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Strength
What is strength
but weakness,
altered, bent
to seem a
cradle for
his sorrow?
the winged lies
the back turns
the heart falls
the memory:
fails.
ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION
Ashamin wondered, as he pressed his hide against the frozen wall, if time would fix him to it. He leaned into the rough, scraped surface of the aging ice and thought of the slow accumulation of the seasons: the adding in the season of frost, the painful melting of the warmer days to come. What would it mean to become a part of this cave?BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION
He felt lost. Even with Einarr's words of encouragement still ringing in his ears, with the instruction and determination to learn to fight, Ashamin could not forget the failure of his emotional control. When he pressed his cheek to the cave wall the traces left behind by his tears seemed to sting more than any other part of him. He gently bit the tip of his tongue, compressing it between the rough, flat tops of his white teeth. He was alone and a failure, even as he strove for success. Of this, Ashamin was sure.
But the young buck was very quickly proven wrong. The sounds of another soon reached his ears and the large dishes swiveled and pressed back to face the sound, even when Ashamin could not bring it upon himself to shift and do so. Faint pocking sounds of hooves on the cold cave surface were followed by the soft pad of paws and a canine's long howl; Ashamin stiffened with unease. The sound of mourning was tangible.
Another encounter was what he had been hoping to avoid, and just as he had thought of Lena, sounds like those made by she and her companion alighted in the echo of the cave. The young buck was too ashamed to turn and face the possibility of someone who he knew--who had trusted him, taken him in, and perhaps even tried to find strength in him when he had felt it out of his own reach--being at his back.
Something about the pit of Ashamin's despair and the apparent impossibility of ever retrieving himself from it made him bold. Perhaps he was simply being reckless, and didn't recognize the behavior in himself. Had he ever acted in an unexpected way? Had he ever taken any risks?
Perhaps he had taken a risk when he had left that valley, put the frost of home behind him, and left his father's body to rot under a thin covering of snow. But where was risk and bravery in running from the sight of death? Wouldn't he have been taking a risk by staying behind?
He exhaled, long and slow, and tried to relax himself. But there was no way he could be consoled; Ashamin simply could not talk himself down. "Can't I be alone?" He lashed his tail behind him, letting it strike the arch-wall and send a shimmering dash of white across the rippled ice. The sound of its strike was soft but satisfying: punctuation to his remark. He spoke to no one. He thought of his father's body, growing cold, huffing out its final, forced breath. "Isn't it enough that isolation has been thrust upon me? Why, now, does it have to flee when I seek it?" He questioned openly, speaking perhaps to who he believed to be Lena, but perhaps also to nothing but the open air. There was a sense in the way he said his words, a certain aspect of their conveyance that suggested he would have spoken them aloud even if no one else had joined him in the cave--said them, perhaps, to nothing but a ghost.
With his face still turned away from the pair at his back and his eyes shut, black lids sinking over black eyes, Ashamin thought of staying at his father's side and watching the bones sink--first into the snow, and then in the soft loam of summer. To watch the consequence of death: that would have been the risk.
[[For Sikeax. Obsessed with Hobgoblin already. I adore when companions heavily affect the lives of their bonded and have such strong personalities as he, and you write him beautifully!]]
Table by Jen, with help from Avis
See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
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