i love the way that your heart breaks
with every injustice and deadly fate
He is still undecided when He comes to him, still unsure if this is a dream or reality. Tears have left tracks on his face, cloudy eyes dazed and unfocused. He stares at him unseeing, taking a moment to register his words. But then his drab gaze clears as his mouth opens. But he lingers there in mute indecision, unsure of exactly what He asks.
"Ice," he says finally, just as He says Fire. You are too slow. Raelynx can only stare at him in mute silence, his features unchanging, his expression as insipid as ever.
It does not take the black colt long to realize what He had meant. Between one breath and the next, the walls of his cell have caught on fire. The flames crawl swiftly around the chamber, covering every surface of the prison. Somehow those licking tongues of fire cling to the damp surface, drinking the droplets of brackish water as though they are gasoline. He shivers as his skin warms, his body heating to an uncomfortable degree.
He enjoys that discomfort and heat far more than he should. His lingering gaze finally turns back upon Him, the faintest hint of pleasure visible in Raelynx’s charcoal eyes. The gray god smiles then. A cruel, knowing smile, and a spark of fear runs across the colt’s dark body. The walls begin to fade, replaced by trees, by a small, familiar clearing. He freezes, gaze darting around frantically, looking for his mother. But she is not there, not this time.
It is different though. The branches, the grass, even the sky, it is all ablaze. Everything burns with a supernatural fire. Everything except him and the dark god with the subtle smile. Do you enjoy the flame? He asks, though he does not seem to expect an answer. In any case, he has none to give. The nearness of the inferno is as pleasurable as it is hellish. How can he properly answer?
Let me show you its true beauty. He is there next to him then, brushing a burning muzzle against his exposed neck. His touch stirs memories within him (truth or fiction? He still doesn’t know) of another touch. But where that touch had been so very alive, electric, this one burns, destroys. His skin sizzles and smokes, the flames spreading slowly, searing his body as it goes.
In an almost impossible slowness the fire spreads, burning his hair and scorching his skin. He whimpers, his knees trembling fiercely. The blazing pain is too much, and somehow, still it is not enough. His breath escapes his lips as that fire continues to burn across his body in agonizing slowness. And as everything around him burns, so does he.
Suddenly His voice echoes like a gunshot in his ear. RUN!, He says. And so he does. As wicked tongues of flame descend upon his flank, biting into his flesh and leaving behind fiery gouges, he runs. His course is erratic, frantic, as burning branches lash across his hide and grass made of flame snakes up his legs. His eyes are wide and white as his ragged breath burns his lungs, each inhale ravaging him with heat and smoke.
Each stride fans the flames more, building them, burning his flesh in gruesome waves. His entire body is engulfed in an inferno that scorches him with torturous slowness. He does not slow his headlong sprint until he is near collapse. Even then he continues walking, a shaky, wooden stride on wobbly legs, legs propelled into movement by a force he cannot defy. Finally, when he can continue no more, he simply collapses, limbs giving way beneath him. As he stares up at the burning canopy above, he realizes he has come full circle.
The pleasure of the fire has given way to only suffering. Too much of a good thing, it could be said. It is a concept he had scoffed at before. He hadn’t believed it possible. Oh, but it is.
He wonders then if this is how death comes to him. The gray god had shown him an entirely new meaning to a phrase he has lived by since is birth: pain is life. Indeed it is, and for the first time, the thought of death, of release, is comforting. But pain is life, is it not? On that, he does not believe he was wrong.
And then He appears, a dark wraith from the smoke and flames of perdition. Slowly, slowly, the conflagration dies down, his fiery skin snuffing out. What is left behind is horrendous. He has not a single hair left. In many places the skin has burned away, exposing muscle and sinew and bone. His flank bears three gouges, a remnant of that fiery whipping. His neck and shoulder, where the flame had started, is the worst of all. Some of the muscle had burned away, leaving shallow, raw divots in his flesh.
His laughter echoes in ears half burned away into rounded nubs. Oh, but one more thing. And then the center of his forehead burns fiercely. If ever there was a time he should have screamed, it would have been then. But even had his throat not been raw, he could not have summoned the energy. And then the burning is gone, leaving only a fiery ache that covers his entire body, charred beyond recognition. And though he does not yet know it, a brand has been placed in the very center of his forehead, a bold proclamation for all to see.
Raelynx
khaos x eyrie