"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
08-04-2015, 07:34 AM (This post was last modified: 08-19-2015, 08:17 AM by Vercingetorix.)
I was starting to wonder if she would never leave. The golden mare was as gleaming and as prying as the sunlight, poking in every nook and cranny that I tried to hide. She was there, was Mother, with her ever watchful sapphire glare. I couldn't hide in the Chamber's forest without her finding me. I pleaded for some alone time, to chase the small mammals around the first floor, to use these new willowy pins to leap over decaying logs and flimsy bark. I am sure it was Father who had encouraged her to let me out of her sight, for just a few hours.
Well, she agreed, to a degree. Where was the safest place, other than the confines of the Chamber? Oh, this place. So my golden mother had travelled along with me, telling me the nodules of life, like some lecture. My amber gaze find everything else far more interesting. The way the long grasses bent and bowed in the wind, the way the water ran rapids in the river. Oh, and the call of the birds that weren't the black shadows in the skies. No caw of the raven, but the quaint singsong of the larks. Perhaps, perhaps I was far too used to the dark, to step into the light, but my mother left me in the playground, with a wise word of carefulness and safety.
Pft. What danger could be done here? Oh, perhaps I'd trip over a log, or fall into a rabbit hole. Well, that could always lead to some sort of adventure? Surely. Following white rabbits down holes, what fun could that be?
VERCINGETORIX; every wound will shape me,
every scar will build my throne killdare x engelsfors
08-08-2015, 11:38 AM (This post was last modified: 08-08-2015, 11:39 AM by Raelynx.)
i love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate
Pain is the first thing that he had known. The first thing that he had learned. This world is pain. It is inevitable, inescapable. It does not frighten him. He does not know why it frightens others so. What is there to fear in such an experience? This is an intriguing question to the black boy. One that has driven him to find out. He was wandered farther and farther afield, searching for the answer. This is how he finds himself here.
He had found a somewhat unfortunate creature, a squirrel with a broken leg. It had run from him, terrified. The small gray animal could not run fast, or effectively. He had followed it easily, wondering why it was so terrified. Pain means life, does it not? He had come into this world to experience pain. So, too, had the others.
He is not paying much attention to his surroundings as he follows the unfortunate creature. Occasionally, it stops, exhausted. He spurs it on easily by stepping on its bushy tail, or nudging its broken leg. It makes no sound, but it continues on, dragging its leg. In this pursuit he is occupied when he realizes it is no longer simply he and the squirrel.
Glancing up, he sees the dust colored colt. His gray eyes flashing with curiosity, he abandons his interest in the poor, doomed squirrel, instead turning his attention on the newcomer. The rodent takes the opportunity to disappear into the underbrush, no doubt to nurse its wounds and quiver in fear. Such a silly emotion, fear is. At only months old, he already knows this.
Gray eyes regarding the pale colt with an uncommon intensity, he steps closer. Close enough that he is nearly touching the boy. "You are not afraid." It is a statement, not a question. And though he does not know how, he knows that it is true.
Torment and torture, I had seen it quite often. The ravens are not quite as diplomatic as many think. their beaks peck and poke a dying animals, their claws tear and shred. It is quite a sight to witness, they are far less gargantuan as vultures, instead they see the thrill of the torment far more than an actual meal. Nevertheless the scenario is all the same, a myriad of feathers decorate the chamber loam, another scar to add to the many that tore at the earth.
My thoughts were quite idle, nothing in particular as interesting here as it is the chamber. Had I pleaded and nagged for nothing? There were not many here in the grounds, safe a few frolicking forms in the distance, but they were not there for long. The mauve skies of twilight were starting to patch the clouds with wisps of orange and purple. As long as I made it hop by nightfall. As long as the shadows did not cast longer than my own frame.
