04-03-2021, 07:22 PM
<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> <style type="text/css"> .firion_container { position: relative; z-index: 1; background: #0d1417; width: 600px; padding: 0 0 0 0; border: solid 5px #2e404d; box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px 1px #000; } .firion_container p { margin: 0; } .firion_image { position: relative; z-index: 4; width: 600px; } .firion_text { position: relative; z-index: 6; width: 560px; border-left: 1px solid #243035; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: -300px; border: 1px solid #243035; background: #0D1417; } .firion_quote { font: 11px 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; text-align: left; color: #2e404d; padding: 10px; border-bottom: 1px solid #2e404d; letter-spacing: 0.5px; } .firion_message { position: relative; font: 12px 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify; color: #434952; padding: 20px; } .firion_quotetwo { font: 11px 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; text-align: right; color: #2e404d; padding: 10px; border-top: 1px solid #2e404d; letter-spacing: 0.5px; } </style> <center> <div class="firion_container"> <div class="firion_text"> <p class="firion_quote">that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried</p> <p class="firion_message"> He does not expect the battle—and how could he?
He had chosen to distract, not to fight, although were his mind more clear, perhaps he would have seen the clear line leading from one to the other. Perhaps he would have realized that was exactly what he had chosen all along—and, were he free of this curse, perhaps he would have been able to turn the tide during the skirmish. In the sun, he was made for this. A child of a warmongering general and King, Firion had been molded into a thing of battle. All sharp teeth and speed and muscle. He would have gloried in the fight against the monsters as his father did. Would have torn their throats out with little remorse.
But he was not such a thing now.
He was a shadow of himself—just a fractured piece of the whole.
Sharpened teeth dulled. Muscles ripped. The young, healthy body reduced to this lumbering excuse of it. So he does not glory in the fight that comes, but he finds he is not entirely wasted either. He is conscious enough to note the others with him—especially the young girl of glass—and when he sees her amongst the darkness, his pulse begins to race in his decrepit veins, sluggish as it is. His veiled eyes roll in his head as he does his best to stumble forward, to pull the monsters—his kin, he cannot stop thinking—away from her. To do as he has first promised: to distract. To become the invitation for them to feast on his pain.
To become prey when he was born to be predator.
And his efforts are enough. He is injured, but it is difficult for him to discern what is an injury from this fight and what is simply the cumulative destruction of so many months trapped beneath the heavy weight of this curse. It is like a death rattle, a final sigh, when his body gives out and when he falls into the currents of the river. When the water rushes over him and pulls him down. When it fills sunken lungs.
He is not certain that he scrambles against it.
Is not certain that he knows how to anymore—how to swim toward the light.
In the end, it doesn’t matter, because the light finds him instead. Curls around him and draws him down, down, down, and then up, until he is before that fae once more. He coughs up saltwater and brine and feels it leak from the parts of him that have rotted over time, the flesh peeling slowly. His shoulders sag as he tries to look for that creature of glass, as he tries to concentrate enough to make sure that she is okay, but his focus is slippery and evasive and he can only look back to the multi-eyed creature before him.
He listens, again, and, again—does his best to try and focus. To understand. The voice booms and he doesn’t cringe away from the pain that is much a part of his existence as it always has been. He just watches with the eyes that barely see, the weight of the curse pressing heavier and heavier upon his spine.
When they have finished speaking, he is quiet for a while.
Too long, perhaps.
His shattered brain trying to piece it all together. Trying to remember the shards of his memories that still litter his mind, the pieces of them sharp enough to sting when he grabs for them. His parents. The look of his mother when she finally saw what he was—a victim of his evasion. Iridian, trapped in a world of dreams and hidden from the truth of him—a victim of his lies. Mazikeen, so clear-eyed and vicious. The look of betrayal and hate she had given him the last time they had spoke—a victim of his desperation.
The girl he had seen with the marks of his teeth on her—a victim of the curse, but also of him.
He swallows and tastes acid.
Feels an impossible tear on his cheek as he looks toward the fae.
“Take it,” his thick tongue manages, the words barely comprehensible.
<i>Whatever of me is worth having anymore,</i> his broken brain thinks. <i>Take it all.</i></p> <p class="firion_quotetwo">so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried</p> </div> <img class="firion_image" src="https://i.postimg.cc/SQJBb2f8/firion.png"> </div> </center>
He had chosen to distract, not to fight, although were his mind more clear, perhaps he would have seen the clear line leading from one to the other. Perhaps he would have realized that was exactly what he had chosen all along—and, were he free of this curse, perhaps he would have been able to turn the tide during the skirmish. In the sun, he was made for this. A child of a warmongering general and King, Firion had been molded into a thing of battle. All sharp teeth and speed and muscle. He would have gloried in the fight against the monsters as his father did. Would have torn their throats out with little remorse.
But he was not such a thing now.
He was a shadow of himself—just a fractured piece of the whole.
Sharpened teeth dulled. Muscles ripped. The young, healthy body reduced to this lumbering excuse of it. So he does not glory in the fight that comes, but he finds he is not entirely wasted either. He is conscious enough to note the others with him—especially the young girl of glass—and when he sees her amongst the darkness, his pulse begins to race in his decrepit veins, sluggish as it is. His veiled eyes roll in his head as he does his best to stumble forward, to pull the monsters—his kin, he cannot stop thinking—away from her. To do as he has first promised: to distract. To become the invitation for them to feast on his pain.
To become prey when he was born to be predator.
And his efforts are enough. He is injured, but it is difficult for him to discern what is an injury from this fight and what is simply the cumulative destruction of so many months trapped beneath the heavy weight of this curse. It is like a death rattle, a final sigh, when his body gives out and when he falls into the currents of the river. When the water rushes over him and pulls him down. When it fills sunken lungs.
He is not certain that he scrambles against it.
Is not certain that he knows how to anymore—how to swim toward the light.
In the end, it doesn’t matter, because the light finds him instead. Curls around him and draws him down, down, down, and then up, until he is before that fae once more. He coughs up saltwater and brine and feels it leak from the parts of him that have rotted over time, the flesh peeling slowly. His shoulders sag as he tries to look for that creature of glass, as he tries to concentrate enough to make sure that she is okay, but his focus is slippery and evasive and he can only look back to the multi-eyed creature before him.
He listens, again, and, again—does his best to try and focus. To understand. The voice booms and he doesn’t cringe away from the pain that is much a part of his existence as it always has been. He just watches with the eyes that barely see, the weight of the curse pressing heavier and heavier upon his spine.
When they have finished speaking, he is quiet for a while.
Too long, perhaps.
His shattered brain trying to piece it all together. Trying to remember the shards of his memories that still litter his mind, the pieces of them sharp enough to sting when he grabs for them. His parents. The look of his mother when she finally saw what he was—a victim of his evasion. Iridian, trapped in a world of dreams and hidden from the truth of him—a victim of his lies. Mazikeen, so clear-eyed and vicious. The look of betrayal and hate she had given him the last time they had spoke—a victim of his desperation.
The girl he had seen with the marks of his teeth on her—a victim of the curse, but also of him.
He swallows and tastes acid.
Feels an impossible tear on his cheek as he looks toward the fae.
“Take it,” his thick tongue manages, the words barely comprehensible.
<i>Whatever of me is worth having anymore,</i> his broken brain thinks. <i>Take it all.</i></p> <p class="firion_quotetwo">so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried</p> </div> <img class="firion_image" src="https://i.postimg.cc/SQJBb2f8/firion.png"> </div> </center>