|
|
»═══════════════«
.
.
»═══════════════«
»═══════════════«
»═══════════════«
|
» ══════════════════════════════════════«
|
|
Titaneaus Undying
Eternal, void-born and star-blooded
Keep your head low, crawl through the dust on your stomach. Become one with the dirt and the soil, lest you long for certain doom.
Someone whispered those words into his ear, held him against a bony chest, a dirty hand clamped over his mouth to muffle his cries. They flinched at shadows and shied away from the smallest sound, a tightly curled coil of bony limbs and open wounds, their hair matted and reeking of old sweat. But they were his home, as were the back allies and the feeling of starvation. He felt it, the way his stomach seemed to consume himself and ate away his body until nothing was left but the undesired, sharp curves of bare bones underneath sore riddled, dull skin.
No sound, make no sound! They will eat you when they find you, they will hurt you!
Fear was his constant shadow, his best of friends. Him, the nameless one, the forgotten child, one of many in the underbelly of a rotting city. The worth of his life was even lower than that of the soil in which their bodies would be buried, not even an inch deep, loveless, careless, chalk thrown over decaying bones to take away the bite of the stench. He saw them, avoided them, those mass graves of hopelessness and broken dreams, they were the final destination of those that were foolish and too bold for their own good.
Brother, we are so hungry…
They were just like him, nameless, ageless, forgotten children with no one to look up to. So they turned towards him, because he gave them chunks of his own flesh when the pangs of hunger became too bad. Like lost little ducklings did they trail after his shadow, hidden in it, shaking when they heard something louder than their own, frantic heartbeats. And just like little ducklings, one by one the hunter came to shoot them down. He could not save them, could not return to rescue the one he had forgotten, lest he wished to sacrifice them all. The tiny body in all its gory shreds, joined the bodies and dreams in the next grave, buried under decay and chalk.
The sickness was inside him, had always been there, like fire in his veins. He chewed on dead grass and bathed his burning body in the dirty water from the mines, he avoided the sun and could still feel it’s vicious, hellish kiss on his skin, under it as it dug deeper and deeper. There just was no running away, no avoidance. The hurt never strayed, it became one with him, hand in hand with the fear and the hunger. And all the while, his flock of ducklings shrunk evermore.
A hunter, a mob, a noble, a soldier, a plague and false promises. He knew it all in too tender an age. He could recite all the speeches, those to fuel the fires of hatred, those to lull them in poisonously sweet senses of security. They always ended with a nameless one, a dustcrawler, dead and gone. And just akin to the dust they were born from, his little siblings vanished, gone with the wind, until he was left behind alone in an Era of supremacy and heresy.
Oy, lad, what’s ya name?
Such a simple question and he had no answer for the man that found him in his carriage. Hidden between the barrels and the boxes, a skeleton covered in dull, dark skin and hollow, bleary eyes. In the end, it didn’t even matter, for he was chased off, into the wilderness all on his own. To become a chew toy for beasts and raiders alike, a skinny, bony boy like him, nameless and worthless. No one expected him to survive. No one expected him to return to the cradle of his misery, the place he was born.
Now, who might you be?
Decades later, he was able to answer with a suave smile, with charisma and a confidence that only the named ones possessed. He acted, walked, talked, even breathed, like it was the most natural thing, the ridges of his ribcage softened by years of survival on his own in the wild, by eating meat he had hunted himself and berries that weren’t filled with maggots and rot. His name was little more than a rip off, but he liked it enough, so he returned and he planned to stay. A noble man was searching for an heir, wife dead and himself childless, so he found a willing, young man of unknown origin. A handsome enough face and enough raw potential to fill entire suns. And suns were still burning within the young man’s chest. In his blood, on his tongue, their heat never once lessening.
Still, he had a mission to accomplish and neither pain nor fear would hold him back. Adopting a name not his own, joining a family that wanted nothing more than to have his severed head on a silver plate, he transformed from yet another lost duckling into a social butterfly, connections made, friends won over. It was a solid beginning for what he had planned to achieve. What he could have achieved, until his adopted master turned against him, whip and claw, fang and eyes flashing with depravity, rage and greed, akin to a feral dog. And all he could do, once again, was to run away.
How much time has passed?
He barely knew. His home left in the dust cloud of his kicking feet, he ran and ran until his lungs bled and his soles showed hints of his own bones. And when walking became a thing of impossibility, he continued to crawl, far, further until a world was between him and the old misery, until the city that did not wish to be saved was little more than a faint memory, a pencil drawing bleached by the harsh sun. Hunger came and went, pain slowly dulled and when it became sufferable, tolerable, his spirits refused to stay down eternally. He wished for a home and a garden of roses, love and some children. A simple life and something he could never even dream about, because the dreams all end in a ditch, blanketed by chalk.
