rage is not beautiful.
it is the ugly head of a rabid animal
foaming at the mouth,
worms in its heart.
it is the ugly head of a rabid animal
foaming at the mouth,
worms in its heart.
Perhaps, this is the thing about Andras, the problem with him, that one, ringing truth that paints all things he does in the light of some great betrayal, and not as if it is some helpless tragedy: Andras has always been free.
Free to hate, free to fight, free to bleed and to rant and to huff and to crackle--and even now, under the weight of his title, under the weight of his king and their kingdom, still he is as free as he has ever been. He was free when we was born. He was free, wrestling with his brothers in the woods. And he is free now, as he takes the long reeds and fresh-cut peonies from her and holds them in a grip that feels too soft to be his own.
Andras grits his teeth. He looks down, past the handful of materials at the sturdy wood table and the lawn grass beneath it. Andras grits his teeth and wonders if freedom is freedom-- because he does not know, like her, what it is like to have anything but.
"Why does it do that?" he asks, even as she reaches out to touch him, winding the stem of a puff of thin yellow petals in a million rings. It is strange, that someone would touch him--and not the way Pilate would, like poison sinking into the pores of his skin and turning him hot then cold then hot again-- but like his mother might have, if he had not been then as he is now. She reaches out to touch him and it like she is holding him, cupped in her hands, and that he is a fragile and beautiful thing.
The strangest part of all is that he lets her, only turns his head as she starts to braid the flower into the black river of his mane. He can see it in the mirror of his glasses, the yellow of it bobbing against the white and the green and the gray of the rest of Delumine. He lets her, begrudging as it is, and the weight of the thing against his cheek feels foreign and uncomfortable and it makes him itch.
But he does not move to undo it.
"I sincerely doubt that." Andras argues, but it is what it is. He follows her shape from her spot at the table to the tall statue before them. She looks up at its face, carved stone that feels more familiar than it should, so finely chipped that each vein is rendered into the skin. It looks... alive. It looks.... conflicted, as she says. Who is he, she says, and the Warden only shrugs,
a quiet roll of his wings before the settle over his back as if they had never moved at all.
I'm sorry, she says, then, and Andras grits his teeth again. "Don't be. I am Andras, Delumine's Warden."
Free to hate, free to fight, free to bleed and to rant and to huff and to crackle--and even now, under the weight of his title, under the weight of his king and their kingdom, still he is as free as he has ever been. He was free when we was born. He was free, wrestling with his brothers in the woods. And he is free now, as he takes the long reeds and fresh-cut peonies from her and holds them in a grip that feels too soft to be his own.
Andras grits his teeth. He looks down, past the handful of materials at the sturdy wood table and the lawn grass beneath it. Andras grits his teeth and wonders if freedom is freedom-- because he does not know, like her, what it is like to have anything but.
"Why does it do that?" he asks, even as she reaches out to touch him, winding the stem of a puff of thin yellow petals in a million rings. It is strange, that someone would touch him--and not the way Pilate would, like poison sinking into the pores of his skin and turning him hot then cold then hot again-- but like his mother might have, if he had not been then as he is now. She reaches out to touch him and it like she is holding him, cupped in her hands, and that he is a fragile and beautiful thing.
The strangest part of all is that he lets her, only turns his head as she starts to braid the flower into the black river of his mane. He can see it in the mirror of his glasses, the yellow of it bobbing against the white and the green and the gray of the rest of Delumine. He lets her, begrudging as it is, and the weight of the thing against his cheek feels foreign and uncomfortable and it makes him itch.
But he does not move to undo it.
"I sincerely doubt that." Andras argues, but it is what it is. He follows her shape from her spot at the table to the tall statue before them. She looks up at its face, carved stone that feels more familiar than it should, so finely chipped that each vein is rendered into the skin. It looks... alive. It looks.... conflicted, as she says. Who is he, she says, and the Warden only shrugs,
a quiet roll of his wings before the settle over his back as if they had never moved at all.
I'm sorry, she says, then, and Andras grits his teeth again. "Don't be. I am Andras, Delumine's Warden."
@solstice
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
