Seraphina's death couldn't have hit anyone harder. And Eik is accustomed to life's blows. Anyone could read the stories written in his flesh, scars scattered like grotesque constellations, and anyone could only imagine the stories unseen, writ on the inside. Stories of bones and magic and a terrible, aching loss. (loss like that never leaves you, and with time you don't want it to-- absence becomes a friend, a
voice in the dark: "didn't you want a hunt, didn't you crave something as familiar as dismay, you--")
It would be too much to say the world was turned upside down. The word does no such thing on behalf of man. The sky is still up, the earth still down, and the sun still rises and falls each day, but as he walks through the canyons it does seem as though the colors of the desert aren't quite right. And when he finally returns to the court proper, the feeling of wrongness only grows as the walls of civilization rise up around him like tombstones. There is something missing, an essential shade of silver(, or blue, or gold) and his mind is having a difficult time drawing lines between the points.
(remember the library-- smoke rising like unwanted memories between you. remember, remember, remember what you lost-- what was taken-- don't you remember?)
As he walks the sandstone streets, it hurts to see the state of the court he had slowly come to think of as his. What hurts more is how his magic, at times beyond his control, made fierce with rage and sorrow, siphons the thoughts and feelings of the collective mind and floods his head with them. All that pain and anger and chaos, and the devilish glee that accompanies chaos, all of it good and bad and coming in waves he can't control--
But what hurts the most is the dawning realization of how selfish he had been. Wrapped up in his own grief and anger, captivated by vengeance, he hadn't even thought of Solterra and what this all meant for his country. It makes him feel sick.
(You've been gone too too long and look what happened, look at what you've done, death and war on your hands, your-)
A bell rings. His magic, casually gleaning through the minds of strangers in the street, has noticed something that needs tending to. It is a spark of recognition in someone's mind as he walks past. "That's Eik," they think, and he quickly, carefully reaches with his magic and snuffs out the thought (easy as blowing a candle) before it can grow and spread and trigger a chain reaction of thoughts. (a candle is easier to blow out than a wildfire). The stranger looks Eik in the eye for a moment, and all he sees is just another man with a blanket of scars. For a heartbeat he feels confused, but he does not know why. It must not matter, he looks away, and his mind turns to the coming day.
Eik makes sure of it.
In this manner the once emissary maintains anonymity as he walks the streets of the capitol, grinding his teeth and watching and watching and watching.
open to any
Time makes fools of us all
