11-18-2019, 01:34 AM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel&display=swap" rel="stylesheet"><style type="text/css">.dote_container{position:relative;z-index:1;width:540px;background:#3d3d3d;border-radius:0 0 0 0;border:1px solid #142020;}.dote_container p{margin:0;}.dote_image{position:relative;z-index:4;margin-bottom:0px;border-radius: 0 0 0 0;}.dote_message{position:relative;z-index:10;width:480px;background:#191919;text-align:justify;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;padding:15px;color:#3d3d3d;}.dote_name{position:relative;z-index:15;text-align:center;color:black;text-shadow:0 0 4px #B5B0AD;letter-spacing:16px;font-size:36px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;bottom:20px;}.dote_title{position:relative;z-index:11;text-align:center;color:black;letter-spacing:2px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;}</style><center><div class="dote_container"><div class="dote_title">( i'm just here to fight the fire
oh, a man ain't a man unless he has desire )</div><div class="dote_message">
<p>
He should have known it wouldn’t work.
But, as with everything else in his life, he refuses to accept responsibility as the great beast loses his footing. The monster should have known its limits, Antidote thinks, as he mutters some dark, displeased thing. The monster should have told him that it would never work, the current was too much even for him so close to the falls. Alas, here they are and Antidote is at the mercy of the great beast and the river itself.
“<b>Son of a bitch,</b>” he yelps as he loses his balance, scrambling for purchase on the beast’s slick back before surrendering himself to gravity and plunging into the river. He kicks for the surface, gasping and sputtering, his irritation at an all-time high.
“<b>Good thing we’re already dead, huh?</b>” he shouts across the river’s roar to the beast. But the beast does not hear him or merely chooses not to respond as the pair of them move faster toward the edge of the fall.
They are dead and he has not felt pain in centuries. He has not gasped for air. He has not closed his eyes tight against the heat of panic. But he does now. Instinct, perhaps, long-buried. He reasons that it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been dead, you will never steel yourself against the stomach-turning sensation of falling.
And fall they do. All of them. He does not think about the falling, though. He thinks about a death he had nothing to do with, a murder that he neither witness nor partook in. And there is his own death, too. The peace of his own surrender to the afterlife a stark contrast to the violence of the murder that frankly comes out of left field and leaves him shaken.
Had he murdered someone?
He’s had a lot of time to think about how brains work and he wonders, as his shoulder collides with a rather large boulder, if this is a memory he has kept buried. He wonders if he’s capable of murdering again as he drags himself, drenched and exhausted. He sucks in a sharp, world-swallowing breath. More in an effort to regain his bearings than anything.
All around him, the dead are reuniting with their loved ones. Crying a lot, too, it seems. He scans the sea of faces around him until he lands eyes on Cuerva Lista. Looking all innocent over there. Like she doesn’t recognize him. It doesn’t occur to him that maybe she really doesn’t. It’s been centuries since they last landed eyes on each other but he refuses to allow himself to feel stupid enough to believe he still recognizes her and she doesn’t recognize him. He staggers through the shallow pool, nursing the shoulder that had been obliterated against the boulder. He grits his teeth against the phantom pain – and that’s all it is, really. It’s not real. But he still knows what it means to hurt.
“<b>Hey!</b>” he calls and she looks up sharply, evenly meets his eye, does not look away. Which almost feels like a taunt as he limps toward her. “<b>How long have you been here?</b>” he demands.
But before she can open her mouth to answer – undoubtedly a long time, he’s certain – the grulla mare who’d cloned herself in the river calls out to them. It is only then that the gravity of the situation hits him. He’d been too fixated on his rage to hear what she’d said to them on riverbanks above.
What was this about helping to fix the world? His confusion passed across his face like a storm cloud. He can feel Cuerva Lista step toward the grulla mare, undoubtedly prepared to take all of the glory for herself.
Antidote has no interest in being alive. But he has no real interest in being dead either, if he was being honest. It made no difference to him one way or the other. It is spite that drives him forward. And love, too, maybe. Though he would never admit it.
He would never admit that the reason for his irritation, his frustration, the anger that made his vision strobe along its edges was the fact that he had loved her once. He had loved her fiercely. She was a fine woman and she had been a fine mate and, even more than that, he had genuinely enjoyed her company. There is some small part of him still that cannot stomach the idea of willingly allowing her to thrust herself into danger. If there is danger to be found, he thinks, he will find it. Despite the fact that he has never been brave or noble.
As far as he is concerned, the only reason he surges forward is to beat Cuerva Lista to the punch. To keep her from the glory of it. It has nothing to do with love.
“<b>I’ll go,</b>” he barks, agitated. All of this is wildly inconvenient.
‘Antidote,’ she says and he does not allow himself to analyze what it is in her tone that gives him pause. Because it only lasts an instant.
“<b>I’ll go fix the world or whatever,</b>” he continues, stopping just short of rolling his eyes.
‘Antidote, you don’t...’
