these dead men walk on water
cold blood runs through their veins
the angry river rises
as we step into the rain

It was less than a second—nearly less than a heartbeat, but not quite. His heart had frozen in his chest, ceased its panicked rhythm, held its fucking breath along with the rest of him as he braced for impact.

Not physical impact—not the kind where bodies clash and minds collide and there's blood and bruises and friction.

But the kind of impact where you hear the sterling sound of your glass world breaking, and then you feel it come raining down in a shower of shards. Because this thing, it didn't fall and hit the hard ground—this thing exploded up in the air.

He wasn't ready, either.

He was all sorts of choked, unable to draw breath for that thing lodged in his throat, heart stiff and silent because—because—just because.

“NO YOU WEREN’T!!" she yelled, just a fraction of a moment later, her voice—her voice plunging the fine dagger all the way into his heart, and punching the breath out of him. He tried to draw another one in, to fill up those empty lungs, but he couldn't—the only thing he achieved was a ragged kind of gasp, a hitch through widened nostrils.

I wish I were,

but he couldn't say anything. His control was fraying—he could feel it, at the edges of his eyes, the slight blurring of his vision, in the irrational, erratic twitch of his ears as the one he had sworn to protect slowly began to understand what he had said.

What he had actually said.

Honesty, brother.

It wasn't cathartic. It didn't ease anything. It felt like shards of glass rubbed into his eyes, his throat.. like he was swallowing them and they ripped everything inside up and the only good thing about it was that he didn't have to bear the burden of having lied to her.

It was too late, even if he'd wanted to do it, too late because she'd never believe him if he took it back, and he couldn't do that to her, and oh god that breath was dangerously close to turning into a sob, but he couldn't stand here and fucking cry because he was a monster and he did not deserve her pity or want it or even need it—

—he just needed her.

There was no forgiveness for blind faith; it did not make him any less guilty.

Martyrdom is only a blindfold that increases the bitter pain.

This was no beautiful suffering, not some kind of purge he went through for angelic, higher purposes—there was only the filthy truth of life embedded in those shards as they coursed through his veins, tearing up the things that made life worth living.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—

but I can't make it undone.

The worst thing wasn't the truth—the worst thing was that feeling, that thing putting his heart in frozen shackles.

The feeling of having let her down.

He wasn't good enough. He wasn't good enough, for her—he wasn't worthy of her presence, and,

he just brought this pain with him wherever he went, didn't he? Ophelia.. Kahlua.. and now her—Elding. “Why?” she was asking, and the answer was so simple—so disgustingly simple. He had spent the majority of his life rationalizing violence. He had spent the majority of his life practicing violence. He had spent the majority of his fucking life ruining others for his own gain. You don't walk away from that without scars—and his ran across his heart and mind, a kind of callous, desensitization; he had learned not to think. The enemy was a gray and nameless blur, etched too vividly in his memory, blood-stained and—

faceless, that dark voice whispered, they were faceless when you killed them.

It's how easy it was—she had said, we are invading, Midas will pay, and she had played towards his honor and his flawed sense of justice.

She had made it seem noble.

"Ophelia," he answered her bitterly—Ophelia, who always seemed so pristine and so holy, so.. flawless and graceful, so angelic, so.. so harmless.

But she was a demon, wasn't she? Just like the rest of them?

Why had he fought?

A simple request. A simple reason. Something familiar.

—I never laid hands on any of them—

But it didn't matter. He had been ready to. Part of him had wanted to.

Could you abstain violence? Could you live the rest of your life without touching anyone with the force of your fury behind it again? Could you survive without that outlet?

Mauja had no middle ground—when he fought, he fought. When he fought, he tapped on every reserve of anger he had ever hoarded, all those little moments where his control reined in the mounting rage, all those little moments of irritation, and.. and everything he kept locked up in his icy little jar.

Your mother, he wanted to say, to spit out that final thing that was stuck between his teeth—but he couldn't do it. He couldn't do that to her as well,

“No you weren’t, no you weren’t, you’re lying--”
Leos,

ljós. It means light.

Dagrenning... Dögun... Afturelding.

Was there to even be a dawn after this impossible night?

Could he bombard her, burden her, with even more truths? He looked to her, to her eyes, to her sides, her nostrils, all these little signs and his mind replayed her voice time and again. Why?

"She asked me," he whispered, something hot—shame—boiling in his veins, in his voice, touching his tongue with every scalding word. "And I just.. did."

I am a sword drenched in the blood of those my wielder calls enemies.

And so suddenly, it stared him in the eye—the raw, naked truth.

He did not exist.
He had a body, one of flesh and blood.

But he was soulless.

Mauja was a name as empty as his deceivingly white husk.

[ @[Roskuld] ]

lord, the demands you're making-
help the monster on two feet
walk him down the hall, repeat
and when he's strong enough to stand alone
you'll notice what big teeth . . .