a thorn among the petals

the Rift

[PRIVATE] a thorn among the petals

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549

Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5

Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT

Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie

#15

03-22-2017, 01:25 PM (This post was last modified: 03-22-2017, 01:29 PM by Rikyn.)

sweet bitter words, unlike nothing I have heard:

It goes well at first, even if some of the concepts that I can discuss without flinching cause the demure mare to withdraw in shock and horror. It makes me smile to watch and hear her scoff, mostly because I can’t ever remember a time that I was so closed off to the realities of the world. It’s endearing, to be around someone like Tiamat, and to be trapped under magical possession like I am now, it’s almost impossible to think negatively (though, surely, I manage).

That anyone can be as pure as she is gives me hope. Hope that, maybe, the world our ancestors ruined isn’t entirely fucked up, after all, and that, all over this planet, there were still individuals like my friend who could be horrified by the notion of hate.

As she curls up closer to me, our bodies closer than I can ever remember being to anyone, there is something about her tenderness that hurts more than any sort of physical pain I’ve been put through. More searing than Gaucho’s flames, more piercing than Volterra’s dragon’s claws, the magic can’t stop me from rebuking the inclination to press further into her embrace, to drown in the warmth that makes my cold heart burn.

I hide, instead, in my knees, which curl up defensively, and fit up and around the sides of my nose, which sinks with the weight of everything, and the way her words make me feel. Even when she pulls away, the sensation that aches inside of me continues to gnaw away at my consciousness. When the magic again pulls my falsely hopeful eyes to look at her, I’m still hiding on the inside, wanting her to stop caring for me, to move away, leaving me in my comfortable, sacred alone, where this strange, inner pain cannot find me again.

Try to understand them, she says, like it’s easy, or like anyone has really tried to understand me. Not everyone is like you, Tiamat, I want to shout at her, able to say how the feel, or even able to feel how they feel, for that fucking matter. Some people don’t follow the laws of wind and laughter, or this inexplicable feeling of hope and faith that courses through me, ridding the rippling shape of laughter, and joy; some people are ruled by the stone, by the croon of the storm, and the chill slice of winter through the red breast of autumn, which devoured their spring. Yet, the magic makes me listen, leaves my puppet’s mouth still, and eyes watching, ears lifted, and though within I writhe, and shout, and recoil from the beacon that she shines into my darkest hollows, I cannot ignore her.

She touches my face with her lips, and her words strike like a dagger on fire through the muddled webs of my thoughts. Her breath washing over my face, and the wild rush of how very bad I really am, force my eyes shut, a moment in which I both revel in the delight of her lips kissing my cheek (as once, my mother had done, but only when I was very, very small, and still a toy, who did as it was asked), and wish to recoil away for the very same reason I long for it, all while unable to in the thrall of the magic.

I hate this. I want it to stop. I don’t want to go back here.

But the door opens, none the less, the path winding back, back, over hills that are black and blood strewn, to those which are green, and glow in the sun. They seem so far away from here, from where I am now, who I am now.

"But I am a bad man, Tiamat," I tell her, because I am. She cannot see it because her radiance chases away all of my wickedness, forces it to hide, for fear of her notice, but there is evil in my heart. Evil I cannot undo. "You know me the same way everyone else does. As I let you see me. You are good. I try... I want to be good for you, too, and Erebos. For everyone who thinks that maybe I’m more than what I really am, but I’m just me."

A nobody, at my best, and, at my worst?

I don’t want her to know. Maybe I won’t be able to stop life from wending down that trail, but I won’t be the one to set us on it. Not today. Not yet. Falling into silence, I pray to whatever God is listening that she doesn’t ask why I am wicked, or why I hide behind versions of myself. I pray, most of all, that she doesn’t hold me with all that love in her voice again, because it makes all those layers feel like they are made of paper, that has dried into dust in the sun.

"No," I answer, when the silence is broken, her voice timorous, emotional in way they have not been before. Meeting her wary eyes, I wish I could lie. I wish I could tell her that I trusted her, and that I believed she could trust me, too, but I don’t, the same as I trust almost no one. All my life, I had been told to hide, to keep secret, to be ashamed, or afraid. I was too comfortable in the shadow to willingly move forward into the light. "I’ve never really talked to anyone like this...except Erebos, maybe."

sing along, mockingbird; you don't affect me.

Image by TheArtlex@DA