Ha. My mother was such a worry worm. She is probably pacing the confines of the pines right now, my father breathing down her neck. My shoulders roll easily and my willowy legs shift, moving my silvery form through the grasses, my neck arching, head low. I heard some movement further ahead. And there, a shadowy form following something, his nose to the ground, a hypnotic grin on his features. I stop then, lift my head, golden eyes narrowing upon the boy, watching as the tormented animal limped off and the colt's attention turned to me. My black tipped ears swivelled atop my crown, catching his words, pinning slightly against the wisps of charcoal mane.
'There are no vultures overheard, no crows here. No one to pick the bones clean when done.' I idly comment on hater the colt had intended with the squirrel, casting a look to the side to the route to wounded animal had taken. I then shrug my shoulders, my stumpy tail swatting my loins. 'Afraid of what?' I meet his eyes, cool, recollective. 'No, i'm not afraid.' I say, and then take a few steps forward, towards the strange boy, bobbing my head, my chin in a mock greeting. 'I'm Vercingetorix.'
i love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate
Gray eyes fixed upon his newest interest, the black colt tips his head slightly as the boy spouts a torrent of words at him. His eyes spark in amusement at the words, a small grin forming upon his lips. No. No vultures or crows. They would not finish off that poor little squirrel. His gaze suddenly turns serious, thoughtful, his expression slipping into solemnity. Perhaps he had done the creature a disfavor by leaving it with its pitiful life. Though pain is so very attractive to him, such a seductive lure, it seems that not all creatures feel it is so. Perhaps death is a kindness. A kindness he had failed to bestow upon the wretched squirrel.
”Should I have killed it, do you think?” he asks. ”It would have been kinder. He did not seem to care for the pain.”
That statement, in itself, baffles him slightly, though he had been the one to speak it. He knows with a certainty that pain is life. It must stand to reason then that the squirrel wished for death. Who wishes for death? Certainly not he.
When the colt continues, asking such a rhetorical question, the black boy smiles. A toothy grin, a display of understanding and companionship. Afraid of what? Exactly the right question. He had yet to find a thing in this life to fear. The fear that others feel is as baffling to him as their distaste of pain. Perhaps one day he would learn fear, but today is not that day.
As the colt introduces himself, Raelynx suddenly lets out a laugh. It is not a laugh meant to offend, merely a laugh of amusement at his own thoughts. Thoughts he shares easily with the boy. He has yet to learn much of restraint, or manners, for that matter.
”You could easily stab someone with a name that long.” An easy grin rests upon his lips as he speaks. ”I am Raelynx.”
There are often misconceptions of death, so my mother tells me. She told me about my grandmother, a beautiful golden mare, with eyes like ice, but a soft tongue. I thought as I yawned, that it was going to be another tedious tale, but no, it was one worded in a way that made me think of death, of how someone could be driven to die by their own hand, or even kill another. It seemed so simple, so easy to take away a life, but perhaps it was always the thoughts that accompanied such a task that drove them mad. My mother had taken lives, she told me with a glistening of memory in her eyes. She had taken their lives, because they would have taken hers (in a way, of course, not literally.) so, it was like an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A life, for, well, freedom. My mind tweaks and turns, like spinning cogs and wheels, just whilst I watch the colt, his fascination with the soon-to-be-dead animal. My lips twitch in a form of a smirk.
'No.' I say, and it comes out far darker than I intend, the shadows line my grey face, darkening my facade even more. 'No. He must learn what it is like to suffer, what it is like to wish for death. Death would have been easy for him. Learning to withstand the suffering, not so much.' my smirk seemed to twist at all angles. A chuckle, dark and deep fell from my lips. I turned my head to observe the brush, wondering if the squirrel had made it somewhere, home, perhaps. Or maybe in the jowls of another predator.
