KORBIN
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
That blushed and bloomed,
The beat of her heart was soothing. It was a constant rhythm, familiar and safe, and feeling it pulse against his cheek let Korbin focus on something beyond what went on in his head. Slowly, painfully so, his taught muscles relaxed and the breathing evened out. Falling into a doze, halfway between sleeping and wakefulness, he watched the scenes of all the terrible things he'd been through roll past his vision. Replay, over and over again, fading a little more with each time. The death of dad, the disappearance of mom, the death and struggle of his brother and sister. Lovers found and lost, wounded animals tended in secret by clumsy young boy hands, only to succumb to the chill or inevitable slaughter for survival.
He recalled that winter he had spent as a raven, cooped up among the rafters - there hadn't been enough food, and as the bird he wouldn't have to eat as much. No one had asked him to do it; they didn't have to. It hadn't been awful, but returning back to himself as a human had been perhaps the hardest thing he'd lived through.
"I love you too, sister," he mumbled, half asleep, in response to a note she had written not so very long ago. He had shrugged it off then, but somehow it seemed very important to say it now. She knew, or should know, but he needed to say it all the same. "I'm sorry for all of this. I really am."
That's when the tears started rolling. Hot and painful; he tried to hold them back, struggled to regain control of himself.
He recalled that winter he had spent as a raven, cooped up among the rafters - there hadn't been enough food, and as the bird he wouldn't have to eat as much. No one had asked him to do it; they didn't have to. It hadn't been awful, but returning back to himself as a human had been perhaps the hardest thing he'd lived through.
"I love you too, sister," he mumbled, half asleep, in response to a note she had written not so very long ago. He had shrugged it off then, but somehow it seemed very important to say it now. She knew, or should know, but he needed to say it all the same. "I'm sorry for all of this. I really am."
That's when the tears started rolling. Hot and painful; he tried to hold them back, struggled to regain control of himself.
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
Of the old time entombed.
