| Outcast atk: 4 | def: 7.5 | dam: 6.5 |
| Stallion :: Equine :: 17hh :: 7 Years [Tallsun] HP: 67.5 | Buff: NOVICE |
| Jen |
08-22-2015, 08:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2015, 09:00 PM by Knox.)
image by deadair @ flickr.com</style>
round all the pieces up, but they just don't fit the same.</style>
Knox stopped every so often along the way, bidding his companion to press on and scout ahead. Aylin needed to rest, he needed to think, and the last thing he had needed was to be discovered, by a brother or anyone else. Recognition was not what he was looking for.
And now, at last, they are here. He has led her into the heart of helovia, the heart of his home and history. There is nothing for him outside these fiery caves; all he needs, all he has left, is standing here beside him. Aylin. Manhattan. The emptiness of an old ghost's absence.
He has let Aylin lean on him as they have walked, guided her with a quiet hum as he once guided his companion in a moment of blindness. Now, standing before a fall of lava and remembering his dream, he nudges her sleek neck, beckons her to the warm stone. This will keep away the cold, until Birdsong comes. Here, under the shadow of the earth, lit only by fire, they would still live in spring. They would still feel as spring.
Here, he would confess his sins and loves.
Knox lets his round knees land gently on the stone, lets his heavy body fall. "Aylin..." he hesitates. It is difficult to explain all he has done wrong, since seeing her last. He feels as if he has killed hordes, as if he has left mountains of corpses in his wake.
But hasn't it only been two? Or no, maybe more. Maybe five.
Manhattan lies beside him then, her soft fur a comfort, the steadiness of her bond so constant that he is reassured. "...I thought I'd lost you, forever."
And it is true. He had thought she was gone. He hadn't remembered why, but he had found himself without her. He had considered it his punishment. He had thought it was a sign for him to lose all hope of recovering, to give into the evils he was raised to possess. But now she is back. She is light, she is hope, and she is here again, to save him. He will never go back.
He turns to her suddenly, curled tresses flying, blue eyes desperate and bleeding with emotion he has so long resisted feeling. Can she see him? How much can she see? And can she feel what is lost to her in the shadow of blindness?
Can she feel how much he cares?
His heart is beating in his ears, his massive dishes of hooves are sliding closer to the edge of the stone and the central fiery column as he turns to face her, looks deep to find her. "Aylin, I'm... starting to remember, that night. I'd forgotten, but... it's all coming back."
He exhales. Manhattan's steady heartbeat is a warm and welcome comfort. He has to say this, he has to tell her. He has to talk to her.
"You said I needed to think about the future—that I would have a family. No, that I could have a family."
Knox turns, looks out at the fire. He isn't a hunter, anymore. He's just scared, and he need to hear it from her.
"Do you really believe that?"
___
It is the past; it is over a year ago now, and Knox remembers. It is the night that rain poured in the old country over two friends and travellers, and the night that tore them apart.
How could she understand?
Knox is surprised to hear the voice of his ancestor in his head but he knows he should not be. He shifts, visibly and uncomfortably, where he stands. His body morphs back to its being, to Knox, but only for a flicker of a moment. He is there long enough to lock eyes with the mare who stands before him, his friend for so long, his company in such ancient and winding wanderings. She has an innocence to her that he cannot bear to shatter with truth. She knows many things about him, more than any other, but she does not know everything. She does not know all his ancestor’s crimes, and she does not know that though they are shameful to bear, he sometimes considers them with pride.
It is difficult for him to distinguish himself from others, now. He looks at her, rainsoaked but focused only on him, and wonders how she can care so much and never know when she has hurt him. Is he irrational for responding the way he does? He doesn’t think so. She says he retreats and he turns his half-dappled neck away from her, unable to face that truth.
At his feet, puddles gather. His eyes turn from a stark grey-blue to something darker and more difficult to understand. He becomes murky and scarred, cycling through all forms, unable to stop.
When he speaks, his voice changes with every shuffle of his countenance. “These are my faces, Aylin. Many, some foul and some faint, but they are all mine.”
He can’t stop to look at her, now. His gaze is fixed past her, at something beyond. His mind is a rapid change, in constant flux, but every voice fights for dominance and says the very same words, in a unified harmony.
“They are as much a part of Knox as the colt born in the Deep Woods of Helovia. They are the parts of him that make up his history,” he goes on, no longer sure who he is.