He glances sharply in her direction and something in him softens.
‘You don’t have to go,’ she says, her tenderness just as uncharacteristic as his when he says, “<b>let me do this.</b>”
</div><div class="dote_name">a n t i d o t e</div><img class="dote_image" src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/5b6717ca6f37becaaee0bb26702920c0/3ff082c05113270c-6c/s640x960/cff037fdfc6c4fdcccb1a843c1f458c706f3a5f1.png"></div></center>
oh, a man ain't a man unless he has desire )</div><div class="dote_message">
<p>
He should have known it wouldn’t work.
But, as with everything else in his life, he refuses to accept responsibility as the great beast loses his footing. The monster should have known its limits, Antidote thinks, as he mutters some dark, displeased thing. The monster should have told him that it would never work, the current was too much even for him so close to the falls. Alas, here they are and Antidote is at the mercy of the great beast and the river itself.
“<b>Son of a bitch,</b>” he yelps as he loses his balance, scrambling for purchase on the beast’s slick back before surrendering himself to gravity and plunging into the river. He kicks for the surface, gasping and sputtering, his irritation at an all-time high.
“<b>Good thing we’re already dead, huh?</b>” he shouts across the river’s roar to the beast. But the beast does not hear him or merely chooses not to respond as the pair of them move faster toward the edge of the fall.
They are dead and he has not felt pain in centuries. He has not gasped for air. He has not closed his eyes tight against the heat of panic. But he does now. Instinct, perhaps, long-buried. He reasons that it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been dead, you will never steel yourself against the stomach-turning sensation of falling.
And fall they do. All of them. He does not think about the falling, though. He thinks about a death he had nothing to do with, a murder that he neither witness nor partook in. And there is his own death, too. The peace of his own surrender to the afterlife a stark contrast to the violence of the murder that frankly comes out of left field and leaves him shaken.
Had he murdered someone?
He’s had a lot of time to think about how brains work and he wonders, as his shoulder collides with a rather large boulder, if this is a memory he has kept buried. He wonders if he’s capable of murdering again as he drags himself, drenched and exhausted. He sucks in a sharp, world-swallowing breath. More in an effort to regain his bearings than anything.
All around him, the dead are reuniting with their loved ones. Crying a lot, too, it seems. He scans the sea of faces around him until he lands eyes on Cuerva Lista. Looking all innocent over there. Like she doesn’t recognize him. It doesn’t occur to him that maybe she really doesn’t. It’s been centuries since they last landed eyes on each other but he refuses to allow himself to feel stupid enough to believe he still recognizes her and she doesn’t recognize him. He staggers through the shallow pool, nursing the shoulder that had been obliterated against the boulder. He grits his teeth against the phantom pain – and that’s all it is, really. It’s not real. But he still knows what it means to hurt.
“<b>Hey!</b>” he calls and she looks up sharply, evenly meets his eye, does not look away. Which almost feels like a taunt as he limps toward her. “<b>How long have you been here?</b>” he demands.
But before she can open her mouth to answer – undoubtedly a long time, he’s certain – the grulla mare who’d cloned herself in the river calls out to them. It is only then that the gravity of the situation hits him. He’d been too fixated on his rage to hear what she’d said to them on riverbanks above.
What was this about helping to fix the world? His confusion passed across his face like a storm cloud. He can feel Cuerva Lista step toward the grulla mare, undoubtedly prepared to take all of the glory for herself.
Antidote has no interest in being alive. But he has no real interest in being dead either, if he was being honest. It made no difference to him one way or the other. It is spite that drives him forward. And love, too, maybe. Though he would never admit it.
He would never admit that the reason for his irritation, his frustration, the anger that made his vision strobe along its edges was the fact that he had loved her once. He had loved her fiercely. She was a fine woman and she had been a fine mate and, even more than that, he had genuinely enjoyed her company. There is some small part of him still that cannot stomach the idea of willingly allowing her to thrust herself into danger. If there is danger to be found, he thinks, he will find it. Despite the fact that he has never been brave or noble.
As far as he is concerned, the only reason he surges forward is to beat Cuerva Lista to the punch. To keep her from the glory of it. It has nothing to do with love.
“<b>I’ll go,</b>” he barks, agitated. All of this is wildly inconvenient.
‘Antidote,’ she says and he does not allow himself to analyze what it is in her tone that gives him pause. Because it only lasts an instant.
“<b>I’ll go fix the world or whatever,</b>” he continues, stopping just short of rolling his eyes.
‘Antidote, you don’t...’
He glances sharply in her direction and something in him softens.
‘You don’t have to go,’ she says, her tenderness just as uncharacteristic as his when he says, “<b>let me do this.</b>”
</div><div class="dote_name">a n t i d o t e</div><img class="dote_image" src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/5b6717ca6f37becaaee0bb26702920c0/3ff082c05113270c-6c/s640x960/cff037fdfc6c4fdcccb1a843c1f458c706f3a5f1.png"></div></center>