"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
There are plumes of smoke that he leaves in his wake, and they burn up the bits of her that tag him a murderer. The smell of death would stick to his skin like cologne, if it weren’t for the flames. The smell of death would hug the curves of his xylophone ribs, if it were not for the smell of ash and charred bone that lingers thick in the air.
They will smell the grass as it burns before they see him. They will breathe in the flames that grow like towers in the meadow before they know that he is near. He is like smoke in the way that they will never hold him in their palms. He will always linger just out of reach. He will always be made of the purple-grey that shadow is made of. He is like smoke in the way that he will choke you if you let him.
There is a piece of her caught in the back of his molars. He bothers it with his tongue, moves it backward and forward, but never enough to dislodge the flesh from the bone. He wonders if she tasted like this alive. He only knew her as she screamed. He only knew her as she died. He only knew her flesh between his teeth. He only knew her veins on fire. He only knew her as she died.
‘Kingslay,’ she breathed into his ear like a lover might. It was raspy and breathy and it made his skin crawl in ways that delighted him. He looked her in the eyes until the light drained out, but he never said her name.
The only name he’s ever spoken has been hers.
Etro.
There is a piece of her caught in the back of his molars, and he moves it with his tongue while he sets the meadow ablaze. He thinks of the last seconds she lived. He thinks of the ways she tried to give him what he wanted until he took it. She was naïve. She was a child. She became blood on bone. She is dead, now.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.
05-24-2015, 10:20 AM (This post was last modified: 06-23-2015, 10:53 AM by Joscelin.)
joscelin
She is the broken girl. She knows what it’s like to shatter, to break into a hundred pieces, and then be put back together. She had died and been resurrected, pieced back together by a careless magician. That he had put her back together at all is a wonder. But she does not care. At the moment, she cares only what it is like to be broken.
She can smell something burning on the wind. At first she does not care, wrapped in her own misery and anger as she is. But it draws her, like a mysterious calling card left on the dining room table. She approaches, that broken girl. She had always been so bright. Falling apart had not caused her brightness to fade. Rather, it had made it unbearable, uncontrollable. Her whole body is cracked, weakened. What she had once held so easily in check now wants so badly to escape. She knows she cannot let it. She could kill them all. And even in her miserable state, she knows she does not wish to kill everyone. But that brightness wants out. It seeps through the cracks, sparking and blinking before being ruthlessly snuffed out.
This is how she can be seen as she nears. Not a single portion of her small red and white body is untouched. Cracks snake from the tips of her ears to the tips of her hooves. The light sparks and fights to escape, running along those lines. Those cracks that reach all the way down to the very fabric of her being.
Her golden eyes alight on the stick thin figure. Her normal curiosity is dampened. Now, she can summon only a mild interest. He looks odd, consumed by something. Would she run screaming if she knew he had killed someone? She was naïve. She was a child. But no longer. She is the broken girl. He could not possibly hurt her more than has already been done. No, she would not be afraid, would not flee, would not scream.
But she does not know. Instead, she speaks to him, her voice as broken as the rest of her.
You look awful.
there's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye
html c insane | pictures c nazo-the-unsolvable.deviantart.com and akharlamov.deviantart.com
She was a girl. She was a child. She had the bright gleam of life in her eyes until he stole it away and swallowed it with her flesh, turned it to acid in his gut. She didn’t deserve for her last breath to be the smooth exhale of his name, for the trust to spill from her body in those two syllables like the blood, and the organs, and the bones. He wonders what her name was as he bothers the flesh between his molars. He wonders if it was as pretty as the light in her eyes.
He wonders if they will miss her, whomever she has left now.
He wonders if they will think about where she is now, and if they’ll guess that the last of her is stuck between his teeth, and the rest scorched and ash in a gully that she never loved, and the thought makes his body quiver and the flames run white with heat.
