08-06-2016, 08:16 PM
LET ME IN THE WALL YOU'VE BUILT AROUND.
WE CAN LIGHT A MATCH, AND BURN IT DOWN.
The fervor is difficult to hide away, and the fever is impossible to shake. The fire burns from within, festering and blistering beneath his puckered, pink scars and dull, dreary obsidian pelt. A gentle sheen of sweat often wears thin across his body, and his muscles often tremble and quiver as rippling memories tear through him. Each one is a scathing reminder of the way his flesh had been torn away from his body; a white hot fire that had once burned across him and caused his skin to bubble and blister beneath as the heavy fat deposits and sinewy muscle melted under the heat. Even when his heavy lashes rise and he stirs to wake, his muscles clamor and his heart pounds within his chest, and still the fire burns from within.
Though the frigid air had once soothed him because it had simply been a part of him, now it consoled the heartbreak that fractured slowly over the entirety of his being. Stripped away of his icy being, there is now nothing but a caustic heat in its place, leaving him aching for ice against his flesh and a frigid breeze to mellow his rampant mind with its gentle caress. The restlessness often stirs beneath the surface of his solemn, stoic presence, and he swallows the discomfort wholly - but with her, within her gentle embrace, within the quiet confines of their cave and as his mind finally slips away from his grasp, he breaks. Each and every night, he twitches and stirs, tormented with the echo of every heavy scream, the loud ringing of imminent death, and soon it becomes too much.
Too much, and suddenly, she has seen within him. Fragmented, jagged pieces of torture, of fury and blinding hatred. Of searing agony and anguish. A fleeting moment in time when his sanity had been lost to the thought of losing what had been most precious to him (but she does not see this tightly guarded secret; his heart shattered without her and yet he had not admitted what her disappearance had done to him), he had allowed himself to unwind. His guard had fallen, and he had fallen weak to the lust and anger simmering hotly beneath the surface. He had come together with not one, not two, but many - his carnal desires met, and yet the emptiness of prolonged woe remained.
Though he remained tangled with her since the birth of their sweet Eione (precious perfection), the guilt still festered. It could not remain hidden forever.
With a heaving gasp, he stirs, his thick neck lifting suddenly from the frigid stone he'd been resting his cheek upon. His searing eyes search the darkness as his lungs fill and empty rapidly, his heart pounding against his straining rib cage. The same heavy sweat lingers over his body like a dense blanket, and trembling, he draws himself to a stand. She is gone. Absent from his side, though their pristine, quiet daughter sleeps peacefully only a few paces away. He gently presses his damp cheek to hers, nudging a tuft of her mane before he plunges into the bitter cold of night. The moon remains high, lingering in the sky, though a dense gust of wind presses at his behemoth mass as a brutal reminder of the winter that still remains.
Though it has begun to fade, her scent is heavy near the mouth of the cave, and a looming dread begins to settle in the very pit of his belly. Glimpses of his dark nightmares remain, and he knows - she has seen something; perhaps too much. His heart aches, and he knows that he must follow - he cannot be foolish enough to let her. Not this time.
With a gentle rousing to Australis, he ensures the safety and warmth of his youngest daughter, and his heavy, sinewy legs pound heavily against the permafrost-encrusted plain as he launches himself across the valley. The dense foliage lining the border, nor the icy barrier can keep him as bay - she will not slip away from him, not this time.
The evening soon fades away into the gentle caress of another morning, and after many weary miles and hours, he bathes his shining, sweating form beneath the pale sunlight of day. The sky shifts into an array of colors, and soon the many scars that litter his massive body are tinted a gentle gold from the blinding light. His breath remains tense, even as he quietly paces along through the gently weaving path - but her scent remains, lingering on the foliage she has so carelessly brushed against and the heavy steps she has made, and he knows it will not be much longer.
She tires, and though fatigue courses through his veins, he maintains. At last, he sees her - the sunlight painted across her splattered two-toned body, highlighting the gentle slope of her spine, the feminine curve of her jaw and his heart aches for her. A watchful eye follows her, his heart beating raggedly within, his mind rampant. Her doe eyes meet his, and she is undone, and he too becomes undone. Wearily, he moves forward with a still-heaving chest, with wildly blinking eyes, until he is a mere step away from her.
Her breath is sweet and heavy, as his own is, and his voice is laced with more pain, regret and sorrow than words could ever even hope to give life to. "I am so sorry, Isle," He says at last, his tone trembling with emotion as he searches her broken features, her shattered eyes, her fractured self. "it was a moment of weakness - I," He breathes deeply, but it falls so shallow on his endless lung capacity, and so he remains breathless. "I thought you had gone away, that you had left me."
The confession unravels him, and hot tears pull at the powerful, seemingly unbreakable King's pleading eyes, trickling down his cheeks with white hot fervor.
"I have endured so much .. so much," He murmurs, swallowing heavily. "but I could not - cannot bear to lose you. There is no excuse for what I have done, and there is so much -" (too much) "- you do not know, and I have wronged you in so many ways. But there is not a day .. not a single day that goes by that I do not love you, endlessly - please, don't go," His voice drops to a whisper as he reaches out, whiskered lips trailing gently across her jaw, though he is desperate to draw her near to his burning body. "don't leave me. I need you."
OFFSPRING
THE FIRE AND ICE KING OF THE TUNDRA