"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
If tranquility ever existed in this world, he quells it quickly, suffocates it like he suffocates everything else. Like he suffocated her.
He buries the quiet beneath the cacophonous echo of crackling heat and flames, buries it like he’d buried the words she spoke the last time that he saw her (before he turned his back). He can feel hunger stirring in his gut, and the flames along his back burn hotter for it. It’s as though there are landmines existing just below the surface of the golden yellow sand, because as he moves forwards explosions sound along the borders of the kingdom that he leaves in his wake like dust. It isn’t the only thing that follows him – above a watchful lone raven circles overhead, and it dives through the smoke and flames as though it is made of them (it is – he has straia to thank for it).
Every crack that splits the skies into halves, and every blast that shoots ash and smoke into the air (like the eruptions of magnificent volcanoes) sends monstrous glass sheets jutting out from the dunes in irregular angles, and they look just like the tongues of flames. They will survive this siege, even if he doesn’t. They will reflect the images of things he won’t ever say out loud.
‘I love you, Kingslay,’ she had said, and he had said nothing, stirred by the rustle in the leaves that meant something was living that he could end – because he wanted her in ways that he had never wanted before. He wants her alive. He wants her in the ways he isn’t supposed to want. He wants her in ways that don’t make sense, even with all the instinct that burns through his bones. He wants her cut open. He wants to watch the life pour out of her eyes. He wants to love her. He wants to know what that feels like. He wants to curl up in her innards.
He wants to know her. He wants to devour her.
“Etro,” he says, the first name he ever spoke.
He wants to find her.
That’s why he has come.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.
The wild child felt ill at ease today. His foxy companions were subdued and nervous and remained inclined to not venture far from their burrow. This was unusual for they were often content to travel about the many dunes of the kingdom, accompanying him about on his never-ending explorations. Their worries set his teeth on edge and he tensely paced about below a nearby towering dune.
He wondered if Ima was within his vicinity. Munroe was aware that she was constantly moving about the vast kingdom as part of her duties. But he could really use the reassurance and comfort that her presence always gave to him. She was the stitches that kept him together and the balm to his aching soul. She had pulled him up out of the depths of hell time and time again.
Nervous hazel eyes happen to glance up in time to see a dark shape circling the desert sky – a wispy flaming black bird joyously dipping about. Sudden resounding explosions began to erupt from beneath the golden sands and he rushes up the top of the dune in order to find the source of such a grand disturbance.
It was something he had never seen before - a figure that perhaps gaily traversed through the nightmares of most.
His footing is easily lost when another explosion sets off beside his frame; thick sheets of glass jut alongside his body and push his center of balance towards the bottom of the dune once more. He lingers but a moment on the precipice, pierced by the jagged edges, before his momentum drives him off and he's rolling down the large dune like a tumbleweed helplessly caught in the wind.
He’s literally rolled right into the enemy’s line of sight.
Crumpled and entangled within his limbs, he struggles to get his feet beneath him. He remembers the feeling of being torn apart and dragged through the mud. Of the humiliation and the despair. Of giving up all hope. These were all memories he’s unconsciously been protecting himself from. Even through the agonizing pain, Munroe was well aware how defenseless he would be when compared to this invader.
It seemed a lifetime before he finally stood up.
The glass had been angling upwards and for the most part cleared his vital organs and even his spinal cord. But there was no denying the fact that he had been stabbed by a large sharp weapon. Blood was flowing freely over his sand-encrusted skin and perhaps his lung had been nicked for his breathing had quickly become labored. A hacking, wet cough revealed even more blood and bleary, confused eyes gazed at the monster before him.
He had merely been caught in the crossfire of a severe temper tantrum.
But one’s anger always led to dire consequences.
Fate never could release the wild child from her cold-hearted grasp.
He only hears the jarring ring of the chaos that he crafts. He doesn’t hear the quiet that settles in the space between explosions. He has never noticed the way the air can seem to stand still sometimes – the sound of nothing, the sound of warning, the sounds that light the desert now in overexposed white flashes like a beacon. If he had, maybe he could have seen the silent warning in her eyes. If he had, maybe he would have told her: ‘Yes.’
But it doesn’t end.
