the Rift


[OPEN] Debauched canary, pious wolf

Konstantin Posts: N/A
Unregistered
:: :: ::
#9
I am not a ‘brave’ creature in the shining armor and sharpened steel sort of way. I would never rush to slash a dragon’s throat. I am afraid of Fire and loneliness and perhaps many other undiscovered terrors, but death is not among them.

I’m Russian. Death doesn’t intimidate me in the least.

---

You are trespassing, he said, as if such a crime warranted death. Everyone I’d ever met had only ever built walls to see who could climb over them – it was as good as an invitation, for some, and heredity dictated I was likely among them. For me, walls had never been necessary. I kept my ugliest secrets simply by acting as though I had no secrets to hide.

Deimos approached and I fixed his eyes with the same unabashed innocence in my expression that had faced down usurper, queen, and demon. “I want to see the aurora.” It wasn’t arrogance – I thought too little of myself to ever be arrogant – but the gaze of a child charging into machine guns, trapped in the moment when bravery no longer mattered.

The earth almost seemed to ripple beneath me, and in the instant before realization struck I imagined I could hear the smoldering crackle of a thousand last breaths taken in unison. Molten metal slithered up through my legs and into my chest and I buckled, clenching my jaw, suddenly staring half a lifetime backward into eyes as black as the void between stars: And I would have given you the greatest gift of all.

My brain became fire.

I pitched unsteadily where I stood, landing hard on one knee, beads of sweat casting an even greater sheen upon my oil-black flesh. The world seemed hazy and indistinct around the edges, as though the aurora overhead had bled into everything all at once.

Swallowing, I fought the urge to simply collapse (though I did not fear death, we weren’t at all on friendly terms), until a tide stranger than the familiar cold creep of venom flowed into my mind and whispered soothing nonsense into my ear. Turn around and walk away, it said, and my limbs twitched automatically to obey, but....

In fighting – or rather surrendering – to rise and walk away, the steel drained out of my muscles and I fell the rest of the way to the ground instead.

You don’t want to be here, it said, and it was not the voice that had woken from my placental dreams at the end and beginning of all things. It was foreign, and what might have assuaged some into quiet obedience simply made my tortured head ache as the psychic urging brought on attempt after useless attempt to stand. Prosto zatknyotes’, I hissed into my own thoughts, ...pozhalujsta. S etim ya spravlius’.

Slavery on its own isn’t a particularly convincing motivator, and I really would prefer not to die.

He hadn’t found me yet.


Messages In This Thread
Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Konstantin - 11-05-2013, 10:42 PM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Lothíriel - 11-06-2013, 06:48 AM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Deimos - 11-06-2013, 05:08 PM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Konstantin - 11-07-2013, 12:06 AM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Lothíriel - 11-07-2013, 07:18 AM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Deimos - 11-07-2013, 06:16 PM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Arah - 11-07-2013, 08:31 PM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Arah - 11-27-2013, 04:43 PM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Arah - 12-14-2013, 08:20 AM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Konstantin - 11-10-2013, 03:08 AM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Deimos - 11-17-2013, 07:30 PM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Deimos - 11-30-2013, 06:03 PM
RE: Debauched canary, pious wolf - by Deimos - 12-15-2013, 02:32 PM

Forum Jump:


RPGfix Equi-venture