He doesn’t realize while he walks, and burns, but there is another coming. He draws them, always; moths to flames, wings to ash. She comes before him amongst the smoke and spiraled flames, and the cracks that score her body and dice her into fragments mimic the lines along his own (cracked charcoal and fire to her flesh and light). They don’t often run, even if they should, even if they are safer for it. They are as morbidly curious as he is morbid, and he catches them like flies secreting honey from the pores that don’t shoot smoke and ash.
‘You look awful,’ she says, and for a moment his lips will quiver as though he means to smile, but he never does. He is born of entrails and ash, of death and bone. He does not smile. He would not know how.
‘You look awful,’ she says, without knowing that he is inexplicitly, undeniably, uncontrollably awful. He licks the edges of his lips and wonders if she’ll taste the same stuck between his molars.
“I am Kingslay,” he says, because his name on the last one’s dying breath has grown his ego, and he wants it on her tongue, too.
They don’t often run.
They always should.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.
06-11-2015, 01:53 PM (This post was last modified: 06-23-2015, 10:53 AM by Joscelin.)
joscelin
She had never run, even when she should. And perhaps that is why she is broken. She hadn’t run, hadn’t fled from the black sorcerer. And now she is shattered. Shattered and pasted back together like a broken vase. Like a little pot of glue would solve everything. But it didn’t. It hadn’t. It never would. She would be broken forever. Because she hadn’t run.
Even now she does not run. She never has and she never will. And that will always be her downfall. But not today. She is still the broken girl, but she is stronger for it. She does not realize it yet, but the cracks scoring every inch of her body had added to her strength, not removed it. She is not a vase, not a broken piece of crockery. She is Joscelin. And she is strong and unafraid.
He is confident. Too confident. She’s not quite sure what to make of it. His body is cracked as much as hers is, but where she flickers, he burns. She can smell the burning. Not just him, but everything. The scent of it assails her nostrils, causing her pale muzzle to wrinkle in distaste. Her light burns, but it does not leave such a sour, acrid smell in the air. Such a smell lingers, coating the tongue and clinging to skin.
This does not drive her away, as it might another. As it should. But she does not run. No, she stays where she is, pale legs rooted to the earth. Her golden eyes, large and liquid, watch him. They are the eyes of a child. A hurting, angry child, but a child nonetheless.
She had been hunting. Hunting for something new, something dangerous. And she had found it. Without realizing it, or really even knowing what she was searching for, she had found it. The part of her that had been screaming with anger and failure and rejection grew satisfied with her find. But now that she has found it, found him, she wasn’t even sure what she wanted to do. So she gives him her name, just as he had given her his.
I am Joscelin.
And then she asks the question that had been plaguing her thoughts since she had first laid eyes on him.
Why are you on fire?
there's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye
html c insane | pictures c nazo-the-unsolvable.deviantart.com and akharlamov.deviantart.com
He knows a thousand of them. He knows ways that will make her past feel airy, ways that would make her curl into the earth and wish that she were nothing any longer. He could peel her skin back and lay her bare. He could grind her bones into chalk, and breathe the dust into his lungs so that parts of her would always belong to him, to his cells, to his atoms. He could.
He could have her in a moment, and the thought stirs the creature in his gut; it wraps it’s claws round his ribs, and the muscle beneath Kingslay’s eye will quiver at the recognition.
She could run still. She could.
He comes close as she tells him her name (one that he will never bother to remember), until she can feel the heat of his flames, and the smell the rancid flesh between his molars on his breath. He wears the sticky sweet smell of death like cologne, but it’s an acquired taste.
‘Why are you on fire?’ she asks.
He twists his head in a way that should make her skin crawl, and he angles it as though he’s pondering an answer far more convoluted than the truth; that he is forged of magic and greed, of betrayal and vengeance, that he has been kissed by witches who carved their stories through his flesh before he burned them away, that he is made of fire because he is his father’s son. He could tell her he is a god. He could tell her that he is infinite. He could tell her about her bones, and blood, and the flesh between his molars. He could.
But the truth is so much simpler.
“Death,” is what he answers when he is ready, a hiss that escapes between two charred and cracked lips.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.
