who we are and all that we're trying to be
They stared at one another – savage beast and noble creature – and there were suddenly snippets contorted in his chest that he couldn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend – a blur of mountains and flames, light sizzling and blurring behind his eyes, maw in his palm as an inferno pulsed and pervaded into his gloom. There were glens and meadows, copses and canopies, stretches of clifftops and the rush of the ocean against his ears, echoing and bounding towards summits with their icy crowns, blue upon blue upon blue, matching skulls and embittered, broken dreams. It was an invasion of his heart, his mind, his soul, but he did nothing to prevent it, a comforting weight resting there, beckoning. It roared again, then quieted, not havoc, not bedlam, not menace, but her; the unicorn, gentle in her persistence. The Reaper was silent, in awe, touching upon something that was enthralled and wrapped around his essence, his presence, like so many others – Jyoti, Auni, Isuma, Isla…his chest ached and his breath fizzled. The fatigue was gone, but the confusion wasn’t.
He'd always been alone. That had been the pattern. That had been the ritual. That had been his habit.
What was this world – to continue giving him chances, opportunities, to be amongst others?
His eyes slid over to Kiada as she landed, the striking, penetrating gaze surrounded by ignorance, by bewilderment, by the touches, the fringes of apprehension. “I do not know what to do,” he murmured, quiet and uncertain, a plea for help in the shadows of the Spire, along the depths of shrines and newfound pledges, vows, and assurances. This wasn’t an experience he’d ever wandered amongst – there were no swords extended, no daggers drawn, no knives thrown – heart in his throat, despite feeling complete.
We are bonded, you and I the mare curled and coiled in his mind, like a dream, like a stupor, like a haze.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
