All my life I’ve been searching for something

Something in Rikyn’s speech was heartbreaking, and it hit the prince squarely in the chest, knocked him from where he stood. The notion was biting and raw, plunging, gnarled and clawing down the rapacious, obliging segments of his soul, and he lowered his head to stare at the forest floor, alone with the fallen pine needles. It struck a potent nerve – and he wondered if he’d always be alone, that vague apparition, never truly recognized, never truly seen, no matter how much he strived, no matter how hard he fought. Maybe he didn’t lead anyone to play wild games, to reach for grander heights, to explore the vast world for each and every adventure. Maybe he wasn’t a beacon, wasn’t a shining star, wasn’t some brilliant wave of heathen, infidel prowess everyone followed. Maybe he cherished and loved but no one else did for him in return – and he grated instead of amused, irritated instead of diverted. Perhaps no one searched for him the way he journeyed for them because they didn’t want to see him, didn’t crave for his existence, didn’t wonder what he was doing, what action he might have wronged, what silly quest he’d undertaken. Perhaps he was just another body in the background, shifting a little more into shadow day by day, first a confidant, a childhood friend, and then nothing, a vague face blurred out by so many other wiles and civilians. It seemed so clear to him now, so vivid, so damning, that he nearly curled away from the scenery entirely, a bit more broken than he’d been before. Aithniel didn’t look for him because she didn’t want to (even though he’d once saved her life, made sure her wings weren’t shorn and cut away from her frame), Adelric didn’t come back because it wasn’t worth trickling after a do-nothing scion, Rikyn severed their connection because he’d craved and yearned for items instead of companionship – the sentiments unraveled like a scythe, swung at him until he was bloody, open, and raw. He was a constant being, and they swirled around in their own directions, paying homage to something far beyond his reach, even when all he’d desired to do was gather the stars with them. The boy almost laughed at all the terrible insinuations, because he once believed he was better than his father at fostering connections, at lending his compassion, at promises and convictions, and he was so bitterly wrong. All his achievements, all his trials, all his attempts hadn’t been worth anything in the end – even to Rikyn now, he was just a specter, just an apparition, just a ghost howling from the hills. That hurt worst of all.

Just what had he been doing with his life?

Orsino wisely said naught as the boy struggled to emerge from the blistering, boiling shell corroding his stalwart ambitions and his treacherous pride; it coiled around his neck and suffocated him, made his eyes close, cursed his ineptitude. The Sun God had once told him to stay away from the past, to not bask in the glow of yesteryears and unraveling seasons, to look forward, to be steadfast into the horizon – but lord, even when he’d thought he’d listened, even when he believed he’d played the right game, Erebos had still ventured too close to old flames and fresh wounds. Thereafter, when he locked his stare back upon the wide, winter copses and the desolate air, overwhelming sullen, peevish torment clasped at his mind, tore away the kinder measures, the raptures, the reveries. He was a boy all over again, exasperated at the lengths the world strove to deny him what he longed for, and ground his teeth, clenched his jaw, removed the sadness from his gaze and swallowed back the bile corroding his throat. He wanted to throw something at the other colt, at his friend, and he wanted to run away too, be the mysterious, enigmatic wraith questioning the hillsides and tempests. But the youth was too brazen, too disastrous, too bold to merely walk away, to forgo transgressions, and he stepped out from the shadows, narrowing his stare, a solid, stoic image of storms and soullessness. “I haven’t been the one hiding,” he chiseled, a touch sharp, vocals dipped in ice, head tilted to the side to watch Rikyn’s reaction, to see if he would flee again – if everything had been mottled and ruined beyond repair (wondering why he bothered trying to fix anything when no one gave a damn about the results, when the world moved on and he couldn’t).

(something never comes)

erebos

never leads to nothing—nothing satisfies

but I’m getting close