07-11-2016, 02:35 PM
“Our family paying for our sins.”
Is that what this is? I shake my head, because that doesn't feel true to me. Oh, I've torn lives apart, ripped souls from bodies, and left enemies in my wake. Not as many as Pazuzu, perhaps, and my kills have largely been limited to those who deserve to die. Or at least don't deserve to live. I've taken the lives of people who have hurt my babies, and it felt fucking good. Watching them bleed. Hearing them scream.
“I don't think that's how it works. This is life, Pazuzu. Darkness and light, joy and pain, danger and safety. And the stronger we are, the bigger those forces grow in order to touch us. In order to change us, and shape us, and push us toward something new. They don't pay for our sins, no. But there is risk in being close to us. In belonging to us. All the more reason for us to be protective, even if it comes off as a bit much sometimes. Life would hit them with darkness whether we were here or not. So we fix what we can, and help them through what we can't.
“Because we can't always fix it, Pazuzu.” I meet his gaze, because the words feel important. Feel necessary. “No matter how strong we are, there are things we can't put back together, things we can't make right or better or fair. Things we can't make okay. Sometimes all we can do is hold the people we love, remind them they're not alone, and stand beside them in the dark until they're able to bear the light again.” I look away and snort, adding, “Even if bathing in the blood of their enemies is more satisfying.”
His next words make me smile, and I step around the carcass and reshape myself 'til I'm big enough to hug him, shadow wolf or no. Just for a moment, because I know he's not exactly comfortable with physical affection from anyone but Ryss and Tycho. Still, that comment has earned him at least a brief embrace, resting my forehead against him, breathing out an appreciative whuff before backing away and giving him back his space.
“Ah, son. I've been broken more times than I can count,” I say with a sad little smile, watching the sunset instead of making eye contact. “It's not the worst thing in the world. Hurts like a motherfucker, but sometimes the breaking is what you need. Don't get me wrong, it fucking sucks. Being that jagged, that exposed. Scary as hell, and it feels like it will last forever when it's starting. But...” I sigh, thinking back. Broken when my mom left me, too scared of who I was to stick around. Too scared my baby brother would be a monster like me to even give him a chance. She made me into an Amazon the minute she walked away.
Broken by some monster in the Meadow, my innocence stolen by a sick old man with sour breath whose touch made my skin crawl. Too naive to know what was coming until it was too late. He made me into a warrior born in blood and pain. I can still feel the weight of him on my back, feel the spines I grew stabbing into him, impaling him the way he'd impaled me, feel his blood pouring down my skin. He taught me the beauty of vengeance, of tearing apart those who seek to harm you.
Broken by the loss of my firstborn, my firebrand, stolen away before I even had the chance to meet him. Broken by goodbye after goodbye, losing friends and family, my mother just as she came back and redeemed herself. My baby brother, fighting to bring my son home. Losing Nocturnal, trying so desperately to put the ash and bone back together and bring her home. Losing Kagerou, the only real mother I had from the time mine left.
Maybe the worst of all, watching my newborn son writhe in agony and beg me to let him die, letting go of him because it was the right thing for him even if it fucking killed me not to make him live. It shattered me, watching the light fade from his beautiful brown eyes. Holding his body as it cooled, digging up the grave where I'd buried Nocturnal and Quantum and resting his tiny bones inside my dark dragon's ribcage.
I have broken over and over, more times than I have ever dared to put a number to. And every time I have come back stronger. “It takes time, but you find a way back to whole. And the whole is stronger for it somehow. No, breaking isn't the worst thing. But there's a line, and it's different for everyone. A line where that breaking becomes something bigger, and the only thing that keeps you alive is love, if you let it. If you want to keep them safe, you love them with everything you are.
“Everything, Pazuzu, the darkness and the light. Because sometimes the dark is what they need. Sometimes the dark is all they can see, and the light does nothing but burn. I know you struggle with it, see the darkness as...as something evil that should never be allowed to touch them. Something that could taint them, if you're not careful. But it's not that simple. And some days they will need the darkest parts of you. My children are no strangers to the dark. Even if their victims are more likely to be themselves.”
Ryss with her self-imposed isolation, Drow with his old habit of tearing himself apart, their darkness ate away at them instead of lashing out at others. Nocturnal's darkness devoured her from the inside. My children watched me burn for months after her death, my own darkness consuming me. They didn't see the years I spent after I left Beqanna, raining death and agony down on anyone I could justify. Bastards who hurt little girls and boys. Monsters who murdered the innocent. Rapists. Violent criminals. Abusive partners. All manner of wrongs, righted by my hand, my blade, my claws. The longer I did it, the lower my bar got, until I was hardly even looking for a reason anymore.
All in the name of vengeance.
A pretty lie I told myself to try to put myself back together after Noct's suicide. That time it took getting my ass kicked by a shaman who knew I was capable of more, getting dragged to the quiet isolation of a little jungle village and getting some sense knocked into me. If he hadn't intervened, I would probably still be on a killing spree, and my son would never have come to the jungle with me and made so damn much progress, and maybe we wouldn't be standing here worrying about bringing three lovely shiny new souls into a big scary world, or darkness stirring and turning its great big head to look right at us.
“Just. Promise me something, okay?” My eyes meet his again; I need to see the truth of his answer, need to read the look on his face and know. “Don't make the same mistake her mother made, Pazuzu. You can waste your life trying to hide it, trying to protect them from the dark that haunts you, you can tear yourself out of their lives trying to keep it from touching them, and they will not be any safer. They will not be better off, and they will absolutely not thank you for your absence. And if Ryss is anything like me, she won't just fucking let go. So don't start down that sins of the fathers bullshit path. I've seen where it ends. So if you think for one moment they'd be better off if you weren't around? Ask Ryss what it was like losing her mom.”
