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Prodigious dreams of colossal imagination; the careful keeping of ancient archives and commemorated events. This is his endless job. He tries, tries detestably hard, to keep and methodically remember. Too many are forgotten. They are so many that will never be legends, who are not gorgeous or perfect or even half-way to beautiful, who will never be celebrated and famous. And why was this? What made someone famous, when they were little more than shallow figurines made of thin plastic, created and pulled from nowhere into stardom for the simple reason of renown? What made them different? How were they better than all the simple characters that made up the world in the books? Carnesîr is hollow, empty and a coward, and he fills up the space with all the stories of others, cramming his head full, killing time endlessly with the forging of stories and the tracking of them.
All his life, he had been fighting this war, the war of forgetting. And he will not succumb, and he will stay afloat, not drown in the weight of his responsibilities. But with every breath water chokes his lungs until he is half-dead, constantly, and only hoping to live.
"Maybe," he says to this pretty mare, and he does not elaborate, despite the stars in his eyes and hope on his face.
Inside he's screaming for help. They could try to take him, but they would never rise victorious. He might be dying, but he was dying in his own time. The gladiators could not cut his throat, quicken his murder. They could not strip him of his love and heart, his loyalty and thin bravery. Lena's voice is soft as the mane of his mother, sweet and buttery as Lólindir's eyes. No. Not Lólindir. Leave him alove. Fuck off! They haunt him, these ghosts. They circle and cling to him, phantom eyes pale, faces cold and cruel. He is trying to become a better stallion, a better son, a better something despite... All he wants are these horrific conjurations to dissipate from polluting his clean mind.
"It drives you crazy getting old," He says suddenly, eyes lifting to hers, a spark of desperation in his crystal eyes. "I am Carnesîr." The stallion adds, voice shifting, uncertain. They could make it divine, this day, make the day shine. "I am afraid for them, their conscience. No... I am, Deimos said, scholar." Fear prickles his voice, a collision of terror and desolation. A laugh bubbles up from his chest, too high and too forced, a delusional attempt at easing any tension from the words he used so wrongly. They caress his brain, lick at his head, spiraling and spinning- arabesque notions and fanciful thoughts, visions of him pouring out his soul. But to who? Who could he trust? Panic runs across his skin, dancing electric shocks, burning tiny holes into the fabric of his heart. "Tell me the story of why the sun-home and moon-home was invaded." The whites of his eyes gleam in the dim lighting.
He is so close to running away.
The card games and ease with the bitter salt of blood
I was in but I want out
My mother's love is choking me
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