Then the grandest farce: “We can never escape our history. Always, it comprises us.”
—
knox</style>
& manhattan</style> |
| Hidden Account |
| Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.0 :: 3 |
| ali |
 The journey takes quite the toll on you, so by the time you and Knox reach your destination you're ready for little more than sleep. "Where are we?" You ask as you turn your head in Knox's direction. Your ears tilt forward and you listen to the sound of him lowering his body to the ground and you follow suit, more than happy to finally be able to rest your weary bones.
He says your name and you turn your head toward him, blinking against the blurriness that leaves him as little more than a smudge of blackness against a canvas of brown and tan. "I'm here now.." You say softly, but you feel as if there is more that Knox wants to say, so your voice trails and you listen. Your hunch is proven correct when he says that he is beginning to remember the night he abandoned you. It makes you frown and your silver eyes fall to the ground.
You remember it all too well.
You don't want to.
You want to forget and pretend that it never happened, but you know its impossible.
You don't want to remember the way Dovev pretended to be Knox, how he professed love that was a lie, how he attacked you and left you blind in a place that you didn't know.
Knox speaks again and your ear tilts in his direction. He repeats your own words back to you and you sigh softly. "Yes." You answer honestly, because you still do think that Knox could have a family. "I do believe that you can have a family.." with someone... "...but it doesn't matter what I believe if you don't believe it yourself."
---
flashback:
You shake your head when the ancestor claims that all of the faces you see are Knox's because you know better... at least you think you do. These faces that flash before you might be vaguely familiar but you don't know them like you know Knox. You know the way his eyes light up with unspoken excitement and how they darken with anger, the way his ears fall when he's thinking, even the way his mouth moves when he speaks to you. You know his face. "Those faces belong to your ancestors." You finally say. "Not you. They're not your face. You're not Roanne. Or Janos. Or Anaan. Or Zekiah... or anyone else. You're Knox." But you don't think he'll listen to you and if he does you don't think he'll understand. He's already too far gone and it makes your heart ache for him in a way it never has before.
"Part of you, I guess." You agree as he speaks. "Part... not all of you..." You want so badly for him to understand that he is more than just his ancestors... at least to you he is. "Knox.." You say his name again, but he cuts you off claiming that no one can escape their history and that it is what comprises all of you.
...perhaps he is right.
You stare in silence for a moment, listening to the rain as it falls to the ground around you, feeling it as it pelted against your side and your back. "They make up your history ... you know their history..." You say quietly. "So shouldn't you learn from the mistakes that they've made in their past? Shouldn't you ... want to make your future better than the history that comprises you? So you can make the history of your future family better?"
"."
aylin
healing hands of love like the stars shiny shiny from above
|
|
| Outcast atk: 4 | def: 7.5 | dam: 6.5 |
| Stallion :: Equine :: 17hh :: 7 Years [Tallsun] HP: 67.5 | Buff: NOVICE |
| Jen |
image by deadair @ flickr.com</style>
round all the pieces up, but they just don't fit the same.</style>
She is so wrong. Knox cares for her deeply, but he knows she is wrong. Aylin, the one with the heart who couldn’t stop caring, didn’t really know him then.
Now, she does, even when he doesn’t. And he is needy, he relies on her. All his life he has relied on females, ones weaker than him. The old killers, the lost pups, the blind travel companion. And now… he relies on her still.
”It does matter,” he says, insisting and correcting with every breath. He needs to make her understand how important this is. She is wrong in that it doesn’t matter, but she was right, so long ago.
”My family… My family was a nightmare. There was no love in that house. I don’t know where Archibald, Evers, where any of them are now. I don’t know if they have families of their own, but…” Knox breathes deeply. Manhattan watches him closely out from focused, blue eyes. ”I saw Archibald, the night his first child was born and died. It was the first time I thought he ever had a heart. It was lying there, dead, in the snow, but he had one, Aylin.” Knox shakes his head at the memory and its horrors, but he has to force himself to go on.
”I want that,” he says quietly then. ”Not the tragedy. The heart. I want to see my love walking this earth. I need to prove that I have it in me, and I need to know it’s real.”
Love. What even is the thing, love?
”Aylin, Dovev said he loved you that night and he was lying. But the only reason those ancestors exist is because I’m alive. They live through me. He was lying. I don’t know if I would have been.”
Manhattan grows tense beside him, but Knox doesn’t notice. She builds poison in her jaws, but he doesn’t see.
