|| I MET A TRAVELLER FROM AN ANTIQUE LAND WHO SAID: "TWO VAST AND TRUNKLESS LEGS OF STONE STAND IN THE DESERT... NEAR THEM, ON THE SAND, HALF SUNK, A SHATTERED VISAGE LIES, WHOSE FROWN, AND WRINKLED LIP, AND SNEER OF COLD COMMAND, TELL THAT ITS SCULPTOR WELL THOSE PASSIONS READ YET SURVIVE, STAMPED ON THESE LIFELESS THINGS, THE HAND THAT MOCKED THEM, AND THE HEART THAT FED: AND ON THE PEDESTAL THESE WORDS APPEAR: ||
I want to say there is no part of me that loves it.
My siblings judge me for it; they always have. Grief effects people differently, they say. The psychiatrist referred to it as complicated grief, as if by explaining it as “complicated” covers the broad range of realities it encompasses. What is grief, if not our worst habits manifested into the parts of ourselves with brandish with a smile? If I were ever to take the time and self-reflection to trace every nasty attribute of myself to the root, to delve deep into my motivations, my reasonings, and ask why… well what would I find if not the gnarled tangles of my childhood? What would I discover, if not white doves with their wings broken and the shocked face of my eldest brother?
I want to say there is no part of me that loves it.
I want to say the Ginseng tea and lavender oil have “healed” me of my ailment. I understand the error of violence; the misfortune it can bestow. I want to say I go to the pits for the gossip alone, to learn the from the underbelly what the cream of the crop refuses to discuss. I want to say all of these things; most of the time, I do. I lie even to myself.
But today I can’t.
Today I go to the pits to satisfy a hunger nothing else can sate. Perhaps it was the grieving of my youth; or perhaps it is insatiable because of my carnivore teeth. I never ask the question hard enough to find the answer.
The location of the Pits often changes; the word is passed out through a complex system of notes and signs, and deciphering the result is half of my entertainment. The canyon mouth yawns at me as the sun sags low and tired on the horizon; Solis seems to wink there, in the distance, before turning the sky the colour of blood.
Elatus is full of bends and passageways, some underground, that are difficult to navigate. The only reason I have become adept is frequent passage; there is a part of me that relishes the idea it sets me apart, it makes me special, this ability to navigate the world outside of our Ieshan household. The estate that has made us soft. The estate that has spoon-fed us power and nobility, but no strength of substance, no cunning of worth. I find that only here, when the blood spits on the sand and arcs of it paint the walls like sacrilegious offerings. What would Adonai think of this artwork, I wonder.
It is night by the time I find the Pits. Rommel stands at the opening of this particularly arroyo; he is a stallion of impressive stature and observation. I have found his eyes on me many times when I did not expect it; my behaviour improves for him in a way it does for few authority figures. The corner of my mouth twitches. I almost smile, but he knows the reason I do not and smiles for me instead. “Prince, you’ve b’n’away fer far’t’long. Get yer ass in th’ring t'night, eh?”
“Not tonight, gatekeeper. Perhaps next time.” I do wink, and the gesture softens him to laugh more boisterously. He takes my coin and ushers me “inside.”
The Pit tonight is hardly impressive. It is merely an area of dead riverbed cleared of brush and surrounded with whatever brambles and bushes they could find tonight. They’ve cleared the land in a circle at least fifteen feet across each direction and stomped the brambles from it. A large crowd has already gathered and waits with quiet, intense anticipation. I breathe in the scent of Elatus at night, listen to the coyotes in the distance, feel apart of the sagebrush and growing chill. The lavender oil at my lips, at my ears, at my throats says be calm, be calm and I am anything but calm. The festivities begin later, when the last bit of light is gone from the sky. The Pits become a colourful array of men and women from different backgrounds, ethnicities, Courts—the diversity is refreshing, and strange, and I am drawn from the background to the forefront as the contestants battle for survival and coin.
There is always one fighter who stands out to me. I anticipate her battle tonight, with strange nervousness.
This is a feeling I have crown accustomed with having, in regards to her. She does something to me I don't necessarily like, this girl. Something inexplicable. I do not love the fighters; I do not pity them; I do not admire them; I do not envy them. But this girl evokes all of these sentiments and more, with her red painted face and wings and aura of Solterra’s fierce, unrelenting rage. Her wings belong to a falcon; her movement to a tigress; her bloodlust to war itself. Not that I know anything much of these things, having always had the novelty to watch from afar, or read, or witness it from a spectator's place.
I do not often bet, but tonight I do. I bet on her.
Her fight is brief and vicious; one of many. Then the Pits change slides; another battle ensues; another victory; another defeat. The nights go on and on like that, in this place of hell and triumph, and I never grow tired. My heart is in my throat and I am as endless as the desert; the dry scent of Elatus becomes wetted with blood, fear, anger. The dryness of the desert runs wet with crimson blood and I wonder if it will make something else grow after we have left this place, after it has become nothing save a forgotten arroyo again.
I do not know how many visits to the canyon and to the fights it has taken me to work up the courage to talk to this fighter; too many. I build the courage throughout the night, waiting for the opportune time. I do not consciously seek her out as the stars wane and the dawn threatens the far sky; I do not consciously bump shoulders with the fighter of the Pits as the fighting itself devolves into something more celebratory and less violent, a bonfire and bottles of liquor.
But I do.
And perhaps in doing it, the action had been intended all along.
