04-30-2019, 10:18 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Abel|Lora" rel="stylesheet"><style> #tenstars{ width:564px; border:1px solid #a7afc4; box-shadow:0px 0px 10px #a7afc4; background:url('https://i.postimg.cc/pLK6wVwj/TenBG.jpg'); padding-top:23px;} #tenstarstext{ width:480px; position:relative; z-index:1; background:#000000; color:#ffffff; font-size:13px; font-family: 'Lora', serif; border:1px dotted #ffffff; box-shadow:0px 0px 5px #ffffff; opacity:0.5; padding:15px; margin-bottom:200px;} #tenstarsimg{ position:relative; z-index:0;} #tenstarsname{ color:#ffffff; position:relative; z-index:2; opacity:0.3; font-size:60px; font-family: 'Abel', sans-serif; margin-bottom:-780px; letter-spacing:30px; margin-left:40px;}</style><center><div id="tenstars"><div id="tenstarstext" align="justify">For one brief, pure moment, he feels an impossible sense of accomplishment. As the heart accepts his gift, pulsing so vibrantly in response, he feels as though his short, insignificant life might have meant something here. And for a boy like Ten, that is perhaps the most important thing in the world.
Because what is life if one does not do something incredible with it?
Still, he is not quite certain what to expect in the heavy moment following. Young and naive he might be, but if there is anything Ten had come to learn in his short existence, it is that one should always expect the unexpected. Or maybe it is simply that his life has been so odd, the unusual and unexpected is far more the norm than the exception for him. So it is not surprise he feels when the small glass vial rises from the heart, but rather an overwhelming sense of curiosity and a heartfelt sense of wonder.
As the impossible heat of the heart hardens, the bright glow turning reflective, he steps closer, eyes widening as he peers into the surface. For a moment, only his face gazes back at him, pale champagne haloed by wild silver locks. It is both familiar and foreign, for while he knows it is his, he has rarely taken opportunity to seek out his own reflection. But as the image begins the ripple and shift, those idle thoughts trail off as his eager mind latches on to the hazy images that begin to form.
Ten, for all that he has lived an odd life, has also spent the vast majority of it in relative seclusion. He has known only his parents, and mostly his mother. Her face is there, of course, staring so sweetly into the distance, kind and so terribly forgetful. She might have raised him, but she had always been an absent mother. Truthfully, he had often found himself caring for her more than she had for him. Still, he loves her, because she is his mother, and she is all he has truly known.
But Giohde would never hold his heart in the same way the places she or father had taken him to. He had grown up quite sheltered, and thus, loneliness had often been a bosom companion of his. And in the hollow such pervasive loneliness had carved, a subtly encompassing love for the wondrous and beautiful and so incredibly soulful lands he has seen had slowly seeped. All of this in such a way that he could imagine no better sacrifice than the one he makes now for Beqanna.
Because seeing her heart, so vibrant and alive, had convinced him in a way nothing else ever could that she lives. That she understands. And that she loves.
For you see, it is not only his mother he sees in that reflective surface, but his home. All of it. The illness that has invaded. The sickness and death. Most might see only the horses, wracked with fever and rattling with cough. But he sees more. He sees the trees with blackness slowly creeping up the trunks. He sees the grass withering from green to brown. He sees the flowers as they shed their petals, unable to hold their colorful heads high beneath the heartless hand of disease. Unleashed by greed. Battled only by unconditional love.
He understands then. Understands that is what she truly needs. Unconditional love. And he has never felt there might be anything or anyone so worthy as the incredible being before him.
And so when he is given that choice, it really is no choice at all. As she uses what might she has left to open that portal for him, to give him the opportunity to save himself or those he loves most, he knows he would sacrifice anything and everything, if only she might live. It’s foolish perhaps, to believe a cure she crafted might save her, but then, it is well established what a naive and foolish boy Ten can be. But to his fervently youthful mind, if this can save what he loves, than surely it can save her.
And so he gives it back to her, refusing the portal in favor of stepping closer to that magnetic heat. Unstoppering the small vial, he allows that life-giving liquid to spill out onto Beqanna’s heart.</div><div id="tenstarsname">TEN</div><div id="tenstarsimg"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/BQrz7PVs/Ten.png" width="564px"/></div></div></center>
Because what is life if one does not do something incredible with it?
Still, he is not quite certain what to expect in the heavy moment following. Young and naive he might be, but if there is anything Ten had come to learn in his short existence, it is that one should always expect the unexpected. Or maybe it is simply that his life has been so odd, the unusual and unexpected is far more the norm than the exception for him. So it is not surprise he feels when the small glass vial rises from the heart, but rather an overwhelming sense of curiosity and a heartfelt sense of wonder.
As the impossible heat of the heart hardens, the bright glow turning reflective, he steps closer, eyes widening as he peers into the surface. For a moment, only his face gazes back at him, pale champagne haloed by wild silver locks. It is both familiar and foreign, for while he knows it is his, he has rarely taken opportunity to seek out his own reflection. But as the image begins the ripple and shift, those idle thoughts trail off as his eager mind latches on to the hazy images that begin to form.
Ten, for all that he has lived an odd life, has also spent the vast majority of it in relative seclusion. He has known only his parents, and mostly his mother. Her face is there, of course, staring so sweetly into the distance, kind and so terribly forgetful. She might have raised him, but she had always been an absent mother. Truthfully, he had often found himself caring for her more than she had for him. Still, he loves her, because she is his mother, and she is all he has truly known.
But Giohde would never hold his heart in the same way the places she or father had taken him to. He had grown up quite sheltered, and thus, loneliness had often been a bosom companion of his. And in the hollow such pervasive loneliness had carved, a subtly encompassing love for the wondrous and beautiful and so incredibly soulful lands he has seen had slowly seeped. All of this in such a way that he could imagine no better sacrifice than the one he makes now for Beqanna.
Because seeing her heart, so vibrant and alive, had convinced him in a way nothing else ever could that she lives. That she understands. And that she loves.
For you see, it is not only his mother he sees in that reflective surface, but his home. All of it. The illness that has invaded. The sickness and death. Most might see only the horses, wracked with fever and rattling with cough. But he sees more. He sees the trees with blackness slowly creeping up the trunks. He sees the grass withering from green to brown. He sees the flowers as they shed their petals, unable to hold their colorful heads high beneath the heartless hand of disease. Unleashed by greed. Battled only by unconditional love.
He understands then. Understands that is what she truly needs. Unconditional love. And he has never felt there might be anything or anyone so worthy as the incredible being before him.
And so when he is given that choice, it really is no choice at all. As she uses what might she has left to open that portal for him, to give him the opportunity to save himself or those he loves most, he knows he would sacrifice anything and everything, if only she might live. It’s foolish perhaps, to believe a cure she crafted might save her, but then, it is well established what a naive and foolish boy Ten can be. But to his fervently youthful mind, if this can save what he loves, than surely it can save her.
And so he gives it back to her, refusing the portal in favor of stepping closer to that magnetic heat. Unstoppering the small vial, he allows that life-giving liquid to spill out onto Beqanna’s heart.</div><div id="tenstarsname">TEN</div><div id="tenstarsimg"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/BQrz7PVs/Ten.png" width="564px"/></div></div></center>