When the gods crafted him selfish and ugly inside, they must have pitied him too. They built him for all the mistakes he’d make - in this life, in the next, in the ones before. They built him like a runner. Not for speed, but for endurance, so that he may challenge time in this way too. At one point in his life, Zakariah swore he could run forever - until the world itself fell to dust. He could outrun it all.

He’s more realistic, now. Grounded. He is acutely aware of his shortcomings, many as they are. They built him terribly average, forgettable honestly. They painted him gold, so that he might blend into the sand and be overlooked entirely ( Zakariah shimmers like the dunes do when the sun touches them, a soft gleam over an otherwise uninspiring coat ).

He was not built for war - to cause them, perhaps, but never to wield steel - so the crown of ivory from his brow is more for show than anything else. Those white tines, delicately curled toward the sky ( teeth, hungry, bared like rabid dogs’ ), have never tasted flesh. And why would they? If the gods molded him like a coward - he'd play the part.

... There is the matter of his eyes, though. A gift from a soul kinder than those who made the rest of him: beautiful, in a way. They appear nearly sightless, colored vibrant pinks, oranges, and blues: opalescent.

Zakariah must relearn himself. He must relearn everything. Once, the average person’s opinion of him was insignificant ( everything was, really ) , and as such he has spoken far too plainly. He has not yet learned to stifle his thoughts before they worm their way onto his tongue, lacking attention to what was socially acceptable and what wasn’t ( though he certainly knew, only chose to disregard it ).

He is a two headed snake, in this way. The man he once was and the man he is now fork too sharply - he is too slow to adapt. Time, once a concept he sneered at, was not on his side.

There is a distance imposed on most because of this. He is brief, clipped, generally uninterested in what could be if he spent only a moment kindling conversation. That is, if he even speaks at all - if they even hear him at all. Even with a voice as melancholic and soft as his, you’d be hard pressed to get him to repeat whatever was missed. Zakariah has always listened better than he spoke anyway, and he’s always preferred it that way. What wonders there are to be found under hushed tones and side glances. Why, the greatest secrets were the ones not his to learn. From boyhood he has sought out knowledge, be it in the form of eavesdropping or book reading, and the siren song of the unknown has only grown louder with age.

He was still a boy when the snake first visited his dreams. He saw only flashes of scales, a soft underbelly, a striking gold eye. He was still a boy when he stood before the still, feathered ribcage of a freshly gone wren, when his mother found him weeping over the little life lost ( empathy was something Zakariah was born with and, like most things in one’s youth, could not keep ). She’d dried his tears, smiled at her only son, then damned him with what was meant to be a mother’s comfort. Her words were the spark, and Zakariah’s wick would burn everlasting.

She’d said, “Death comes for all things, child. All things but you.”

Realization that his was the loneliest life of all set like frostbite in his chest. He was born immortal. Amongst sun-bleached bones and sand sweltering beneath the sun’s attention, Zakariah still shivered - for despite the fact that he was born the colors of midsommar, he was cold. Cold post the wren, with a snake settled in his skull.

So it was all just noise, really. Everything after that. There were lives to be mourned and friendships to make, and certainly none could say Zakariah did not try. But oh how hard it was to hold onto anything at all when your hands were too stiff - ice inside and out. They were all just breaths. They were lives lived to completion within his exhales, within the time it took his heart to beat. Thump. Thump. Thump.

His drum, of which time did not march to.

Thump.

Thump.

He couldn’t even really tell you the details of his betrayal. He lived through them viciously, wherein he thought he might drop dead for how fast his jackrabbit heart beat. There was something to care for. Something to protect. Something more than a breath. And then - so suddenly, in a way he’d long grown accustomed to - there wasn’t anything at all.

Zakariah has never been one for accountability ( how could he be, when he outlived judges, and their juries? ). When he drifted through the catacombs, his endless death wrought by his own actions, he felt no guilt. It was a thing that happened. Those that died in mind would too die in body, one day, even without his meddling.

So what did it matter?

The light is dying on the horizon when he finds their prison has been unearthed. He doesn’t know how long it’s been and he doesn’t care. He is nothing more than curious when he drifts to the surface once more, and even the dim rays make his eyes misty.

He cuts his shoulder on sandstone, and he knows something is wrong. Suddenly, he’s staring at the wren, he’s overcome by snake skins and fangs, he’s mortal and he bleeds like men do and it’s all so different and time? Well time, fuck, it marches-

Thump.