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[EXP] — what it's like to burn - Printable Version

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— what it's like to burn - Erasmus - 10-17-2019


HE HAD ASKED BERNARD THAT MORNING IF HE WISHED TO ACCOMPANY HIM ON HIS JOURNEY – THE ELYSIUM HAD ITS SOFT OPEN, BUT THERE WAS LITTLE TO ENGAGEMENT AND A FEW DAYS OF CLOSURE WAS NOTHING TO HURT THEIR BUSINESS. BUT BERNARD WAS A SUPERSTITIOUS THING WHO FOUND HIS FEARS DOUBLED IN THE TALK OF THE CLIFFS – OF WHICH THERE WAS NO WAY AROUND, SAVE A LENGTHY TRIP ACROSS THE RIVER THAT SPLIT BETWEEN THE STEPPES AND THROUGH THE RUDDY GROUNDS OF THE TINEA SWAMP. HE ENSURED ERASMUS THAT THERE WERE TERRIBLE THINGS THAT WAITED IN THE HOLLOW BETWEEN THE SENTINEL CLIFFS, BEASTS AND CURSES AND ALL IN BETWEEN THE RAMBLINGS OF A MAD MAN. IN THE HEAT OF HIS FERVENT REASSURANCE THAT THE CLIFFS WERE A TERRIBLE THING TO PASS BETWEEN, ERASMUS PLACATED HIM WITH THE PROMISE THAT HE WOULD NEVER ASK HIM AGAIN.

AND SO HE TRAVELED ALONE BY BOAT, PASSING THROUGH THE PRAISTIGIA CLIFFS THAT HE WAS SWORN TO WOULD SWALLOW HIM LIKE THE GREAT, GAPING JOWLS OF A MONUMENTAL BEAST. THEY HAD BEEN PEACEFUL INSTEAD, THOUGH AN UNSETTLING WIND PASSED THROUGH THEM WITH A CHIME, AND THE WATERS HAD BEEN CHOPPY THAT MORNING. HE DOCKED HIS BOAT AT THE SHORE WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE. 

HE ARRIVED INTO THE TARASTELLAN FIELDS WHEN AT LAST DUSK HAS RETRIEVED ITS RAYS OF GOLD FROM THE VAST STRETCH OF GREEN, WHEN THE PURPLE HEADS OF CLOUDS HAVE BEEN TRACED BY SHADOW, AND THE FIRST PRICK OF STARLIGHT BREAKS THE HEAVENS ABOVE. BENEATH ITS CELESTIAL GLOW, ERASMUS IS PAINTED TWO-TONE – THE SHEEN THAT CROWNED THE CLIFFS CATCHES AS A DYING LIGHT SPARKS BETWEEN THEM, AND THE VIOLET OF PERVADING NIGHT SWALLOWS ALL BUT THE GLORIOUS ORE ETCHED INTO HIS FLESH. THERE ERASMUS, THE NOT PRINCE, THE KING OF A NOTHING PLACE, THERE HE TRESPASSES THE NARROW PATHS INTO THE SHALLOWS OF THE SUSSURO. HIS SILHOUETTE IS TRACED IN MURKY BRIGHT – AS SHADOWS CARVE THE SPACES IN BETWEEN, POOLING IN THE HOLLOWS AND THE CRAGS AND THE CROOKEDNESS OF ANGLES TOO SHARP TO BE GOOD. THERE HIS LIKENESS IS LUPINE, ALL UNCIVIL HANDSOMENESS THAT IS AN ODE TO THE WILDS FROM WHENCE HE CAME. AND HE IS ALL HEAT, ALL FEVER, ALL PREDATOR. BUT IT IS NOT THIS NIGHT HE HUNTS, THOUGH THE HUNGER LURCHES IN HIS CORE MORE FAMISHED THAN THE DAY BEFORE, ALWAYS. HE DOES NOT SEEK OUT THE RISING CROWNS OF STAGS AS THEY HUFF THEIR FROST-BREATH, TINGED IN AUTUMNAL RUT, IN FLESHLY MUSK, NOR AS THEY FLICK THEIR TAILS WITH ARROGANCE AND DISAPPEAR TO THE FAR WOODLAND MARSHES BEYOND.

AS THE DUSK SINKS ITS FINAL RAYS INTO THE HORIZON, THERE IS NO MOON.

HERE HE ENTERS, DRIPPING SHADOWS AND WETTED INK, A THING THAT DREAMS OF PETRICHOR AND ENDLESS BLACK, A THING THAT ACHES FOR THE ECHO OF A VOID THAT IS THE ONLY HOME. THE GRACEFUL COMPOSURE OF MUTED VIOLENCE; A FIENDISH DISPLAY OF MACHIAVELLIAN CHARM; THIS HERETIC VIRILE. WITCH KING. UPON HIS CROWN STARLIGHT NESTLES, EACH PRONG TINGED WITH THE LACINGS OF DEW. AND WHERE HIS BRONZED FLESH STRETCHES OVER THE WRAP OF SINEW AND GLEAMING MUSCLE, A GOLDEN SHEEN SLIPS SOFTLY NEATH THE TREAD OF HEAT.

