but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams

You said you'd wait forever
But I blinked ... and the world was gone

Their wings were locked in agonized glides; a visceral fear held them tight, tight, hearts pounding out a terror so fleet-footed it became a blur. The moment stretched, spanning ages, horizons crumbling, eyes going blind—nothing existed beyond the fragile link in the aether, nothing mattered and they knew not even where they flew. They were frozen, helpless, as he ever so slowly fell, like early snow.

Then, their heart hit the ground, and the world shuddered, and all was silent.

It felt like an eternity.

And the silence stretched. ()

Their pulses were racing, as if it could somehow save him. The sound of their frantic life, their desperation, grew into a din, a low roar, a scream going through rugged nerves and frozen veins—

Their hearts beat as if they could beat in stead of his, but how could they ever, when they were so small, so fragile? Diego's wings—resolve—was crumbling; the width of his span grew smaller, and smaller, as he folded in on himself, fell under the onslaught of terrible despair—

There were no more stars. No more dreams. No more hope.

His world had ended in this terrible, terrible silence—

But she flew on, resolute, refusing to give in—to give up—

Diego's wings folded haphazardly as he chose his fate, tumbling from his throne, the sky.

—but the world shuddered again, trembled, and the silence began to shriek—like metal grinding against stone—a cacophony drowning out the sound of their pulses, of their fears, of their lives. It was a tide, a flood, an earthquake and an avalanche, it swept through them like purging fire, hammering on nerves and fragile psyches, such a counterpoint to the rugged silence of His shallow breathing.

It grew and grew and grew and grew, invading every space, every piece of them, every fiber and every particle, threading its way through hollow bones and slipping through their fear-stained blood, and still it grew—but it never broke. Irma screamed even as Diego crashed into Tembovu, talons raking for purchase on foreign skin, eyes wild as the other owl's haunting cries died as echoes in the night.

And still it grew as the heat sank ever deeper into His fallen body, a lonely flame going out on the charred mess of his haunch, leaving him in complete, utter darkness. His breathing came fast, too fast, slipping in and out of black velvet nostrils, and his heart beat (too fast, too fast), but the rest was just silent.

Tembovu's words stirred the fine hairs in his ears, but they did not flick to avoid it, and his eyes were trapped open—unseeing, as his blood grew warmer and warmer with each circuit it made of his broken body.

And Irma came crashing down too, a lonely speck of white upon the needle-laden ground, her raw voice shrieking time and again as she looked about herself, as if unable to see, unable to find what she was looking for.

She was looking for him but beneath the scream defining his existence there was just silence.

[ Look. I posted. Wow. xD @Tandavi @Alysanne @Evangeline + anyone else welcome! ]

Mauja

the white queen