KAJ

the aurelight

His leg has not healed right.

Truly Kaj has nobody to blame but himself, for how he stubbornly sent the Basin healers away. Had they at least helped others? It's a question he cannot answer, and it makes him hate himself just a little bit more. The pain is dulled to an ache that he can ignore, but it is the way he walks that has been permanently altered. It is not even a walk so much as a stiff-legged limp, and he feels older than his pinnacle years imply with how his shoulder feels deadened and useless. There is something wrong with the nerves, something Resplendence's healing could not fix after the hours spent worsening on his flight home. There is a long, gruesome scar that adds to the one on his opposite leg. Both garnered in battle, but one out of honor and the other sheer dumb luck. 

He feels useless. He feels broken.

Bellowing out a cry of anger, his magic seems to explode all at once, having steeped like tea thickening and growing darker with each passing minute. Electricity dances along his skin, eyes shut tight against the memory of Cirrus, and how she is intrinsically tied to his storms now. He cannot watch his sparks dance before him without remembering how they'd reflected in her eyes, and he wonders if he will ever be whole again. Kaj valiantly ignores the tight bands that seem to envelop his chest, squeezing until he fears he'll pop. What if he is broken? What if this is it? Will he ever be able to learn how to fight with a deadened, aching limb? 

He cannot bear to think about it. Another failure. As if you'll ever amount to The Great Archibald. His own bitterness seems to zing along his teeth and behind his temples, dancing across his eyelids to paint pictures of his own despair. Kaj finds his wings in a moment, needing to escape, to get away. As if he could ever outrun the newfound reality of his physical impairment.

How long he flies is not noted, but subconsciously he begins to follow the ebb and flow of the masses below him. By the time he notices he's upon them, drifting downward, standing alone if only because he does not know who to stand near anymore. The landing is difficult, stiff. Kaj ignores it, though it still plants another stake deep into his heart. Words like broken and useless drowning out all other voices that murmur and whisper with tension around him. Until he turns, and all he can see is the Sun. 

Ophelia had led him down the path of faith, giving him the basics and letting him figure it out on his own. But Kaj had never actually met one of the gods in person, not since the brief visit with the Moon Goddess when he'd been made King of the Edge. He bows almost immediately, but even that is an ugly and twisted thing with how his leg refuses to bend correctly. Frustrated tears prick hot behind his eyes, but he ignores them. The sun. "It is an honor to finally meet you, mijn Heer," he speaks clearly, wondering if he is worthy of the attention of the dearly beloved celestial.