03-01-2017, 04:49 AM
something has been taken from deep inside of me;
the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.
the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.
He is alone, a dark pillar of strength and stoicism standing amid a sea of dried brush, which delicately laps at the broad length of his legs, entangling itself with the sweat-slick skin that lay across fine muscle and bone. The puckered, pink scars fade beneath the faintest of moonlight, settling across its blank, black canvas, hiding beneath a tangle of unkempt hair. A single vertical stain is streaked across his cheek where the salty brine of drying tears lay, fallen from a pair of angry, distraught red eyes, as vivid and as bright as the burning, bristling fire that burns hot from within.
The stench of death is burdensome, settling between the rigid lines of his shoulders, boring into his pores as it stirs the deepest, darkest memories from the recesses of his mind. He observes in silence as one of his closest friends slowly begins to waste away, the once firm and compact muscle becoming lean and weak beneath a slew of russet skin – his eyes, once full of life and ferocity, now empty and forlorn. A fragment of the strength and energy Killdare had once had; a shadow of what he had once been.
Though his heart still pounds against the visible lines of his rib cage (weaker and weaker with each thrust; fading away slowly), death has already begun to seep into the hollow of his sunken belly, between the ridges of his fragile vertebrae. His mind, once sharp (and his wit even sharper), now lay weary, tired. The days had turned into months, and the months into years, but his memory had never recovered - it had never returned to him, and the thought of it leaves a gaping wound within his own chest.
Guilt has already begun to fester, as infectious as a bleeding wound, enveloping the entirety of his body and mind. There had been many moments that he could have sought his presence; many moments he could have reached out to the once burning magma King, but instead he remained in the shadows, watching as the fire within his once bright and calculating eyes faded into a flickering ember. Selfish, he chided himself, and it was the truth – for as long as he has lived, death has never been easy to swallow, and his heart is too weak to look it in the eye.
A shaky breath emerges from his lungs, lips parted with the many words he longed to say, with the memories he craved to relive with his closest friend, but he could not bring himself to wade through the volcanic ash and dense cloak of night to move nearer to him. No, he watches instead as the feeble, weakened form rises from the ground as the horizon begins to become awash with vivid color, with auburn and rust painted across its midnight canvas. His heart clenches in the iron cage of his chest at the sight; it is wholly suitable – the very colors that had once bubbled up between the crevices of Killdare’s layers of pumice and magma.
In silence, he shadows their every movement, observing the sallow line of the fading King’s spine in contrast to the feminine swell of his Queen’s belly (life and death, shoulder to shoulder). An impenetrable sorrow has already begun to crawl along the surface of his nerves, his heart aching and tender, and a part of him longs to pull away – to drown the memories bubbling beneath the fissures of his mind, to swallow the pit of desolation opening itself up inside of his chest – but he cannot bring himself to.
Gently, the tide embraces the shore, covering it with its cradling touch as it moves to and fro – there is nothing but the bleached, drying bones settled into dunes of sand, and the unwavering scent of demise to cloak him, and it descends in a heavy blanket, shrouding him in its nauseating warmth. Silently, he watches as he collapses unto himself, the sharp, jagged lines of stone prying into his sickly skin, her gentle lips brushing across the vacant hollow of his protruding bones to soothe him. He turns his cheek, then, pained red eyes staring out into the dark abyss of the thundering sea, his tired heart unable to bear watching the loving exchange made in a final moment.
Soon, the sound of her weeping envelopes him, drowning out the lamenting regret that had long since settled into his own bones and drawing him back to reality. His heart sinks to the very pit of his stomach as his eyes take in the sight of her draped over him, agony and anguish pulling her beneath the surface, suffocating her in its merciless grip. It is then that he knows he is gone; the light fading away from his eyes and leaving them empty and void – the flame extinguished; with nothing but ash left in its wake.
He does little to acknowledge those who have followed, those who have come to see what is left of the once powerful, formidable King. Instead, he presses the hardened line of his nose to her shoulder, darkened coal against deep indigo, his own hot tears falling from the curve of his jaw onto the darkness of her own coat, staining it. Beneath her, there is nothing left but the shell of what had once been, the skeleton of what had once housed a beautiful, intricately complicated soul, and he murmurs to her that it is time to get up, that the sun is setting, and the sky is giving way to its vivid hues of magenta and plum as the sun drifts beyond the horizon.
When she eventually rises and presses herself into his broad shoulder, nestling against the hardened line of muscle and bone, he draws her near to his breast, cradling the thickness of his neck over hers as his heart pounds steadily against her ear. His gaze lingers on the still, lifeless body of his closest friend, of his brother, and quietly he murmurs, ”I’m so sorry. Goodbye, my brother.”
--
Killdare,
The world will never be the same without you in it. We stood united, side by side, through combat and strife - it feels as if a lifetime has gone by since then, and surely, it has. Your companionship, our brotherhood, meant more to me that you will ever know. I will not forget you, and I look forward to the day that I see you again.
I will watch after Malis, and your family. You have my word.
I thank you, for everything.
Goodbye, my brother.
wounds so deep they never show; they never go away.
like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.
like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.
Offspring
I h8 u both.