They never tell you Souls are a delicate gossamer, weaved by the spiders of time and fate with the same delicacy of a real web. No, too often in myth Souls take on a shape of mortal translucence; the shape of the being it inhabits. They are glowing, and light, something belonging to water or air. But no, the Priests of Oresziah would say. The Soul is gossamer silk; woven into an intricate, irreplicable pattern by the masters of destiny, whoever they may be. And this Soul is woven into everything one is and will become; it is woven into past, present, future, into forever and never, today and the abyss that follows when the stars fall from the galaxy and the light decays and all that is left is entropy, the memory of life, a droplet into the lake of eternity rippling, rippling, rippling—
and they never say when a Soul is shattered, is broken, it cannot be replicated. It cannot be repaired through diligent work, or fate’s kind hand. The gossamer strands hang lank and dull become cobwebs rather than art, and the connections drawn to them break upon relation. Where once strands might have entwined and become a furthered extension fo art… they become connected to something decayed, decrepit, a forgotten piece of a person.
This is why Vercingtorix and Damascus will ensnare and break all that they will ever touch. It is why the hunger in Damascus’s eyes is fathomless but not flesh-based; the hunger of a black hole and oh, if she is a star, that is a state of things she ought to recognise. It has never been Damascus’s fangs that are threatening.
I did not know. She nearly sounds contrite.
Vercingtorix isn’t. The lie almost tastes sweet; her mercury blood is fresh in his mind.
Have you come to take your vengeance then?
So defiant. She reminds him of the Last Prince, of any last or fallen thing. The pride is there like the edge of the sky at dusk; a different, haunting colour. He has always confused sorrow for pride, sentiment for weakness.
“No,” Torix says. And rather then draw nearer, he steps back. “Only justice.”
The justice wrought upon all those who cannot control their inhibitions. Magic-users and beasts, the star-crossed and fallen.
As if on command, Damascus parts his jaws and breathes cool fire. It will not burn but instead dances in hues of indigo, purple, and deep blue. The “fire,” which behaves more like smoke, shines with true iridescence. A thousand colours; incomprehensible shades. When they hit the sand they pool and begin to rise into other shapes; into horses and stars, dragons and men, swords and spears. The shapes take on feeling; the shapes take on sentiment; a trio of smoke-horses begins to dance and swirl around her. They are running, and twisting, and dancing and each horse (though baseless, though formless) presses against her, as if to rush her toward Torix himself.
Perhaps, if she breathes in (and how can she not, when the smoke is so concentrated, when the vapour hovers in the air all around her?) she will begin to feel the effects of Damascus’s mild poison. A dissociation with reality; a heightening feeling of euphoria and trust; dopamine, norepinephrine, and phenylethylamine, serotonin the chemicals of love; oxytocin and vasopressin, for attachment. But multiplied. A love beyond all love. If she breathes it in, she might begin to feel an immediate disassociation; a disconnection from the sand beneath her, the dragon above her, and instead Vercingtorix does as the dragon had taught: Torix looks into her eyes as the dragon begins to speak in the hypnotic, carnal voice of all things primordial, of the heartbeat, the pulse, the ecstatic summit of life, the painful throb of its end.
"Are you tired?" Damascus asks.
The great beasts clambers down the cliffside; four enormous wings stretch out above them, until the sky becomes a distant memory and instead they are privy to the black, black of obsidian membranes, highlighted through with the colours of titanium quartz. The vapour drifts from his jaws; the poison drips.
“But,” Vercingtorix amends, waiting for the effects to take hold. “You might find I am a merciful judge.”
The dragon continues: "Perhaps you should rest... you are safe, here, with us. You are safe."
Vercingtorix repeats, "You are safe."
"Speech." || @Warset
who knows what kind of havoc they might wreak?
