who we are and all that we're trying to be
Heavy; everything felt heavy, the certain tone of despair and melancholy hanging over them like a shroud, like a veil, he couldn’t just cast aside. It gnarled and nettled deep within, where everything else that threatened to tear him apart nestled, where he refused to look and breathe and dwell. Finality pressed its wake into his shoulders, into the satchel, onto the weight of things bound to lift (but would they? Would they?). After everything, this was supposed to be the lighter part, the moments cascaded into something serene and tranquil. These were the tangible things like hearts, like souls, like limbs, and beneath vestiges of stars and moonlight, they moved, they maneuvered, across the fields, towards the shrine, the avaricious bitterness meant to flee. Meant to vanquish. Meant to unfurl away. But it didn’t; still there the closer they drew, until his lungs were bound by stifled breaths and he didn’t deserve to be here.
But still, it had to be enough. Words followed through, quests sunken into the earth, revolving around his mind and motions until they’d all been claimed. Not alone, because there’d been many immersed into it, friends and companions, allies and comrades, eager to assist their Shield. It only spoke volumes of her influence, of her compassion, that it was extended constantly in return.
When they reached the shrine, he dropped the bag of holding to the ground, opening the satchel to reveal and place the contents upon the loam, before windchimes and lanterns, before the sound of constellations and galaxies winding through his ears. There, five containers encasing their leaves – all varying stages of decomposition, from brand new life to decrepit, battered, browned fronds ready to flicker and fall apart. Next to those, were receptacles furnished with a bird bone, and fertile soil from the fields (and if he took a longer, harder look at that particular jar, it was only because Adam’s influence had spun its way from within), followed by the efas herb, and finally, the water from the oasis during a full moon, placed amidst its specified, crystal jar.
Then he stepped back, eyes on the shrine, then on her. He wanted to smile. He wanted to bask in their achievements. He wanted to solidify moments not flanked in agony or anarchy. But maybe that was all gone now; dispatched, warped, vanished from their seams. The beast swallowed down a length of bile coating his throat, ready? chiseling through their attuned bond because nothing else he had to say had formed words or phrases. They were clipped back, wingless. His gaze rendered to the skies then, and back, cast in whatever might he had left. Safrin, I have brought what you required.
--
Five Leaf Threads:
prevail - leaf very new
that bashes and breaks you - leaf slightly withered
look upon a ruin - leaf middle withered
for a scrap of armor - leaf nearly dead
near half-empty - leaf very dead
Fertile Soil/Bone Thread:
{seasonal event} dust and decay
Efas Herb Thread:
spit out the blood
Oasis Thread:
back to life
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
