Sacrifice

[Isvinity 729]

Spoiler

 

 

𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇

 

Kept quiet by her own thoughts, the moment that follows Vytrek’s request is stiflingly silent. A scene on the edge of upset, emotions stood upon a precipice. It weighs on her, drags along the length of sternum, feeling for the lines of her ribcage and threatening to break the surface. What would be exposed then, she wonders? What grotesque imagery? What secrets? It’s hard to imagine she was ever innocent before this, but girls become women when they feed on enough grief — nevermind when they gorge on it. And yet... for all the weight of the world that presses against her, she finds some semblance of hope, here, with him. Their friendship a strange one, and what she knows is that at the end of the day her devotion to him is stronger and wilder than they place they call home. Her hands meet his own; even teetering upon the edge of fear, there is a certainty in the way fingers brush against fingers. “I will raise it,” she agrees, wrestling the whelp from his gauntleted grip and into the crook of an elbow. “Let my trials commence.”

 

 

𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐄 

 

"The world is a hard and violent place, my friend, why should I be the same?" This cathedral of tongue and teeth, this golden swivel of language that makes the world revolve around her. She imagines his accusation should frighten her — that the curl of his mouth and the thick tenor of his summertude should inspire trepidation. Flowers may be beautiful but how many times have they been left at the feet of dead things? How many tombs have they grown from? How many wars have they begun? She looks to her hand, and his hand, and his wound. Smiles, in a way that's convincing, wrist twisting just slightly to free itself from his clutches. Pupils quiet — imbued with a clouded and far-off question, deluged by disappointment. "A little kindness does not make one a trickster, and I believe my acting is quite poor." A smile to paint her voice into a swan-winged picture. A smile that blossoms into a laugh, a mock performance for his eyes alone. "Quite poor, wouldn't you agree?"

 

 

𝐖𝐀𝐑

 

Compassion curls. It unfolds, burgeoning. It blooms half-wild: tempestuous, thorned, petals embryonic with concern. Leagues is she from Amaethea and yet its summer sympathies remain rooted in the heart of her. Around warrior and fallen stag frigidity undulates against half-fallen trees and howls across the dying grass. For years they've prophesized winter, and now that she finds herself shivering under its gnashing teeth, she longs for warmth. But the world is too wild for that now and she too far from home. And besides: there is more purpose here than in the frivolity of her wants. Her grey gaze assesses the wounds of the fallen stag, contemplative. Grief crescendos in the space between them. Writhing, war-wept, memories hanging by threads. Even now, the stories feel more like rotted things, broken and bog marrowed. Even now, all these years later, she can detail the moment she knew her life for forfeit; remembers the way her spine caved and her heart broke as she bled those men in the ruins of her home. She cannot bring herself to sink steel into the soft of another neck — because her world is jarring enough without adding one more wreckage to the mist. In this deluge of death, she remains hunched: a loyal hound awaiting the final vapours of breath.

 

 

𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 

 

His question comes as a rending snap, abrupt in the hush of the afternoon. Remote, yet swollen with life, with the voices of the smallfolk who lied beyond the patterned hills. She has heard the tales: how his arrival on the battlefield was a palindrome promise — raw war. How at the mere sight of him enemies weltered in the corroded iron of their blood-curdled screams. How intimate violence can be. "What troubles you?" She holds courtesy between her teeth, the weight of a crown against her tongue. Whatever it is that ails her, she holds her secrets to her breast like a mother that fears for the fragile livelihood of her children. She wants to explain that she thinks there’s something disturbing inside of her, an anomaly that swells with each eerie grey light of the moon. An odd piece of identity like the tide ebbing, eroding at the structure of her soul. As she slips beneath the numbing waters of the lake, she is confronted with a dizzying realization: she will no longer be able to save everyone. Death is inevitable, it is that lone torchlight burning continuously in the dark. Beckoning, reminding her that this all is temporary. Her skeleton is on lease, her pink slippery organs are rented by the day, by the minute. From this day forwards, her mind the weapon, her body the finality. 

 

 

 𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄

 

A ghost of her own making, she pulls herself forward — clutches at the frayed fabric of reality and resolves to hold on. She can’t quite shake the cold. It nibbles at her viscera, gluttonous. It roves across the length of her spine. There’s a taste like death on the air and it’s begun to pluck at her senses; it’s wiggled down beneath the north-worn thick of her skin and is feeding on the muscle below. The idea of forsaking yourself for something like that? It’s venerable. Her teeth tighten as she holds a hand to the wound that’s hindering her - by itself, it’s survivable. But here? In this cold, in this dark, in this bleak essence of winter? It’s worse. Her hand scrabbles over the stone of the path as she pulls herself a little higher, though her knees struggle to support the weight. Even now, for all the chill that gnashes jowls over the bones of her fingers and the slopes of her shoulders she is resilient. Heat blooms where claws minced fur and flesh but it feels second-hand to the certainty that hangs in the air: you will suffer so others need not.

 

 

𝐕𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

 

The northern frost biting at skin bared against it. The twisting turmoil of a primordial power within a body that no longer belongs wholly to her. Rebirth, rebirth, rebirth.

 

"In coldest winter, and deepest ice,
When struggles mount and yield entice,
To save them all I pay the price,
Their burdens now my sacrifice."

 

Thus rises the Vigilant of Sacrifice.

[NightOfTheWind 3226]

Spoiler

awesome post 😄