that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
It becomes too much, eventually. The running. The fear. The pretending. He spends his night in a body that he does not know and yet claims him anyway. He feels the life bleed from him until he is nothing but a hunger and a primal terror. He runs until he cannot any longer. Until it takes all of his effort to move at all—until his bones creak and his flesh falls away and the golden body of his turns into ash.
Until he is not handsome and young and strong.
Until he is not the son of the panther and the angel.
Until he is nothing at all.
And the days? He does not stop running then, although it is more metaphorical. When the life floods him again, it comes with shame, with horror, with disbelief. He finds that he cannot sleep then either. He throws himself into conversations where he can pretend that he is still Firion. He moves through the land that he had trudged through the night before and tries to soak in the hours of living until it is taken.
But it is not sustainable and, eventually, this is stripped away from him too.
Sleep does not come sweetly or gently. Instead it is dark and violent. It washes over him like an ocean wave during the storm and he is dragged into the undertow before he can stop it. His mind turns dark and the rest of the world grows dim, dull, as he slumps to the ground and the sleep overtakes him.
***
When he wakes, it is to a gentle bell. Soft and quiet—tinkering in the background of his conscious mind. It stirs him enough that he only murmurs. His dream body twitches slightly as he stretches, but even here, he is not awake enough to press through the fog of his own exhaustion. A single golden eye flickers open and the world around is blurred, quiet, magnificent. He groans and stretches his cheek out against the ground that very suddenly feels like that of a forest, the moss a cushion that he does not deserve.
He hears her greeting and he frowns, trying to break through the darkness.
Trying to form the words to greet her.
It does not come and he slumps again, the weight of it pressing against his shoulder blades. It is only when he feels the brush of her touch that the rest begins to clear. “Iri,” he murmurs, his voice thick in his throat, his tongue swollen. His lips curve into a smile and he nearly forgets everything that has driven him here. All of the demons that he keeps locked into the very back of his mind suddenly quiet.
“My name is Firion,” his eyes remain closed. “My family calls my Firion.”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