Is that what this is? I shake my head, because that doesn't feel true to me. Oh, I've torn lives apart, ripped souls from bodies, and left enemies in my wake. Not as many as Pazuzu, perhaps, and my kills have largely been limited to those who deserve to die. Or at least don't deserve to live. I've taken the lives of people who have hurt my babies, and it felt fucking good. Watching them bleed. Hearing them scream.
“I don't think that's how it works. This is life, Pazuzu. Darkness and light, joy and pain, danger and safety. And the stronger we are, the bigger those forces grow in order to touch us. In order to change us, and shape us, and push us toward something new. They don't pay for our sins, no. But there is risk in being close to us. In belonging to us. All the more reason for us to be protective, even if it comes off as a bit much sometimes. Life would hit them with darkness whether we were here or not. So we fix what we can, and help them through what we can't.
“Because we can't always fix it, Pazuzu.” I meet his gaze, because the words feel important. Feel necessary. “No matter how strong we are, there are things we can't put back together, things we can't make right or better or fair. Things we can't make okay. Sometimes all we can do is hold the people we love, remind them they're not alone, and stand beside them in the dark until they're able to bear the light again.” I look away and snort, adding, “Even if bathing in the blood of their enemies is more satisfying.”
His next words make me smile, and I step around the carcass and reshape myself 'til I'm big enough to hug him, shadow wolf or no. Just for a moment, because I know he's not exactly comfortable with physical affection from anyone but Ryss and Tycho. Still, that comment has earned him at least a brief embrace, resting my forehead against him, breathing out an appreciative whuff before backing away and giving him back his space.
“Ah, son. I've been broken more times than I can count,” I say with a sad little smile, watching the sunset instead of making eye contact. “It's not the worst thing in the world. Hurts like a motherfucker, but sometimes the breaking is what you need. Don't get me wrong, it fucking sucks. Being that jagged, that exposed. Scary as hell, and it feels like it will last forever when it's starting. But...” I sigh, thinking back. Broken when my mom left me, too scared of who I was to stick around. Too scared my baby brother would be a monster like me to even give him a chance. She made me into an Amazon the minute she walked away.
Broken by some monster in the Meadow, my innocence stolen by a sick old man with sour breath whose touch made my skin crawl. Too naive to know what was coming until it was too late. He made me into a warrior born in blood and pain. I can still feel the weight of him on my back, feel the spines I grew stabbing into him, impaling him the way he'd impaled me, feel his blood pouring down my skin. He taught me the beauty of vengeance, of tearing apart those who seek to harm you.
Broken by the loss of my firstborn, my firebrand, stolen away before I even had the chance to meet him. Broken by goodbye after goodbye, losing friends and family, my mother just as she came back and redeemed herself. My baby brother, fighting to bring my son home. Losing Nocturnal, trying so desperately to put the ash and bone back together and bring her home. Losing Kagerou, the only real mother I had from the time mine left.
Maybe the worst of all, watching my newborn son writhe in agony and beg me to let him die, letting go of him because it was the right thing for him even if it fucking killed me not to make him live. It shattered me, watching the light fade from his beautiful brown eyes. Holding his body as it cooled, digging up the grave where I'd buried Nocturnal and Quantum and resting his tiny bones inside my dark dragon's ribcage.
I have broken over and over, more times than I have ever dared to put a number to. And every time I have come back stronger. “It takes time, but you find a way back to whole. And the whole is stronger for it somehow. No, breaking isn't the worst thing. But there's a line, and it's different for everyone. A line where that breaking becomes something bigger, and the only thing that keeps you alive is love, if you let it. If you want to keep them safe, you love them with everything you are.
“Everything, Pazuzu, the darkness and the light. Because sometimes the dark is what they need. Sometimes the dark is all they can see, and the light does nothing but burn. I know you struggle with it, see the darkness as...as something evil that should never be allowed to touch them. Something that could taint them, if you're not careful. But it's not that simple. And some days they will need the darkest parts of you. My children are no strangers to the dark. Even if their victims are more likely to be themselves.”
Ryss with her self-imposed isolation, Drow with his old habit of tearing himself apart, their darkness ate away at them instead of lashing out at others. Nocturnal's darkness devoured her from the inside. My children watched me burn for months after her death, my own darkness consuming me. They didn't see the years I spent after I left Beqanna, raining death and agony down on anyone I could justify. Bastards who hurt little girls and boys. Monsters who murdered the innocent. Rapists. Violent criminals. Abusive partners. All manner of wrongs, righted by my hand, my blade, my claws. The longer I did it, the lower my bar got, until I was hardly even looking for a reason anymore.
All in the name of vengeance.
A pretty lie I told myself to try to put myself back together after Noct's suicide. That time it took getting my ass kicked by a shaman who knew I was capable of more, getting dragged to the quiet isolation of a little jungle village and getting some sense knocked into me. If he hadn't intervened, I would probably still be on a killing spree, and my son would never have come to the jungle with me and made so damn much progress, and maybe we wouldn't be standing here worrying about bringing three lovely shiny new souls into a big scary world, or darkness stirring and turning its great big head to look right at us.
“Just. Promise me something, okay?” My eyes meet his again; I need to see the truth of his answer, need to read the look on his face and know. “Don't make the same mistake her mother made, Pazuzu. You can waste your life trying to hide it, trying to protect them from the dark that haunts you, you can tear yourself out of their lives trying to keep it from touching them, and they will not be any safer. They will not be better off, and they will absolutely not thank you for your absence. And if Ryss is anything like me, she won't just fucking let go. So don't start down that sins of the fathers bullshit path. I've seen where it ends. So if you think for one moment they'd be better off if you weren't around? Ask Ryss what it was like losing her mom.”