OH, TO BE HERE ON THE GROUND

“Ah, shit.”

He was back in the mountains again. Not intentionally, no, never again, but by some glitch in his guidance system that sent him wandering off to the places he never wanted to go.

But where did he want to go?

Nowhere.
Nowhere could make him happy. Nowhere would make him happy. He was always either judged by ten thousand eyes and then some, or alone. He didn’t want to be alone. He did. But didn’t. It was safe from the outside but so so dangerous inside. When he wasn’t alone it was dangerous inside and outside. No winning.

He kept walking. Always walking, always climbing, always pushing forward where there was everywhere to go and everywhere to go back to. There was never nowhere before or behind him.
Unless he died.
He looked over the ledge.
Nope. Not today.

His limbs trembled and stomach churned after that peek at death. He escaped into a rounded indent in the stones, like a shrine carved into a mountainside. No shrine-god waited for him there, he was certain.

@Anzhelo

"What I say,"

What I think,

And Descartes, the first to admit
he supposed a body to be nothing
but a machine made of earth. Mere clockwork.
He found this a comfort because
you can always wind a machine back up.

Light hoofsteps follow him into the false-shrine, and he turns, quick like a startled adder but freezes at the stranger’s words. 

”It’s tempting, sometimes, isn’t it — the ledge?”

He had jewels on his antlers and in his eyes, pale and scarred, something of a mirror image gone wrong. Toro said, ”No.” He is coarse as new sand and bristled as a boar, that private thought thrown into the open for him to deny. The thought of death made him feel sick. He didn’t want it. That was why he turned away, because it made him ill, because it was wrong, because if he hadn’t thought about it in the first place, he wouldn’t be feeling like this, wouldn’t be caught with his back to a not-shrine, would-be could-be death talk in the air. Truth be told, he was not an adder, or a boar, or coarse new sand. He was a frightened deer, a doe, even, and though he wouldn’t deign to call this one a stag, the stranger had managed to unnerve Toro with a single sentence. It was a power he did not like others to have. ”You must think about it often enough,” he said, words like dull gravel, not enough heart in them to sound sharp. He tried his best to deflect.

@Anzhelo René Descartes and the Clockwork Girl

"What I say,"

What I think,

REAL BOY, I’VE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY TO YOU

He towers over the gem-studded deer, a walking corpse by the look of it but small as a mouse to Toro. His ears pin back as the other speaks, gives him the answers he did not ask for. He wants to say, “I didn’t ask,” but it seems so cruel and so wrong that he stays silent, back to the mountain wall. Even his tails have gone still.

Sometimes… it seems like all the time. He plays the words over again in his head. He didn’t want to have this conversation. He wanted to be alone, and then (now) he wanted the little honey boy to go away. This careless display of weakness, the vulnerable state a complete stranger would reveal to him - he didn’t want to see it. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to say anything. For a long time he stares at the tiny almost-deer, until finally, his voice solemn, he says, ”But you continue on.”

@Anzhelo Real Boy

"What I say,"

What I think,

I REACH FOR KINDNESS IN YOUR HEART TONIGHT

It continues. He squirms, now, the little whispers of the broken boy fill the half-cave like a frightened elephant. His chest feels tight, his stomach leaden. No. No, no, how weak her father is no, no, no, no - he doesn’t want to think about sad kids and weak dads and wandering into the forest’s heart to find mother sobbing over a man who might never come back. The man was his father. And now it is him.

“S-sorry… you probably have better things to do than listen to me.” 

Does he?

Toro presses his flank to the wall, harder now, as if he could lean into it and disappear, be melded into the mountainside and become one with the rock and silence. His endeavor fails, but he has hope.

He is reminded of a great many things that jab at his soul in the night, in the day, at all times but he keeps it away so well, so so well but his father gave up when he didn’t get what he wanted and so -

”You’re stronger for not giving up.” His tone is bitter and maybe too harsh but father didn’t care when the going got tough until there was nothing left to fight for. Except his family. Except his wife. Except his child. Toro’s lip twists into a snarl and he looks away; it’s not this one’s fault, but it rings too familiar and he wants to beat the shit out of all the words living in the shrine.

@Anzhelo The Apology Song

"What I say,"

What I think,

OH, TO BE HERE ON THE GROUND

The shudder rips his heart from his chest.

Don’t cry he wills the little deer boy, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry but then he chokes some kind of laugh but he’s backing away now, ears pinned, eyes wide and he’s doing the same thing as Toro, trying to disappear into the mountainside. It’s a shame they cannot.

He didn’t want this, and now look what happened. They were stuck in a cave like two rabbits in the same trap, each thinking the other was the terrier come barreling through their home. It was likely neither of them was.

He steps forward, heartbeats nearly wrenched from between his ribs. ”I didn’t mean to - you’re not - it’s not you.” His tone is pleading, he always fucks it up, doesn't he? But he tries to think like this is a rabbit or a child and heaves a deep sigh. ”My father was worse.” He hopes that thinking for once might do something good for him. He almost forgets this boy has a girl.

@Anzhelo

"What I say,"

What I think,