Moving on, he never stayed in one place too long, the danger simply too big, too real to forget any time soon. The road was lovely, until he no longer could keep up, his legs weighed down by the molten lead in his veins, his lungs cramping, ablaze from the cough, smears on his chin from the red tinged froth around his lips. In darkness, he found peace, found comfort. So he laid down to rest, just for a while.
He slept for too long, time passing by as mere pipedreams and yet, when he reawakened, it was in a garden created by his own dreaming mind, purple rimmed roses and black thorned beauty, as far as his eyes could see. The sickness had burnt through his body and left behind only coldness, numbness, no more pain, no more hunger. He felt nothing and everything, exhaustion limiting his steps, trapping him far better than any chain ever could.
Let me in, little rose, let me in. Or you will regret it!
A beast of taint and heaven came knocking at his door, rushed into his garden bringing destruction and ruin in its wake like the veil of a bride. It knew only of violence and poison, so it came as no surprise to him that it tried to bite his hand as he attempted to soothe its hurt. Blood boiling and freezing, he would not refuse anyone his company and the beast seemed to think the same. They stayed together for far too long, becoming each other’s shadow in every sense of the word. It could have worked, instead it came down to crash and burn.
You infected me with your sickness!
An honest mistake, it seemed dormant, it seemed to be over. Instead he spread the sun’s merciless kiss to his tainted lover, the first step towards his own ruin and he had been the one to push them down the same road. Unable to keep up, he had no choice but to let them roam free, out of his sight, of his control, left behind in his garden. When they returned however, they brought back a strange weapon forged out of metal unknown to him. His lover had left and in their place, a fanatic shell had returned.
They rambled about a golden serpent that had shared its wisdom with them, that they now knew what to do. His garden, his oasis of peace and safety went up in smoke and flames, he was left wheezing, coughing, gasping as blood ran from between his fingers, clasping tightly around his slit throat. Eyes aglow with waning sanity, with regret and sickening love, they loomed over him, their lips wet and red from his own blood.
It is going to be alright! I planned it out fully! I will watch over you forever!
Madness, this was madness and as his life was eaten up, old words of warning came back with a vengeance. And he could finally see. Burning eyes in the dark as he was fleeing from the angry mob, a flash of pale hair disappearing around the corner, leaving him alone with the broken corpses of his only family. A figure in the shadows as the whip came down, over and over again, insincere words of cold comfort at the sight of yet another white dusted gravesite. And finally, tainted halos not their own framing a familiar face as the dagger came down to end it all.
I refuse.
Power radiates out his every pore, thick and icy, suffocating and unable to be shrouded. The secret of his beginnings lost in the darkness, his memories faint and faded, pencil drawings on sunbleached pergament. It began in a garden, a small place he created for himself, but it quickly spiraled into something more, something deeper. More meaningful, drenched to the very bones with depravity and power. It happens to be too many eons ago to even attempt to count. The moment when he became his own fate’s creator little more than a dark scar hidden underneath heavy gold.
His gaze now is shredded in eternal twilight, crimson tainted purple watching with age-old indifference as he looked down upon those that came to him. Willingly, unwillingly, dragged in by their hair or tails, scratching deep gaps into the ground with nails ripping and bleeding. They all came, hungry, greedy, starved for more. A wayward seed, carried away by the wind and the fur of a running animal of the wilds, once fallen it started to take hold, to grow roots, deep and unyielding.
I wonder…
In his empire, towering underneath skies painted in eternal dusk, he carved out a palace and an empty city without any comparison, roses acting as his eyes, his spies, his symbol for something long forgotten. His signature is written boldly on this masterpiece created out of nothingness. He would have withdrawn long ago, allowing his Empire to crash and burn, had it not been for the woman of gold and light. She came to him, or did he come to her?
Either way, they were the different sides of the same coin, balancing out each other perfectly. Her city was white to his blackness, halos crowning her head as galaxies mark his skin. Their merging brought forth a lineage anew, as endless as his own life.
...can you see me now, love? Are you happy now that your wish came true?
The rose in his hand remains silent, little more than a gentle sway of the petal crowned head. He looks serenely on his carved throne, calm and eternal, untouchable. And yet, why did he feel so cold?
.
.
He had many loves, past, present and there would be even more in the far flung future. Some died, some left, one left their mark on him, on his throat, as they slashed it from ear to ear. In the end, they achieved nothing, they still remain at his side, just as they had wished for. Dark, velvet petaled roses sway and tilt their lavishly crowned head into his touch, longing when he withdraws, he can still feel their touch in it, can taste the tears of regret in every sip of wine. But nothing could chase away the lingering coldness nowadays.
