I wish I could feel it all for you; Pollock/Any

[Pollock]

I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray

Boredom.

It festers.
He finds it rankles his appetite, makes him hungry.

Makes his restless.

It should come as no surprise. For those with some idea of his sense of ‘fun’, such reticence sounds more like a thunderous warning than an impotent buzz; a calm before the storm. He has always been a man of pleasures; he has not always been a man capable of exacting such things, but since returning from the North, he has never hesitated to wet his lips. He sought out his toys and altars and absolutions, wolfishly; and when it came time, he faced those insidious ghosts meant to make him pay, in sleep or insomnia.
(Nothing is ever free.)

He never said he was meant to be a ruler; he was born in mud and baptized in ice and then once again, reborn, in viscera – only, when a god-king lifts the crown from his head and sets it on your own… well, it feeds the ego, you see.
But it does not feed the fun. Or so he has found, thus far. It can be hard to scratch some itches with a hellish wasteland draped across your shoulder. So he had set it down, let it sink into the dust and grow boring. He shrugged it off and paced the warped teeth of Pangea’s cliffsides, alone. He lingered, more often than not, on her northern spine where he can smell the saltwater and be reminded of familiar, comfortable memories.

(Her, finally. Laid to rest in sand and brine. Bitch. Craven, piggish whore.
The washes. Those ablutions, where he would shutter his eyes tight and dip his horns into the ocean.
From them, it would take his sins – those shards of white, like eggshells; those bits of pink, like minced meat hanging on the ridges – and relieve him of their burden.)

But, nothing is ever free. This crown, least of all. Eventually, he came back, bathed again in ocean water, clean and clear-headed. He had mulled over that which needed to be settled in his mind; he has decided what needs to be done, but not yet who needs to do what.
With that, he shrugged the wastes back into his shoulder.

Today, he is motivated. The giver-king spies them from up high. The man he has seen with Bruise on more than one occasion, who he remembers vaguely from the first meeting as having wandered in, so very uninvited. And the new girl, whom he has seen from atop his throne of limestone, scurrying with the other rats.
Neither he knows any better than the other.

Time to make appearances. He descends from his high tower, passing by twisted stone columns and walls, some marked by the shallow, chalky gashes make by his horns. ‘Are you looking for something dearie?’ He smirks, moving to them slowly, if only to let him play. Boy will be boys. “So?” his voice is gravelly and suffering slightly from underuse, but still, it snaps and growls, even when it is quiet. Even when it does not mean to, “is it something or someone, woman? Who are you?” He eyes her with those hard, stern black eyes, his lips straight and unkind.

POLLOCK
the gift giver