ILLUM
He knows what it is to be a ghost. He even knows what it is to be so vastly different from your own past that you know, without the shadow of a doubt, who you were would never recognize who it is you’ve become. As a boy he had been bright and bold, naive enough to dream of a future where his kingdom was the keeper of his soul, the duty of servitude his closest companion. He had meant to learn how to fight, how to serve in an army alongside his brothers and sisters. He had wanted to believe that there was something great enough to dedicate his life to.
He had not expected to be so wholly changed by a stranger who dove into his mind and found the darkest parts, dragging them to the surface until it was all he was made of. A stranger who took more than he was ever willing to give, and returned none of what he would have chosen to keep. She chose violence, like her name, and taught him a savagery that to this day he still did not know whether it came from her heart or his. She had slipped into his mind and taken it like it had never belonged to him, and he had yielded in a way that he would never forgive himself for.
Still, in some ways that boy's dream had been realized.
It had come later and when he had not deserved it, and had not been a kingdom, but a heart he would surrender every part of himself to protect.
An angel, just not his.
The thought of her is a turbulence inside his soul that he is still not ready to face, a roiling in the dark of his chest that leaves him broken open like a yawning chasm. He has sunk so deep inside his own shadows that they creep along his skin and leave him as indistinct as any midnight sky. He has seen his reflection and he knows that it looks like he is disappearing, like vital pieces of him are eroding faster than he can hold them together, drifting into a dark that follows him more faithfully than any shadow.
He is shadow bleeding into night, but for some reason he cannot possibly fathom, the night bleeds back into him.
It is never far from him these days, and he can often find it caught like shadows beneath the boughs of the lower trees, splashes of midnight black all strewn through with stars even when the sun is a golden glow on a distant horizon. On days where his mood is particularly dour, he finds that it swells around him until he is buried in the gauzy, starry dark, a lonely planet drifting through space with no gravity to guide it. He is not so stupid as to be unaware that something in him has changed, that the darkness inside him is more and vast and threatens to consume every part of who he is. He might even worry if there were anyone in his life to worry about. But there is only him and he does not fear the loss of himself.
He slips through the shadows, teleporting yards of distance at a time as he appears beneath one tree and then the next, then again fifty feet further. It is not unlike pacing for the mindless way it exhausts his power, exhausts this aching inside his chest that feels like being carved in two. He teleports again and nearly collides with a small bay mare who earns his reflexive ire, as though it is her fault that he is unraveling. “Careful, little mouse.” He warns, and the dark around them deepens until it is filled with swirls of black and a navy so dark it could only be the color of midnight. Stars blink into existence around them, and he ignores the ones that trail and drift like a sparkling comet tail at his heels.
Maybe it is because she is a doelike little thing, because she is delicate and gentle and reminds him not at all of his own creeping dark. But he frowns and studies her, ignoring the shimmer of her dapples beneath a splash of sunlight through the leaves of this breezy tree for the way the sudden glow reminds him of someone else. His head turns from her to study the sky and the creeping indigo like a bruise along the horizon. His strange eyes flare, that thin ring of silver around the pupil burning bright like molten ore for one single second. “It’s getting late, little mouse. You should go home.” There is something quiet in his voice now - not soft or gentle, but a warning when he fixes his focus back on her, studies the angles of a delicate face and the round shape of those deep blue eyes. “Surely you don’t find yourself missing the dark.” It is the way he says those last two words, slow and deliberate, the way he shifts to allow her gaze to fall on more of him. The vast black expanse of his body, the stardust and dark wisps of his mane and his tail. Even his wings seem hazy with the dark, though they glow softly beneath the feathers, illuminated oddly from within.
He had not expected to be so wholly changed by a stranger who dove into his mind and found the darkest parts, dragging them to the surface until it was all he was made of. A stranger who took more than he was ever willing to give, and returned none of what he would have chosen to keep. She chose violence, like her name, and taught him a savagery that to this day he still did not know whether it came from her heart or his. She had slipped into his mind and taken it like it had never belonged to him, and he had yielded in a way that he would never forgive himself for.
Still, in some ways that boy's dream had been realized.
It had come later and when he had not deserved it, and had not been a kingdom, but a heart he would surrender every part of himself to protect.
An angel, just not his.
The thought of her is a turbulence inside his soul that he is still not ready to face, a roiling in the dark of his chest that leaves him broken open like a yawning chasm. He has sunk so deep inside his own shadows that they creep along his skin and leave him as indistinct as any midnight sky. He has seen his reflection and he knows that it looks like he is disappearing, like vital pieces of him are eroding faster than he can hold them together, drifting into a dark that follows him more faithfully than any shadow.
He is shadow bleeding into night, but for some reason he cannot possibly fathom, the night bleeds back into him.
It is never far from him these days, and he can often find it caught like shadows beneath the boughs of the lower trees, splashes of midnight black all strewn through with stars even when the sun is a golden glow on a distant horizon. On days where his mood is particularly dour, he finds that it swells around him until he is buried in the gauzy, starry dark, a lonely planet drifting through space with no gravity to guide it. He is not so stupid as to be unaware that something in him has changed, that the darkness inside him is more and vast and threatens to consume every part of who he is. He might even worry if there were anyone in his life to worry about. But there is only him and he does not fear the loss of himself.
He slips through the shadows, teleporting yards of distance at a time as he appears beneath one tree and then the next, then again fifty feet further. It is not unlike pacing for the mindless way it exhausts his power, exhausts this aching inside his chest that feels like being carved in two. He teleports again and nearly collides with a small bay mare who earns his reflexive ire, as though it is her fault that he is unraveling. “Careful, little mouse.” He warns, and the dark around them deepens until it is filled with swirls of black and a navy so dark it could only be the color of midnight. Stars blink into existence around them, and he ignores the ones that trail and drift like a sparkling comet tail at his heels.
Maybe it is because she is a doelike little thing, because she is delicate and gentle and reminds him not at all of his own creeping dark. But he frowns and studies her, ignoring the shimmer of her dapples beneath a splash of sunlight through the leaves of this breezy tree for the way the sudden glow reminds him of someone else. His head turns from her to study the sky and the creeping indigo like a bruise along the horizon. His strange eyes flare, that thin ring of silver around the pupil burning bright like molten ore for one single second. “It’s getting late, little mouse. You should go home.” There is something quiet in his voice now - not soft or gentle, but a warning when he fixes his focus back on her, studies the angles of a delicate face and the round shape of those deep blue eyes. “Surely you don’t find yourself missing the dark.” It is the way he says those last two words, slow and deliberate, the way he shifts to allow her gaze to fall on more of him. The vast black expanse of his body, the stardust and dark wisps of his mane and his tail. Even his wings seem hazy with the dark, though they glow softly beneath the feathers, illuminated oddly from within.
@[Risa]