a beautiful oblivion. || magnus

[magnus]

we carry these things inside that no one else can see
they hold us down like anchors; they drown us out at sea

He does not often like to think of his death—does not like to think of the waves that crashed over him and then pulled him under, sucking him into that saltwater grave. He does not like to dwell upon the years that were lost, his bones sinking down with the sediment and brine. But she asks, and he finds that he does not have the heart to deny her. He had, after all, brought it up himself. Why would she not inquire about it?

So he shakes the discomfort from himself, giving her a small smile.

“Up for the fun conversation tonight, I see,” he jokes, his laugh throaty. For a second, he glances upward, the sky beginning to wash with new colors. Instead of the pastels of the day, streaks of auburn and cobalt were making way, the day making its slow descent into night. Something about it soothed him, eased his mind. Enough that he felt the stories that seemingly clogged his throat begin to unstick.

“It’s never fun to discuss your own death, but yes, I’ve done it before.” He shrugged. “I used to live here, a long time ago. I was born in the Jungle and lived there for a long while with my mother who was Queen. I eventually left to serve in the Chamber with my father who ruled there and became Lord. But then. Well, I met Joelle.” His eyes sparked, her name rusty on his tongue and yet beautifully familiar.

“She was the princess here, and she was everything. Enough that I left the Chamber to come here to serve under her father.” He was not quite sure how to articulate the discomfort that he felt here—the certainty that his soul was too dark, too wild to belong—and so he says nothing of it. “Eventually, her father stepped down and made me the General and Joelle the Queen. She later asked me to rule alongside her.”

He grows quiet for a second, contemplative. Thinking of the years that passed after that. How hard he had tried to rule well next to her. How hard he had fought to recruit for the kingdom and fight for it and do what he had always knew she deserved. “I failed though. I left her—left the kingdom, my family. I went to serve under Katana in the Dale for a stint before eventually finding my way home back to Joelle.”

The condensed version, he knew. The version that left out the bloodshed. The tears. The hurt. The things that he was just not ready to face yet; scars, although long healed over, had a way of breaking open again at the slightest touch. “All seemed well, but you do not live and rule so long without making enemies—and we made ours.” His expression grew hard, mouth thinning. “His name was Trashlip.”

A monster. Traitor. Foul beast.

“I found him, along the beach, with Joelle. We fought, hard, but I lost my footing in the sand and fell.” He was the least proud of this part, this personal failure tattooed into his very marrow. “And so I died there, bled out onto the sand and then washed out with the tide.” It was odd to give words to the story, to talk of his own murder, but also cathartic. Similar to the relief he had felt when he had talked to Minette. “And I stayed in the ocean for a very long time…until strange magic washed me back onto those same shores.”

He smiled again, although it would be impossible to not note the tinge of sadness.

“And here I am.”

magnus