”Aylin, I don’t know if I love you. And I know it’s… fuck, it’s insane to ask you anything, now, after all the ways I’ve hurt you. But I need to find out. I have to know,” he pleads, pressing his forehead to hers, exhaling and emptying his lungs of everything.
He needs to know if he has love enough in him, in her, to keep him alive through this long, abandoned winter.
___
He isn’t listening anymore. He doesn’t care to entertain her inaccuracy, her inability to fucking listen for once, any longer. It is not true that she doesn’t listen, but he can’t consider truth anymore. He is too filled with upset, too filled with something that is starting to burn just a little like rage.
It is only when she begins her last small speech that his ears lower in that telltale way. He is considering. He is settling, ceasing his shifting, slowly returning to his own ebony face. The eyes solidify as a perfect blue: the one he was born with, the only blue he ever saw through for so long in his life.
“Shouldn’t you learn from the mistakes that they’ve made in their past?”
She isn’t wrong, maybe. The ancestors dispute this, some scream in protest, others shake their heads in a disappointed silence, but Knox has enough of himself for one single moment, enough of himself to simply consider she could be right.
His expression is softening, his heartbeat slowing, and his coat growing thicker with rain. A part of him is breaking.
And then, she speaks of family. Of a family in the future. Of a family at all.
Knox snaps. Like a flash, like a sudden, harmful card being tossed, he is the murderer: Dovev. His face greys like steel, his heart hardens, and his eyes are black with a hatred that runs deeper than bloodlines.
“I WILL NEVER HAVE A FAMILY!”
It doesn’t occur to her what she might be trying to say. That this mare who he sees as a friend closer than any other might be trying to tell him he means more.
“A MONSTER LIKE THIS CANNOT BE A FATHER!”
His heart is growing colder, locking itself up somewhere deep and hidden. He cannot consider Aylin’s feelings--that she may want a family, and that perhaps she has followed him this far into empty lands with no promise for a hope that someday he might turn to her with love in his eyes and say, “Yes, Aylin. Let’s make this place our home. For our family.”
He has never thought of settling. He has never considered, since the death of his mother, that family is anything but a curse.
“AND I AM THIS MONSTER!”
His eyes burn. His heart is hurting somewhere too far away to feel, so when he cries he does not know why.
“I AM THE MONSTER YOU CAN’T FACE, AYLIN.”
The one part of Knox that knows he can be better than this, that Aylin is right, is forgotten.
“AND A MONSTER CAN ONLY KILL HIS FAMILY. A monster...”
The heart is tired. He forces his gaze upon hers.
“...a monster is a thing without love inside him.”
—
knox</style>
& manhattan</style> |
| Hidden Account |
| Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.0 :: 3 |
| ali |
You feel your heart squeeze in your chest when Knox talks about Archibald, about his first child being born and dying before it even had a chance at life. You don’t know his brother, but you still feel for him. Tears gather in your silvery eyes and they slowly roll down your cheek and drop to the ground. You can only imagine the kind of pain his brother must have felt and you wonder if its like the pain you felt being abandoned by your father and losing touch with your siblings and mother or if its a totally different kind of pain that rocks you on a deeper level. A kind of pain that tears you apart and leaves you little more than a shell of what you had been before.
Knox says he wants what Archibald had and you don’t know what to say. But then he clarifies, he says that he wants to see his love walking the earth and … it still leaves you speechless. What do you say to someone who openly confesses that they wish to have a child? What did having a child prove? You suddenly found yourself wondering in a shocking display of bitter pessimism. Your father had children and he still abandoned you and your brother, your sisters, and your mother.
He continues speaking and you remain silent and it kills you when he brings up Dovev’s confession of love. You don’t want it to hurt as bad as it does, but it hurts you. He says he doesn’t know if he would have been lying had he been the one to speak those words but it doesn’t help the bitter hurt. He presses his forehead against yours, just below your horn, and you sigh shakily as he says he needs to find out. He needs to know.
What would he have you do? Bear a child for him so he can see if he loves you and the foal?
”Knox…” Your voice is shaky as you speak his name. ”I don’t… what …” You want to ask him the question that you wondered when he first told you that he wanted to see his love walk the earth. ”Having a child… it doesn’t prove that you love someone.” You finally whisper. ”My father had four of us with my mother … and he still abandoned us.”
