03-07-2021, 09:33 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Playball&display=swap" rel="stylesheet"> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Noto+Serif&display=swap" rel="stylesheet"> <div style="width:510px;background:linear-gradient(to bottom,rgba(57,16,28,0)500px,rgba(57,16,28,1)600px),url('https://i.imgur.com/RbmnTuB.png')top center no-repeat;border-radius:35%/100px 100px 0px 0px;font:12px times new roman; color:#EEE;margin:auto;padding:25px 5px 5px 5px;"> <div style="text-align:center;padding:10px 30px;font:80px'Playball', cursive;color:rgba(255,255,255,0.5);text-shadow:0px 0px 5px #FFFCF7;">花</div> <div style="background:url('https://media0.giphy.com/media/NKicvKt6iisXS/giphy.gif') top;-webkit-background-clip:text;color:transparent;line-height:0px;text-align:center;font:50px'Playball', cursive;text-shadow:0px 0px 10px #fff">Flower</div> <div style="text-align:left;padding:0px 30px;margin-top:300px;font:25px'Playball', cursive;color:#FFCF5B;text-shadow:0px 0px 5px #FFD82C;">I'm only steady on my knees</div> <div style="box-shadow:0px 0px 5px #FFCB65;background:linear-gradient(rgba(122,65,81,0.5)50%,rgba(122,65,81,0)100%);padding:20px;font:12px'Noto Serif', serif;color:#e6f1ee;text-align:justify;">She is surprised by the way the group breaks down into smaller clusters. It seems as though several of the horses who answered the call know each other, though, like her, there are others who remain alone still. She cannot decide if she would have preferred the company, or if it would’ve birthed a horror inside her chest to turn and find the face of someone she loves dearly headed into certain doom beside her. She thinks, though, that this loneliness must be fathoms easier.
Her focus returns to the fairies once they speak, though she spares one last glance around at the gathered number when she realizes that no one else had been called upon. No one else would be coming. It feels like too few and too many, and a second knot ties itself in her chest. There will be entire braids there soon.
Her eyes settle back on the fairies, and with a pain she has not felt before, she learns of the double-sided horror of what the monsters are. Shattered souls torn asunder, fed only on fear and loneliness and things she is certain she cannot imagine. She had not expected to come and feel broken hearted for the creatures that tear apart homes and families, but as the fairies explain it she finds there is nothing else she could possibly have felt. It wasn’t the monsters fault that this had happened, not a choice so much as a lack of choice, an imminence none could avoid.
She can understand what it is to shatter, what it means to feel the kind of loneliness where nothing but your own dark can reach you. She can understand how that would ruin someone, how it would change a soul. Can these fragments remember the echoes of the souls they had belonged to? Did they understand this pain they caused, or were they so far lost that they could only crave more of what they knew. More dark, more despair, more pain.
Would those who had come today to answer the death knell be reduced to the same?
She hopes not, if only for the sake of the friends and families she can see pressed together in brave clusters.
She listens more, soothed by the ever-shifting glow that reminds her of home and of her own family. It is different from the way they all glow, but it is a glow all the same, and the colors are like the flowers hidden in so many of her siblings manes. She smiles despite herself, despite the pain in her chest. It was starting to feel like this was exactly where she was meant to be.
She knows the entities by name only, but it shocks her to hear that they are all taken - though, it did also explain why the dark had been able to linger so long. What hope had a world without her guardians? It seemed an impossible task to undertake, the sheer magnitude of such a rescue overwhelming. But when the fairies split and present the gathered with the choice of two tasks, Flower knows instantly which her role should be.
There are others who speak before her, and she quietly memorizes each face as they voice their vow and move to stand with their new team. She wonders how many of the smaller clusters will go their separate ways here, wonders if she would have the strength to leave someone she loved. But she had already, hadn’t she. There is only one face that startles her, and she wonders how she had missed the woman earlier in the gathered crowd, for there is no one quite as beautiful as her grandmother, she is sure. She feels a sudden tightness in her chest as she watches the angel claim rescue and cross to join that group, and with an unspoken love in her small ruby face she tries to catch the woman's eyes and wish her well.
