Raymond.
and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Calliope's gaze was enough to make a lesser horse look away. At a glance there was nothing kind there - it was all ice and crossed swords and violent storms gathering at the dawn of all things - but he knew those eyes, the tilt of her brow, the depth and intensity of her gaze. He knew those eyes better than he knew anything in his life, because only she had given him cause not to move on.
He listened with rapt attention, understanding the weight of her words if not the full thread of the story. It did not demand complete understanding. The rift was a cruel master, a blind idiot god weaving its worlds like textiles on a broken loom, and the mad tragedy to befall Shrike fit perfectly with the relentlessness of its chaotic will. The fervor with which she had slaughtered the monsters among the ruins came back to him along with the image of her exhausted, injured, and bloodied, still ready to fight, still ready to die, and in light of the story she told now all of that pain made perfect sense.
They had both lost everything. They had both killed a thing they loved.
Tell me that your soul will always remember mine, she said.
He drew his tail more tightly toward himself, her tail tangled with it, and his grey eyes fell to them entwined there like a Gordian knot all their own. Certainly there was a threat there, but to Calliope a threat was promise and it was fear, was daring and uncertainty. She threatened because she needed to hear the answer, and he knew this because he knew her.
"Calliope, I..."
His voice trailed off, the vocal fry grating like stones in his throat as he hunted for the proper words. There was never a thing that Raymond said carelessly, but this was more difficult because it mattered. Like the ancient forest gods she had came upon him in a time of private emptiness and offered him everything and nothing all at once in exchange only for himself. Like a fairy tale protagonist he had accepted without question, and now where had such a fateful pact driven them?
Perhaps an echo of whalesong drifted in on the air. Perhaps it was just the whistling of wind through the slats of the mighty beast's ribs and into its breast, where beat two wild hearts as one.
"...A forest would sooner forget burning."
And nothing before had crossed his lips with such iron conviction. He pressed the plane of his forehead into the crease of her throat just behind her cheek, breathing deeply of her scorched-lightning scent. When the tide came back in, they would leave, but for now it seemed a part of them would beat forever in the leviathan's breast, as vast and wild as the sea itself.
and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Calliope's gaze was enough to make a lesser horse look away. At a glance there was nothing kind there - it was all ice and crossed swords and violent storms gathering at the dawn of all things - but he knew those eyes, the tilt of her brow, the depth and intensity of her gaze. He knew those eyes better than he knew anything in his life, because only she had given him cause not to move on.
He listened with rapt attention, understanding the weight of her words if not the full thread of the story. It did not demand complete understanding. The rift was a cruel master, a blind idiot god weaving its worlds like textiles on a broken loom, and the mad tragedy to befall Shrike fit perfectly with the relentlessness of its chaotic will. The fervor with which she had slaughtered the monsters among the ruins came back to him along with the image of her exhausted, injured, and bloodied, still ready to fight, still ready to die, and in light of the story she told now all of that pain made perfect sense.
They had both lost everything. They had both killed a thing they loved.
Tell me that your soul will always remember mine, she said.
He drew his tail more tightly toward himself, her tail tangled with it, and his grey eyes fell to them entwined there like a Gordian knot all their own. Certainly there was a threat there, but to Calliope a threat was promise and it was fear, was daring and uncertainty. She threatened because she needed to hear the answer, and he knew this because he knew her.
"Calliope, I..."
His voice trailed off, the vocal fry grating like stones in his throat as he hunted for the proper words. There was never a thing that Raymond said carelessly, but this was more difficult because it mattered. Like the ancient forest gods she had came upon him in a time of private emptiness and offered him everything and nothing all at once in exchange only for himself. Like a fairy tale protagonist he had accepted without question, and now where had such a fateful pact driven them?
Perhaps an echo of whalesong drifted in on the air. Perhaps it was just the whistling of wind through the slats of the mighty beast's ribs and into its breast, where beat two wild hearts as one.
"...A forest would sooner forget burning."
And nothing before had crossed his lips with such iron conviction. He pressed the plane of his forehead into the crease of her throat just behind her cheek, breathing deeply of her scorched-lightning scent. When the tide came back in, they would leave, but for now it seemed a part of them would beat forever in the leviathan's breast, as vast and wild as the sea itself.
@Calliope | why must it eeeeend
aut viam inveniam aut faciam