“Excuse me.” I say. A voice like honey, one of my sisters has said. Except sweet enough to kill. I clear my throat and meet her eyes. There is a slight twitch to the edge of my mouth, an almost smile, as I add, “You fight like no one I’ve ever seen before.” The compliment is hard to give, because it is not enough.
"Speech." || @Amaunet
I want to say there is no part of me that loves it.
My siblings judge me for it; they always have. Grief effects people differently, they say. The psychiatrist referred to it as complicated grief, as if by explaining it as “complicated” covers the broad range of realities it encompasses. What is grief, if not our worst habits manifested into the parts of ourselves with brandish with a smile? If I were ever to take the time and self-reflection to trace every nasty attribute of myself to the root, to delve deep into my motivations, my reasonings, and ask why… well what would I find if not the gnarled tangles of my childhood? What would I discover, if not white doves with their wings broken and the shocked face of my eldest brother?
I want to say there is no part of me that loves it.
I want to say the Ginseng tea and lavender oil have “healed” me of my ailment. I understand the error of violence; the misfortune it can bestow. I want to say I go to the pits for the gossip alone, to learn the from the underbelly what the cream of the crop refuses to discuss. I want to say all of these things; most of the time, I do. I lie even to myself.
But today I can’t.
Today I go to the pits to satisfy a hunger nothing else can sate. Perhaps it was the grieving of my youth; or perhaps it is insatiable because of my carnivore teeth. I never ask the question hard enough to find the answer.
The location of the Pits often changes; the word is passed out through a complex system of notes and signs, and deciphering the result is half of my entertainment. The canyon mouth yawns at me as the sun sags low and tired on the horizon; Solis seems to wink there, in the distance, before turning the sky the colour of blood.
Elatus is full of bends and passageways, some underground, that are difficult to navigate. The only reason I have become adept is frequent passage; there is a part of me that relishes the idea it sets me apart, it makes me special, this ability to navigate the world outside of our Ieshan household. The estate that has made us soft. The estate that has spoon-fed us power and nobility, but no strength of substance, no cunning of worth. I find that only here, when the blood spits on the sand and arcs of it paint the walls like sacrilegious offerings. What would Adonai think of this artwork, I wonder.
It is night by the time I find the Pits. Rommel stands at the opening of this particularly arroyo; he is a stallion of impressive stature and observation. I have found his eyes on me many times when I did not expect it; my behaviour improves for him in a way it does for few authority figures. The corner of my mouth twitches. I almost smile, but he knows the reason I do not and smiles for me instead. “Prince, you’ve b’n’away fer far’t’long. Get yer ass in th’ring t'night, eh?”
“Not tonight, gatekeeper. Perhaps next time.” I do wink, and the gesture softens him to laugh more boisterously. He takes my coin and ushers me “inside.”
The Pit tonight is hardly impressive. It is merely an area of dead riverbed cleared of brush and surrounded with whatever brambles and bushes they could find tonight. They’ve cleared the land in a circle at least fifteen feet across each direction and stomped the brambles from it. A large crowd has already gathered and waits with quiet, intense anticipation. I breathe in the scent of Elatus at night, listen to the coyotes in the distance, feel apart of the sagebrush and growing chill. The lavender oil at my lips, at my ears, at my throats says be calm, be calm and I am anything but calm. The festivities begin later, when the last bit of light is gone from the sky. The Pits become a colourful array of men and women from different backgrounds, ethnicities, Courts—the diversity is refreshing, and strange, and I am drawn from the background to the forefront as the contestants battle for survival and coin.
There is always one fighter who stands out to me. I anticipate her battle tonight, with strange nervousness.
This is a feeling I have crown accustomed with having, in regards to her. She does something to me I don't necessarily like, this girl. Something inexplicable. I do not love the fighters; I do not pity them; I do not admire them; I do not envy them. But this girl evokes all of these sentiments and more, with her red painted face and wings and aura of Solterra’s fierce, unrelenting rage. Her wings belong to a falcon; her movement to a tigress; her bloodlust to war itself. Not that I know anything much of these things, having always had the novelty to watch from afar, or read, or witness it from a spectator's place.
I do not often bet, but tonight I do. I bet on her.
Her fight is brief and vicious; one of many. Then the Pits change slides; another battle ensues; another victory; another defeat. The nights go on and on like that, in this place of hell and triumph, and I never grow tired. My heart is in my throat and I am as endless as the desert; the dry scent of Elatus becomes wetted with blood, fear, anger. The dryness of the desert runs wet with crimson blood and I wonder if it will make something else grow after we have left this place, after it has become nothing save a forgotten arroyo again.
I do not know how many visits to the canyon and to the fights it has taken me to work up the courage to talk to this fighter; too many. I build the courage throughout the night, waiting for the opportune time. I do not consciously seek her out as the stars wane and the dawn threatens the far sky; I do not consciously bump shoulders with the fighter of the Pits as the fighting itself devolves into something more celebratory and less violent, a bonfire and bottles of liquor.
But I do.
And perhaps in doing it, the action had been intended all along.
“Excuse me.” I say. A voice like honey, one of my sisters has said. Except sweet enough to kill. I clear my throat and meet her eyes. There is a slight twitch to the edge of my mouth, an almost smile, as I add, “You fight like no one I’ve ever seen before.” The compliment is hard to give, because it is not enough.
"Speech." || @Amaunet
my name is oxymandias, king of kings: look on my words, ye mighty, and despair!
nothing beside remains. round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.