It can’t end. It won’t end until he has her. That’s the way that it works, an instinct bred into him so deep you’ll find it in his marrow; he does not stop – he is not made for it. There is nothing of his mother left inside of him. It died out along the river’s shore like she did, bled into the sand like the last warm pieces of her, his humanity. There is nothing left of him to acknowledge the goodbye she whispered in the meadow, when the hurt in her eyes was palpable and he still could not see it. It doesn’t end. It can’t end.
But it will never be right.
She knows it even if he never will. She doesn’t come first. She can’t come first. He isn’t made for it, and that truth runs as deep as his instinct. He is made from carnage, for carnage. He is made for the rattle of explosions that leave the sounds of flatlines in his ears. He is made for breaking bones, and burning flesh, and not for her. But he doesn’t stop. He can’t stop.
And it doesn’t make sense that there is nothing to burn and the flames rise so much higher. They feed off him like he is made of gasoline, and in his wake they whirl in helixes and leave glass spirals that reach out into a slate grey sky with sharp and glittering edges.
“Etro,” he says again, the syllables heavy like the smoke that stains the sky dark.
And as soon as the name falls from his tongue this second time, something else replaces it – the metallic taste of blood – because the sand suddenly is running red with it as a crumbling body falls into his path. A cough splatters blood that lands in droplets that bead and slide down his cheek. If he has harbored any resolve until this moment it is lost now as his head turns aslant, and hunger claws at his belly and threatens to open him up from the inside out.
She doesn’t come first. She can’t come first.
He isn’t made for it.
He is made for what follows. He is made to move toward the body, head aslant. He is made for the climb of temperature that will leave sweat beading and rolling off both of their bodies. He is made for the crack of lightening that splits the sky.
He is a reaper. He is death.
He is made for that.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.
Her home is always neat and tidy; every grain of sand in its place and a place for every grain of sand. Yael feels an odd sense of pride in this - the most habitable areas as free of all of the smallest sandstorms, a few more smaller oases make the trek from the red rock and saguaro borderlands to the full blown duned interior easier. The Desert is her haven, and for the longest time, no one has dared to interrupt her peace and quiet. Hasn’t she earned that much? After all her grief and wailing and gnashing of teeth, after her limbs stop trembling and her useless lungs start to pump again, before the nightmares begin - hasn’t she earned that.
He came once, and she turned him away. The Desert rose up at her beckoning and came to life, fighting fire with earth until the land was no longer shifting, but lay as still and shiny as the dead sea. Dead water for a man who reeks of decay. He could not pass. Yael stood in his way - and besides, Etro was not there.
Since then, she has come to accept her daughter’s dismaying love. It is fitting, in way, for she quells the boiling and stifles the flames of anyone who dares to harbor power in their veins. She brings the world around them to a standstill, creating peace in those who cannot do it themselves. This, Yael understands, and for her daughter’s sake, she will tolerate. To an extent. This, however; this adolescent rage that rips the ground apart and sends her perfectly styled dunes tumbling to their base is unacceptable. Etro herself could cause such a thing, and Yael would be there with a sharp reprimand - relationship be damned. There is smoke and fire, even though the Desert cannot burn the way the Valley burned. It is infuriating.
It is enough to wake the dragon in her; that fierce monstrosity that could easily tear a horse limb from limb, that thing that makes her want to taste blood on her tongue. Kingslay and his reckless disregard for not one, but two of her children is enough for her to take it as a personal attack. She launches herself into the sky, unleashing her wrath in a resounding roar that echoes across the kingdom. Let them all look to the sky and quake from the tips of their ears to the base of their hooves, let that goddamn bird show Straia just what happens when you poke the peaceful magician one too many times. Dragonfire spews ahead of her as she chases Munroe’s blood, urgency driven by his fear. While fate seems to delight in plucking him out of her grasp and putting him directly in harm’s way, this is one occasion where she can retaliate with full force.
She sees him stalk forward, arrogance in every swaggering step. And now she is placed in a delicate sort of situation; she could kill him with a single thought, but Etro would know, and she would never come back. It isn’t worth it. He isn’t worth it. Yael swoops down on leathery wings (so like Vanquish’s, so unlike her own plush feathers) and on a whim, turns him into the most powerless creature she can imagine: a dainty little butterfly. And then her jaws are around him, teeth closing around his fluttering wings with plenty of room to spare - but does not swallow. Let him wallow for a minute in insectual terror, let him beat his wings to no avail against her teeth, let him fall limply to land on her tongue - and then she will let him escape.
