[AW] i'll never love again

[Katniss]

Tonight had been bittersweet. She had bonded with Metaphor in a way that she had never truly bonded with anyone before. She had given herself completely to him and he had done the same in return. She had grown so much in this one encounter. She had promised to love and cherish him until the end of their days, unaware that the ending would come far quicker than any one of them would ever no. And when she had laid next to him in that blissful moment after their union, she had never felt happier.

But that happiness was taken from her the moment someone planted that explosion along the path home. Her happiness had been ripped from her the moment Metaphor laid dying in her embrace. Her happiness had ceased the moment Metaphor took his last breath. She had never felt so alone, not at any point in her life. But in the stillness of the night, she felt as if there was no one else in this world.

It had taken all her strength and will power drag Metaphor’s body from Amare Creek back to Denocte. Her muscles ached but she didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything. Her body was numb, her heart broken. The entire journey, she had been unable to look back at the body she carried. The body of her lover had been placed on a mat weaved out of love so she might be able to take him back home for proper burial. Her eagle flew overhead, knowing that she needed space and time, but unwilling to let her out of his sight.

By the time she arrived at the citadel, the citizens of Denocte were beginning to move about the city. Some watched her drag the lifeless body into the city. Some who knew Metaphor cried, others tried to comfort her. But she did not hear their words or see them standing along the road. She still felt so very much alone.

And when she arrived, she stood there as the strap fell to the ground. Head hung low in absolute defeat as she stepped away from her lover’s deceased body. It was in this moment that she began to look for piles of logs so she might be able to build him a proper alter. He deserved a better ending than what he was given. She would make sure his exit from this world was met with honor.

ooc: Anyone is welcome! Katniss is hurting. Metaphor was killed by an explosion set by someone. Feel free to read the thread here if you wish, just note is starts off as a FTB thread: click here

[Isra]

Isra and the falling moon

" everything inside me screams for just one more "


She is dreaming about running through the dark again. There are only miles, and miles, and miles of blackness stretching out before her and each step brings another quiver of weakness to her dream-legs. Her horn is dripping black ink and it's filling each hollow crease on her face. She can feel it, and it's the only sound she can heart in her dream-- the drip, drip, drip of black ink falling from her black nose to the black endless floor stretching out in horizon waves before her.

Drip, drip, drip.

Isra can still hear the sound when she wakes up. It's in the beat of the blood running through her veins and in the way the curtains are hitting the stone wall when the breeze blows through her open windows. Even when she blinks, and blinks, and blinks she cannot shake the sound of dripping ink, dripping black, dripping terror. She stretches and rises, hoping that moving out into the early night might fill her with fire-light and jasmine smoke instead.

The way down to her city is turning to gold and wheat-grass as she walks over stone, garden, and through the soft hangings fires leading the way.  Constellations are flickering out stories above her head and smoke signals are rising up, up, up towards the moon. But she still feels like she's running through the dark, and there is a weight to the wind that has a sound (and it sounds like dripping).

You're needed. Run. Fable says in the silent sea between them. Isra inhales and and all the jasmine smoke on her lips starts to taste like panic. So she runs. Through the dark she runs again--

And runs, and runs, and runs.

Isra runs until she can spot Katniss and the body laying bloody and still beside her. The sight breaks her heart but she still does not stop until the gathered crowd parts at the sound of their queen running and her dragon swooping down to land on a nearby turret. It's not until she's close enough to count the wounds on Metaphor that she stops. Tears start to build in the corner of her eyes and each, when it falls, turns into a diamond that makes a sad sound when it falls to the stone.

Fable starts to keen. The sound makes Isra's heart ache and even that sounds like-- drip, drip, drip. Every inch of her is pouring out sorrow and it's black, blacker than black. It's times like these she thinks there is no light to be had in this world. (or at least not until she blows the sky off and pulls the moon down to the sea).

“Tell me what you need of me. Anything.” Even her words sound as cracked as all the pieces of her are becoming. Isra wants to offer solace, and love, and vengeance. She wants to tear down the world as much as she wants to rebuild it. But now all she can do is step closer when Katniss pulls away from Metaphor (oh Metaphor!). And as much as she wants to brush her nose across Katniss's dirt stained shoulder she does not.

Because Isra is afraid, oh she's so afraid, that she has forgotten how to heal.

Below her hooves the earth ripples and shivers like a snake who has not decided which skin to shed.





@Katniss

[Katniss]

It is as if she stands alone in the center of the city, her body numb and working on something likened to autopilot. She does not see the many faces of those that have gathered, of those that are weeping, of those that wonder why. In this moment, it is only she and Metaphor and the blackness of the falling night.

