[open] i started out all alone, any

[kensley]

kensley

i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams

It is such an ugly emotion, shame.
It burns a hole in the cavern of his chest, thrumming like something alive against his hollow ribs. He could almost mistake it for a heart if it weren’t so black, if it weren’t so vicious.

He was proud once, Kensley.
Too proud, maybe.

And now he may as well be gut-rot. Filth. Waste.
And he’s got some nerve showing his face in Pangea, where he left the woman he loved without any real explanation except he’d inherited his father’s penchant for leaving whether or not he wanted to admit it. Where their son had risen to the rank of Pangea’s champion, inherited a power like his mother’s. Where their daughter still lived, plagued by the same ugly thing that plagued him. (Alive? Dead? Neither and both and neither.) 

He has no place here, not anymore. He knows that.
And yet, here he is.

There is no shred of pride left in him.
He’d been proud, even, when he’d found Anaxarete and begged her for help. Anything to ease the pain of being not-quite-alive and not-quite-dead and still eternally choking on a guilt he couldn’t cough up and couldn’t swallow down. (And isn’t it still trapped in his throat?)

But there is no pride left. 
And he is even colder to the touch now. He had failed so tremendously in the Alliance, emerging with his flesh covered in frost. Something to preserve him. Something to protect him from rot.

He travels to the land of shadow and death, Anaxarete and their son. He does not expect them to receive him warmly. He does not expect them to want to see him at all. But he finds some comfort in knowing they are close. (Not that he deserves it, no.) 

 

i worshipped at the altar of losing everything

@[The Monsters] please mess with his undeadness and his shattering