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Havoc and glee wrapped their veils, their shrouds, their cloak and daggers around the child’s mind and corrupted his movements; all exuberance, all swift, sinuous motions, like rapid heartbeats, like blistering, barbaric stones raining down upon an enemy. He drove through thickets and glades as a surreptitious serpent, unwinding his maelstroms amidst laughter and fervency, zealousness and audacity, barely tripping over roots and alleys, sailing past vantage points and boulders that had once caused him to stumble, caused him to halt. Too fleeting, too breathtaking, a blue prince ducking and darting through the horizon, either the forest finally acquiesced its threshold to their mighty, up-and-coming stalwart, or his growth had somehow materialized through his movements and gestures. Birdsong grew ever closer as Orangemoon touched and tangled over the fragments of his earthen youth, pressing and testing his might amidst the wayward adventures and the searing sport of miniature demons; he’d lost, he’d won, and he’d whittled away at the fringes of nothingness too – all balancing nicely upon a tumultuous precipice, and he never dared look down at the vestiges below. Instead, the tiny titan, with his eyes drenched in aspirations and his heart encased in too many different lacquers and absorptions (the price of triumph, the weight of dominance, the touch, the ferocity, of power and supremacy), carried his head as if it were outfitted with a noble crown, a winter shield, a serpentine circlet. The child balanced on the seams of greatness and decadence, crossing over vicious, seething wires, wandering into hot, scorching anarchies, watching, witnessing, at the way the worlds, the realms, machinated mayhem. The boy pressed his potential into the fountains of carnivorous opulence, witnessed cracks and slivers splinter its way through the foundation of his friends, his brethren: Rikyn, disappeared, Aithniel, staking a home elsewhere, Arwen, murdered. Were there always presages of glory after despondency? Were there messages in the cruelty? Were there stark reminders of determination, littered and glimmering amongst the rubble, the ruin, of his beloved companions?
But there were constants too: stalwart Adelric, with his penchant for finding grand objects, Orsino, new and wonderful and bonded, never too far away, fulfilling pledges and dedication, his family (the Reaper, strong and enduring, potent and wonderful), and the Basin itself, towering, majestic, enduring, and tenacious. In some ways, he was blessed, consecrated, and sanctified, hardly deserving of all the treasures he’d managed to garner, and in others, he was damned right from the beginning, bystander to loss (too young to go after the beast who’d felled the golden child, too young to do anything more than sneer at Essetia and her dog Romul, too young to brandish his fire at enemies, too young to wield the distinct, pummeling tainted sentiments staining his core).
He peeled away from his normal play, listening to Orsino’s small paws ramble behind him in the falling flakes and newfound snow, tracing over the fortifications of pines and fir, bounding hither and yon, away from the sentinels’ grave, composed looks (as if they sometimes disapproved of his actions and antics, as if they knew all the wild, savage things he yearned to do). He ambled down over stony ramparts, waited for the trace of his black kitsune, when curiosity – always a distinct distraction – carved an unfamiliar niche in his senses. For a few moments, the colt was entirely still, one more beast to add to the multitude of monsters, widening his nares and embracing the snare of strangers; an instant faltered where he thought to go search for one of their soldiers, or his sire, beckon to them about something creeping and crawling amongst the glacial runes. Not an instant later, his lips curled and scorned at the rumination, and damned himself to inquiry all the more. Orsino joined him, ears pricked and raised, one small chirp to signal he was ready and eager (for what, neither could say), before the lad, dear, intrepid Erebos, brandished one forceful outcry. “Hello!” The sound ricocheted and bounded off walls, off stone, and he crept a little closer to the scent, to the frame, to the creature, surely nestled and hiding in the thicket of evergreens. His vocals came all over again, booming and insistent, vehement and outreaching. “Who are you?”
@[Själ]
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[O] Dear Mother, As This Noose Is Placed Around My Neck | open
