the dark, it burns my eyes; dahmer, any

[magnus]

For all of his wandering, and for all of his changing of homes, Magnus had never been a vagabond, not truly. He was born and raised to be rooted to a kingdom—to pick up the shield and the sword and to serve it with his life is necessary. He was genetically deposed to be loyal to a kingdom and to pledge himself to the people within it. So while he could appreciate her story, as he was certain she could appreciate his own, he couldn’t truly understand it—not in his bones, not in the way that she deserved.

It was just a foreign concept to never tie yourself to a land, to not love a land.

“I suppose that makes you lucky, in a sense.” Because he certainly felt unlucky on some days when he woke up and his heart ached in his chest with memories of the Gates and her lovely Spring days, the light filtering through the Mother Tree and the wildfires painting majestic murals on her hills. He ached when he thought of the Jungle and her wild, untamable beauty—the way she never calmed beneath the palm of any Queen, instead forging ahead on her own. And yet—and yet, he also felt sorry for her, in a way.

“But also rather unlucky. To have and to love a home is a grand thing.” He twisted his head to the side a little, looking at her seriously. “I hope that you are one day able to experience something like it.” His gaze moved upward, to the new and yet ancient trees that shield them. “Perhaps you will love it here like that.”

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll