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08-07-2015, 06:49 AM
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
And just like that, it shattered.
His hesitation, his reservation, the fragility of fear and illusion—everything came down in his head with a crashing boom and a cloud of dust. Like fuck, how stupid could he be? Hadn't he learned, over the years, to keep his fucking nose in reality and not wander off into dreams?
Dreams weren't real. Dreams hurt. One way or another. It hurt when they broke. It hurt when they weren't real. It hurt when you recoiled from your state of star-struck halo-lights and creeping mist and fucking hell, drinking starlight? and realized you were nothing but a stumbling fool so lost in his own thoughts and misery you had completely slipped into some half-dream state of mind. Sacred holiness. Priestesses. Holy lights and Inquisitions—bah.
The awed fear that had ridden him had dissipated with her snort. That had been the catalyst, his wake-up call; it was a sound too mortal, too normal, too filthy and dirty and graceless. She wasn't some kind of creeping, crawling goddess in disguise. She—well, fuck, what was she? Her shoulders rippled with light and motion, and for a moment it wouldn't have surprised him if she'd sprouted wings, or burst into a demon of darkness, dripping blood and slaughtered souls, but—nothing happened. Nothing like that happened, because, hey, you know what, Mauja?
You're just two fucking mortals standing in a glade on a delightfully beautiful night.
The savage voice kept chewing at his thoughts, rampaged through his skull with all the reckless fervor of a maddened bull—but it only had a single target. If he smeared her holiness in his thoughts it was through no fault of her own.
Violet eyes came his way again—still sparkling with stars and mysteries but he tried not to see it, tried to make them drab and gray, fuck, tried to make all of her drab and gray.
Why? he finally spat into the void. Because he'd sort of made a fool of himself, all dreamily thinking her a priestess, so afraid of her tiger-dance and words? Afraid of having his theory of himself not existing being confirmed? Afraid of, well.. being measured and weighed, tried in her judgmental eyes, and found wanting?
Since when.. since when had he cared what others thought of him?
Since always.
When he had built his castle upon fear, he had relied on the impressions of others—he had relied on his reputation. It.. damn.
Back at square one. Mauja didn't exist. Wasn't it natural to fear the concept of nothing? So perhaps he had his answer there: she said he was frightened by himself, and whether she meant the void in his soul or the dreams he'd spun about her—well, he didn't know. Nor was he sure if he wanted to know.
Weakness.
He wanted to flatten his ears, snap at the cool night air, make faces, anything to get the fucking voice in his head to shut the fuck up—
But that just fed the monster. So he smothered it with ice instead, drowned it in heaving, glacial seas, next to the corpses of all the other facets of his self. He would keep burying and burying and burying until there was only ice left.
Eyes closed off, heart closed off but bleeding something dark and clotted beneath its coating of frost, he began to drift in her wake with little conscious thought. What was she seeking? What was she saying? The word seemed jumbled and disjointed, like she was talking about something he couldn't remember changing the subject to—launched into a conversation halfway over, and suddenly she was brandishing a branch of late berries, of all things, in his face. It was too pathetic to be a sword, so with a moment's look of pure confusion and surprise he stared at the offending object. If she hadn't wanted him following her, she could've just told him, instead of sticking berries in his face.
Then that half-remembered conversation from seconds prior came back, and he simply said, "Oh," and took one. Like, good job eating things a stranger you potentially just insulted offered you. Last time he'd eaten something like this it had been his good friend d'Artagnan seeking to knock them both out for a night, and it had had some..peculiar events attached to it. But it was too late and the berry was already down his gullet, and if not for Irma's bemused assertion that it wouldn't kill him he likely would've panicked on the spot.
It should've been a sobering thought, but it was just despairing—how far he had fallen from his icy heights.
"Fearsome?" he queried, something blue in his voice, something—disappointed, hurt, sad? He couldn't place it, staring at the shadows of her peculiar wings. Mauja the Fearsome King of Fireflies. They danced in the darkness she had created for them, but it just made his heart ache; fearsome. "I don't want to be fearsome anymore," he went on after a moment, barely aware of saying it out loud as he lipped at the dropped branch, not at all sure why he was there for more, or what it would do to him, or to her, or anything—but it seemed better than fear, better than insulting this prickly, gorgeous creature, and.. well.. better than his usual misery, right?
His hesitation, his reservation, the fragility of fear and illusion—everything came down in his head with a crashing boom and a cloud of dust. Like fuck, how stupid could he be? Hadn't he learned, over the years, to keep his fucking nose in reality and not wander off into dreams?
Dreams weren't real. Dreams hurt. One way or another. It hurt when they broke. It hurt when they weren't real. It hurt when you recoiled from your state of star-struck halo-lights and creeping mist and fucking hell, drinking starlight? and realized you were nothing but a stumbling fool so lost in his own thoughts and misery you had completely slipped into some half-dream state of mind. Sacred holiness. Priestesses. Holy lights and Inquisitions—bah.
The awed fear that had ridden him had dissipated with her snort. That had been the catalyst, his wake-up call; it was a sound too mortal, too normal, too filthy and dirty and graceless. She wasn't some kind of creeping, crawling goddess in disguise. She—well, fuck, what was she? Her shoulders rippled with light and motion, and for a moment it wouldn't have surprised him if she'd sprouted wings, or burst into a demon of darkness, dripping blood and slaughtered souls, but—nothing happened. Nothing like that happened, because, hey, you know what, Mauja?
You're just two fucking mortals standing in a glade on a delightfully beautiful night.
The savage voice kept chewing at his thoughts, rampaged through his skull with all the reckless fervor of a maddened bull—but it only had a single target. If he smeared her holiness in his thoughts it was through no fault of her own.
Violet eyes came his way again—still sparkling with stars and mysteries but he tried not to see it, tried to make them drab and gray, fuck, tried to make all of her drab and gray.
Why? he finally spat into the void. Because he'd sort of made a fool of himself, all dreamily thinking her a priestess, so afraid of her tiger-dance and words? Afraid of having his theory of himself not existing being confirmed? Afraid of, well.. being measured and weighed, tried in her judgmental eyes, and found wanting?
Since when.. since when had he cared what others thought of him?
Since always.
When he had built his castle upon fear, he had relied on the impressions of others—he had relied on his reputation. It.. damn.
Back at square one. Mauja didn't exist. Wasn't it natural to fear the concept of nothing? So perhaps he had his answer there: she said he was frightened by himself, and whether she meant the void in his soul or the dreams he'd spun about her—well, he didn't know. Nor was he sure if he wanted to know.
Weakness.
He wanted to flatten his ears, snap at the cool night air, make faces, anything to get the fucking voice in his head to shut the fuck up—
But that just fed the monster. So he smothered it with ice instead, drowned it in heaving, glacial seas, next to the corpses of all the other facets of his self. He would keep burying and burying and burying until there was only ice left.
Eyes closed off, heart closed off but bleeding something dark and clotted beneath its coating of frost, he began to drift in her wake with little conscious thought. What was she seeking? What was she saying? The word seemed jumbled and disjointed, like she was talking about something he couldn't remember changing the subject to—launched into a conversation halfway over, and suddenly she was brandishing a branch of late berries, of all things, in his face. It was too pathetic to be a sword, so with a moment's look of pure confusion and surprise he stared at the offending object. If she hadn't wanted him following her, she could've just told him, instead of sticking berries in his face.
Then that half-remembered conversation from seconds prior came back, and he simply said, "Oh," and took one. Like, good job eating things a stranger you potentially just insulted offered you. Last time he'd eaten something like this it had been his good friend d'Artagnan seeking to knock them both out for a night, and it had had some..peculiar events attached to it. But it was too late and the berry was already down his gullet, and if not for Irma's bemused assertion that it wouldn't kill him he likely would've panicked on the spot.
It should've been a sobering thought, but it was just despairing—how far he had fallen from his icy heights.
"Fearsome?" he queried, something blue in his voice, something—disappointed, hurt, sad? He couldn't place it, staring at the shadows of her peculiar wings. Mauja the Fearsome King of Fireflies. They danced in the darkness she had created for them, but it just made his heart ache; fearsome. "I don't want to be fearsome anymore," he went on after a moment, barely aware of saying it out loud as he lipped at the dropped branch, not at all sure why he was there for more, or what it would do to him, or to her, or anything—but it seemed better than fear, better than insulting this prickly, gorgeous creature, and.. well.. better than his usual misery, right?
man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
