12-19-2015, 12:35 AM
KINGSLAY
In a forest not unlike this one, he became what he is now.
They looked like shadows, because they seemed to move in fragments, because they didn’t behave in ways that he could understand. They were all around him in one second, and beside him in the next. They carved trenches in his flesh like insignias with their gnarled fingernails (when he was flesh instead of fire) and he could not feel the magic hidden in the tips of their fingers until he ran red with it. The forest swells tonight with fear and pain, so of course he has come.
He was born for nights like this one.
He is made for this.
This – when electricity splits the sky into pieces and he winds through a forest that feels darker for it. A cloud of breath rolls off his tongue and between his teeth before it’s lost into a sea of white fog that rolls in like a tide between the ancient trunks of misshapen trees, because he has always been a slave to this instinct. Because he will run until his heart and his lungs collapse, because the thrill of a hunt has always held him tighter than breathing ever has.
He is made for this.
Because this sounds like music.
This sounds like a thousand yells, all at once. It sounds like the rattling scream of a fearful cat newly missing it’s tail. This sounds like the cold prickle that creeps across your skin and leaves the hair that it touches standing on end, like the flesh itself is lifted, like the flesh itself is caught in the breeze. He is made for this. He is made for the moments that look like the colour red – perverted, and sharp. He is made for this, for wild violence.
He is made to hunt where the moonlight cannot touch him, where every now and then the lightening washes the forest in the colour of sight and illuminates the too-sharp angles of his face. He is already a monster. There are angry fists that hold the bones of his ribs curled neatly between fingers and palms. He is already a villain. He is already a murderer, but he has never looked the part more than now in these moments while he runs, head aslant, heavy on the heels of something moving.
“I deserve this,” it says, and he knows only because he is close enough now to smell the sweat on her skin. The lightning splits her irises like glass shatters and he answers, “Yes.”
And then:
“Kingslay,” he says, not because he is saying hello, but because he is saying goodbye – because he feeds them the last words on their lips before the line runs flat, before the light falls away from their eyes.
They looked like shadows, because they seemed to move in fragments, because they didn’t behave in ways that he could understand. They were all around him in one second, and beside him in the next. They carved trenches in his flesh like insignias with their gnarled fingernails (when he was flesh instead of fire) and he could not feel the magic hidden in the tips of their fingers until he ran red with it. The forest swells tonight with fear and pain, so of course he has come.
He was born for nights like this one.
He is made for this.
This – when electricity splits the sky into pieces and he winds through a forest that feels darker for it. A cloud of breath rolls off his tongue and between his teeth before it’s lost into a sea of white fog that rolls in like a tide between the ancient trunks of misshapen trees, because he has always been a slave to this instinct. Because he will run until his heart and his lungs collapse, because the thrill of a hunt has always held him tighter than breathing ever has.
He is made for this.
Because this sounds like music.
This sounds like a thousand yells, all at once. It sounds like the rattling scream of a fearful cat newly missing it’s tail. This sounds like the cold prickle that creeps across your skin and leaves the hair that it touches standing on end, like the flesh itself is lifted, like the flesh itself is caught in the breeze. He is made for this. He is made for the moments that look like the colour red – perverted, and sharp. He is made for this, for wild violence.
He is made to hunt where the moonlight cannot touch him, where every now and then the lightening washes the forest in the colour of sight and illuminates the too-sharp angles of his face. He is already a monster. There are angry fists that hold the bones of his ribs curled neatly between fingers and palms. He is already a villain. He is already a murderer, but he has never looked the part more than now in these moments while he runs, head aslant, heavy on the heels of something moving.
“I deserve this,” it says, and he knows only because he is close enough now to smell the sweat on her skin. The lightning splits her irises like glass shatters and he answers, “Yes.”
And then:
“Kingslay,” he says, not because he is saying hello, but because he is saying goodbye – because he feeds them the last words on their lips before the line runs flat, before the light falls away from their eyes.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.