a king walks among us
Nestled amongst her wings he lived, like a child, a hatchling in a nest, huddled to his mother’s chest. To him she was kind, to him she was accepting, from her he kept his darkest secret and he would until he died or until someone told it for him. Perhaps she already knew and did not say. She loved him that much, then; loved him like nurse-maid, more than father, more than Raum’s people who turned out to only hate him.
Seeing her was like all the bliss in the world ballooning in his ribcage.
He didn’t have words for what it was like to touch her. El Rey tried, time and time again, to put on paper what he felt about Juniper. He could almost give life to what it was like to take life. But love? Love was different. He had to be told what it was, and only having someone else’s definition of a word…it had to be unlearned before he could make it his own.
He read her his words, sometimes. A long time ago he showed them to his loved ones. He desperately wanted Juniper to love his words like she loved him. They were the same thing.
The end of Raum and his rule had not done so much to Rey as his own actions had been. So much pain inflicted. So much blood. An echo to his past in slow motion, agonizing, nothing inflicted for victory so much as power. I control your body, it said. I control your life, and only when you wish death was upon you shall He come for you, and only if He wishes.
There were no words for the darkness. Some words he could find for love, but the evil - it was an insidious thing that seeped into his veins like Eshek’s light and he was only beginning to understand that it had been evil after all. Denial and naivety went hand in hand to protect him, but now the blanket was torn away by living corpses carrying pitchforks and screaming. Give me back my son, they said. Give me back my husband. Give us back our loved ones.
Was it wrong to indulge in that which he had torn from so many others?
The literal could be given lettered form. Reality was abstract and so both love and evil could be given some explanation and yet it was never true. The actions of them, the killing, the holding - these could be said.
El Rey would have to feel it within himself before he could explain anything to anyone, especially when he was not there.
The autumn light shimmered down on the words he’d written, as if to expose them for what they were not (true, honest, from the heart/gut/soul). A cool breeze rustled auburn leaves and soft, soft feathers. El Rey watched the sleeping beauty beside him, his Juniper, for whom he had no good words.
@
”in blood the blade, to its golden hilt, I’ll drown,“
I pledge you now, to death they all are bound,