She does not hear the sound of Isra’s approach, the sound her dragon makes, or the sound of Finnick’s voice telling her that her queen has arrived. Instead, she focuses on placing another large log into formation, the base of the alter slowly forming.

Denocte citizens have realized what she is building and some have brought logs to aid in her progress. They lay at a pile, each citizen placing one after the other. They do not place them on the alter, Katniss making it very clear that she will be the one to make this alter, that she will be the one who sends Metaphor home.

She lifts another log wrapped in twine, using her teeth to pull the log towards the alter. And when she finally lowers that log, she looks up, finally. She only sees Isra standing there. She does not look her best. Tears still slip from her eyes, even though she feels as though there is no more tears to fall. Her body is covered in dirt and blood and she is unsure of if the blood is hers or Metaphors. After all, she had accidentally healed her own wounds instead of those of her lover.

Her eyes remain locked on Isra for some time, the silence building between them. “Find out who has done this…and kill them before I get to them.” A death from Isra might be quick and painless, but if Katniss were to capture the one responsible, then a different story would be told. Torture and medieval methods would be used. She would keep him (or her) just on the brink of death, only to torture them further. It would not be a pretty sight. From the mare who was usually so kind a humble, she is only filled with anger and the need for revenge. Metaphor did not need to die. They should have been happy together, grown old together, raised their child together.

She blinks, for the first time in what seems like ages. She goes back for another log, her muscles aching in fatigue. From the long night of dragging his body to building a grand alter, her body was on the brink of collapse. But she would not stop until his death was honored.

As the log falls into place, Katniss sighs. Her body is starting to feel the wear and tear, needing strength and food and water. In the silence of the moment, she speaks, just barely above a whisper. She knows that Isra will hear her, but it is unlikely if anyone else will as well. “I must build this alter…he deserves the funeral of a warrior. He fought so hard.” As she continued, she felt the quiver of her voice, the emotion threatening to overtake her. It was too much for her heart to take. She felt it breaking, breaking in a way she was sure she would die from.

[Isra]

Isra and the lowing song

"and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise "


This is not the first time she has seen death, nor the first time her tears have run in tracks of diamonds down the soot-back creases of her face. Each time she looks at Metaphor or Katniss she can still feel drops of blood falling on her cheeks, her lips, her eyelids. When she swallows the air tastes like iron and brine. Isra would tear down the world, devour it, just to know she would never have to see sorrow and inhale blood again.

Fable can feel it too, the need to do something (do anything), if only to feel something other than this ache in his throat. He cannot seem to stop keening, or lowing at the dead moon, or anything other than feel like this world he's been born to rule seems like nothing more than a cruel trick. Like Isra he doesn't know which way to point his emotions. The scale of them is tipping back and forth between sorrow and rage. Each time a stone is dropped in it there is a hollow sound that no one but him and his unicorn can hear.

And woe! Woe to the world if all the stones decide to fall to rage. There would not be a world left by the time they are done wiping it clean.

“I promise.” She says, and those words sound as hollow as the diamonds falling from her face. Isra doesn't know if she's promising to find whoever killed Metaphor, or if she's promising to remake the world into one where things like this do not happen. Either way she knows she's promising something terrible, and her magic is picking up a dull roar in its cage. It's waiting for that scale to tip.

Her magic creeps out as she gets close enough to see the exhaustion on Katniss, and the redness, and the heartbreak. “Let me help you.” Every path of brick and stone around them turns to a log. The horses around them back up as a flag above them turns to a silken white shroud that flickers in the wind like a cloud of doom. More move back as Fable lands and starts piling more logs together. Isra can hardly hear the sound their hooves make. All she can hear is that thud, thud, thud of stones hitting the scale. All she can feel is this horrible pull to do both great and terrible things.

“There is no one who will not know how hard he fought and how much he loved you.” Isra brushes her nose across Katniss's shoulder, because she can't help the need to push whatever pieces of her friend she can back together. Behind the pyre Fable is still building a sculpture of a crescent moon turns to the golden figure of a horse and at his hooves a shining ball of moonstone. This, at least, is something, Isra knows she can do now.

Later the terrible things will come.

And then her magic will not just roar in her skin.





@Katniss

[Katniss]

At first, this journey to make the pyre to honor Metaphor’s sacrifice was her own journey. She didn’t feel as though anyone else should help her. After all, this was her lover. She was supposed to protect him from harm, to love him endlessly, to give him the gift of children. And yet, she had failed so miserably and she felt responsible for his death. She might not outright admit such a thing, but she felt it so deeply within her being. She had failed Metaphor and if she hadn’t traveled to the creek, then he would still be alive. She would still have him to come home to every evening.

She would be happy.