____
flashback
For a moment, just a moment he is Knox and you smile because you're so happy that he's back. His ears even fall and you feel hope bubbling in your chest because he is listening and he is thinking. You hope shatters, though, when you speak of a future family and his body shifts. Your eyes are wide and you find yourself taking a step back when you are faced with Dovev. He is one that you rarely see but he frightens you more than any of Knox's other ancestors do.
He shouts and you flinch like you've been struck and, perhaps you have. Does he not consider you his family? Are you not important enough to be? You've travelled with him for so long and for so far .... are you nothing more than a companion? Someone for him to speak to when he gets bored?
"A MONSTER LIKE THIS CANNOT BE A FATHER! AND I AM THIS MONSTER!"
"No!" You try to interrupt him, but he only continues to shout at you. As he continues you can see the tears and you wonder if Knox truly believes what it is that's being said or if it is purely Dovev.
"I AM THE MONSTER THAT YOU CAN'T FACE, AYLIN."
"And yet here I am!" You finally shout back because you want so desperately to be heard. "I'm here! I see you! I'm facing you! And I still love you..." You surprise yourself into silence and you stare, your emerald eyes wide as Dovev tells you that a monster kills his family. And a monster is a thing without love inside of him. "You're still my light..."
But you don't think he's listening anymore. You don't think he cares and it hurts you in a way that you've never experienced. You sigh and your gaze falls to the rain soaked ground and you wonder if its even worth continuing to argue with him because he's obviously got his mind made up.
"."
aylin
healing hands of love like the stars shiny shiny from above
|
|
| Outcast atk: 4 | def: 7.5 | dam: 6.5 |
| Stallion :: Equine :: 17hh :: 7 Years [Tallsun] HP: 67.5 | Buff: NOVICE |
| Jen |
image by deadair @ flickr.com</style>
round all the pieces up, but they just don't fit the same.</style>
He awaits her reply eagerly. He ignored his companion’s unbidden jealousy. He wants her to know how he feels, and he wants to know how she feels, too.
And he is foolish to think he is right, and foolish to think she will agree. But still, the childish part in him believes in his words. He doesn’t realize their callousness, especially when spoken to her, so abandoned, so unloved for so long.
Knox is trying to offer love, when he doesn’t even know what love is.
She speaks to him of abandonment and he opens his eyes, he pulls away. She tells him he is wrong and his heart begins to break.
He stands, slowly, patiently.
He is hurting, from a deeper part than he understands.
”What will prove it, then? What will get rid of this pain, Aylin? For so long I’ve been lost in it. Ever since we left Helovia I’ve been filled with this hurt more powerful than anything else I’ve ever felt. And I’ve been hurting for you, I think,” he says slowly, carefully. His chest feels tight. Manhattan has turned away.
”I don’t know what to do anymore. This is all I can think of. But you make me hurt, and I thought... “ Knox looks down, down into the pit of fire and past his jet black hooves all covered in feathers, all clogged with the debris of Frostfall. ”I thought if I knew I loved you, it would go away. And I thought, maybe, what you said about having a family… I thought that was you trying to rid me of that pain.”
The stallion exhales slowly, trying to breathe as his eyes brim with the same tears he first shed before Aylin, so many years ago. He thought, he thought, he thought. But he is always thinking wrong, or of things he does not know. He doesn’t know what the pain is because he doesn’t know what love is. He doesn’t know the responsibility of having a child because he doesn’t know that to have a child is to have love more infinite than one can control.
He doesn’t know anything, anymore, and for once he is willing to admit it. He just needs her guidance; he just needs her love.
___
She doesn’t know what light is, a voice comes. Knox doesn’t know whose it is, anymore.
He is wondering if she knows what love is, too. How can she, if she thinks she loves him?
Knox has loved so little. He loves Manhattan, he thinks. He once, for a flicker of a moment, loved his brother. In that second when Archibald was dead, an image before his misinformed figure of the end, Knox loved him.
Now he loves no one. He waits for the day Archibald truly passes. He waits for the moment when Manhattan gives up on him, freeing him even of that burden of loving her. He is waiting, always waiting--or someone, some ancestor, is. Knox doesn’t know anymore.
“You don’t see me,” Knox says with a thick scowl that hangs unevenly off of Dovev’s square and roman features. Somewhere at the edges of his eyes, silver dances and smoke begins to spread. “If you did, you’d never think I was a light.”