06-23-2015, 10:55 AM (This post was last modified: 06-23-2015, 10:57 AM by Joscelin.)
joscelin
“Death.”
The word should have caused a shiver, made her fear. He wished her to quake for him, to cower and run. She does none of these things. She and death had become such intimate friends. The consuming blackness no longer has the power to make her afraid. She knows where that blackness leads. Knows the painless bliss of oblivion. She could not fear it.
But it had been denied her. Her shattered body had been pieced back together. Her soul ripped from peaceful, floating blackness to the searing, hellish pain that is life. She had screamed in agony, her lips frozen shut, unable to make a sound. Magic had brought her back, and it was not a kind magic. How can she fear him after that? He might visit pain upon her, but they have become old friends. Pain is life.
But then, perhaps he is the one who should fear. She is unstable. Her entire being had been ripped apart and pieced back together by a hasty, careless magician. He had not been perfect in the melding of her body and spirit. Even now the light sparks madly beneath her cracked and broken skin. It wants out. It is waiting, ever the impatient beast. It waits for her unstable emotions. It waits for her to writhe and scream. It waits for her to explode. Her broken body can no longer contain it as easily as it once had. It wants out.
He steps close and she feels his fetid breath. The smell should have made her gag. It does cause her to jerk her head back, golden eyes sparking. She steps back, her skin nearly glowing with frantic light. She is anger and pain, and he is not cooperating.
Are you dead?
Perhaps he is. She had died, and now she is light. Perhaps he had died, and now he is fire.
there's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye
html c insane | pictures c nazo-the-unsolvable.deviantart.com and akharlamov.deviantart.com
The quiver of her body would send thrills shooting through his own. It would turn his legs to springs, and set the ground beneath them both ablaze. The smell of panic, of sweat, beading before it drips along the contours of their bodies is something he finds intoxicating. The thrum of heartbeats before the cloud of dust kicks up is enough to send him reeling.
Everything inside of him is begging her to run.
Everything inside of him is ready to unravel.
She holds her own for a while, but then she falters. He watches her head fall back, watches her legs search for space between their bodies that he is not willing to give. For every step backward that she takes, he moves forward.
“Are you dead?” She asks him, and he breathes the panic in her voice. He devours it. He consumes it. He feels it sink in through his charred flesh, through his bones and into the marrow. He feels it merge there, with the molecules and atoms of him.
“No,” he hisses, although in so many ways the answer is yes. Yes, because he was born through death. Yes, because the living flesh was seared from his bones and replaced with ash and fire. Yes, because there is nothing left living of him.
“No,” he says again, and this time it is softer – this time it will feel almost like the lyrics in a song – “No,” he croons against her ears, and he listens to the hammer of her heart against her ribs, and he thinks: No, but you will be.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.
In some ways, to die again would be a relief. To die would be a release from the misery that is life. To escape the prison her body has become. To be rid of the storm of emotions. But life does not seem to want to relinquish her yet. Life is not done with her.
She can nearly taste his desire to rend flesh from bone. It tastes like char on her tongue. But her feet have grown roots. She should run. She knows she should. But she cannot. This is an odd sensation. She has always been a girl of air and light. She skies are her domain, the light her element. But the earth holds her captive. Her light has betrayed her. Even now, the cracks are emblazoned with it. They no longer flicker. They are bright, blinding. Pure, white light trying to escape the prison that is her skin. And it has found a way.
She can feel it there, raging beneath the surface. He should run. Why doesn’t he run? Why doesn’t she run? It is alive within her, pounding through her veins, like the heartbeat that thuds a wild rhythm in her chest. Doesn’t he realize what she has become?
His charred and cracked lips are there, next to her ear. Touching her skin. If he were not already burning, he might feel the sting of her light. The maddening, wild light. But her light does not burn. It simply eats. It devours. Nothing can withstand it. Doesn’t he know this? Shouldn’t he? So she asks him.
Do you fear the light?
there's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye
html c insane | pictures c nazo-the-unsolvable.deviantart.com and akharlamov.deviantart.com