With a wink to Munroe (will he know it is his Ima?) she waits for the butterfly to simmer down, deliberately sending her armored tail into the sheets of glass, shattering them with angry lashes. Finally, she opens her mouth and spits the butterfly back out, allowing him to slowly (bone by bone) return to his horse form. It must be achingly slow. she thinks, as she too, returns to the delicate mare who couldn’t ever seem possible of such ire. As Yael turns to her wild child, she waits for Kingslay to say something. Because she will have him explain himself, even if she has to force it, fist over fist, from his very throat.
We've become desolate. It's not enough, it never is.
Living is hard enough without you fucking up.
It seemed he was defiantly staring right into the face of death.
His unfocused eyes tried to warn this monster off his path, to disregard his obvious frailty, and decide to pursue another less harmless prey. The key to survival was bluffing one’s actual strength – making the contender think that they just might possibly lose the confrontation. That one little seed of doubt would poke holes into one’s confidence and give the wild child an even better chance at simply walking away from a confrontation that just might dissipate instead of coming to fruition.
But his pathetic show of intimidation was barely a ping on this monster’s radar. Hazel eyes could hardly remain open and his body dangerously swayed back and forth. He was a mere rabbit before a ravenous wolf – laughably easy prey before a heartless beast. The wild child could sense the hungry intent of the stranger as he took steps towards him and he could feel the sudden uncomfortable rise in temperature that accompanied the beast as he was stalked.
An angry roar strikes through the air, thunder to follow after the lightning that had just split the sky.
Before his eyes, a looming shape grows into a wrathful dragon. But Munroe does not fear this creature. He’s come to accept the wonders of the desert and this dragon was a fantastical guardian to his eyes. He watches with a sense of smugness when the monster is belittled and changed into a mere insect – a tiny speck amongst the vastness of the golden sands. His bloodied mouth rises into a smile filled with glee in return of the creature’s teasing wink.
He begins to shiver violently while he patiently awaited the monster’s fate. Eventually, the insect was released and allowed to take its previous shape. Meanwhile, his beloved Ima shed her reptilian skin and turned towards him. He eagerly begins to stumble towards her with welcoming eyes. The monster could be disregarded in his mind now.
01-24-2016, 03:25 AM (This post was last modified: 01-24-2016, 03:26 AM by Kingslay.)
KINGSLAY
He forgets what he comes for.
He forgets the girl with the plain brown eyes. He forgets her like he forgot her in the meadow, when he ran and she told him she would think of him still. He forgets her for the blood that slides down his cheek and sets every nerve ending on fire. He forgets her for the rattle of a frantic pulse thrumming through the veins of a stranger’s neck. He forgets her, even though he wants her in ways he hasn’t wanted before. He forgets her, even though he wants her alive, wants her cut open, wants her near, wants to curl up in her innards – wants her.
He forgets her, because this is what he lives for.
Because this is what he is made of; the pieces that he gives himself to, the pieces she can never understand because there are no monsters buried in her bones that stretch out underneath her skin. He is a reaper. He is death. He is a god, and she is just a girl. He breathes these moments deep into his lungs, and something in him feeds off the panic it tastes mingling with the oxygen. And she is still just a girl.
The air is on fire now, and it climbs hotter in fractions of seconds. He wants to boil his blood until the veins cauterize. He wants to watch his eyes bubble and spill gel before they roll back into his skull. He wants to see the flesh fall away from his bones like cooked meat.
‘I love you, Kingslay,’ she had said, but he forgets.
He remembers blood. He remembers glass. He remembers heat.
He watches him quake, and they are skin-to-skin, teeth-to-neck, flame-to-flesh.
And then suddenly they are not. He hasn’t heard the roar above the clamor of his own haughty arrogance and the sharp burn of gluttony. He doesn’t know she’s come until he is small against her teeth, settled on her tongue with a body that doesn’t belong as his. He should fear her, maybe, but these aren’t pieces alive in him. Instead he feels the heat of her breath. Instead he hears the thrum of her heart. Instead he salivates internally for a murder that he cannot commit in this shape, and he writhes as he aches. He thinks about melting her bones. He thinks about spilling her open from the inside out, and the hunger, it feels like acid in his gut.
But it doesn’t last. He sees the slate-grey haze of smoke again, and bone by bone his body changes. He would writhe again with agony if the feel of bones changing and skin stretching was not so familiar already.
“Bring her to me,” he says when he has at last a voice to say it with, and this time he looks to Yael.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.
