not heroes any longer - we are tragedies of firelight and flesh
unholy sacraments of blood and broken bodies
The Reaper and the Sword knew vengeance, how it fanned, how it flamed, how it escalated, how it absorbed and trapped. He’d always relished and savored its rancor, its ichor, its fuel, stoking the infernal predilections with menacing maneuvers and venomous irreverence. Sometimes it’d been a game to play, unholy sedition amongst serrated blades of anarchy, names on his tongue, against his teeth, while he lacerated, cut, and wounded, marred, breathing heathen brushstrokes across plains of forbidding, of iniquity. They were hedonistic maelstroms and he’d eaten into the flesh of it without hesitation, rampant, wild, fierce, feral decadence uncurling into the antagonistic glory, the treacherous propositions, the triumph and defeat, the layered, lacquered ire. He’d pressed his ambitions into their monstrous animosities and watched them all burn, cherishing nothing, a righteous, avaricious indignation – eyes for eyes, arms for arms, death for death. Revenge had been blissful and disastrous all at once, incapable of having the things he wanted, craved, or yearned for back, but able to ensure nothing else could either.
But he’d never thought of Huyana, the rain, the fog, the gentle, labyrithinine qualities in such a way. She’d died twice in his stead, in is lives, there on the vapor, leaving on the ether. She’d gone by way of the unknown the first time, traversing away, away, away from him, perhaps sick and tired of the fiendish incantations, of the Mephistophelean barbarity – vanished without a trace, until someone passing through thresholds and apertures mentioned her demise. He hadn’t followed her, leading a kingdom, a prestige, his crown too cold, his mantle too sharp, his shoulders too burdened. The second had been by some wasting disease, and no matter how much he’d begged and pleaded with gods and cures and any means of relieving ailments, it had done no good – dying just the same, her last breath a haunting requiem. But would he have chased her down for leaving, for fading? No; but perhaps these were alternate circumstances.
Maybe the wounds were still too deep, too fresh, too new, too raw; he’d half two lifetimes to flicker and mire his way through, Kiada had only the singular, and had roughened it into serpentine, sinuous shapes. But he still took her within his grasp, collected against his chest, not bothered by anything but the assemblage of her breaking, hiding in his hold, tucked away from the distinct, keen edges of the world. She’d faced them numerous times and always came out swinging; until the strikes were frayed and fractured, too much, too many, all over again. The monolith listened to her honesty, sighing against her frame, yearning to shake his head. “You matter,” was all he could offer in return – the oath and assurance embedded in truth, in absolution.
But he’d never thought of Huyana, the rain, the fog, the gentle, labyrithinine qualities in such a way. She’d died twice in his stead, in is lives, there on the vapor, leaving on the ether. She’d gone by way of the unknown the first time, traversing away, away, away from him, perhaps sick and tired of the fiendish incantations, of the Mephistophelean barbarity – vanished without a trace, until someone passing through thresholds and apertures mentioned her demise. He hadn’t followed her, leading a kingdom, a prestige, his crown too cold, his mantle too sharp, his shoulders too burdened. The second had been by some wasting disease, and no matter how much he’d begged and pleaded with gods and cures and any means of relieving ailments, it had done no good – dying just the same, her last breath a haunting requiem. But would he have chased her down for leaving, for fading? No; but perhaps these were alternate circumstances.
Maybe the wounds were still too deep, too fresh, too new, too raw; he’d half two lifetimes to flicker and mire his way through, Kiada had only the singular, and had roughened it into serpentine, sinuous shapes. But he still took her within his grasp, collected against his chest, not bothered by anything but the assemblage of her breaking, hiding in his hold, tucked away from the distinct, keen edges of the world. She’d faced them numerous times and always came out swinging; until the strikes were frayed and fractured, too much, too many, all over again. The monolith listened to her honesty, sighing against her frame, yearning to shake his head. “You matter,” was all he could offer in return – the oath and assurance embedded in truth, in absolution.
what use have we for feeble hymns of wasted faith;
for sordid songs of glory?
DEIMOS
