Nevi

[Offspring]

LET ME IN THE WALL YOU'VE BUILT AROUND.

WE CAN LIGHT A MATCH, AND BURN IT DOWN.

  Her words are scathing, lashing out in with a layer of vehemence and loathing that he never would have anticipated. It cloaks him in its heavy confession and leaves him feeling stripped down to the very bone; sinewy muscle and fat deposits cast aside by the seething acid within her tone of voice. His eyes study her, nothing but his ragged breathing filling the air between the gaps of her haywire, yet altogether venomous train of thought. His lungs struggle to intake the thin mountain air, with its icy sting, and his behemoth form shudders with the effort. Her words cut deeply into him, with smooth strokes as if the freshly sharpened blade were cutting into softened butter. No amount of scarring left on the surface of his body could come close to the way she tears him limb from limb, piece to piece, and slowly, with each passing moment, his eyes darken.

  Suddenly, his heavy lashes close over his eyes as something warm and familiar settles beside him. He knows her presence before he even has to lay an eye on her - she exudes warmth, comfort and compassion, all of which he has lacked for far too long. Her gentle touch presses against his bruises, broken flesh, which still seeps a trickling of fresh blood with any abrupt motion on his part. Her whiskered lips gently touch his shoulder, and though he flinches away from the pulsating pain that emerges there, he presses the weight of his fatigued body against her. His lashes flutter up and a dark eye eye meets with her soft brown, and though he attempts to stifle it, the pain and vertigo he so desperately attempts to swallow lingers with a flickering light. The brutality of his daughter's words blend in with his lover's gentle, worried touch, and he settles in between, scorned by one and doted by another.

  She lashes into him, with the tiring crack of a proverbial leather whip, reiterating his failure and inability to give her what she so desperately desired. It is difficult to swallow, and though he is a King carrying the massive burden of many, there is little more damaging to the tattered shreds of his still-pained soul than the hurtful words of his adoptive daughter. She looks to him with distaste and disdain, and for a long moment, he realizes he is looking into the eyes of an immediate stranger - a leech, seeping away at him, with little care for the callousness of her words. She had come to them, damaged and broken, and he had known the moment his dark red eyes had met the murky brown of her own, she would never be mended by their love and affection. She would suffer, with fragmented pieces of her heart still missing, unyielding to any adoration given her. The dejected son of a rapist and his loathsome victim, he knew the weight of such pain - she was broken, and she always would be.

  Yet, there was something to be said for souls riddled with cracks and fissures. Tenacious ambition, unwavering love and compassion, seeping from the still open wounds of their shattered hearts. Within her, each of these things linger, aching to be released, yet she remains trapped, imprisoned by her own insecurity. He says nothing, allowing the echo of her voice to fill the chasm of the cave, and not once does he look to Neverwas, who trembles and quakes within his presence - ashamed; embarrassed. His searing eyes flash with anger as she lashes out once more (a final time - he will not allow her to do so again) towards her biological siblings, insinuating their existence came to be from a feeble attempt at mending two broken hearts, but she has never been more wrong. His heart swells heavily within his chest, and he is forced to swallow his words, which lay just beneath his tongue. She knows nothing; she is a child. Let her fester. Let her seethe.

  Her final words attempt to lay some sort of shame on him, though the shame lies only within her.

  At last, softly spoken words emerge from Isle's soft lips, murmured so closely to his ear that he nearly flinches again. She admits fault, and he looks to her once more, brow furrowed. He does not speak a word, but the disapproval is heavy in his gaze. He could not disagree more. He could not imagine a more doting, attentive, nurturing mother. She lavished each with hefty layers of affection and adoration, even Lieschel, and yet somehow the most bitter of their brood somehow found fault in her. There was a pang of something he could not quite grasp when his gaze meets Lieschel's once more, and he pushes it to the side. He is weary, pained and wounded - he knows not to vocalize, not yet. He will say something he is certain to regret; he knows.

  Gently, her lips travel along his jaw, causing the tension to fade away as she murmurs gentle words he hardly deserves. Even imperfect love is worth fighting for.

  His heart clenches tightly in his chest, and he presses his cheek to hers, desiring to draw her closer and yet too weak to entertain the idea for long.

  Finally, his trembling son steps forward, though he had been looming close to him since he had stepped forward from the shadows. He attempts to comfort the infuriated, pained child (and she is just that - though she claims to know love, to vow devotion, she is immature and childish in her words and actions) that had only moments ago lashed out at him, with hushed words and promises that would one day be broken. Promises were merely formed from good intentions and held little weight, but that was something each and every one of his children would learn in time. He swallows what feels like bile pressing at the back of his throat, but it is emotion that lingers instead. He is speechless, unable to describe the way his heart tears in each direction - torn apart by one; mended (or so he thinks - the echo of his words are meaningful, sincere, and yet Offspring is not sure of anything now) by another.

  His heart aches and grows heavier by the moment. He cannot both be terrible and wondrous in the very same breath, and he knows that in reality, he is settled somewhere in the middle. Mediocre, at best. Though he strives to provide protection, affection, safety - he has failed. Somewhere along the line, his words and actions had fallen short, and he had failed the ones closest to his heart. Though Neverwas' words are gentle, soothing and afflicted with an anguish all its own, they do little to console the agony of his breaking heart.

  The damage is done. He is too far gone, now.
  He has nothing left to give. Not tonight.

  His eyes look for a long moment at Lieschel, observing her with a depth of sadness that no words can properly express. There are no words to describe the way her words etch a grievous wound into his heart, and he has nothing to give her. She loathes him with such fierce resolution that she is lost to him, and it takes every fiber of his being to tear his eyes away from her.

  "If you are so miserable, Lieschel - so neglected - then go. Nothing stops you now," He murmurs, his voice heavy with emotion. He cannot look at her as he utters these words; there is no betrayal deeper or more damaging than the disrespect and rejection of a child. "you are grown now. We have given you shelter, affection, attention, and yet somehow it has not been enough. Come to me when you are able to compose yourself. You are my daughter, until the day you choose not to be."

  His heart swells once more - he cannot bring himself to look into the eyes of his son, who pleads desperately for his approval, for his affection. He is spent. Physically and emotionally, he is merely a husk. Empty.

  "You are my son, Nevi. You will be my son until my dying breath," - or yours, he doesn't say, knowing his own life will never see its end. "seek me out. You know that you can come to me, with anything. Come to me in the morning. For now, I need to rest. I cannot take handle another moment more."

  Exhausted and worn, he presses his whiskered lips gently against his lover's jaw. The heavy swell of her belly presses against his own, and he longs to be near to her again. He looks longingly into her doe eyes once more, pleading in a way that words could never express. He craves her touch and her presence, and he aches to settle his tired bones in the deepest crevice of a nearby cavern, lost with her and her alone until dawn. 

   He steps in front of her, nearly stumbling past her as he rounds off, pressing his cheek against her flank as he steps uneasily onto the permafrost. His heavy obsidian body glimmers gently beneath the moonlight, streaks of both fresh and dried blood highlighted across his marred flesh, and weakly, he disappears into the heavy shadows of night.

OFFSPRING

THE FIRE AND ICE KING OF THE TUNDRA

I'm sorry, it's terrible. That was a lot of emotion to put into one post. D: