They stare at each other for long moments, these two misplaced and misguided ghosts, and he finds himself wondering when his memory had become so imprecise -- there are flaws to this apparition, scars he cannot place on the matte flesh, teardrops glistening like diamonds on long lashes, an uneasy grace as he rises from the sands, and he wants to howl to the universe for the unfairness of it all. He could deal with the incessant vulture, he could shrug away the voices and pretend they were just the wind, but this -- oh, this was mere cruelty of his own mind, the thing he had once wanted most in the world (even if he had never been able to admit it) long-since torn away by time, by the same sorry truth he had always stumbled upon. Everyone would leave him, in the end. It is a rule of the universe -- he is meant to be lonely, deserves the emptiness in his chest where his heart had been scorched to embers years ago, sentenced to a life for the crimes he had committed in search of some sort of peace that he had never found. Perhaps he had ruined every chance he had at peace. “I have always wanted you,” The words roll from his tongue unbidden, but what does it matter now? He is arguing with a ghost of his own making, with a figment of the desert sun, and the thought makes a harsh laugh rip its way from his chest, full of sharp thorns that tear at his throat. “---you left me, remember? You promised me you would never leave, Jetsam, and then you disappeared!” His body shakes from the force of his shouts, from the venom in his voice that leaked bile over his tongue, from the way his knees still get weak just from the sight of Jetsam before him. This is weakness, this is loathing, this is something that he cannot allow himself to entertain when he is starving and too damn stubborn to die, or else he might just waste away here. He leaps forward with a snarl curled over his bared teeth, with his hooves aimed at the wraith’s chest -- And he expects it to disappear beneath his touch, to fade away beneath the winter sun, to leave him in solitude for a few hours at least before this newest torment comes back to haunt him -- Except that his hooves meet solid flesh, and he is surprised enough that he stumbles over his own feet and goes crashing into the sand, legs sprawled out and face pressed to the earth beneath him. He does not open his eye, too afraid that it is all a dream, And for the first time in years, a single tear slides down his cheek, carving a path through the dust. |
@Jetsam