Veda knew, Azazael did not. Daleth didn’t care too much, there was no harm in this. Stripped of all jewelry and the only crown resting on his brow, a braided circle of his dark roses, he left. The throne was safe in her hand, she wasn’t alone and he left to search for the fading spark that used to make what he was. He had grown cold, inhumane, more and more like a primeval concept rather than a person, he had started an eternal war simply on the wishes of a lost boy. One that trapped the boy eternally until he died on the battlefield and the great Emperor refused to let him out of his eternal servitude now, a cruel act from someone who once shared bed and nights.
So he wandered, barefooted and aimed with nothing but a makeshift staff - an oak branch he broke off the tree. He saw and nothing touched him, he was lost, a lost cause, just another one of those faceless entities that smothered with their power. Joining the Suns was a whim on which he acted, mistaken for a pleasure boy their leader - Lily - had tried to save him. To save the poor, nameless boy with no shoes and so many scars on his skin, they called him Stripes. Never had he expected to be confused with them, yet in hindsight, it was sensical.
The Suns were true to their name, large and yet, so close. Each one fell in the others arms, a freedom of the heart he had only rarely seen, a mix of memories and personalities, he watched and joined. Of course they noticed, they saw and they worked against the steady cold within him, refused to let it have another inch of him. Not when they wanted him, the way he was, wild and with a crown of roses. Roses, he gave each one, keep it close to the heart, he said in jest, so I can feel your warmth.
Never did he expect they would listen to him. All of them wore the roses over their hearts, Bolt and Lily, Red and Mishka. Kian, Ashworth, Berry and Song. Cups and all the others with their self given names, defying a tradition so old, even history forgot it. They refused to let one of theirs fall victim to something they could not understand.
The Emperor has returned, hail the Emperor.
He was grateful for them, for the lessons they taught. And he remembered them, the way they were in his moment of goodbye. Overnight, he left and in hindsight the regret ate away at the coldness sharper than any acid could. Corroded by it, he was heartbroken on his throne of stars and roses when the historians and diplomats told him, scholars with ink-stained fingers. They spoke of warcrime and murder, of treason and execution.
The Suns were lost and gone, he could not bring them back without sacrificing something of equal worth as this was the core of his power. Luck and balance, lest he wished to create his own downfall. Waiting and biding his time, he turned towards his wife and the lovers that were still eager for a night at his side or between them? Some were the most audacious creatures.
Do not weep at old grave sites, let the dead rest.
Greyed by time and trauma, golden eyes dulled by sadness and by grief and of memories, he was handsome despite all this or maybe because of it? Either way, he survived. He survived. Red, Ruairidh survived and he bore the grief of a man that lost the world, the Suns were lost but sparks of them had survived a massacre thrust upon them.
.
.
”Are ye sleeping, Stripes?”, no, he wasn’t. Sleep wasn’t necessary for him, but he was curious, so he stayed still and soft against the pillow of his lover’s chest. Eyes closed, he felt roughened, calloused hands treated through his hair, long and with more care than one would think when faced with the soldier. The rhythm was so soothing, one could actually fall asleep under this. Relaxation made his eyelids heavy and pliant. “You’re cute like this.”
“Naughty, naughty, taking advantage of a sleeping man.”, never quite dark, the soft white fog of a White City night burnt his eyes, yet he opened them, crimson touched purple meeting brushed gold, ironic, old and youth, their physical appearance spoke of white lies. He was ancient, far older than everyone in this city combined, yet his flesh appeared ageless, marred only by old scars. And then there was Ruairidh. Marred and marked by time and the trauma of the past. “But a king can get away with it, can’t he?”
Swiftly, the sleeping one had turned into a coy creature, smug and devious, he straddled the other’s lap, mindful of the broken part, mindful and careful not to put too much pressure, too much weight on Ruairidh’s right leg. His arms around the other’s neck, hands in his hair and caressing the back of his neck, he hummed and shared kisses, light and sweet like cotton candy. With every single one, he could taste old grief and how it melted away.
“Ye keep calling me like that.”, vague amusement and calloused hands settling on the line of his waist, warmed by his skin, his king always had such cold hands, it made him want to take them and kiss them warm.
“You keep calling me Stripes. So I say we are even.”, leaning closer, closing the final inch of distance between them, he tasted alcohol on the tip of Ruairidh’s tongue, wine heavy and sweet. The empty bottle still rested on the nightstand, no glasses because they were crude like that. “So let me worship my king a little bit longer.”
“Easy, lad, an old bloke’s stamina can’t keep up with ye youngsters.”, chuckling Ruairidh - Red - did nothing to stop him, returned the kisses as they were bestowed on him, allowed him to press back, into the pillows and the sheets that still smelled of them both. “Also, I still owe you.”
“Forget coins and gold. And if you’re out of breath, let me take over. You owe me nothing but your heart.”
His king was merely the first, the red threat to see them through all this.
|
|
