04-05-2021, 08:39 PM
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At first, Targaryen had been two seconds away from crying at any given moment. When the world began to look unfamiliar, the boy assumed he had just taken a wrong turn. Yet unfamiliar became strange and strange became foreign. He had danced between hot and cold — one moment he was burning with anger, the next he felt terror sweep over him. He felt disgusted to have found a place he could call home and have it be ripped away so suddenly. He felt even worse knowing that it was his own doing that led him away from Taiga in the first place. And that deep anguish, so tangible it felt like a handful of rocks in his chest, had made Targaryen’s eyes threaten to burst.
As time went on (and he knew it was too much time, months even), the anguish settled so absolutely that the boy wondered if it would ever go away. It trailed him like the shadows, nipping at his heels and mirroring his every step. Cheri was a dream; the girl’s face and laughter and smell and smile and voice echoed in Targaryen’s mind for every second of every day. And he ached. He prayed to the trees, touching his forehead to the bark and asking them to bring him home. He screamed at Jedar, wishing the eagle would guide him to Cheri. He cursed the dark, making it known that if the night were tangible, he would have pulverized it.
Yet the trees remained quiet, Jedar told him to politely fuck off, and the darkness seemed to laugh.
Targaryen had wandered for so long the world began to blur around him. The shadows shifted around him, seeming to pull images from his mind so they peeled away into things he treasured and things he tried to forget. Some days he would run blindly with Jedar cawing angrily in his ear. Some days he would stand in one place until he felt spiders make homes between his feathers. Targaryen felt his life swing into a rhythm that dredged sadness from its small hiding places and made it grow in his chest.
Suddenly, during a spell of nothingness, the light comes. It is too bright to ignore, unlike the stinking pieces of meat-flesh Jedar would drop from the overhanging branches in an attempt to feed the skinny boy. It burns into Targaryen’s eyes, so hot and fierce and welcome that he shudders and dances simultaneously. With the sun comes a warmth soaking into his feathers, adding a layer of shine to their color.
And also with the sun — the knowledge of geography, of direction, of his home.
Though his wings are thin and sore from disuse, Targaryen spreads them wide and flings himself toward that newborn sun. He flies as quickly as his body will take him, and his eagle mirrors each movement the dark green boy makes. Targaryen doesn’t stop until he finds that familiar break in the redwoods, the place Cheri considers her favorite. “Please,” he whispers to the wind, to the reborn sun, to the mighty forest. “Please.”
His landing is terrible and clumsy and painful. By the time he lands, he is gulping for air and his wings burn like hell. But her name falls from his mouth like a prayer, breathless and soft and pleading.
As time went on (and he knew it was too much time, months even), the anguish settled so absolutely that the boy wondered if it would ever go away. It trailed him like the shadows, nipping at his heels and mirroring his every step. Cheri was a dream; the girl’s face and laughter and smell and smile and voice echoed in Targaryen’s mind for every second of every day. And he ached. He prayed to the trees, touching his forehead to the bark and asking them to bring him home. He screamed at Jedar, wishing the eagle would guide him to Cheri. He cursed the dark, making it known that if the night were tangible, he would have pulverized it.
Yet the trees remained quiet, Jedar told him to politely fuck off, and the darkness seemed to laugh.
Targaryen had wandered for so long the world began to blur around him. The shadows shifted around him, seeming to pull images from his mind so they peeled away into things he treasured and things he tried to forget. Some days he would run blindly with Jedar cawing angrily in his ear. Some days he would stand in one place until he felt spiders make homes between his feathers. Targaryen felt his life swing into a rhythm that dredged sadness from its small hiding places and made it grow in his chest.
Suddenly, during a spell of nothingness, the light comes. It is too bright to ignore, unlike the stinking pieces of meat-flesh Jedar would drop from the overhanging branches in an attempt to feed the skinny boy. It burns into Targaryen’s eyes, so hot and fierce and welcome that he shudders and dances simultaneously. With the sun comes a warmth soaking into his feathers, adding a layer of shine to their color.
And also with the sun — the knowledge of geography, of direction, of his home.
Though his wings are thin and sore from disuse, Targaryen spreads them wide and flings himself toward that newborn sun. He flies as quickly as his body will take him, and his eagle mirrors each movement the dark green boy makes. Targaryen doesn’t stop until he finds that familiar break in the redwoods, the place Cheri considers her favorite. “Please,” he whispers to the wind, to the reborn sun, to the mighty forest. “Please.”
His landing is terrible and clumsy and painful. By the time he lands, he is gulping for air and his wings burn like hell. But her name falls from his mouth like a prayer, breathless and soft and pleading.
@[Cheri]