Holy water cannot help you now ►
The sound of gulls singing and flying overhead besieged Ossian's hearing, soothing his ears with their enchanting song. To many the shrieks of a seabird were irksome, but to the star-haired boy they were home. They were the tonic to his troubles, the calm beneath the storm - his chest did not hitch so violently and his bones did not rattle where he stood on this strange shore with stranger scents beyond. They were a memoir to his mother's chaotic peace with their cries and their triumph high above the waves, and Ossian felt, mostly certainly, that these were the very same birds that had bore witness to the tumbleweed tale that was his life back across the wide blue. Even if it were not true the thought pacified him temporarily and the deep furrow of his brow straightened ever so slightly.
A brittle ocean-wind swept over his angular irriguous body, whipping and lashing his frame - the earth would show no mercy, orphan or not, Osi knew that much. His home itself had been treacherous; he remembered how the sea would scream at night with a ferocity that redefined his understanding of fear; he, small and paperthin. Only, as he had grown from boy to man, that oceanic savagery had become a hymn he could recite in the everlong dark, for Ama had taught him the words. The memory of his mother pulled Ossian into the present once more - flicking twisted strands of bleached hair from his eyes, glancing over his shoulder in a sudden swell of sadness. His bag, his compass - lost to Poseidon? Perhaps it was fitting that his most precious belongings should have been cast overboard; fated to drift perpetually across the world's oceans, forever chasing Ama's soul across glittering tides and open skies.
"You must be freezing."
A bullet ruptured his chest. Imploding, exploding. And Ossian convulsed, snatching his head toward the sound as though following a trail of smoke leading to the gun. Shock detonated deep within him, painful tremors racing up from his feet blinding everything; was this what it felt like to die? How had he been so careless? Eyes as iridescent as a wild winter sun flared, latching onto the sight of a man standing but a few feet away. Like a child watching the magic of fire for the first time Ossian drank in every detail of him. Fascinated, obsessed. It was not the first encounter with another of his kind since the death of Ama, for he had watched them from afar, tracing their kitelike tails and oaken bodies; what mysteries the world had concealed from him until now. None, however, had spoken to him - and Ossian could not help the replay of this man's words whirring back and forth until they did not sound like words at all, but instead abstract alien sounds.
Instinctively, Ossian tries to replicate those sounds, "Y-y-yes." The syllables feel like ice on his tongue, slippery and dangerous. "Where...?" It's all he can manage, before breaking his stare with the dark stranger to gaze up once more at the backdrop of majesty and greatness looming up behind them both. What was this place?
NOTES: @asterion:
A brittle ocean-wind swept over his angular irriguous body, whipping and lashing his frame - the earth would show no mercy, orphan or not, Osi knew that much. His home itself had been treacherous; he remembered how the sea would scream at night with a ferocity that redefined his understanding of fear; he, small and paperthin. Only, as he had grown from boy to man, that oceanic savagery had become a hymn he could recite in the everlong dark, for Ama had taught him the words. The memory of his mother pulled Ossian into the present once more - flicking twisted strands of bleached hair from his eyes, glancing over his shoulder in a sudden swell of sadness. His bag, his compass - lost to Poseidon? Perhaps it was fitting that his most precious belongings should have been cast overboard; fated to drift perpetually across the world's oceans, forever chasing Ama's soul across glittering tides and open skies.
"You must be freezing."
A bullet ruptured his chest. Imploding, exploding. And Ossian convulsed, snatching his head toward the sound as though following a trail of smoke leading to the gun. Shock detonated deep within him, painful tremors racing up from his feet blinding everything; was this what it felt like to die? How had he been so careless? Eyes as iridescent as a wild winter sun flared, latching onto the sight of a man standing but a few feet away. Like a child watching the magic of fire for the first time Ossian drank in every detail of him. Fascinated, obsessed. It was not the first encounter with another of his kind since the death of Ama, for he had watched them from afar, tracing their kitelike tails and oaken bodies; what mysteries the world had concealed from him until now. None, however, had spoken to him - and Ossian could not help the replay of this man's words whirring back and forth until they did not sound like words at all, but instead abstract alien sounds.
Instinctively, Ossian tries to replicate those sounds, "Y-y-yes." The syllables feel like ice on his tongue, slippery and dangerous. "Where...?" It's all he can manage, before breaking his stare with the dark stranger to gaze up once more at the backdrop of majesty and greatness looming up behind them both. What was this place?
NOTES: @asterion:
