"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
I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.
He is fire. And he loves every minute of it. Every excruciating moment of his remaking plays on repeat inside his mind, weakening his knees and causing his skin to spark. He shivers at the remembered feel of flame making his skin melt and peel away from his body. The sparks surrounding him take on a life of their own, swirling and licking at his skin in a wild dance. But it is not the same. This heat is soft, almost gentle. It is not the blazing inferno of his memories.
And that is the most disappointing knowledge of all.
Today he is wandering. He has never been good about minding borders. They are invisible lines drawn by an invisible authority, one he pays little mind to. He does not even realize at first when he has left the confines of the cove. Though he currently resides there, he does not consider it home. He has no home. Only one place might have sufficed for him, but that is lost forever. Those dank, fetid caves had been the closest thing to a home he might have ever wished. But he had been expelled. Despite his protests, despite his furious shrieking, he had been dumped unceremoniously from that divine nightmare.
It takes him a moment to remember where he is. His dull gray eyes scan his surroundings, taking in a meadow resplendent with early summer vibrancy. The beauty is lost upon him. To him, beauty has become a distorted, twisted thing. It is almost impossible not to, considering the state of his mind. No, beauty has become char and ash, blood and death. And life has become flame.
He doesn’t approach anyone. Not because he is anti-social (he actually rather enjoys the shock of others when they first see his mutilated, burned flesh), but because he sees no need in it. Not today. Today he is content simply waiting. Undoubtedly he will not be alone for long. He never is. It seems that there will always be those drawn to monsters like he.
If this is to end in fire then we should all burn together
The jungle had held Drow’s attention long enough for him to spend some quality time with his shiny new nieces. He’d always been a sucker for babies, and he was especially susceptible to the mischievous gleam in the eye of a tiny filly who only wanted to capture his heart and recruit him to help her get into trouble. Which was, after all, what any daughter made by Gendry and Arrya was inevitably going to do. Protect the girl had somehow become his life’s mission, and now he had two more to watch over, to keep safe, to help grow big and strong and smart enough to stay alive. Preferably forever.
God, he didn’t know how Gendry handled it. As an uncle, he couldn’t stand the idea of those precious little girls ever coming to harm. And the two of them were fucking talented at getting into trouble. He’d lost count of the number of times they’d had to form a search party, and they watched those tiny little spitfires like hawks. Literally, in Gendry’s case. Still. It had been nice spending time with family again. And the trouble his nieces were so talented at causing was an excellent distraction from…from remembering. From wondering. How much of the nightmare he’d lived had been real, how much of the world around him was now. Whether he was still stuck inside an endless loop of horrors and this was just a sick trick to make him let down his guard before he lost everything all over again.
Whether he deserved to lose everything all over again.
So yeah, the twins and their penchant for trouble were an excellent distraction. But after some serious panic-inducing shenanigans, Gendry and Arrya had decided it would be safer to take the twins somewhere a bit less dangerous than Beqanna. Drow had, of course, completely agreed. And would have volunteered to go along as body guard, except…except people around him tended to find themselves in mortal peril more often than he was comfortable with. And…they’re better off without me. He could admit it in his head, where no one around could hear it. Where no one who loved him despite logic or reason or a lifetime of letting them down could try to tell him he was wrong. He’d pretended he was letting them bond as a family, like Hallows and Rakka and Wex. Giving them a little alone time. Maybe they’d even bought it.
God, he missed them.
But they were so much better off without him putting them in danger. Or destroying himself in front of them, and there were days it was so fucking hard to hold himself together. To not hurt the people he loved by letting them see how damn broken he was, how his insides were fire and ash and desolation even though he might have found his way back to them. It was only a matter of time before it erupted out of his skin and burned everyone who was standing too close. So he’d make sure no one who mattered was nearby when it happened.
He’d watched them walk away with a smile on his face, like it didn’t break his fucking heart. He wasn’t sure when he’d become such a good actor. That kind of lie had never come naturally to him before. But now that he wasn’t quite sure whether anything around him was real or whether all of it was seconds from burning to the ground, and now that he’d played the functional adult to keep the kids from suspecting Uncle Drow was more dangerous than any trouble they’d gotten themselves into, it was starting to feel as easy as breathing, to lie about his mental state, to lie about the fire devouring him slowly from the inside.
