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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    [private]  i'm baptised in your name, mazikeen
    #11
    ( THESE DAYS I DON’T PRAY WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES
    I JUST BITE MY TONGUE A BIT HARDER )
    She comes, his mother comes, and his relief is so potent it almost takes him to his knees. She pulls him against her chest and he goes so willingly. His eyes burn with childish tears that he refuses to let fall, though the guilt compounding in his bones makes him weak with grief. His fault, his fault, his fault. He had been so foolish. He should not have left the safety of his mother’s protective gaze. He should have stayed where she could see him, where she could hear him. The guilt expands until he can scarcely breathe around it.

    But his mother kisses his head and then goes to the stranger’s side. All he sees is the funny half-step the mare had taken toward him before she’d collapsed. His knees tremble as he watches his mother work to restore the mare’s life force. He sways on his feet as the ice travels through his veins to further stitch together his own flesh until there is no trace left of the place where the monster’s claws had gone in and taken his ability to protect himself with light and replaced it with something else.

    His breathing is labored and the stench of death burns his nose. It is only when his mother finally lifts her bloodstained head to look at him, armed with her promise, that the air around them begins to soften. The aroma of death begins to bleed away and his breath comes easier, the air cleaner. He swallows thickly and looks from his mother’s face to the stranger’s crumpled form. He nods and exhales a shaky sigh. He believes her. He trusts her. She’ll be all right. 

    It feels like such an impossibly long time before she finally stirs, slowly at first and then all at once. The child stumbles backward as she lurches to her feet. It makes his heart spasm and ache to know that he is her first concern and his brow darkens as he takes one stilted step toward her, throat tight. “I’m okay,” he whispers, “I’m okay.” 

    He wonders why she feels the need to apologize. She’d given up her own life to save his. His guilt flares up in his chest again and he sinks against his mother’s side, chastened. He is acutely aware that her last words are directed at his mother so he does not say anything further, just watches her and regrets not getting her name.

    Selaphiel




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