The blindness leaps forth, striking out towards Aylin with the cruelest of intentions. If she can only hear him, hear this other voice of an ancestor she doesn’t know--if she can only feel him, feel him hurting her, will she understand then?
If she can’t see that bridle that hangs across his features, will she forget that any part of the stallion who breathes heavy upon her features, the one who walks forward now menacingly, is Knox?
—
knox</style>
& manhattan</style> |
| Hidden Account |
| Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.0 :: 3 |
| ali |
Knox pulls his face away from yours and he stands and you know what you've said to him is not what he wants to hear, but how can you not speak the truth? How can you not point out the error of his train of thought? How can you not dispute his desires when he doesn't even know if he loves you? There is no way that you can agree to something as serious as having a child when you are not guaranteed stability. You may be young, but you spent enough time raising your siblings before you all grew apart from one another.
"I don't know..." You whisper when he asks what will prove it. You are as new to this as Knox is and you feel like you are just as scared and confused. He tells you about his hurt and you turn your head away because the last thing you want is to hear that he hurts for you... or that you hurt him. "I'm sorry." You can barely hear your own voice and it would honestly be a miracle if Knox is able to hear your apology. "...I don't want to hurt you." But you don't want to be hurt, either, and that he might love you has all the potential to destroy you if he figures out that he doesn't.
”I thought if I knew I loved you, it would go away. And I thought, maybe, what you said about having a family… I thought that was you trying to rid me of that pain.”
"I don't...." But your voice trails as you try to figure out what it is you want to say and how to say it. "...there shouldn't be any question of if you do or if you don't." You don't mean for it to come out harsh, but you could think of no other way to say it. "I don't want you to hurt." You continued on, suddenly finding strength and fortitude in yourself as you continue to speak. "But I can't have a child with someone that doesn't know..." You sigh softly and you finally turn your head back in Knox's direction. "Either you do or you don't..."
---
flashback:
"Don't tell me what I see." You say before you can stop yourself, but Dovev is telling you that if you truly saw him that you'd never think he was your light. "You're wrong." You snort stubbornly. Knox has been there for you, protected you, listened to you, answered your questions, kept you company, and lifted you up when you felt your lowest. He was your best friend and the light that lit up darkness of your heart.
But he turns on you ... or Dovev does. You're not sure anymore because smoke suddenly clouds your vision and you blink your eyes to clear them .... but there is only darkness. "W-what...?" You stammer and you take a step backwards, your ears falling sideways in confusion. Over the patter of rain it is hard for you to hear Knox as he approaches. It isn't until you feel his breath on your flesh that you know he's there.
"What... what did you do to me?" You whisper, your voice meek and frightened as you blink your unseeing eyes. You turn your head, you muzzle reaching to touch Knox so you can anchor yourself because without your vision you feel as if you're floating. "...Knox?"
"."
aylin
healing hands of love like the stars shiny shiny from above
|
|
| Outcast atk: 4 | def: 7.5 | dam: 6.5 |
| Stallion :: Equine :: 17hh :: 7 Years [Tallsun] HP: 67.5 | Buff: NOVICE |
| Jen |
08-22-2015, 10:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2015, 10:20 PM by Knox.)
image by deadair @ flickr.com</style>
round all the pieces up, but they just don't fit the same.</style>
Knox is desperate. He begins to think of himself as the hunter again, for at least the hunter is something he understands. But this lost soul, the maybe lover? He is a mystery to the stallion cloaked in black.
Manhattan begins to leave, but Knox doesn't notice. Even she knows what Knox doesn't; even she knows that he is in love with Aylin. She has known for a very long time, and just as she left then she begins to leave now. She leaves because she cannot bear to be around such love and know that it is so much stronger than what Knox feels for her. She is jealous and cruel. She does not want him to be happy with another, when she misses the hunter who fought and killed at her side.
Manhattan was bonded to a son of Mandrake. Still, there is a part of her that believes in those old ways. And so she stands at the hollow exit to the cave's firelit clearing as Knox struggles to put himself together.
He is about to lie. He doesn't know what to say to make Aylin understand that the pain she makes him feel is a good one, he doesn't understand it at all. And desperate as he is for a family once more, dying as he is for another chance at love after having so foolishly squandered so many firsts, he almost lies to Aylin.
He almost says he loves her, just so she will agree to this, this one thing that he begs of her. To become a mother, for his sake, and his love.
