And the saints we see, are all made of gold [ Malis]

[Malis]

"we pull apart the darkness while we can"

She can remember the sound her spine made when it ruptured somewhere above her withers, the white hot intensity of too much pressure, so much pain, a knife wedged between the vertebrae. There had been a hollow pop, and then everything faded. It was like a cord of stunted electricity stretched throughout her body, a quivering thread pulled so tight and she could feel it thrumming deep inside. But when she tried to move, to struggle back to her feet, when he prowled closer to taste the wounds on her flesh with such pleasure glowing in his eyes, she felt nothing. Nothing, until with hoof and horn he caved in her beautiful face, turned her upturned eye to jelly in her skull. That she had felt, each wound so intimately made until at last the dark came to claim her and she submitted willingly.

When she woke again it was impossible to tell how much time had passed, but her strange, treacherous body had already begun the process of regeneration. Her eye was a solid thing again, and the crushed bones beneath that aching indigo color stretched across her delicate face were knitting back together slowly. It was time in rewind as all those broken, ruined pieces found ways to pull back together and heal themselves, as her severed spine reattached and she was greeted by a tidal wave of pain from the wounds that still wept red tears. It was longer still before she could stand again, so she remained stranded beside the carcass she had fallen over after pulling away from Pollock who had taken everything, everything, from her. The scent of dead and rot and a death she had longed for remained in her nose long after she had finally stood and disappeared into the shadow of the meadow with dried blood like tears spilling across the blue of her skin.

It was strange that she had chosen to remain in the meadow, but once it became clear that his child grew in her belly, there was nowhere else she would rather be but alone and isolated. Her family would have questions she did not know how to answer, and if she tried she knew there would be pity waiting for her in their eyes and she would drown in it. So she hid as all wretched things should, until someone new came to her meadow and he smelt of smoke and burnt things and she found herself remembering things she always wished she would forget. Things that she had hoped would fade as all dream-things do, even though this dream had been as real as anything else in her world. She drifts closer because she cannot help herself, but her head is lowered so that the horns drop towards him sinisterly.

It isn’t until after he has said hello, a greeting she had chosen to ignore, that she catches the scent of the Chamber on his skin, hidden beneath the odor of burnt and smoke. She softens immediately, if only slightly, and when she lifts her face to look at him more closely, those glittering obsidian horns return to proud points pressed towards the sky. “You smell like home.” She tells him eventually, reluctantly, even as she resents him for it. Malis understands how the world works, how everything comes to a circle. She knows without knowing what this will mean for her. Her eyes flicker to his and she is surprised to find that his are cut from the same stones as hers, an aching green like cold emeralds buried in the earth. Her voice is quieter now, her face tight and refined from the tension that seeps from the shadow etched against indigo. “I ran away from that home.”

MALIS

makai x oksana

texture © hexe78

just remember we're pretending this was in a tangly timeline where killdare is kingdare and malis is super pregnant. <3