Nowhere is not an intentional lie.
The Wilds were a vagrant island in an ocean of primitive anonymity – backset by ages of religious persecution and ware, generations of fear and hunger. They were nothing if compared to the grandiose streets of Denocte, not but dust and sand and brush for miles on each end unless it struck the silhouette of mountains or framed by the dark ridgeline of tree canopies. The moon rose and fell, chased by the sun. The winds whipped and billowed, storms passed overhead sometimes to never release the relief of rain. They did not have the grand temples, the markets, the means of manors and castles and the equal like. The Wilds were a distant grief far from civilization. Even if Erasmus had been a wanderer or merchant set out from his home, and had a home to consider and share, it would not be one far from the description of nowhere.
In his heart, if ever was a heart at all, Denocte was not his home. Not yet. He was young and charged with the arrogance of the living, for an appetite of wanderlust and a desperate reach for knowledge. For more, ever more.
He did not miss The Wilds, though he was not aware of how the wind had howled and the sun had beat on the brush, how the waves of the Terminus crashed against the rocky cliffside that looked over the shadow of Novus, a small island distantly set on the horizon. The way his mother's bones reduced to dust as the years drew on, and how the river from whence he was born hissed longingly beneath the night sky. It was often these things were far from his mind – lost to his rampant musings that fell to the now, to the here, things that were tangible and presented at hand. Even now, as he thought over the definition of “nowhere”, he did not miss them. But oh, he did miss the chaos of daily life – that of the pits, of war cries, of survival. And perhaps that was why he wandered.
The ”Oh” drifts to silence between them as they walk and his crescent moon eyes move to the shelves below and the dark below that, to the starlit skies above and the shadows that linger just above the ridge of the valley, to his feet, to his tour guide. Something about his skin made him think of a shield, the way it was cut and dented and silvery in the light. Something about his voice made him think of the warbred elders whose grieving lungs ached of berserker cries, now replaced by the winded tales of what once was. Something about him was steely and undisclosed, and every once in a while seemed to loosen for but a second when his gaze would pass over the boy. Each time he saw this brief nuance of tenderness he fell farther from the suspicion that he was a skincrawling villain, and deeper into the wonder of who he truly was, behind the shield.
If Eik had shown Erasmus to his window, he may have understood. His memories were not yet vacant like a haunt, they did not come and go as that window flashed beneath a curtain in the flippant wind – it held open, wide and great and peering over the brush with little to hide. He simply chose not to look. It wasn't that looking came with any pain or anguish, even despite the deep-down feeling that his mother's death was his own fault. He held no guilt for the shaman's death sentence, whether he was his father or not. He was a stranger. And he did not care if his foster-father, the clueless chieftain, had died bloodily and painfully. Erasmus could not bear any grief for any child, woman, or man that suffered beneath the hot sun of the Wilds, and he found very little to pine for. When he is much older, wiser, and crueller, he realizes that he did not look out that window because he did not want to mourn any of them. Of all of them, he could not crumble in mourning for the loss of the only gentle soul he had known as a child, for how violently she died in his name.
When the stallion asks for a story of his homeland, he withdraws into himself to search. Did he want lore? His story of being? A funny tale from his childhood? Did he want to know that he was not, as his mother had claimed, a creature of mortal blood and bone, but a creation of things far more ancient than gods? That he was a river stone swallowed by a serpent who drank the river dry? That he had been raised under the guise of the chieftain's son, and how he loathed the royal engagements? How he had abandoned them for the brutality of the training grounds, trading luxury for the blood and sweat and grit? How exasperated the Chieftain's council was that he was an untameable thing, prone to heresy (for how he loathed their silent, arrogant god, who left all their prayers unanswered) and unruly to all command? How his mother, after being accused of adultery with the shaman, had screamed to him to run, to live, to never look back, until her screams bubbled with blood that roared to the surface like the impending storm that rolled overhead? Did he care for sleeping, vain gods? For the restrained titans? For boys who never knew how to be children?
