eyes, and of the questions that looked like lights that she harboured in the black fractures of her irises. And between the murder, between the marrow and the bone, between the screams and the silence, he remembers. He remembers the way her hips looked until they dissolved into the sandstorm. He remembers the way her eyes looked alight. He remembers the way that her legs were too lean and too long, the way her eyes were too large.
“No,” he says, because the edge where she had lain across his chest feels cold without her even if he is made of ash and fire and hell.
“No,” he says, but then he remembers the smell.
Then he remembers that he is not the only creature in her life. Then he remembers that she ran. Then he remembers that she said she never would.
He was made of lies and magic. The gnarled tips of witches’ fingers kissed him and made him a god. He was made to bathe in the warm blood of the dying. He was made to curl in the innards of the things he had slaughtered; forged from the fires of hell, grafted from the bones and ash of the things that once were. He is not made for these moments. He is not made to wade a sea of grass for something he does not intend to ruin completely. He is not made for close proximity – to be close enough that the clouds of his breath will fuse with hers until they become one, to feel the thrum of her pulse so deeply in his bones that it feels like his own.
He is not made for this.
And yet it breaks him to have it end. And yet, she pulls away with a sigh and it leaves his body reaching for something he cannot begin to comprehend. “Oh,” she says, and the hurt is palpable even if he cannot understand it. She has grown. She has changed. The sun rose and, and it set, and the transition cast shadows on her skin that have left her vastly different even if the shade never could reach him. She has grown, and she has changed, and he is still the same thing that he has always been. There is still a creature in his bones that is hungry for the living. He still needs to watch the life drain from their eyes. She still needs three words he cannot say.
He is not made for this.
And when she pulls away there is a breeze that will pull through her hair that sifts through the cloud of breath and smoke, and it will make his ribs rattle. “I’m sorry,” she says, and his lips will curl because she reeks of betrayal – because she reeks of the living, because she reeks of him (of nights without death or fire, of conversation, of possibilities that exist without him).
He is not made for this.
He thinks about the crack that echoed through the grass when he broke the rabbit’s neck, and it reminds him of her too-large, dark eyes, and of the questions that looked like lights that she harboured in the black fractures of her irises. And between the murder, between the marrow and the bone, between the screams and the silence, he remembers. He remembers the way her hips looked until they dissolved into the sandstorm. He remembers the way her eyes looked alight. He remembers the way that her legs were too lean and too long, the way her eyes were too large.
“No,” he says, because the edge where she had lain across his chest feels cold without her even if he is made of ash and fire and hell.
“No,” he says, but then he remembers the smell.
Then he remembers that he is not the only creature in her life. Then he remembers that she ran. Then he remembers that she said she never would.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.