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somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me
I'm frozen by the fear in me
It was too late.
It was a knowledge deeper than his bones, an ache spreading like a fever-flare through his marrow—the panic ceased, the rush ended rather abruptly. There was no need to hurry. There was no need to call for aid. There was no need for anything because it was already too late.
Broken, she began to whisper his name, choking on it like the curse it was.
Mauja had seen death before. Mauja had dealt in death, all those lifetimes ago, a cold and cruel force of nature—supreme. Divine. Unchallenged.
And now, it was too late, tears spilling over the brim of his eyes, turning the bleeding, broken girl into a blurry haze. "Aviya," he whispered, because what else could he do? What motherfucking else could he do, when she lay dying by his feet, surrounded by her brother, her father, a healer who did her best against the one force they could not best?
With each beat of her valiant heart the ground grew darker as the instinct to live slowly killed her.
"No, I’m sorry. Because I’m your father and I can’t save you."
Glacia had been drowning, slowly pulled under by the raging sea—and Mauja had fought that. Mauja had fought the ocean with all he had, and somehow, he had won.
But there was no fighting Death.
Here, upon the battlefield where they had broken a God, Aviya lay dying.
Mauja's distant gaze fell, from the greenery around them, from the tentative celebrations of life, from the spot where the Moon Goddess had been when she had brought this chaos into being—fell from all the things that did not matter, and onto the girl dying by his feet.
He knew her, from the broken horn down the white blaze, all the way to her pale legs. How would he tell Tamlin that his best friend had died?
But Tamlin isn't here. Tamlin isn't in Helovia.
Tamlin didn't know his friend lay dying, and that no one could save her.
It was all so bitterly unfair, and like fire-spears scorching across a glacier and cracking the ice apart did his heart awaken; his ears caught the sound of d'Artagnan's pain, the dying syllables of a broken voice, the sound of failure as the world broke apart around them—it couldn't be real.
It couldn't go on around them, without them, but it did.
"I love you too," d'Artagnan said, and Mauja wept in silence as the hound cried.
The circle had closed. He had been there at her birth, and now, he was here at her death.
It shouldn't have been this way.
But it was the way it was—his aching eyes bored into the blood-stained side of her, willing, hoping, commanding it to swell with air again, with breath and life, with anything—anything but this, this empty silence in her heart.
But she was gone. Aviya was gone. She was younger than Snö. She was even younger than Tamlin—much too young to die.
And she had died in a war of Gods; a war none of them had a place in.
Mauja's jaws clenched. How long would they keep doing this? Who would be next to die?
"Go back to the Basin, tell them what happened… I’ll stay here."
It couldn't be; d'Artagnan's voice was distant, coming from somewhere far away through the startling silence in his mind—the rush and the roaring had faded into empty static, with not even a beat to punctuate it (because she's dead—). Aviya, the brightest, coldest star in the sky, had gone out. Aviya, the daughter of his best friend, the keeper of their legacy, had died, for nothing but the greed of others.
The healer slipped silently off the scene. He barely noticed her go.
They would stand vigil without her—ice, glass, and night united (—it's a brief flash of a meeting up in the cold north, with the colt safe and snug between the two of them).
Between them lay Death in all its shapes.
In all its distance.
Slowly, Mauja reached out, black muzzle trailing along d'Artagnan's red shoulder. He had no words—for no mere words could bring her back to life. So he said nothing, but his eyes wept, and his heart wept, and in the distant sky the two owls sang their mourning song.
(And in the depths of his heart, he was afraid—afraid that this would be the end. That this would be the day he began to lose d'Artagnan.)
[ @Aviya @Mesec + d'Art the Untaggable ]
It was a knowledge deeper than his bones, an ache spreading like a fever-flare through his marrow—the panic ceased, the rush ended rather abruptly. There was no need to hurry. There was no need to call for aid. There was no need for anything because it was already too late.
Broken, she began to whisper his name, choking on it like the curse it was.
Mauja had seen death before. Mauja had dealt in death, all those lifetimes ago, a cold and cruel force of nature—supreme. Divine. Unchallenged.
And now, it was too late, tears spilling over the brim of his eyes, turning the bleeding, broken girl into a blurry haze. "Aviya," he whispered, because what else could he do? What motherfucking else could he do, when she lay dying by his feet, surrounded by her brother, her father, a healer who did her best against the one force they could not best?
With each beat of her valiant heart the ground grew darker as the instinct to live slowly killed her.
"No, I’m sorry. Because I’m your father and I can’t save you."
Glacia had been drowning, slowly pulled under by the raging sea—and Mauja had fought that. Mauja had fought the ocean with all he had, and somehow, he had won.
But there was no fighting Death.
Here, upon the battlefield where they had broken a God, Aviya lay dying.
Mauja's distant gaze fell, from the greenery around them, from the tentative celebrations of life, from the spot where the Moon Goddess had been when she had brought this chaos into being—fell from all the things that did not matter, and onto the girl dying by his feet.
He knew her, from the broken horn down the white blaze, all the way to her pale legs. How would he tell Tamlin that his best friend had died?
But Tamlin isn't here. Tamlin isn't in Helovia.
Tamlin didn't know his friend lay dying, and that no one could save her.
It was all so bitterly unfair, and like fire-spears scorching across a glacier and cracking the ice apart did his heart awaken; his ears caught the sound of d'Artagnan's pain, the dying syllables of a broken voice, the sound of failure as the world broke apart around them—it couldn't be real.
It couldn't go on around them, without them, but it did.
"I love you too," d'Artagnan said, and Mauja wept in silence as the hound cried.
The circle had closed. He had been there at her birth, and now, he was here at her death.
It shouldn't have been this way.
But it was the way it was—his aching eyes bored into the blood-stained side of her, willing, hoping, commanding it to swell with air again, with breath and life, with anything—anything but this, this empty silence in her heart.
But she was gone. Aviya was gone. She was younger than Snö. She was even younger than Tamlin—much too young to die.
And she had died in a war of Gods; a war none of them had a place in.
Mauja's jaws clenched. How long would they keep doing this? Who would be next to die?
"Go back to the Basin, tell them what happened… I’ll stay here."
It couldn't be; d'Artagnan's voice was distant, coming from somewhere far away through the startling silence in his mind—the rush and the roaring had faded into empty static, with not even a beat to punctuate it (because she's dead—). Aviya, the brightest, coldest star in the sky, had gone out. Aviya, the daughter of his best friend, the keeper of their legacy, had died, for nothing but the greed of others.
The healer slipped silently off the scene. He barely noticed her go.
They would stand vigil without her—ice, glass, and night united (—it's a brief flash of a meeting up in the cold north, with the colt safe and snug between the two of them).
Between them lay Death in all its shapes.
In all its distance.
Slowly, Mauja reached out, black muzzle trailing along d'Artagnan's red shoulder. He had no words—for no mere words could bring her back to life. So he said nothing, but his eyes wept, and his heart wept, and in the distant sky the two owls sang their mourning song.
(And in the depths of his heart, he was afraid—afraid that this would be the end. That this would be the day he began to lose d'Artagnan.)
[ @Aviya @Mesec + d'Art the Untaggable ]
somebody make me feel alive
and shatter me
and shatter me