His eyes took back to the sky as he walked and listened to the pebbles trickle down the red shelves, finding that no words worth the tread of his tongue. Perhaps it was rude not to answer immediately with anything, and the silence ticked between them precariously, but he did not find that any small talk came comfortably to him and so did not find a bridge between. His tribe had stories yes, stories that praised the gods for carrying the sun across the sky and moon on their backs, for whipping the wind that brought the sea breeze and the rain that quenched their palettes. But he knew these were stolen magics. His mother told him of how the ancients had done all these first, how they had taken their first breath and plucked the first star from the sky. How they laid the deep valleys and built the highest mountains. How their children, these proud gods, forever famished and entitled, waged war against their own proprietors in the name of conquest and greed. He did not have any favorite stories of the gods, and there were too few of the titans. Each piece of lore found his tongue tasteless and sharp, bitter.
Erasmus knit his brows, his jaw tightening. “my home was a nowhere, if nowhere was a place." the word home felt foreign, as if it didn't belong. his tongue moved around it, unable to find another word that better suited its nature. “we didn't have tales, we had fear-mongering night stories they told the children to keep them submissive, close. obedient. forests with teeth, mountains with fire. gods who watched and punished whoever did not obey - and what manner of obeyance that was, was determined by the higher hierarchy. the gods themselves, i've never seen or heard." his voice turns darker, bitter at the end - as if the last words are sour to the taste, (as they are, as they should be) like bile biting the back of his throat. “i lived in a tribe, in a vast brushland begrudgingly regarded as The Wilds. i was - as well as the other boys - raised for war. from the time we could walk, run... we were expected to fight. some of girls as well, but it wasn't common. i didn't mind the fighting. i prefer it, honestly. i was..." he stopped, struggling to find the right terms. “a prodigious son of the chieftain. his only son. except i didn't care for their lavish celebrations, their poppy wine or their political delegations. and i didn't care to praise their gods." a shadow fell over his eyes as he spoke, his tone immersing itself in the memory of spite. he licked his lips, dry from the arid breeze, and stopped a minute to wipe the sweat from his brow.
“turns out i wasn't his son after all." this comes with a mischievous grin as his eyes flash back to Eik, his lips clipped over the sharp glint of fangs that made his smile look all the more crooked.
The Wilds were a vagrant island in an ocean of primitive anonymity – backset by ages of religious persecution and ware, generations of fear and hunger. They were nothing if compared to the grandiose streets of Denocte, not but dust and sand and brush for miles on each end unless it struck the silhouette of mountains or framed by the dark ridgeline of tree canopies. The moon rose and fell, chased by the sun. The winds whipped and billowed, storms passed overhead sometimes to never release the relief of rain. They did not have the grand temples, the markets, the means of manors and castles and the equal like. The Wilds were a distant grief far from civilization. Even if Erasmus had been a wanderer or merchant set out from his home, and had a home to consider and share, it would not be one far from the description of nowhere.
In his heart, if ever was a heart at all, Denocte was not his home. Not yet. He was young and charged with the arrogance of the living, for an appetite of wanderlust and a desperate reach for knowledge. For more, ever more.
He did not miss The Wilds, though he was not aware of how the wind had howled and the sun had beat on the brush, how the waves of the Terminus crashed against the rocky cliffside that looked over the shadow of Novus, a small island distantly set on the horizon. The way his mother's bones reduced to dust as the years drew on, and how the river from whence he was born hissed longingly beneath the night sky. It was often these things were far from his mind – lost to his rampant musings that fell to the now, to the here, things that were tangible and presented at hand. Even now, as he thought over the definition of “nowhere”, he did not miss them. But oh, he did miss the chaos of daily life – that of the pits, of war cries, of survival. And perhaps that was why he wandered.
The ”Oh” drifts to silence between them as they walk and his crescent moon eyes move to the shelves below and the dark below that, to the starlit skies above and the shadows that linger just above the ridge of the valley, to his feet, to his tour guide. Something about his skin made him think of a shield, the way it was cut and dented and silvery in the light. Something about his voice made him think of the warbred elders whose grieving lungs ached of berserker cries, now replaced by the winded tales of what once was. Something about him was steely and undisclosed, and every once in a while seemed to loosen for but a second when his gaze would pass over the boy. Each time he saw this brief nuance of tenderness he fell farther from the suspicion that he was a skincrawling villain, and deeper into the wonder of who he truly was, behind the shield.
