[o] The dissonance of purgatory

Luka

I know there are angels singing somewhere
I hope they sing for us

He’s worn thin and few the excuses that satisfy his dad whenever he proposes leaving Halo’s borders. Offers of another region’s boundaries, a new home, some other change his dad in all his love and desperation to fix things can possibly dream up to give - none of it repairs whatever broken and off-center piece is sitting in Luka’s chest and stabbing at him every time he breathes.

He’d thought that maybe Frey’s waters could fix it instead. Prayed that whatever taint or rot was festering between his ribs was something tangible, something real and capable of being healed by hands greater than his own. It has no healing power like the springs Halo once had or Torchline’s fountain, but the former were destroyed and the latter is farther than he feels he has the strength to travel. So he’d hoped. Foolishly, childishly. As small and stupid as he’d been beneath Dahlia’s hands as she -

Luka rises out of the water and blindly grabs at the nearest hew of stone, ripping the loose chunk he can fit in his hands free and hurling it against the cavern wall where it explodes into tiny pieces. His shoulders heave with harsh breaths and the cacophonous echoes repeat in mocking layers down the tunnels that lead out of the cavern - but no other sound comes out of him for all his violence.

Shaking hands fist hard enough to risk blood beneath his nails as he sits stiffly on the edge of the spring and listens to the drip of condensation forming into droplets and falling to the stone floor. He’s fine. Maybe the springs didn’t fix him, but he’s fine.

For our bruised mouths are an act of resistance
and our singing hearts, together, make a beautiful prayer