12-01-2019, 07:03 PM
<center><table width="550" style="background: #111315;"><tr><td><div align="justify" style="padding:10px"><center><font color="#941818" style="font-family:times new roman; font-size:9pt; line-height:12px; letter-spacing:2pt;"><b>Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane;</b></font></center>
<font color="#c9d0d6" style="font-family:times new roman; font-size:11pt; line-height:12pt;"><font color="#c9d0d6">
<i>
He has done many terrible things in his all too long life, but killing his mother was the worst.
It was the catalyst, maybe, for all the misery that came after – if he hadn’t torn out his eyes for her, if he hadn’t almost died for her, he might not have become Cancer’s consort, he might not have met Tabytha, he might not have journeyed down the long and awful road of his life, full of sins and sorrow.
He relives the moment often, and it’s strange, because he can no longer recall the fury that had taken him down that path. But he can remember the look in her eyes, furious and sad, one of the last things he saw before he tore his own eyes out (they were replaced, later, scars healed and face made anew by the magician, you would never know by looking at him). He can remember the question he screamed out, begging, desperate in a way he had never been before but would soon become a familiar feeling – is this enough, mother? Is this enough?
He is wallowing, as he is wont to do, when the mists begin, curling around his ankles. It takes him far too long to notice, absorbed as he is, it’s not until the trail before him is swallowed up that he comes to a halt, realizing he is surrounded by a pressing white thickness, the trees gone, the world gone.
He moves again, stumbles – the dirt is gone beneath his hooves, changed to sand, and he feels a faint heat radiate from it, and the familiarity is a fist to his stomach, he is breathless with it, because he knows, even before the mist dissipates, where he is.
A prince never forgets his kingdom.
Truth was, he’d only been in the deserts twice – his birth, and his mother’s murder – but it was enough, the sight and smell of it are seared in his memory, but still, when the mist does clear, he falls to his knees in grief.
(He’d been grateful, when the reckoning came, when the kingdoms of old disappeared. Glad for its demolition, to know it was gone, and he would never have to step foot in it again.)
He might have stayed that way for hours, wrecked on his knees in the sand, but the oasis tugs at him, something deep and unignorable, like a strange, long-forgotten instinct. He moves slowly, bearing the sudden weight of memories refreshed, the heat of the desert sun baking on his dark skin, causing him to quickly break into a sweat.
</i><b>”YOU!”</b><i>
The voice breaks through dunes, breaks through everything, and he looks up, looks at the horse, the stranger, a bay stallion stronger and taller than him. The other moves easily through the sand, adept, and soon he is before Garbage, who makes no move to run. He knows he would be chased down in an instant, and besides, he lacks the self-preservation to run.
“You know what you did,” says the stallion, and Garbage only nods, because of course he knows, and he doesn’t say anything, and then he feels the blow of a hoof to his shoulder, teeth raking across his neck, he’s bleeding and bruising and he doesn’t fight back, because the deserts his owed his blood, he supposes, and he falls to his knees again, just as he’d done when he arrived, and he’s sure that this time he won’t get up, that this warrior will end things, here and now, and he will be </i>gratefuil<I>--
His eyes are closed, so he doesn’t know what happened next, only that the blows stopped coming, that suddenly the world was quiet again, save for his own ragged breathing and the faint noise of the sands shifting. He opens his eyes, and sees he is alone again. He feels blood trickling, warm, his skin raked and broken open in several places, bruised in several more, but the stallion is gone, nowhere to be seen, and if it weren’t for his wounds, Garbage would think he'd imagined the whole thing.
He gets to his feet, moving slow, the pain rushing through him. He’s almost grateful for it – it’s a distraction, something to focus on, something to swallow. He keeps moving. He falls, once more, on his trek, but he gets back up.
There’s something in the oasis. Something to it.
He makes it to the edge, the blood beginning to clot. He looks a wreck, sand sticking to his sweat and blood, cut open, his breathing heavy and ragged. He looks at the oasis, desperate for more, but doesn’t step into it. Doesn’t drink from its shore, even though he is parched.
He waits, this broken prince of the deserts, for whatever comes next.