If Eik had shown Erasmus to his window, he may have understood. His memories were not yet vacant like a haunt, they did not come and go as that window flashed beneath a curtain in the flippant wind – it held open, wide and great and peering over the brush with little to hide. He simply chose not to look. It wasn't that looking came with any pain or anguish, even despite the deep-down feeling that his mother's death was his own fault. He held no guilt for the shaman's death sentence, whether he was his father or not. He was a stranger. And he did not care if his foster-father, the clueless chieftain, had died bloodily and painfully. Erasmus could not bear any grief for any child, woman, or man that suffered beneath the hot sun of the Wilds, and he found very little to pine for. When he is much older, wiser, and crueller, he realizes that he did not look out that window because he did not want to mourn any of them. Of all of them, he could not crumble in mourning for the loss of the only gentle soul he had known as a child, for how violently she died in his name.
When the stallion asks for a story of his homeland, he withdraws into himself to search. Did he want lore? His story of being? A funny tale from his childhood? Did he want to know that he was not, as his mother had claimed, a creature of mortal blood and bone, but a creation of things far more ancient than gods? That he was a river stone swallowed by a serpent who drank the river dry? That he had been raised under the guise of the chieftain's son, and how he loathed the royal engagements? How he had abandoned them for the brutality of the training grounds, trading luxury for the blood and sweat and grit? How exasperated the Chieftain's council was that he was an untameable thing, prone to heresy (for how he loathed their silent, arrogant god, who left all their prayers unanswered) and unruly to all command? How his mother, after being accused of adultery with the shaman, had screamed to him to run, to live, to never look back, until her screams bubbled with blood that roared to the surface like the impending storm that rolled overhead? Did he care for sleeping, vain gods? For the restrained titans? For boys who never knew how to be children?
His eyes took back to the sky as he walked and listened to the pebbles trickle down the red shelves, finding that no words worth the tread of his tongue. Perhaps it was rude not to answer immediately with anything, and the silence ticked between them precariously, but he did not find that any small talk came comfortably to him and so did not find a bridge between. His tribe had stories yes, stories that praised the gods for carrying the sun across the sky and moon on their backs, for whipping the wind that brought the sea breeze and the rain that quenched their palettes. But he knew these were stolen magics. His mother told him of how the ancients had done all these first, how they had taken their first breath and plucked the first star from the sky. How they laid the deep valleys and built the highest mountains. How their children, these proud gods, forever famished and entitled, waged war against their own proprietors in the name of conquest and greed. He did not have any favorite stories of the gods, and there were too few of the titans. Each piece of lore found his tongue tasteless and sharp, bitter.
Erasmus knit his brows, his jaw tightening. “my home was a nowhere, if nowhere was a place." the word home felt foreign, as if it didn't belong. his tongue moved around it, unable to find another word that better suited its nature. “we didn't have tales, we had fear-mongering night stories they told the children to keep them submissive, close. obedient. forests with teeth, mountains with fire. gods who watched and punished whoever did not obey - and what manner of obeyance that was, was determined by the higher hierarchy. the gods themselves, i've never seen or heard." his voice turns darker, bitter at the end - as if the last words are sour to the taste, (as they are, as they should be) like bile biting the back of his throat. “i lived in a tribe, in a vast brushland begrudgingly regarded as The Wilds. i was - as well as the other boys - raised for war. from the time we could walk, run... we were expected to fight. some of girls as well, but it wasn't common. i didn't mind the fighting. i prefer it, honestly. i was..." he stopped, struggling to find the right terms. “a prodigious son of the chieftain. his only son. except i didn't care for their lavish celebrations, their poppy wine or their political delegations. and i didn't care to praise their gods." a shadow fell over his eyes as he spoke, his tone immersing itself in the memory of spite. he licked his lips, dry from the arid breeze, and stopped a minute to wipe the sweat from his brow.
“turns out i wasn't his son after all." this comes with a mischievous grin as his eyes flash back to Eik, his lips clipped over the sharp glint of fangs that made his smile look all the more crooked.
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