And what better place to burn that surrounded by people who meant nothing to him? If there was going to be collateral damage, it might as well be strangers in the meadow, random souls unlucky enough to be in the way when the volcano inside finally erupted again. Only a matter of time. If he were a better man, he’d hide away from anyone, protecting the innocent through his absence. Once, he might have been a better man. Now? All he had left was to keep his family safe. Fuck the rest of the world. So he stepped out of the shadows of the trees on the edge of the infamous meadow, sunlight splaying across his massive body, highlighting the silver of his hair, the rich obsidian of his coat, just a few shades shy of black and veined with scars, slashes and gouges, stripes and punctures, so many old wounds he’d lost count of them long ago. More scars webbed across his face, across his right eye, brushed gold that should have been clouded and sightless, might even have been shriveled and dead and scarred over if it hadn’t been for Gendry.
Stop thinking about them, dammit. They’re gone, and it would be better for all of them if they never came back. It was good that they’d left him alone. They were safer far, far away. Let strangers burn instead. Let people who didn’t fucking matter deal with the worst of the fallout when the world turned to fire and molten rock spewing down the mountainside. Drow would survive. Hell, he’d revel in it, wouldn’t be the first time. And coming out the other side would be a damn sight easier without having to protect people he loved from his own self-destruction.
No, it would be much better to set himself loose on a stranger. Someone just as twisted and broken as he was. Maybe a fight, maybe a fling, maybe both; it didn't fucking matter, he just needed to get lost in something dark and jagged and dangerous. Someone would step up. They always did. And it didn't take long before his mismatched metallic eyes landed on the someone in question. Scarred and jagged and burning, he could practically taste the fire licking along his skin already. He stalked over, a slinky feline fluidity to his steps that only ever happened when he had an itch and a suspicion it was about to be scratched, one way or another. "Drow," he said simply, heated gaze prowling the stranger's body. "You?"
I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.
He is fortunate perhaps, that he has no care for his family, and they so little for him. His mother had been horrified by the monster she had created (for he has been twisted since birth. It is only recently that his body had been remade into a visual representation of his true self). And he in turn had been horrified by her, that disgust spurred to even greater heights by the torture he had endured at the hands of a dark god.
Only his siblings seem to recognize his true potential. And even then, they care no more for him beyond what he can do for them. Beyond the symbol they represent as a demented group of manic youth, wishing only to please their father, to win his approval. But his father is dead. And frankly, Raelynx has never sought his approval, not for himself. He humors his siblings' whims because it keeps him entertained. And when one has as few responsibilities in life as he, diversion is paramount.
And that, perhaps, is the best explanation of why he is here. He seeks amusement, in whatever form it may present itself to him, because sometimes, tormenting wildlife is simply not enough. It might hold his brother and sister’s attention for extended periods of time, but he needs something more. Physical pain is such a small portion of the realm that encompasses true agony. He would know. His eyes had been opened to its true potential. A potential that, sadly, does not lay solely in the torture of small and insignificant creatures.
But here, in this meadow, there are so many possibilities. It is delicious, intoxicating.
The thought of it makes him impatient, makes him yearn to be the instigator, makes him want to inflict himself on others. Ultimately however, it is not necessary. Just as he is beginning to edge forward, another approaches, slipping himself so easily into his clutches that a small smirk tugs at his cracked lips. The charred nubs of his ears swivel forward as his placid gray eyes latch upon the stallion.
Oh, and what a delightful creature he is. His body tells stories, so many tales of horror and pain. Raelynx wants to touch them all, to remind him of the pain they had caused when he had received them. He wants to give him new ones to remember him by, to remind him gloriously and undeniably of the pain that is life. And he wonders then, will he let him?
There is only one way to find out.
”Raelynx.” His name leaves him on a raspy breath as his drab eyes devour his scarred body before he finally drags his gaze up to meet Drow’s. ”You are looking for something.”
It is a statement, not a question. He knows without a doubt that this stallion is looking for something, else he would not have approached him.