But Flower’s voice is silent until it is her own turn to choose, and with a grace that comes only from being made of something so entirely breakable, she steps forward towards the fairy and claims her own choice. <i>“I will help distract.”</i> For what else could she do, made to be broken, made more fragile than life itself. She would be a liability on a rescue mission, she would only slow them down. It makes sense that this is her destiny, and in some way it explains the purpose of why she had been born so different from the rest of her family. She was always meant to be expendable for this moment, always made for it, and now that the moment was here there was only resolve and pride in the angles of her delicate glass face.
</div> <div style="text-align:right;padding:0px 30px;font:15px'Playball', cursive;color:#FFCF5B;text-shadow:0px 0px 5px #FFD82C;">I’ll run the risk of being intimate with brokenness</div></div>
Her focus returns to the fairies once they speak, though she spares one last glance around at the gathered number when she realizes that no one else had been called upon. No one else would be coming. It feels like too few and too many, and a second knot ties itself in her chest. There will be entire braids there soon.
Her eyes settle back on the fairies, and with a pain she has not felt before, she learns of the double-sided horror of what the monsters are. Shattered souls torn asunder, fed only on fear and loneliness and things she is certain she cannot imagine. She had not expected to come and feel broken hearted for the creatures that tear apart homes and families, but as the fairies explain it she finds there is nothing else she could possibly have felt. It wasn’t the monsters fault that this had happened, not a choice so much as a lack of choice, an imminence none could avoid.
She can understand what it is to shatter, what it means to feel the kind of loneliness where nothing but your own dark can reach you. She can understand how that would ruin someone, how it would change a soul. Can these fragments remember the echoes of the souls they had belonged to? Did they understand this pain they caused, or were they so far lost that they could only crave more of what they knew. More dark, more despair, more pain.
Would those who had come today to answer the death knell be reduced to the same?
She hopes not, if only for the sake of the friends and families she can see pressed together in brave clusters.
She listens more, soothed by the ever-shifting glow that reminds her of home and of her own family. It is different from the way they all glow, but it is a glow all the same, and the colors are like the flowers hidden in so many of her siblings manes. She smiles despite herself, despite the pain in her chest. It was starting to feel like this was exactly where she was meant to be.
She knows the entities by name only, but it shocks her to hear that they are all taken - though, it did also explain why the dark had been able to linger so long. What hope had a world without her guardians? It seemed an impossible task to undertake, the sheer magnitude of such a rescue overwhelming. But when the fairies split and present the gathered with the choice of two tasks, Flower knows instantly which her role should be.
There are others who speak before her, and she quietly memorizes each face as they voice their vow and move to stand with their new team. She wonders how many of the smaller clusters will go their separate ways here, wonders if she would have the strength to leave someone she loved. But she had already, hadn’t she. There is only one face that startles her, and she wonders how she had missed the woman earlier in the gathered crowd, for there is no one quite as beautiful as her grandmother, she is sure. She feels a sudden tightness in her chest as she watches the angel claim rescue and cross to join that group, and with an unspoken love in her small ruby face she tries to catch the woman's eyes and wish her well.
But Flower’s voice is silent until it is her own turn to choose, and with a grace that comes only from being made of something so entirely breakable, she steps forward towards the fairy and claims her own choice. <i>“I will help distract.”</i> For what else could she do, made to be broken, made more fragile than life itself. She would be a liability on a rescue mission, she would only slow them down. It makes sense that this is her destiny, and in some way it explains the purpose of why she had been born so different from the rest of her family. She was always meant to be expendable for this moment, always made for it, and now that the moment was here there was only resolve and pride in the angles of her delicate glass face.
</div> <div style="text-align:right;padding:0px 30px;font:15px'Playball', cursive;color:#FFCF5B;text-shadow:0px 0px 5px #FFD82C;">I’ll run the risk of being intimate with brokenness</div></div>