I will not ask you where you came from
I will not ask, and neither should you
Snow falls. The heart beats. The sun rises day after day. And, still, Michael cannot make any place or any person feel like home.
On one side of him stands the sparkling city perched like a bird on the edge of the world. It is far enough that he wouldn’t see it at any other angle, and Michael can’t pick out one building from another, one street from the many streets that sing with light and music. On his other side looms the mountain range, dark and cold and howling even in the pale winter light. The ground beneath him is white, marred only by Michael’s scattered footprints and the wet but snowless earth beneath each tree.
Michael breathes; he is watching the vapor rise and dissipate. For a moment he is at peace – not spinning wildly through space, not trapped in the fog of his newfound mortality – he can feel nothing but the cold and numbness of eternity with its hands on his ankles, begging him to come back. If he is a death seeker it is at times like this.
If he is a death seeker, it is why he angles his head up the mountainside and wonders if the snow would make it that much harder to climb up, up, up. He imagines standing at its peak and plucking stars from the sky, cupping each one close before asking where all his things have gone, where he has gone.
Michael has moments where he is okay.
Michael has precious few moments that remain like that.
Today he doesn’t have time to overthink, doesn’t have the chance to fall back into the old and painful routine of a downward spiral. Michael pulls his numbness close just as he sees a set of hoofprints in the snow and forgets to hold tight, so for once it falls away from him in heavy sheets. He is following the trail, alone with the snow crunching underfoot, until he isn’t.
They swing into view as Michael rounds a corner, thick mane cold and wet over his face. “Oh,” he says before a pause that lasts too long, “hey.”
Michael sees twins and he thinks of Salem, of Cyrus. He thinks of the tragedy that tore them apart. He thinks of the Dark. He offers them a placid smile. “Do you uh… hi. I’m Michael.”
On one side of him stands the sparkling city perched like a bird on the edge of the world. It is far enough that he wouldn’t see it at any other angle, and Michael can’t pick out one building from another, one street from the many streets that sing with light and music. On his other side looms the mountain range, dark and cold and howling even in the pale winter light. The ground beneath him is white, marred only by Michael’s scattered footprints and the wet but snowless earth beneath each tree.
Michael breathes; he is watching the vapor rise and dissipate. For a moment he is at peace – not spinning wildly through space, not trapped in the fog of his newfound mortality – he can feel nothing but the cold and numbness of eternity with its hands on his ankles, begging him to come back. If he is a death seeker it is at times like this.
If he is a death seeker, it is why he angles his head up the mountainside and wonders if the snow would make it that much harder to climb up, up, up. He imagines standing at its peak and plucking stars from the sky, cupping each one close before asking where all his things have gone, where he has gone.
Michael has moments where he is okay.
Michael has precious few moments that remain like that.
Today he doesn’t have time to overthink, doesn’t have the chance to fall back into the old and painful routine of a downward spiral. Michael pulls his numbness close just as he sees a set of hoofprints in the snow and forgets to hold tight, so for once it falls away from him in heavy sheets. He is following the trail, alone with the snow crunching underfoot, until he isn’t.
They swing into view as Michael rounds a corner, thick mane cold and wet over his face. “Oh,” he says before a pause that lasts too long, “hey.”
Michael sees twins and he thinks of Salem, of Cyrus. He thinks of the tragedy that tore them apart. He thinks of the Dark. He offers them a placid smile. “Do you uh… hi. I’m Michael.”
@Ard @Erd