'Then I will make sure I will stand well back, I wouldn't want a knife embedding into my back now, would I?' There is good humour in my laugh. A sliver of irritation of my mother. My father was right, to name me something so frivolously long, it would be a burden. But perhaps, perhaps I could make it my own. 'Raelynx.' I taste his name on my tongue. Remembering it to his face. There is not many youngsters in the chamber, not at all. And even little in the playground it seems, well, hardly any considerably worth my attention. But Raelynx. He made me think. 'Where do you come from, Raelynx?' for he smelt nothing of the Chamber, no pine, nor earth. In fact, I was having quite a hard time placing his scent. Was he a wanderer, a rogue drifting along? The idea seemed fanciful for a moment. A drifter, a shadow.
i love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate
He is young, and knows so very little of death. His knowledge of the subject would not fill a teacup. But he is ever curious, this black boy. He yearns to know of death, to know more than a shadowy concept of a far off destiny. He knows that death is the opposite of life. He knows that pain is life. He knows that not all believe this concept. Perhaps then, one day, he will be the bringer of death. He will release those who do not believe pain is life into the sweetness of death. Perhaps, one day.
But today is not that day. He had failed that squirrel, and so he would go on. He would remember it. And in the future, he would not fail. He doesn’t yet know what it is to take a life. Is it a glory filled release? Is it full of sadness and remorse? Is it just another job that needs to be done? He does not know. And suddenly, he finds he wishes to.
His mind is brought suddenly back to the present, jerking dreams of the future from his head. His placid gray eyes fix once more upon the dust colored boy. ‘No,’ he says. ‘He must learn suffering,’ he says. Would he learn that suffering is pleasure? That it shows you in a way no other thing can that you are truly alive? He wonders this. He hopes that it will. Hopes that the pathetic creature will learn to embrace his agony, make it his own. But to wish for death? Who would wish for death?
Gray eyes boring into his companion’s, he asks. ”Why would he wish for death? Pain is life. He should embrace the pain. Live it.” His expression is so earnest, so believing, that it would be difficult not to fall into what he believes. It is abundantly clear that this is what he knows, that this is what he is.
At the colt’s next words, a slow grin begins to form upon his lips. Ah yes, wise words. Always stand well back. Those are words to live by. He nods, black lips split in a grin. ”In that case, I shall call you Tor. I would not want to accidentally stab you, would I?”
Actually, he would, but that is beside the point. They are being rhetorical now.
Then he asks where he is from, and Raelynx is forced to pause. He pauses because he does not know. He is here, and that is what he knows. He was there, and now he is here. ”I am from nowhere,” he says finally.
What would happen if he could pull the bones apart? If he could separate each joint from another, and all while it lived? How long would it scream, would it even be capable of a thought to create noise at that point? Kult considered this for a time as he trailed the broken bush tailed rodent. He had turned the animal about, driving it back the way it came, soft whimpers of discomfort bubbled out its slack jaw. Slack now that he had kicked it to direct it in which way he wished it to go. Sometimes it would stop, its abdomen pulsating in rapid breaths, and he would nip its fluffed tail. A holler protested against the infliction of torment, he didn't care though, he wanted to prolong the suffering.
He could hear them, other children, speaking casually of names and pain, of death. Kult knew death, snuffing the life of things just because he could. To watch them slip from this world into the next, into some great divine state of being. He had done them a favor really, he was convinced he had, thought he had the right to decide their fate. Send them into the abyss, where nothing and everything existed at once. Pain, he had known that as well, mistreatment had befallen him from his own Dam. Not anymore, nor ever again, he was absolute, was sanctity, a descendant of the omnipotent.
And he believed, they would all believe their line, one way or another.
Grabbing the fluffball in his mouth, he emerged from the treeline, an unnerving roll to his gait. Predatory and unsettling, an unstable aura reeking from the bay, but his new friends need not worry. Though he was still very young, he held a very particular presence. He dropped the still squealing victim to the ground unceremoniously, before looking at the others. He didn't say anything yet, he just stared out flat black eyes. An irregular star was plastered just past his raven forelock, a ragged similarity to the letter 'x'. Did they want to play? They were in the 'playground' after all, and oh, what a game he had in mind.