TONIGHT, IT IS NOT HIS APPETITES HE SATES – NOT FOR HIS UNBEARABLE HUNGER, NOT FOR BLOODTHIRST, FOR THE SENSUALITY OF THE HUNT ITSELF, THOUGH HE WOULD NEVER DENY HIMSELF THEIR FORTUNES. TONIGHT HE SEEKS NOXIOUS CONCOCTIONS FROM WHENCE THE TARTAROS MENUS BEG THEIR PRECARIOUS WARES – THOSE UNHALLOWED THINGS THAT BOB BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF GHOSTLY HAND, THOSE SKULLCAPS AND SILVERY LEAVES THAT BREATHE WHISPERS OF THE DEAD AND SOON TO BE. AND O, HOW THE FIELDS ARE PLENTIFUL IN THEIR DUES. IT IS NOT LONG BEFORE HE IS PRESSED TO THE SHADOWS OF WATER HEMLOCK AND THE SWAYING TINES OF WRAITHGRASS, OR THE FADED REDS OF CARDINAL FLOWERS AND MORE YET BEYOND. IT IS A LOST PARADISE OWED TO THE DEPRAVED, AND IN THEIR HOLLOWS GASP SUCH UNTIMELY HORRORS.

HE FINDS HIS BOUNTY LOOMING OVER THE CRACKED, LONG SPENT RIBS OF A FAWN, OVERGROWN BY NETTLES AND SPARSE GRASSES THAT RISE FROM ITS SOCKETS. ABOVE THIS BOB AND SWAY THE FAINT, LACY HEADS OF WATER HEMLOCK WEIGHED IN FROSTY DEW. THOUGH BY NOTE THEIR FLAVOUR WAS NOT ONE WANTED FOR ANYTHING EVEN SLIGHTLY PALATABLE, THEY WOULD MAKE FOR A SUBTLE RECIPE FOR GHASTLY CONSUMPTION, AND WERE WELL WORTH THE TRAVELLING. HE ADMIRED THEIR CLUSTER YELLOWED STAR-PETALS, PLUCKING THE THING SHARPLY, ROOT AND ALL, FROM THE WETTED GROUND AND FOLDING THEIR STEMS NEATLY BENEATH THE BLOOMS. THE SAP THAT BEADED FROM THEIR TWISTED STEMS GLEAMED ROUND, A THREAT TO FLESH BUT NOT AS DIRE AS TO TONGUE – AND HE WAS CAREFUL NOT TO TOUCH HIS BARE SKIN AS HE TUCKED IT NEATLY INTO A BURLAP POUCH, AND THEN INTO HIS SATCHEL. 

ERASMUS HAD JUST TURNED TO GATHER A COLLECTION OF CARDINAL RED BUDS WHEN HE HEARD THE TALL GRASSES BRUSH WITH A SOUND TOO TANGIBLE TO BE WIND.



@nestle


RE: — what it's like to burn - Al'Zahra - 10-19-2019

The Illuminated

“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”



It is strange perhaps, that she loves the moonless night with its silent snowy owls and its almost cloud-covered stars. Even the air feels oppressive tonight, like it's weight with water begging to fill up the hollow caves of her lungs. The song of her chains is the only comfort in the black-- and the way each link of gold presses against her sharp as the tip of a knife. Because otherwise the night, this moon-blackness, would feel like a memory of her once cage.

This night would feel like suffocating.

Instead, though, it feels like freedom. Tonight the moon and the stars have only tired watchful eyes. Even the leaves of the trees are dead and brittle beneath her hooves with no way to whisper to the roots and the dirt. Everything is hushed with the promise of winter-- everything but the gryphons screaming mournfully in the distance.

Her own heart aches at the sound, the way they sound like they are the last magic things left in his world and they are dying.

Ahead she watches a stag and his doe fade into the treeline, their lungs expelling star-smoke into what small light there is. Bloody bits of fur are hanging from his antlers and she can see the way it makes strange reflections of shadow across his face. And if she didn't know he was a stag she would think some monster was watching her discover what freedoms all this darkness can really hold. Maybe she would even image it the gaze of one of the old gods, the wild ones who have no court but survival.

She's about to follow the stag and his flock when she first sees him. At first the stallion is nothing more than a smear of darker black moving through the grass and she thinks him nothing more than another stag come calling to steal away the doe. But then there is a shine of gold across his shoulder when he tosses his head (or maybe it's only the wind playing tricks on her eyes) and she thinks there is perhaps a secret waiting to be found in the dark stain moving through the grass.

So she follow him at a distance. Until she can see the rib-cage of a dear blooming a garden out of death, and sinew, and rot, she comes no closer. It's almost lovely she thinks, sun-bleached and moon-bare and speckled with flowers she remembers (oh she remembers!) the purpose of.

Al'Zahra remembers when gods first grew that flower and when a mortal plucked it with his teeth. She remembers what happened.

There is a smile on her face when she moves out from the tall-grass towards him. Her own gold sings a song to the silent tracks of it running down his sides. The wind whips through her hair and she can taste  salt and winter on it each time she inhales. The taste of settles something in her soul, something wild, something ever hungry as a god.

She exhales, “are you looking for death?”, and the question is nothing more than a sigh and a song of gold. It's like the wind carrying brine, and snow, and rust. And something in her gaze, molten and hot despite the chill, promises that she could offer more than any constellation petal of white-death might.




@erasmus


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