[DROP] ar hyd y nos

RORY

Helplessness was not new to him: Rory had, after all, watched his mother's sanity wither and weaken and finally give. He had watched some of his best friends foolishly engage a powerful monster in battle, and die, torn to shreds by its claws.

But it still burned in his chest as he saw the black lichen, the inky rot bleeding from Undine's eyes—it was a painful thing lodged in his chest, that song, a sorrow and a grief he could not put a name on. The wolf in his soul screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed, and yet he merely stood there, silent and watchful. Composed. His breathing even, his heart in shambles, because how could such beauty and such power and such sadness exist in the same breath? In the same glade? In the same water?

Then a Fae appeared, seemingly wingless, slipping into existence between one breath and the next. Rory blinked, suddenly unsure if she hadn't been there the entire time, after all, for his brain found her sudden presence disturbing to parse. She spoke to Undine and then—she set everything aglow, a cleansing light filtering away the black touch, leaving the pool a deep crimson, and Undine...

It cleared her scales of the taint, brushed the darkness from her eyes, and she glowed in the starlight—radiant, otherworldly, a beauty that rivaled the waterfall behind her. It seemed to be the only sound in the silence, her last song ended in wonder, a subtle roar that ate the sound of his own heart in his ears.

Then—a song to rival (something I forgot or never knew).

The scream inside of him didn't die. It grew uselessly in his chest until he thought his ribs would burst, a fierce, volatile mixture of joy, hope, anger, envy.

He had nothing to give. He had never had anything to give.

He sighed, barely perceptible, and let his eyes ride her song back to the top of the waterfall, where he could pretend that things were different.

[ As usual, something happened partway through a post and I lost the entire mood, so excuse the shitty wrap to this. Rory stares at a waterfall. ]

as if you were on fire from within,
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.