But Manhattan is not yet gone. And as jealous as she is, as recklessly emotional and as likely as she would be to rip out the jugular of any child born of her one companion, she cannot let Knox ruin this.
You love her, she tells him, her own heart breaking as rage spills out of it. She hates herself for her compassion. Go, love her.
Knox doesn't turn to watch her go. He doesn't waste any time. He brings himself back to Aylin, urges her to stand. He whispers what his companion insists is true, even if he is uncertain, himself.
"Aylin, I feel more for you than I thought possible. Hatta, she tells me this is love. And she has never lied to me," Knox says quietly, slowly. "Please, Aylin. If that is love, then let me show it."
And the distance grows shorter between them.
___
Her futile resistance is something that the murderer finds amusing. She dances before him like a blind puppet, so eagerly influence by her blind love of the descendant that carries him that now, when she truly cannot see, she cannot even recognize him.
What kind of love is that, Knox? the steel-hearted steel-coat murmurs into the depths of that mind as its true consciousness sinks farther and farther away. Apparently she has not forgotten who Knox is: she has simply forgotten that he can never truly be trusted. He may beg, he may plead, he may insist that no matter his face he is himself, but he will never be right. He will never remember how alone he never is.
“Aylin…” whispers the dark killer. His voice is tender; it sounds like the boy whom she loves, the one who led her so far from home. But it is the mind of the one who will abandon her here, blind and afraid, that truly speaks. That one word, that beautiful name, falls across her cheek like a broken promise. She asks what he is done but he will not say. It is not the murderer’s place to say.
“I love you too,” he says then, cruel, mocking. With only her ears, will she know it isn’t true? Will she know she is listening to an imposter?
But the words end with a bite. His teeth bare down on that perfect dark neck, splitting hairs and breaking flesh like a flower petal ripped, gently and horribly all at once. When the blood starts to drip, only then, does he let go. “Find your own way home, filly,” comes the dark voice--this time, nothing like Knox’s. “See what good light like this does you now.”
Now, she will know. Now she will know what Knox will never understand or remember: this one who blinds her tonight, this one who makes her bleed, will never be her light.
And then he is gone, a mere brush against her side, steel on black, as he departs. He could not be crueler to the descendant than this. This crime, this abandoning of a one true love unrecognized, is the most mortal of them all.
Sometime later, perhaps hours or days, Dovev lets the form be. Knox finds Manhattan and the pair reunite: little defective colt and his dog.
Where is Aylin? bonded asks.
Oh, she’s coming. Knox replies, unwitting. I think she just fell behind.
And in time, the rain begins its ceasing.
—
knox</style>
& manhattan</style> |
| Hidden Account |
| Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.0 :: 3 |
| ali |
You don't know what it is you're expecting Knox to say, but it is certainly not what spills past his lips. He ushers you to stand and you do so even though you are bone tired and ready to sleep for weeks. He tells you that Manhattan has told him that what he feels is love and there is something in you that believes him. Is it because you are so starved for love and affection that you crave it like the desert craves rain? Whatever it is you want to believe him and that desire to believe, that desire to be loved makes it easier for you to accept Knox's advances.
He steps closer to you and you can feel the heat of his body and you reach out to him, you bump your muzzle against his face and you step toward him. Your muzzle moves along his neck and when you stop you rest your cheek against his neck. When you stop you remember the last time you heard a confession of love, how easily it slipped past Dovev's lips. 'Aylin...I love you too.' Surely this stallion who is having so much trouble explaining what it is he feels, who relies so heavily on Manhattan to explain his own feelings to him has to be Knox.
"...okay." You whisper against his neck and as you do so you feel the flutter of your heart; excitement and fear. "...but promise me." You continue, your voice still a hushed whisper. "Promise me you'll stay..."
---
flashback:
He whispers your name in a tone that you've never heard pass his lips and you are confused. "...what?" Your voice shakes, your body trembles because you can feel in your bones that something is not right. "Who…?" But you're interrupted by a profession of love that leaves you speechless and even more confused than you were mere seconds ago. Your ears rotate back against your head and you frown but you have little time to work out what you heard and who it was that said the words. You've longed so long to be told that you are loved and now that you've heard it you don't know if you can believe it.
...but you want to.
Your breath is taken away as he bites down on your neck and you know, instantly, that it was not Knox that spoke to you. It is still Dovev the monster. You whimper as his teeth splits your flesh and your instinct screams at you to retaliate, to use the horn that sits perched atop your head and stab him but you don't. You can't.
