I will be your lighthouse
The bread did not take long to crisp into toast, and it seemed to occur just as the eggs were also finishing. Iskra quickly snapped the pieces of toast off the griddle-sticks, depositing them on the box of uncooked eggs for a moment. Nearby, he had simple plates made of metal for ease of travel. He grabbed the pot and shook their scrambled eggs between the two plates, setting the empty pot in the dirt for cleaning later. The toast made it to the plates next, and he fished out a jar of purple jam from the box of eggs. Having forgotten a knife, he did his best to 'pour' the jam out. All the while he was aware of her attention, the scrutiny, the threat of a rock flung against his thick head (maybe it'd help). Yet, he was also determined not to vomit up last night's years of mistakes in front of her, and he knew their conversation would get better after she ate, or so he hoped.
Rising from the crouch he'd been cooking in, Iskra offered her the plate of eggs and jam toast. "Sorry, Goose was in charge of packing the silverware and he forgot." Iskra gave her a cautious smile at his joke, risking a glance towards his dog that happily snacked on an egg nearby, somehow. He sat himself on a tree stump nearby, his plate balanced on his knees as he bit into the toast. It took some chewing before he could swallow, the bile in his gut roiling at the idea of adding more things to his stomach. "You're right," he said finally, tearing off another small piece of toast between his fingers. "You usually are," he smirked, thinking of something in the past. "I just don't think you've ever felt like this... like you shouldn't ever be happy again, because then you aren't properly grieving for the one you lost. Because if they're gone, how could there be any happiness left?" His body gradually hunched forward as he sat there, the heaviness of what he forced on himself visible as all smiles faded. "But at the same time, you're so gods damned tired of mourning, that you don't want to think anymore, you don't want to remember them. So you hide everything that might be a reminder and you avoid all the triggers. You think it's easy, at first, until you realize they're woven into almost all aspects of the world. So, then it's just easier to sleep. For days you sleep. You find ways to make yourself numb, to dull the memories that come when you're awake. You work until you're exhausted so that there's no time to think or to remember, but even after all that work you're somehow still too weak to actually be worth anything at all." He laughed, a brittle, awful thing. "So yeah, I've been barely alive."
He finally turned to look at her, but there was nothing kind in his face anymore. She'd wanted the truth, so he dredged it to the surface. All the grief and the shame and the self-loathing shone in the silver that rimmed his eyes, in the shadows from the narrowing of his 'brows and the sour turn of his lips. Though it was a blade he dug into his own heart, the horrible feeling of it had him turning that edge towards her too. "Tell me, demi-god, do you understand that? Do you understand what it's like to be so weak and pathetic?"
He wasn't the same happy boy full of the spark of life anymore, either. He was a small, nearly burnt-out candle fighting to stay lit in a winter storm.
Rising from the crouch he'd been cooking in, Iskra offered her the plate of eggs and jam toast. "Sorry, Goose was in charge of packing the silverware and he forgot." Iskra gave her a cautious smile at his joke, risking a glance towards his dog that happily snacked on an egg nearby, somehow. He sat himself on a tree stump nearby, his plate balanced on his knees as he bit into the toast. It took some chewing before he could swallow, the bile in his gut roiling at the idea of adding more things to his stomach. "You're right," he said finally, tearing off another small piece of toast between his fingers. "You usually are," he smirked, thinking of something in the past. "I just don't think you've ever felt like this... like you shouldn't ever be happy again, because then you aren't properly grieving for the one you lost. Because if they're gone, how could there be any happiness left?" His body gradually hunched forward as he sat there, the heaviness of what he forced on himself visible as all smiles faded. "But at the same time, you're so gods damned tired of mourning, that you don't want to think anymore, you don't want to remember them. So you hide everything that might be a reminder and you avoid all the triggers. You think it's easy, at first, until you realize they're woven into almost all aspects of the world. So, then it's just easier to sleep. For days you sleep. You find ways to make yourself numb, to dull the memories that come when you're awake. You work until you're exhausted so that there's no time to think or to remember, but even after all that work you're somehow still too weak to actually be worth anything at all." He laughed, a brittle, awful thing. "So yeah, I've been barely alive."
He finally turned to look at her, but there was nothing kind in his face anymore. She'd wanted the truth, so he dredged it to the surface. All the grief and the shame and the self-loathing shone in the silver that rimmed his eyes, in the shadows from the narrowing of his 'brows and the sour turn of his lips. Though it was a blade he dug into his own heart, the horrible feeling of it had him turning that edge towards her too. "Tell me, demi-god, do you understand that? Do you understand what it's like to be so weak and pathetic?"
He wasn't the same happy boy full of the spark of life anymore, either. He was a small, nearly burnt-out candle fighting to stay lit in a winter storm.
Iskra
