02-09-2022, 06:10 PM
I'll settle for the ghost of you.
It is an intimate thing, soul summoning, of that they were agreed. Seeing a soul was seeing the most vulnerable part of another person and each one was an untold chapter, a part of a book that had never been finished to completion. Even the most well-lived and satisfying of lives always held some sort of, for lack of a better term, unfinished business. Regrets, forgotten dreams, aspiring hopes. Stories they still wanted to write, stories they wanted told, stories they hoped wouldn’t be forgotten. The souls still held all of these memories and feelings even if they weren’t corporal beings. It could be thrilling, terrifying, overwhelming.Perhaps he would have also shunned this aspect of himself if it hadn’t been for one thing. He had definitely been headed in that direction after being called that life changing word, terrible, that feeling of shame that followed him just because he could do what he did… It had almost been enough to close the door and bolt it up tight. Then Aela had come along.
She had encouraged him where other’s had disgraced, had been patient with his hesitance regarding a power she didn’t truly understand, had filled as much confidence and care that she could into the cracks of him that souls sometimes threatened to deplete. It was Aela that had taught him that his curse could also be a gift and that not all stories needed telling, just the right ones.
It was Aela that now kept him from summoning willingly, that little voice Terror had been manipulating convincing him that if he used it… If he dared peek through the crack… It would be her soul he saw.
When he had found Firion in the forest, stricken and grieving, there had been a thought that maybe he could help. He had never found out the truth of what had hurt the stallion, what loss he had suffered, he had only recognized the signs of pain and grief. There had been a moment when he had wanted to offer what he could do, to see if he could bring whoever had been lost and ease that ache. It was only his own uncertainty and confusion that had made him clam up, that had let Firion go without another word as his confidence had shriveled up around him as well as the burning question he had initially sought him out to answer. If only he knew that the source of the older stallions affliction stood before him, safe at least even if she wasn’t whole. If only he had known Firion had lost his mother in the first place… If he ever saw him again at least he could say with certainty now that he understood that pain completely. That there was nothing he wouldn’t do to get to her or bring her back.
And if it meant wading through the darkest of souls like the one that had stubbornly clung to his back since the fall of the South, he would do it in a heartbeat.
If he ever saw Firion again, perhaps he might understand him better now.
Ryatah is still a mystery though. What she is, of that he is certain. Yet he feels there is more to her than that. More than her stardust wings, more than the golden halo that hovers over her head. There is something in her that brings peace and warmth… And there’s something about her that strokes at the terrible parts of him, those dark fibers that made it hard to chase away souls like Terror, and they shiver with anticipation. For weren’t the mightiest of angels terrible in their own way?
If she had told him of all the things she was suppose to be and in all the ways she was not, he would have merely laughed. It wouldn't have been out of viciousness, only who would have thought they could have anything in common with a divine being? As young as he was, unkindness and cruelty were things that had followed him since birth. He had seen demons, both in the blackest of souls like Terror or in the actions of others. Like when Obscene would drink too much nectar, when BoneBone had tried to lie and deceive him. Like Gale, the creature that had killed the jaguar mare.
Nobody was without their faults, he was coming to learn. Terrible, disgraced, broken. Whatever mistakes or flaws Ryatah had… Even a fallen angel is no less an angel, at least in his eyes.
The sting against his flesh had been momentarily forgotten but it comes back with a vengeance when she turns her attention to it. He nods quickly in consent for her help, left to wonder yet again if there was anything she couldn’t do. He is only slightly taller than her and so he bends a little awkwardly to allow her to reach him better. “Thank you.” He murmurs after a few seconds of silence, curiosity bringing his head around to watch while she worked. “Not just for this… For getting him off my back too.”
FYR
@Ryatah