He lets go and you stumble back a step, your emerald eyes wide as you stare, unseeing, in his direction. "You are no light Dovev." You mutter. "You are nothing but a parasite. All you do is use him. Without Knox your spirit would still be locked away, buried somewhere deep and forgotten where it should be." You snort, trying to ignore the ache in your neck. "Without Knox you are nothing."
You stumble as he brushes past you, but you turn and you try to follow after him because Knox has to return sometime. He just has to. And when he does you hope that he can fix your eyes, that he can undo the evil that Dovev has done to you, but you stumble, you trip, you fall and there is no one there for you. "Knox... Manhattan..." You whisper their names, you want to scream for them, but what's the point?
As you lay there in the mud you begin to cry and as time passes you realize just how lost you are in the darkness.
"."
aylin
healing hands of love like the stars shiny shiny from above
|
|
| Outcast atk: 4 | def: 7.5 | dam: 6.5 |
| Stallion :: Equine :: 17hh :: 7 Years [Tallsun] HP: 67.5 | Buff: NOVICE |
| Jen |
image by deadair @ flickr.com</style>
round all the pieces up, but they just don't fit the same.</style>
She concedes and his heart leaps. He is too young and foolish to recognize this awkward encounter, this leading up to a historical sin, as something he does not deserve.
This is not how it is supposed to be. He should not be asked to promise, such a promise should be understood and carried eternally in two lovers' breasts. And though he does not know this farce, he knows he has never promised anyone anything, not really.
The hunter turns to look for Manhattan, but she is gone. He should have looked earlier, should have seen her leave, should have cared then. But is too late. He is on his own.
He moves slowly closer to this mare whom he has said he loves, the same who confessed her on love for him so long ago. Knox is still uncertain. He is left with an unsettling fear that this is wrong, that perhaps he is not ready.
But he needs to take the chance, even if Aylin won't. And he needs to trust that Manhattan is telling the truth. He needs to have faith that he will be loyal, and steadfast, and that he will not leave Aylin as so many others have in her life.
Slowly, the hunter draws closer. A small part of him is still a child. He is still young, after all. He brushes his body against hers tenderly, meeting her cheek kindly.
"I promise," he says with a voice so strong and unwavering that it feels like a lie by omission. "I will stay."
fade to black
___
Everything returns to where it once was.
The rain strikes the hunter with a familiar sting. He catches Aylin’s words like they are unfamiliar moments in time, ones caught in a string of old memories. He is not thinking about the storm that has chased them for days now, not thinking of the one that threatens to break once more. He is thinking of days gone by and their glory--how all that fades in the face of what he now knows.
Aylin’s words pass by hardly noticed. It is the faint sound of her laughter that stirs him from his twisted reverie and the memory of blood and snapping bones. He thinks about who he was raised to be and who he is now.
Who is he now?
Manhattan senses his unease and nudges his hock, urging him to move quicker towards shelter and take Aylin’s heed. The rain, she reminds him with annoyance, wishing he could have just listened to the mare at his side. She has been so good to him, remained his unwavering light, but he cannot help but let his mind drift. Perhaps it is where they are, here in the old country where castle stones stand in grave-like ruins for all the dead. Perhaps it is the time away from his family, so long now gone.
Or perhaps it is Roanne in his heart, telling him of kinder days than the ones he has ever before known.
Knox strides forward with a sudden urgency and stands before Aylin. Manhattan’s hackles raise in anticipation of what her master is about to say. She knows him better than she knows himself, she thinks--at the very least, his temper and his inability to know when to stop.
The rain, she says again, her projection of a storm a clear message when paired with the exhaustion in her voice as it rings in his thoughts. But Knox is not listening to her, not now.
“Aylin,” he starts, his blue eyes searching the depth of her green ones, hoping that they will match his sympathies even now, even before he speaks. “Have you ever thought about… going home?”
And with that, Manhattan turns from the scene and drifts from the pair, seeking shelter on her own and settling in the distance, just close enough to see her master and his light. But still, she averts her gaze. This is not something she can bear to witness: the shadows of his thoughts leaving the containment of his mind and spilling out into reality, crossing over the innocent figure of Aylin. Manhattan will not be responsible for this, for her master’s insensitivity. And she will not stand by to watch it happen.
—
knox</style>
& manhattan</style> |
|
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
