@Albrecht
Morning in the Mors Desert: an unusual time of day when creatures scurried about according to the dictates of their paltry lives, fearful of the midday sun's wrath. Each morning Ezra took to the skies, a golden streak over the golden sands, drinking in the strain of his wings against the wispy shreds of half-formed thermals and the natural drama of life and death playing out on the desert surface - his own private television show.
The golden boy redoubled his effort, a pleasant fire igniting in his shoulders as the Opera below became a procession of ants drifting by beneath him and the Solis' burning eye warmed the backs of his wings.
O, to be a vulture, lord of the skies and ferryman of the unremembered dead! To stay aloft for hours on a single wingbeat, cresting thermals like a ship on the open sea. A hundred more months of religious exercise would not grant him such mastery - but at least he had the morning, and the satisfaction of the world rolled out beneath him like a sheet of golden silk.
At this altitude, all he could hear was the cold rush of wind along his sweat-shining flanks and the jingling of the fine chain against his cheek. He tucked his wings indulgently, falling gracefully into a reckless dive, opening them again only when the parade of ants below became a proper cast of characters once more.
Did they understand their place in Solis' grand design? Did it ever trouble their mortal souls to know that not even Ezra, who visited them daily in the course of his exercise, would notice their absence when their meaningless lives came to an end?
Perhaps in their eyes he was the sun god, wise and golden as he drew the burning orb in a chariot across the sky - but that was blasphemy, wasn't it?
Ezra Phillip Fontaine
part of your charm, i suppose
part of your charm, i suppose