But tonight, tonight she felt all the feelings of anger, rage, sorrow, despair. None of them were positive emotions. She should be happy that she had sealed her love with Metaphor and instead, all she feels is regret that she had done so. Tonight was a night of conflicting emotions. She knows what she should feel and she knows what she does feel. Those feelings were so vastly different.

Even as she places another log onto the pyre, she does not see what Isra is doing not does she see her approach. She does not notice the way the brick and stone path turns to logs for if she had, she would probably feel grateful. It is only when she whispers about the reason behind the pyre that she even realizes just how close Isra is to her, and Fable too. She looks to both, her eyes no longer soft but devoid of any emotion. They are dark red pits of nothingness, no longer flickering with the happiness of the hours before.

Katniss stands still as Isra presses her nose against her strong shoulder. She should feel the touch, the pressure of Isra’s nose lighting up her neurological synapses and telling her brain of the comfort that it is meant to portray. And yet, she hardly recognizes that she had been touched. If she hadn’t seen Isra touch her, then she would have never known how she was trying to show that she cared.

Eyes look to Fable as he works on the sculpture. She knows that this is representative of her lover and the lighted orb that seemed to follow him everywhere. She thinks of the dull orb, the glow no longer present, that is nestled safely within her satchel that is still hanging loosely over her shoulder. The orb was meant for her, but right now, she cannot bear to think of the orb that has no more life in it.

The final log is placed along the pyre and she begins to work at tying ropes along Metaphor’s mangled and bloody body. She is unsure of how to get him up onto the six foot high pyre. Slowly her eyes turn to Fable and the look is subtle, but the meaning clear. She needs his help. She cannot hoist Metaphor up by herself.

She steps back as she looks from the pyre to the body of her lover. She wishes she could stitch up the hole in his chest, the deep lacerations through arteries that appear on his legs and abdomen. She wishes she could wash his body clean and perfect it for his return to the earth and sky. And yet, she does not have the energy.

Muscles quiver as she watches someone from the crowd bring her a lighted torch so she might send off her lover. Even though she knows this is what needs to be done, she cannot help but hesitate. She is not ready to send him home. Eyes look to Isra and she can see that there is anger boiling beneath her skin. She feels it too. And despite all that has happened, she is thankful that she has a friend in Isra. She might not be able to tell her just how much she needed her to just be there for her. She has never experienced such grief before. She wants to ask her how she will ever recover, but her voice is dry and hoarse from all the tears shed. “Thank you…” It was all she could manage. She had not asked for Isra’s help today, but she knew she needed it. Even the warrior was not strong enough to do this on her own.

Even the warrior was not immune to pain.

@Isra

[Isra]

Isra and the dark something

"love is a burning flame"


The sight of the ropes on Metaphor's fetlocks makes her sick, and furious, and hateful. It widens all the cracks running molten though her body. Isra trembles with it and her heart races a furious beat beneath her skin. Sweat starts to pool across her browns. Her children start to flutter like hummingbirds at the points of her rib-cage. Every part of her aches, and throbs, and laments.

She steps forward even though she wants to run away to war, to violence, to anything but this sorrow. “Let us,” she says. Because if this was Eik, cold with ropes tied around his fetlocks and dirt staining his cheeks, Isra does not think she would only build a pyre to burn. Fable steps closer, and he is gentle with his paws when lowers the white shroud across the body. He is gentler still when he lifts the corpse (he does not know how to think of it as anything but something dead and waiting to burn) to the pyre.

Isra watches and tries not to realize that she would burn the world to the ground if she was the one with the torch. Her children kick again, as if say, and we would drown it.

Katniss takes the torch and Isra tries everything to stop this terrible trembling of her spine. And even though she still doesn't want to move closer she steps close enough that her shoulder is brushing Katniss's and the air can hardly whisper in the space between their hips. “I am here, Katniss.” There are still tears falling diamond hard from her eyes. Each clatters on the stone louder than her racing, trembling, cracking heart. Just like the trembling she doesn't know how to stop this either. Fable lays his nose against her hip with just enough weight to say I am here too.

The silence between their heartbeats sounds deafening. It carries something through her-- something thicker, and darker, and redder than blood. “I will always be here.” Isra touches her nose to Katniss's dirty cheek. It feels like touching salt dried up on a rock by the sea.

That is when Isra knows, with a terrible awful knowing, that both of them will always have that something running like sludge through them. And to call it sorrow feels like calling a dragon a bird.

It is, and will always be, a thing more terrible than that.






@Katniss

[Katniss]

Even though there is the soft murmur of the crowd that has gathered, even though there is the steady clinking of diamonds as they hit the stone path, even though there is a whisper on the wind, Katniss hears none of it. Her heart is aching, her eyes devoid of all emotion. She can do nothing but watch as Fable covers her lover’s body in a white shroud. She watches as he slowly lifts Metaphor’s body and places it carefully along the tall pyre. It is only when the torch is brought to her that she looks away.

