I swear to god
I wasn't born to fight.
Maybe just a little bit.
Enough to make me sick of it.
I wasn't born to fight.
Maybe just a little bit.
Enough to make me sick of it.
Here is the story repeated ad nauseam, the one where everyone gets what they want, brief as it is. It is not their story, not tonight, but it is on the horizon, some wobbling mirage in the distance. They have only to look.
At some point, Michael is watching the citizens of Denocte hang scarves for the festival, draped on hooks at every corner. He is watching carts of straw bales come up from the prairie, yellow and thick. The city is letting out a breath it hadn't meant to hold, through the long winter and even longer spring. Now, on the heels of summer, Denocte sighs and drops its shoulders to clear the rubble.
In his hundreds of years, Michael has never paused to celebrate the dead. It seems so simple, now - light a candle for those that have gone, or hang a picture. If he is a walking cathedral than surely he can spare a toll or two of his ancient old bells for the friends he has left behind. Surely the sting of immortality has not gone from him in only a year. Surely, the fist around his heart as the crowd starts to gather around him, as the sun downs itself, is some bitter memory of that pain.
At the very least, she deserves to be remembered, wherever she is.
Perhaps it would be easier to believe she is dead, anyway.
Now, hours later, the crowd has become swollen and their voice is a din, a constant humming that sinks into him and sets his heart racing. He does see Moira in the throngs, cornered with her painting - the devil rendered in pigment, they think, something that has become rotten and hated and synonymous with death, and starvation, and Isra's black rage. When she leaves, Michael turns to follow - he is running from the crowd, from the color and light, and he is running to Moira though he does not know why.
Michael had not seen Raum. Michael had gone to find Isra when she left and then run when he had returned her to her city on the hill, wreathed in flame.
The same black rage does not stir in Michael. It had not stirred while his own kingdom burned to the ground. He simply does not have it in him to hate.
They meet, finally, at the entrance to the maze, and Michael matches pace with Moira - a phoenix drowned - and her tiger. The three of them are so full of things they cannot forget. The three of them remember things very quietly. Michael does not smile at her or block his path, but he is gold and soft even in the light of the sickle moon.
"Hold on," he says - because he must. "I'm coming with you."
At some point, Michael is watching the citizens of Denocte hang scarves for the festival, draped on hooks at every corner. He is watching carts of straw bales come up from the prairie, yellow and thick. The city is letting out a breath it hadn't meant to hold, through the long winter and even longer spring. Now, on the heels of summer, Denocte sighs and drops its shoulders to clear the rubble.
In his hundreds of years, Michael has never paused to celebrate the dead. It seems so simple, now - light a candle for those that have gone, or hang a picture. If he is a walking cathedral than surely he can spare a toll or two of his ancient old bells for the friends he has left behind. Surely the sting of immortality has not gone from him in only a year. Surely, the fist around his heart as the crowd starts to gather around him, as the sun downs itself, is some bitter memory of that pain.
At the very least, she deserves to be remembered, wherever she is.
Perhaps it would be easier to believe she is dead, anyway.
Now, hours later, the crowd has become swollen and their voice is a din, a constant humming that sinks into him and sets his heart racing. He does see Moira in the throngs, cornered with her painting - the devil rendered in pigment, they think, something that has become rotten and hated and synonymous with death, and starvation, and Isra's black rage. When she leaves, Michael turns to follow - he is running from the crowd, from the color and light, and he is running to Moira though he does not know why.
Michael had not seen Raum. Michael had gone to find Isra when she left and then run when he had returned her to her city on the hill, wreathed in flame.
The same black rage does not stir in Michael. It had not stirred while his own kingdom burned to the ground. He simply does not have it in him to hate.
They meet, finally, at the entrance to the maze, and Michael matches pace with Moira - a phoenix drowned - and her tiger. The three of them are so full of things they cannot forget. The three of them remember things very quietly. Michael does not smile at her or block his path, but he is gold and soft even in the light of the sickle moon.
"Hold on," he says - because he must. "I'm coming with you."
@
Anyone else is still welcome to jump in!
