10-14-2017, 04:35 PM
Ellyse
she is like a cat in the dark, and then she is the darkness
Not even the salty brine of the ocean tide could wash away her sin, nor the thick, dried blood that lay entangled with her feathers – so unkempt and out of place, but she is too worn and too weary to care. Her wings lay outstretched across the frothing waves, to and fro they come and go, sweeping her further into the dark and ravenous ocean – brittle, bent feathers linger along the surface, swept away by the current enveloping her long but weakened legs. The gentle lull is nearly enough to soothe her – and though the salt seeping into her open wounds did cause her to flinch and to gasp, the initial shock of it faded with time, and soon she is numb, longing for the ocean to take with it the blood and carnage that had been wrecked upon her body.
Finally, she has emerged from the sea, with the pale sunlight gleaming from a vast and open sky overhead – warming her to the bone, but she can hardly feel it – her skin is numb, from the sea, from the ache, and her heart is steady but barely beating. The claw mark across her sullen, empty eye socket had been cleansed by the tide, and what lay beneath the dried blood and seepage is a bright, gleaming wound of red – more discernible than it had ever been. Three deep, devastating marks across the ridge of her brow and into the roundness of her cheek – a reminder of what had been, and what would never be.
She would carry the burden of her heartache for an eternity.
Still, the anguish had been softened by the warmth of her children nestled to her breast – each had been safe and whole and untouched, and she has never known such gratitude before. Her lips had pressed a thousand soft, featherlight kisses across their faces (her mouth, her lips ache, as does her jaw, from snapping at the hundreds – the thousands of ravens that had pecked and pried at her in the barren wasteland).
But still, she had to keep moving – to find him, she had promised Smoak that somehow, some way – she would find his father, that she would bring him to him. The heavy, burdensome dread holding her heart captive had been too much, and she could not bring herself to tell him the truth – that something terrible had happened. That some inevitably would not make it – and as her memory is reminded of the ash and dust one had already become, her despair and desperation to find him is unsheathed, and so she searches, isle to isle, seabed to seabed –
Ledger had survived, but how much of him had? He seemed disjointed, as broken in spirit as she felt physically – scathing, cruel words spat at her; all that had been shared between them had been little more than an illusion. His deep hatred, his betrayal and his cutting words had been proof of it – what she had thought could be would never be.
She wondered if Dahmer survived – would he be as broken as he; as hateful, as deranged as he?
And then – his voice – a soft echo, carried through the heavy humidity and the distant ocean breeze. Her single eyelid closes over a tired, wary eye - listening; surely it was deception. Another trick played by the dark and malevolent God that had destroyed what had once been good. It is not until she can see him at last, as her heavy lashes unveil her only eye once again, stark and pitchless against the drying, golden grain sweeping around him. Dahmer.
”Dahmer!”
Her legs – still worn, still sore and heavy with an ache of fatigue – carry her to him, until her pale lips are pressed against his forehead, feeling his warmth, tasting the grime and sweat clinging to his skin, brushing away the tangled forelock shielding his piercing, but broken gaze from the unabashed sunlight. Her own knees buckle and her neck drapes over his own, drawing him closer, wordless as his own blood begins to stain her gilded skin and the ivory wing lain over him. He was broken, bleeding – torn apart like the rest of them, as Ledger had been, as she can been – but he is breathing, and there is a pulse within his veins –
”Dahmer, I thought –“ she whispered, her voice quivering, as the hefty burden of their torture finally settles upon her shoulders with the weight of a thousand suns. ”I thought I had lost you, that Smoak – he’s been looking for you, and Ledger, he ..”
But then, finally: ”You’re alive,” she breathes, a truth she can barely hold onto.
Finally, she has emerged from the sea, with the pale sunlight gleaming from a vast and open sky overhead – warming her to the bone, but she can hardly feel it – her skin is numb, from the sea, from the ache, and her heart is steady but barely beating. The claw mark across her sullen, empty eye socket had been cleansed by the tide, and what lay beneath the dried blood and seepage is a bright, gleaming wound of red – more discernible than it had ever been. Three deep, devastating marks across the ridge of her brow and into the roundness of her cheek – a reminder of what had been, and what would never be.
She would carry the burden of her heartache for an eternity.
Still, the anguish had been softened by the warmth of her children nestled to her breast – each had been safe and whole and untouched, and she has never known such gratitude before. Her lips had pressed a thousand soft, featherlight kisses across their faces (her mouth, her lips ache, as does her jaw, from snapping at the hundreds – the thousands of ravens that had pecked and pried at her in the barren wasteland).
But still, she had to keep moving – to find him, she had promised Smoak that somehow, some way – she would find his father, that she would bring him to him. The heavy, burdensome dread holding her heart captive had been too much, and she could not bring herself to tell him the truth – that something terrible had happened. That some inevitably would not make it – and as her memory is reminded of the ash and dust one had already become, her despair and desperation to find him is unsheathed, and so she searches, isle to isle, seabed to seabed –
Ledger had survived, but how much of him had? He seemed disjointed, as broken in spirit as she felt physically – scathing, cruel words spat at her; all that had been shared between them had been little more than an illusion. His deep hatred, his betrayal and his cutting words had been proof of it – what she had thought could be would never be.
She wondered if Dahmer survived – would he be as broken as he; as hateful, as deranged as he?
And then – his voice – a soft echo, carried through the heavy humidity and the distant ocean breeze. Her single eyelid closes over a tired, wary eye - listening; surely it was deception. Another trick played by the dark and malevolent God that had destroyed what had once been good. It is not until she can see him at last, as her heavy lashes unveil her only eye once again, stark and pitchless against the drying, golden grain sweeping around him. Dahmer.
”Dahmer!”
Her legs – still worn, still sore and heavy with an ache of fatigue – carry her to him, until her pale lips are pressed against his forehead, feeling his warmth, tasting the grime and sweat clinging to his skin, brushing away the tangled forelock shielding his piercing, but broken gaze from the unabashed sunlight. Her own knees buckle and her neck drapes over his own, drawing him closer, wordless as his own blood begins to stain her gilded skin and the ivory wing lain over him. He was broken, bleeding – torn apart like the rest of them, as Ledger had been, as she can been – but he is breathing, and there is a pulse within his veins –
”Dahmer, I thought –“ she whispered, her voice quivering, as the hefty burden of their torture finally settles upon her shoulders with the weight of a thousand suns. ”I thought I had lost you, that Smoak – he’s been looking for you, and Ledger, he ..”
But then, finally: ”You’re alive,” she breathes, a truth she can barely hold onto.
she rules her life like a fine skylark, and when the sky is starless