She takes the torch, it’s fire flickering in the every growing moonlight. She can hear Isra speaking, but she cannot hear the words said. In this moment, it is as if no language can be understood. She is frozen in place, unable to move. It is not fear that freezes her movements, but sadness and sorrow. It is the inability to let go that keeps her along Isra’s side. She knows what she must do for she understands that his body has already begun to decompose. She knows by afternoon his stench will fill the city streets. And yet, none of that matters. She wants to spend every last second with him until the earth finally reclaims him.

With a deep and heavy sigh, she steps forward. She places the torch at the bottom of the pyre near where his back hooves rest, watching as the flames slowly begin to consume the lower layers of wood. Steps take her towards his head and she knows she does not have much time. The wood is dry and is burning quickly. Lips reach up to rest against his own, her breath hot upon his nose, trying so desperately to breathe air into his lungs even though she knows his lungs will not return it. Her eyes close softly, her tears dampening the shroud. “My love for you is never ending. It has followed you through time and space and it will follow you into the afterlife. My heart beats only for you…” Her words are nothing short of a whisper and she is uncertain if Isra and Fable can hear her. She can feel the heat of the fire, the flames flickering towards his body. She should step back, to move away from the flames, but she feels nothing. She feels no heat, no pain. It is as if her magic is doing things on its own accord because where the fire is burning her skin, the coat and hair regrow almost immediately. “I will never love again as fiercely as I have loved you…” She will never feel the love of another, the way her heart flutters at just the thought of him. She knows she can never give someone else a part of her that was always meant for Metaphor. A soft kiss is pressed to his lips, her eyes closing and the tears once again soaking the shroud. She does not want this moment to leave, but she knows that soon her lover will be nothing but ash on the wind.

The flames flicker higher, encompassing his body and burning away the shroud. She takes one more look at her lover, one more moment to tell him goodbye. And then she finally steps back and realizes that she too has been burning. Her magic betrays her, once more healing her wounds and not his own. Perhaps it knows that there is a child beginning to grow, still unknown to his own mother. Perhaps her magic knows that the child she carries will be great and will need a great mother to raise him to follow in his father’s footsteps. Perhaps her magic knows just how much Katniss needs this child, to know that her love for Metaphor could create something so great, even though he is no longer with her.

And for hours, Katniss stands watch over the pyre. She watches as the flames consume his body. She watches as the last of her lover is gone. And even when the sun has risen on a new day, she stands there. Her muscles are weak, her body fatigued from pain and from lack of sleep. And only when the pyre collapses in upon itself, does her own body collapse into a heap in the city streets. It is now that she weeps, the cry coming from deep within her lungs is something that seems almost unnatural. It takes her several long moments to realize the cry is coming from her. And then, just as quickly as the scream had come, he fades into blackness as the sun finally peaks over the horizon. A new day has started, a new day without the best part of herself.

@Isra - a long (sorry) closer <3

[Isra]

Isra who is black and marble

"In life after life, in age after age, forever"


Isra stands still as a statue and imagines herself as eternal as a bit of marble cracked through with black and silver. Everything in the soft, fragile parts of her (what little is left) flinches and shivers as the flames catch on wood, and silk, and flesh. And when Katniss starts to burn it takes everything in her to remember that there are things in the world like magic, and healing, and tomorrow. She wants to bellow out and try to turn every inch of death creeping black through that body on the pyre to life.

She wants to be a god so that she might never see another thing like this.

Her hoofs are quiet as she steps to join Katniss again. Fable follows. He lifts a wing to cover their heads from the ash that's starting to fall. Something quivers in his ocean-monster blood to be this close to fire and death (he, like Isra, will always prefer to drown).

For hours Isra stands with Katniss. At some point the smell makes her wants to gag, and turn away, but still she remains hip to hip with her Champion. She swallows down every emotion and tells herself over and over again that she is marble. The rocks around their feet turn to soft summer grass and thick moss when Isra's magic rushes out with the need to do something, anything.

The tears have long since stopped falling, chased away by the heat and the smoke. Her body is crying out for water when the fires finally run out of wood (and meat) to burn. And it's not until Katniss collapses into sobs more violent than she has ever seen that Isra becomes anything other than marble. Before, in her old life, none of the slaves ever cried like this.

The sound of it makes every bone in her body feel like it is breaking.

She collapses beside Katniss. Fable lays down in the grass and moss with them. There are a hundred words she wants to say, a million promises, but all of them taste only like brine on her tongue. In the end she only rests her throat across Katniss's neck. Even when the sun rises as bright as joy, Isra still does not leave Katniss. She'll wait forever if she has too.



@Katniss