how do I learn my dreams to mold, to lay them bare in the morning cold?
He does not remember much, but he remembers enough.
All he can remember is that he had tried to follow his parents—but they had been too fast for him. Castile in the sky and Sochi loping forward in her feline form. He was so young (so young) and he had no gifts with which to make the trip faster so by the time that he had reached Tephra, the war had already been in the thick of it. He had stumbled into the darkness and felt his vision disappear. He had felt the way that the ground moved underneath him, the bodies colliding, and felt the moment that his legs had given out.
She had found him and his slender chest had exploded with hope at the feeling of being set aflame.
His bones had begun to stitch together, his flesh curling toward each other, but the war had not stopped.
Not for him, not for her, not for them.
Before she could finish healing him, the volcano was opening and the ground was shaking and he could barely get to his feet before he was swept through the portal. He looked up to see her fall and the magma begin to rush forward and he screamed until his young throat was raw—even as the portals snapped close.
He screamed at the image that failed to leave him.
The sight of her graceful body falling, falling, falling.
He screamed until the pain of a leg still broken eclipsed it all and the rest became darkness.
When he wakes, he is cold and bruised and he groans as he struggles to find his feet. He curses and feels the tears touch the corner of his silver eyes when he realizes that his leg is still wounded and he falls back to the earth. All around him, the world is ice and endless white and he curls into himself.
This is not home.
She is dead.
He shivers as he drops his chin to his chest and tries to fight the emotions that threaten to swallow him.
nikolaus
if they’re still out there then the chasm grows
( for all you know, for all you’ve known )