I'M JUST THE PRODUCT OF A LIVING HELL
and i don't want to live like this anymore
and i don't want to live like this anymore
His hands tremble when he dons the armor for the first time in months.
They fumble over once-familiar straps and buckles, tracing against the aged iron with a touch like that of a lover turned stranger -- how long has it been since he felt any real purpose when he had secured the faceplate over his head, had worn the battered greaves into a fight? When he lifts his head, he can see the specks of sand shedding from the armor that had been hidden away in a Solterran cave for months now, and yet donning them feels like slipping back into an old skin.
His movements are a methodical march as he moves towards Viride, the walk of a soldier born into an endless war -- and oh, how his forges have rekindled an ancient anger in his breast. Delumine is his home, at least of sorts, and the creatures there had been the first to accept him into their midst without questions for the way he still smelled of salt and sand and blood.
He had found his favorite bird crumpled in the snow that morning in a pool of her own blood, the majority of her beautiful feathers plucked, and he had seen red when he had realized whoever it was had lured her down with his own bag of bird seed. He’d finally begun to put together the rumors that he’d been hearing, the whispers of poachers in the forest, the posters he’d seen placed around the library with a bounty that’d he’d never paid much mind to.
Now, he smells of salt and sand again as he enters into the clustered forest, a borrowed short sword strapped to his side -- not quite as sharp as Solterran steel, but it would do for this particular hunt. He isn’t stupid -- a lifetime of living with only rage as a companion meant a lifetime of being alert -- and he catches the glint of Andras’ glasses before the black pegasus comes drifting out of the trees like a ghost.
(He’s noticed the avoidance, as well, the way the two of them have been dancing around the halls to pass each other, tucking into corners and behind shelves. He isn’t quite sure how he feels about this cat-and-mouse game, the way it makes his heart beat quicker in his chest whenever he saw the shadow slipping into a new hiding place, and so he’d feigned ignorance and continued about his way as though he simply hadn’t noticed.)
His smile is a snarl, and yet -- there is something akin to approval when he sees the grimness in the warden’s eyes, the way their faces mirror each other as the hunt sings around them. He sets off in that soldier’s march after the pegasus, and he is silent in the way that a wolf was silent when prowling, scanning the brush and the trees for any sign of the poacher’s activity.
He almost misses it in the snow.
“Andras.” A quiet snarl, a voice made of teeth pitched low to avoid being overhead. He bumps his shoulder against the pegasus a little too rough (because in the thrill of the hunt, he cannot keep himself from reaching out with the way his blood sings in his veins) and points towards a set of scraped bark and depressions in the snow.
Tracks.
They fumble over once-familiar straps and buckles, tracing against the aged iron with a touch like that of a lover turned stranger -- how long has it been since he felt any real purpose when he had secured the faceplate over his head, had worn the battered greaves into a fight? When he lifts his head, he can see the specks of sand shedding from the armor that had been hidden away in a Solterran cave for months now, and yet donning them feels like slipping back into an old skin.
His movements are a methodical march as he moves towards Viride, the walk of a soldier born into an endless war -- and oh, how his forges have rekindled an ancient anger in his breast. Delumine is his home, at least of sorts, and the creatures there had been the first to accept him into their midst without questions for the way he still smelled of salt and sand and blood.
He had found his favorite bird crumpled in the snow that morning in a pool of her own blood, the majority of her beautiful feathers plucked, and he had seen red when he had realized whoever it was had lured her down with his own bag of bird seed. He’d finally begun to put together the rumors that he’d been hearing, the whispers of poachers in the forest, the posters he’d seen placed around the library with a bounty that’d he’d never paid much mind to.
Now, he smells of salt and sand again as he enters into the clustered forest, a borrowed short sword strapped to his side -- not quite as sharp as Solterran steel, but it would do for this particular hunt. He isn’t stupid -- a lifetime of living with only rage as a companion meant a lifetime of being alert -- and he catches the glint of Andras’ glasses before the black pegasus comes drifting out of the trees like a ghost.
(He’s noticed the avoidance, as well, the way the two of them have been dancing around the halls to pass each other, tucking into corners and behind shelves. He isn’t quite sure how he feels about this cat-and-mouse game, the way it makes his heart beat quicker in his chest whenever he saw the shadow slipping into a new hiding place, and so he’d feigned ignorance and continued about his way as though he simply hadn’t noticed.)
His smile is a snarl, and yet -- there is something akin to approval when he sees the grimness in the warden’s eyes, the way their faces mirror each other as the hunt sings around them. He sets off in that soldier’s march after the pegasus, and he is silent in the way that a wolf was silent when prowling, scanning the brush and the trees for any sign of the poacher’s activity.
He almost misses it in the snow.
“Andras.” A quiet snarl, a voice made of teeth pitched low to avoid being overhead. He bumps his shoulder against the pegasus a little too rough (because in the thrill of the hunt, he cannot keep himself from reaching out with the way his blood sings in his veins) and points towards a set of scraped bark and depressions in the snow.
Tracks.
@
