Work Text:
it is a dark night in the middle of august when a river sweeps through your life and changes you irrevocably. it sweeps you up as tidal debris and deposits you gasping and barely alive on the shore of your own being. your childhood is cast asunder in that one moment when fate decrees its evil eye upon you. the leaves are that particular shade of deep vermillion that heralds the turning of one season into the next in a cascading circle of time that never ends. you had no premonition of what is to come on that cold night.
the night is still and quiet, like a blanket pulled too tightly around you. the moon illuminates the very ground around you until it sparkles like the sound of a thousand crickets singing. the stars look down at you, mocking you with their utter simplicity.
you see them before you hear them. their very presence makes the air heavy as it groans with the weight of their awfulness. they come, a thousand of them, immense beings crashing through the trees as if they were merely matchsticks to be tossed aside in a pile of woodly debris. we are but ants to them - they who stride like gods.
the elders try to stand valiantly against them but their efforts are for naught against the might of the inhuman invaders who pillage everything in their wake. as they die you weep for the lost future of your people. you despair at the evil that has befallen your land.
when the battle is gone and the armies retreat you are left to count the human cost.
her body is there - crumpled like a used tissue discarded by humanity. all life fled from it, the soul departed as if it never existed.
your mother is dead, you saw her die.
the very night creases with the agony that pours forth from within you. your pain can not be withstood. no-one has ever felt like this, no-one has mourned as you have mourned for what you have lost.
you shed a single tear that glistens in the moonlight, rolling down your cheek to drop unheeded on the ground, where it burns everything it touches.
on that night you are no longer a child. you are as one with the ancients.
the gods had cast you asunder and left only the tempered blade of justice where you once stood.
all you know from this moment on is vengeance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the trials are not easy. recruited as soon as you were of age into the army of vengeance it is a true test of all that you are to survive. you learn many skills. plunged as you were into a deep pool of the dark arts of a true warrior and baptised by its truth. your focus never wavers from your one true purpose in life - to avenge your mother's death. you scorned contact with others, their concerns are not yours, and will never be yours. you have a higher purpose, given to you by the fates themselves.
you watch them pleasure each other, their swords of passion plunging one into the other, until their very flesh trembles with primitive carnal pleasure. your loins feel the first stirrings of desire but their frenzies are not for you. your heart is dark. that fateful night extinguished all that was good in you, burning away until only the essential remained.
there will be no peace inside of you while your enemies still roam the land, their darkness is a blight upon your home.
you have been chosen to lead your people and this is your journey, your one true destiny and all that you will become.
you sit on your lonely hill, on the bare rock mountainside and contemplate all that the light touches. it is yours and yours alone. this burden to carry. it is not easy, but without difficulty there is no release and you will do this for as long as there is a dying breath left in your body.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
they come now. you wait for your chance to vanquish the foe. everything that your life has become subsists in this one moment. you lie suspended between one second and the next.
you wait like you have waited for so long. you lure them near with sticks carved from the trees that have witnessed so many years of conflict and hatred. when they arrive their very presence dwarfs yours. you are not afraid. you have waited for this moment for so long that you feel the tensions inside of you like an uncoiled spring.
you strike. you strike again.
blood litters the once peaceful streets of your land, and screams ring the air like the dying cries of a wounded hawk as he feeds upon the last shred of a civilisation.
the sun casts a last dying light of its rays over the horizon as the last of them lay dead and dying. the battle has been hard fought but it is over.
we are victorious.
you are victorious.
the monster within you has been slain, your thirst for vengeance has been slaked. your mother can rest content in her grave now for you are fulfilled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
he comes to you at night. his touch is welcome after so long without. like a drought being broken by the summer rains you feel yourself responding to him, opening your heart to him with a joyful cry of sorrow. he touches you and you shiver with sheer pleasure, seeking more of him and less of you, and everything that you can be together if you can only forget that this should never be.
he opens you up, filling you with his seed and with the golden light of his very presence. his scent lingers upon the air, his touch reminds you of what it is to live again, and to love. there is pain, there is always pain, but it is a slight burn to the brilliance of the sun.
this is what you wanted, and you never knew you wanted. this completes you.
he reaches his peak with a short soft cry and empties his very being into yours. you ride the waves of your own desire and fulfilment and join him in crying to the heavens at the joy that it is to be with this one - with the one who fills your heart with sorrow and with gladness at the same time.
as you meld into each other, your skin fusing together as if you fit into each other and always have and always will fit into each other, you shed another single tear. the first tear since that day. it splashes upon his back and burns itself into your very soul.
for your mother is dead and you have watched her die.
but you
you have been
reborn.
~ finis