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09-11-2016, 04:39 AM
like breaking diamonds with your hands
(The self-proclaimed martyr wanders—)
For where does one draw the line? Where does consideration and selflessness spill over into unasked-for sacrifices; when gratitude is expected? Mauja wasn't yet self-aware enough to know when he did what he did, much less why in that exact moment, but had he ever expected thanks..?
No.
He didn't think anyone knew what he was doing, in the shadows, and each time he asked himself: do you want to grow bitter and old and one day brandish this in the face of others, to justify your suffering and use it as leverage, decry 'if you only knew how I have suffered for you..'?
And that was the problem: no one had ever asked him to suffer for them. No one had ever wanted him to chip away at his own soul until it was nothing but a thin sliver of marrow and bone splinters left. He only had himself to blame, and there was nothing glorious about it.
What drove him to her? What magnetic pull, like the moon tugging on the ocean, brought him, time and again, to the side of those who appeared to be in need? (Had she lain broken and bleeding upon the shore, she wouldn't have been the first he had saved here—if he could save anyone.) Where was the Mauja that would've launched himself upon her, taken advantage of her repose to bury his horn deep in her beating heart, and let the sea wash away the stains of his sin..?
All that was left was a kind stranger, someone Mauja didn't know who it was, someone he hadn't bothered to get to know, and the tiger-mare's pale head rose to watch that particular stranger come closer. Her obvious lack of distress made him want to recoil, to pretend he hadn't been concerned, to leave and go on his way—let her be, spare her the foolishness of now-immortalmen. One of these days, he really ought to learn patience. (The patience needed for complete isolation of the self.)
But part of him drove his jaws to part in defiance, pushed the words from his lungs and into the air between them.
The illusions shattered. For all that she seemed at times so ethereal, so mysterious, born from some vague, distant star and sent here on a secret holy quest—for all this, she remained painfully mortal at times, anchored deep in reality, in the white sand. She was no angelic dream; she was real, too, with her own heart, scars, dreams and wishes.
He felt guilty.
(She was no goddess who needed to be saved.)
Dark pessimism engulfed his mind, and he turned his head away from her star-sharp eyes and heaved a brief, bitter laugh—barely a laugh at all, but he thought it came from the same place within him, rattling up from his lungs. "In my experience," he began, still not looking at her, just seeing the little indent where the sand folded around her in the corner of his eye, "people lying in the shallows like that are usually half-dead, or more." His tail flicked, stark white in the sunlight, a harsh, unforgiving sound as it whipped against his haunch and flank. It was discordant, all of it; the dream-soft state of his mind came up sharply against the solid reality of the world, and he had a hard time reconciling them.
"I'm glad you're not, though," he added after a moment, soft, quiet, chancing a glance at her from his blue eyes while he wondered why he meant it; had he somehow devolved into caring about everyone in this fucking land?
[ @Maren <3 ]
For where does one draw the line? Where does consideration and selflessness spill over into unasked-for sacrifices; when gratitude is expected? Mauja wasn't yet self-aware enough to know when he did what he did, much less why in that exact moment, but had he ever expected thanks..?
No.
He didn't think anyone knew what he was doing, in the shadows, and each time he asked himself: do you want to grow bitter and old and one day brandish this in the face of others, to justify your suffering and use it as leverage, decry 'if you only knew how I have suffered for you..'?
And that was the problem: no one had ever asked him to suffer for them. No one had ever wanted him to chip away at his own soul until it was nothing but a thin sliver of marrow and bone splinters left. He only had himself to blame, and there was nothing glorious about it.
What drove him to her? What magnetic pull, like the moon tugging on the ocean, brought him, time and again, to the side of those who appeared to be in need? (Had she lain broken and bleeding upon the shore, she wouldn't have been the first he had saved here—if he could save anyone.) Where was the Mauja that would've launched himself upon her, taken advantage of her repose to bury his horn deep in her beating heart, and let the sea wash away the stains of his sin..?
All that was left was a kind stranger, someone Mauja didn't know who it was, someone he hadn't bothered to get to know, and the tiger-mare's pale head rose to watch that particular stranger come closer. Her obvious lack of distress made him want to recoil, to pretend he hadn't been concerned, to leave and go on his way—let her be, spare her the foolishness of now-immortal
But part of him drove his jaws to part in defiance, pushed the words from his lungs and into the air between them.
The illusions shattered. For all that she seemed at times so ethereal, so mysterious, born from some vague, distant star and sent here on a secret holy quest—for all this, she remained painfully mortal at times, anchored deep in reality, in the white sand. She was no angelic dream; she was real, too, with her own heart, scars, dreams and wishes.
He felt guilty.
(She was no goddess who needed to be saved.)
Dark pessimism engulfed his mind, and he turned his head away from her star-sharp eyes and heaved a brief, bitter laugh—barely a laugh at all, but he thought it came from the same place within him, rattling up from his lungs. "In my experience," he began, still not looking at her, just seeing the little indent where the sand folded around her in the corner of his eye, "people lying in the shallows like that are usually half-dead, or more." His tail flicked, stark white in the sunlight, a harsh, unforgiving sound as it whipped against his haunch and flank. It was discordant, all of it; the dream-soft state of his mind came up sharply against the solid reality of the world, and he had a hard time reconciling them.
"I'm glad you're not, though," he added after a moment, soft, quiet, chancing a glance at her from his blue eyes while he wondered why he meant it; had he somehow devolved into caring about everyone in this fucking land?
[ @Maren <3 ]
