09-23-2018, 02:34 PM
KINGSLAY
A noise in the distance (leaves rustling, and snapping twigs) means that his ears quiver and pivot, lost in the flames that craft his forelock and mane. It’s happened before. Why wouldn’t it again? Here and now, they’ve come full circle. He feels his muscles winding tight, coiling like springs. He feels thirsty and hungry all at once, and if he were capable of it surely now he’d be salivating from his aching jaws. He slants his head to better view the meadows edge from his peripherals. He is mere seconds from leaving her again.
It’s happened before.
But then she laughs, and somehow everything is different again. He’d forgotten the way that her laughter could sound like music in all the noise and static. It was the only remarkable thing about her.
(End her.)
And something happens that hasn’t before - he forgets the rustling along the meadows edge, smothered it with the sound of her laughter. She is speaking, and he is listening, and somewhere inside of him a monster is choking. And when she laughs again it devastates him. He remembers when he turned the sand into glass, left a monument for her in his wake.
Was it love?
(End her.)
She’s spilling truths. She should be spilling blood. It’s a waste because most of it means nothing to him. He has never sacrificed anything before. He is a god. He is a reaper. He has no family, no home, no birthright. The weight of all of it is lost.
“I loved you immediately,” she says, at last.
“I suppose I will always love you.”
If she’s looking for a reckoning she’ll only find disappointment. This is not some grand culmination of all of the years they’ve spent desperately wanting the things they didn’t understand. There is wreckage all around them. The only ending she is likely to find is her own.
(End her.)
It’s a desperate, whinging plea now. He listens, partly.
The skies above them grow dark and angry. Clouds come together at his beckon, and a quiet rumble fills the spaces between their breaths. The air becomes electric, because he asks it to be. Slowly, the snow and ice around them recedes as his flames grow hotter, stronger, and the earth under her feet becomes soft, and wet, and sloppy. For a moment the mud only shudders, and then it begins to crawl forward, finding footing on her legs and spiralling up, and up, and up until she is belly-deep and stuck fast.
And then he moves forward, imagining her blood heating. It would be uncomfortable at first, unbearable next, but he is careful not to kill her. He still wants her alive.
“Is this love?” He growls against her ear, his teeth finding a patch of soft skin just behind them and raking across it. He draws a line of ash across her body where he moves, not all of it his own.
“Is this what you’ve always wanted?”
It’s happened before.
But then she laughs, and somehow everything is different again. He’d forgotten the way that her laughter could sound like music in all the noise and static. It was the only remarkable thing about her.
(End her.)
And something happens that hasn’t before - he forgets the rustling along the meadows edge, smothered it with the sound of her laughter. She is speaking, and he is listening, and somewhere inside of him a monster is choking. And when she laughs again it devastates him. He remembers when he turned the sand into glass, left a monument for her in his wake.
Was it love?
(End her.)
She’s spilling truths. She should be spilling blood. It’s a waste because most of it means nothing to him. He has never sacrificed anything before. He is a god. He is a reaper. He has no family, no home, no birthright. The weight of all of it is lost.
“I loved you immediately,” she says, at last.
“I suppose I will always love you.”
If she’s looking for a reckoning she’ll only find disappointment. This is not some grand culmination of all of the years they’ve spent desperately wanting the things they didn’t understand. There is wreckage all around them. The only ending she is likely to find is her own.
(End her.)
It’s a desperate, whinging plea now. He listens, partly.
The skies above them grow dark and angry. Clouds come together at his beckon, and a quiet rumble fills the spaces between their breaths. The air becomes electric, because he asks it to be. Slowly, the snow and ice around them recedes as his flames grow hotter, stronger, and the earth under her feet becomes soft, and wet, and sloppy. For a moment the mud only shudders, and then it begins to crawl forward, finding footing on her legs and spiralling up, and up, and up until she is belly-deep and stuck fast.
And then he moves forward, imagining her blood heating. It would be uncomfortable at first, unbearable next, but he is careful not to kill her. He still wants her alive.
“Is this love?” He growls against her ear, his teeth finding a patch of soft skin just behind them and raking across it. He draws a line of ash across her body where he moves, not all of it his own.
“Is this what you’ve always wanted?”
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.
@etro