that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
Could he explain it if he wanted to? He isn’t sure. There is no desire in his belly to bring forth his secret, but there are also no words to explain it either. No way for him to try and relay to her the strange happenings of the night before. How the dust found him and then sense of dread followed so quickly. How he had wandered for hours throughout the day before the night finally began to stain the sky.
How that was when things really went sideways.
He shakes his head. It sounded foolish—even to him—to try and recall the hours before. How he had run for so long, but how by the end, it was more of a crawl. How his flesh had begun to peel away from him—or had he imagined it? How the blood in his veins slowed until it was nothing more than sludge.
He could not have died the night before, he reasons.
(He did though, he knows, in his heart of hearts. He did. He did.)
Her voice cuts clean through the thoughts once more and he does his very best to focus on her. He watches her roll her eyes, the frustration clear, and he wonders if she is frustrated with him. He would be. But he knows he can’t give her what she wants, even when the sharp, clear gaze she cuts him with, and so he pivots to the only defense that he knows: denial. He straightens until her looks more like the son of Atrox that he should be. He pulls on the arrogance he has seen his father wear so often before.
“Firion,” he answers, the roughness fading from his voice until it’s more of a deep growl instead of a hoarse whisper. His tail twitches behind him and the sharpness of his teeth flash into a faux smile.
He ignores the comment about his night, dancing around it.
“Why were you—are you—stuck?”
(Please don’t let her ask again about himself.)
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