</i>
</font><center>
<font color="#941818" style="font-family:times new roman; font-size:9pt; line-height:12px; letter-spacing:2pt;"><b>Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.</b>
</font></i></font>
</center></div></td></tr></table></center>
garbage is entering not to be judged because i could NOT resist doing this to him
With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane;</b></font></center>
<font color="#c9d0d6" style="font-family:times new roman; font-size:11pt; line-height:12pt;"><font color="#c9d0d6">
<i>
He has done many terrible things in his all too long life, but killing his mother was the worst.
It was the catalyst, maybe, for all the misery that came after – if he hadn’t torn out his eyes for her, if he hadn’t almost died for her, he might not have become Cancer’s consort, he might not have met Tabytha, he might not have journeyed down the long and awful road of his life, full of sins and sorrow.
He relives the moment often, and it’s strange, because he can no longer recall the fury that had taken him down that path. But he can remember the look in her eyes, furious and sad, one of the last things he saw before he tore his own eyes out (they were replaced, later, scars healed and face made anew by the magician, you would never know by looking at him). He can remember the question he screamed out, begging, desperate in a way he had never been before but would soon become a familiar feeling – is this enough, mother? Is this enough?
He is wallowing, as he is wont to do, when the mists begin, curling around his ankles. It takes him far too long to notice, absorbed as he is, it’s not until the trail before him is swallowed up that he comes to a halt, realizing he is surrounded by a pressing white thickness, the trees gone, the world gone.
He moves again, stumbles – the dirt is gone beneath his hooves, changed to sand, and he feels a faint heat radiate from it, and the familiarity is a fist to his stomach, he is breathless with it, because he knows, even before the mist dissipates, where he is.
A prince never forgets his kingdom.
Truth was, he’d only been in the deserts twice – his birth, and his mother’s murder – but it was enough, the sight and smell of it are seared in his memory, but still, when the mist does clear, he falls to his knees in grief.
(He’d been grateful, when the reckoning came, when the kingdoms of old disappeared. Glad for its demolition, to know it was gone, and he would never have to step foot in it again.)
He might have stayed that way for hours, wrecked on his knees in the sand, but the oasis tugs at him, something deep and unignorable, like a strange, long-forgotten instinct. He moves slowly, bearing the sudden weight of memories refreshed, the heat of the desert sun baking on his dark skin, causing him to quickly break into a sweat.
</i><b>”YOU!”</b><i>
The voice breaks through dunes, breaks through everything, and he looks up, looks at the horse, the stranger, a bay stallion stronger and taller than him. The other moves easily through the sand, adept, and soon he is before Garbage, who makes no move to run. He knows he would be chased down in an instant, and besides, he lacks the self-preservation to run.
“You know what you did,” says the stallion, and Garbage only nods, because of course he knows, and he doesn’t say anything, and then he feels the blow of a hoof to his shoulder, teeth raking across his neck, he’s bleeding and bruising and he doesn’t fight back, because the deserts his owed his blood, he supposes, and he falls to his knees again, just as he’d done when he arrived, and he’s sure that this time he won’t get up, that this warrior will end things, here and now, and he will be </i>gratefuil<I>--
His eyes are closed, so he doesn’t know what happened next, only that the blows stopped coming, that suddenly the world was quiet again, save for his own ragged breathing and the faint noise of the sands shifting. He opens his eyes, and sees he is alone again. He feels blood trickling, warm, his skin raked and broken open in several places, bruised in several more, but the stallion is gone, nowhere to be seen, and if it weren’t for his wounds, Garbage would think he'd imagined the whole thing.
He gets to his feet, moving slow, the pain rushing through him. He’s almost grateful for it – it’s a distraction, something to focus on, something to swallow. He keeps moving. He falls, once more, on his trek, but he gets back up.
There’s something in the oasis. Something to it.
He makes it to the edge, the blood beginning to clot. He looks a wreck, sand sticking to his sweat and blood, cut open, his breathing heavy and ragged. He looks at the oasis, desperate for more, but doesn’t step into it. Doesn’t drink from its shore, even though he is parched.
He waits, this broken prince of the deserts, for whatever comes next.
</i>
</font><center>
<font color="#941818" style="font-family:times new roman; font-size:9pt; line-height:12px; letter-spacing:2pt;"><b>Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.</b>
</font></i></font>
</center></div></td></tr></table></center>
garbage is entering not to be judged because i could NOT resist doing this to him