Hazy shades of red & white
You're colder in the afternoon and cozier at night
The bannisters are covered in cut wildflowers, the quicksilver knobs and marble pillars woven with threads of green and crowned in starred milkvetch, sugarbowls, and thin stalks of columbine in both red and blue shades. Sickly sweet air presses moisture into the flesh and casts swollen teardrops against Atlas’ golden skin. Around him mill groups of whispering individuals who duck their heads and murmur secrets and misgivings into the clusters of fairyslipper. A peacock calls accusatorily from his perch above, his tail drifting down to create a vibrant green skirt for a stone cherub. Atlas ducks his head and tightens the pallid gray scrap of fabric around his neck with a mental tug.
Bouquets of night-purple roses and emerald foliage have been cut and gathered up into artful displays around the palace foyer. Far above, flickering golden chandeliers threaten to drop hot wax on unaware party-goers that pass beneath them; but then, it is not truly a party, and it would surprise no one if someone got burned.
Atlas enjoyed the Dawn Court perhaps more than any outsider. He found amongst their like great scholars and even better thinkers, and he counted more than one of them amongst his good friends. It was from one of these friends he found himself Though this land was not technically his home-- did he really have one, truly?-- he felt a kinship to it, and to it’s bright leader who called the flowers to his feet and brought the land to bear.
But tonight, of all nights, he felt like more of an outsider than every before. He had been promised a celebration was instead given some somber mockery of a coronation. No one seemed truly happy for what had come to pass- they just seemed to exist through it. It was a droll theme for an event.
Out in the yard the stairs spill forth like mercury falls, frothing at the bottom with stone effigies and bushes of blood-red roses. Atlas has escaped from the mirthless, oppressive castle air in order to breathe, but outside he finds bone-gray skies and even less cheer. The air is thick with ghosts. He rounds a corner, pivoting on a bead of panic which makes his steps pin-prick light on the earth; he has his own ghosts, silvery and acid-eaten, riding on his shoulders. He does not need these as well.
In his haste, he does not see the rosebushes have shifted. He does not see their boughs reaching out as though to grasp and claw for dear life. He blunders into them, stumbling aside with a yelp as sharp thorns rake hot red lines into his gilded pelt. Across his chest and down his left shoulder he is marred. He sucks in a hissing breath and finds himself face to face with golden jewels, small and sharp enough to ride on the tip of a dagger. Rather, they ride above him, like a crown; the body they direct bleeds out like ichor from an old wound behind them, strapped and crossed and fused back together with seams of golden kintsugi.
Atlas finds himself swallowing hard in his throat as the sting in his skin is smothered by rippling muscle and the strange gravity of this horned beast.
“Apologies,” he manages to force out after what seemed like an eon of fishing for his breath. “I hope I didn’t-- disturb anything you had planned. With, with the roses.”
The sound of his own dumb voice breaks the spell and he hisses again. Droplets of blood well up along the slices in his skin, stinging most at the joint where his fine limbs pull and corner. “I’m no florist but I’ve seen-- ah, less painful arrangements.”
This whole affair is a painful arrangement. He never should have come.
Bouquets of night-purple roses and emerald foliage have been cut and gathered up into artful displays around the palace foyer. Far above, flickering golden chandeliers threaten to drop hot wax on unaware party-goers that pass beneath them; but then, it is not truly a party, and it would surprise no one if someone got burned.
Atlas enjoyed the Dawn Court perhaps more than any outsider. He found amongst their like great scholars and even better thinkers, and he counted more than one of them amongst his good friends. It was from one of these friends he found himself Though this land was not technically his home-- did he really have one, truly?-- he felt a kinship to it, and to it’s bright leader who called the flowers to his feet and brought the land to bear.
But tonight, of all nights, he felt like more of an outsider than every before. He had been promised a celebration was instead given some somber mockery of a coronation. No one seemed truly happy for what had come to pass- they just seemed to exist through it. It was a droll theme for an event.
Out in the yard the stairs spill forth like mercury falls, frothing at the bottom with stone effigies and bushes of blood-red roses. Atlas has escaped from the mirthless, oppressive castle air in order to breathe, but outside he finds bone-gray skies and even less cheer. The air is thick with ghosts. He rounds a corner, pivoting on a bead of panic which makes his steps pin-prick light on the earth; he has his own ghosts, silvery and acid-eaten, riding on his shoulders. He does not need these as well.
In his haste, he does not see the rosebushes have shifted. He does not see their boughs reaching out as though to grasp and claw for dear life. He blunders into them, stumbling aside with a yelp as sharp thorns rake hot red lines into his gilded pelt. Across his chest and down his left shoulder he is marred. He sucks in a hissing breath and finds himself face to face with golden jewels, small and sharp enough to ride on the tip of a dagger. Rather, they ride above him, like a crown; the body they direct bleeds out like ichor from an old wound behind them, strapped and crossed and fused back together with seams of golden kintsugi.
Atlas finds himself swallowing hard in his throat as the sting in his skin is smothered by rippling muscle and the strange gravity of this horned beast.
“Apologies,” he manages to force out after what seemed like an eon of fishing for his breath. “I hope I didn’t-- disturb anything you had planned. With, with the roses.”
The sound of his own dumb voice breaks the spell and he hisses again. Droplets of blood well up along the slices in his skin, stinging most at the joint where his fine limbs pull and corner. “I’m no florist but I’ve seen-- ah, less painful arrangements.”
This whole affair is a painful arrangement. He never should have come.
SPEECH ! @ERASMUS ! cries in gay
