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His god’s touch was only felt by him in the mornings.
Rook awakes to warm fingers dappling his skin. The light is soft. Warm. Like the kisses of a lover.
He feels loved.
The touch of his God is gentle. Caressing scarred, imperfect skin and breathing life into his imperfect wax sculpture of a devotee. Rays painting pale skin golden, turning his creation alive with the mere brush of his fingertips. Divine flesh and sinew blessing his mortal skin, skin that is undeserving of the blessing his God gives him, the blessing of allowing him to rise to his light.
Breathe life into me, and I shall serve you for as long as you grace the skies.
Rook rises just as his God intended him to. He complies with every movement, letting his God command his being, resigning himself to the sacred being; his God made him alive. This was the least he could do for Vil.
The next things he sees are his machines. Beings of his creation, scraps put together for a greater goal than just Rook. Vil sculpted him out of wax and flesh and blood and intensity just as Rook himself created his machines: lumps of useless flesh repurposed for a life of devotion, sculpture-like, a being of perfection that would serve Vil, and Vil would rouse him every morning, and perhaps that was enough.
Wire and wood are threaded together like tendons, flesh and sinew. They are creatures - creatures of mechanical origin and the intelligence in Rook’s mind that would devote themselves entirely to one singular purpose: to allow Rook to live under the gaze of his God once again; to admire his God’s vibrant perfection without being enclosed by the drab walls of the Labyrinth. Oil flowing down the contrivances like sweet, sweet ambrosia, like the blood that Rook would willingly shed and spill for his God. (Should the scarlet desired by Vil be his own, he will impale himself of his own volition.)
Rook rises, and with him, so does Epel, light framing his face picturesquely. The light Vil extends to everyone on the lands below. The light hits Epel no differently than how it hits Rook. It’s the same light that blesses everyone, dubious morality or not.
I am not special to him. Rook reminds himself. There is no reason why Vil would treat him any differently than everyone else, not when he bleeds the same liquid as everyone else on this blasted island - the same crimson red, not golden ichor falling from the long-departed bodies of Gods and Titans alike.
The sun is bright. It’s the colour of ambrosia.
Rook would die for Vil, he thinks. He has it thought out and everything: perhaps if the day comes, he’ll be able to block a blow for Vil, maybe shoot an arrow that’ll stop ichor from flowing from a God (his God’s) fallen body. Maybe he’ll notice the shade of the ambrosia in Vil’s goblet is just ever so slightly off, and he can’t help but think that he’d drink it all if Vil told him to, that he would drown himself in poison if the command fell from Vil’s lips and-
Epel is giving him a strange look.
Rook keeps staring at the sun. It hurts his eyes, but if he isn’t willing to poison himself even the slightest, how will his Roi du Poison accept him? How will Vil breathe more life into him if he’s still alive? How would he appreciate the golden ichor flowing in Vil’s veins, if he couldn’t even stomach the glow of the sun, dimmed in comparison to Vil’s magnificence?
The sun is the only being that has reached areas others fail to even see.
A marble statue of his God has its sharp, elegantly angled eyes onto his form. If Rook thinks hard enough, maybe he can pretend that the real Vil is looking at him, as entirely undeserving as he is of being under his gaze.
Multiple statues turn their expectant gazes onto him. They speak tongues of ancient origin, languages and words threaded together in ways Rook struggles to understand. Subjects of his worship - except he has no idea what ideals he’s worshipping other than the sheer, unquestionable beauty that is Vil.
Rook can never get Vil’s face right in his sculptures. The sculptures on the ground are many and varied; one has his face twisted in a scowl, the next looks too soft, the third makes Rook want to burn all his research because he just can’t figure out what looks off.
He’ll figure it all out one day. After he’s free. He pushes down the indignant feeling rising, boiling beneath his skin. A devotee who can’t sculpt the features on his God’s face, yet yearns for the sweet taste of ambrosia on his skin in the form of that very God, perfection personified?
A man can dream.
He looks at Epel, who has long since abandoned the notion of getting Rook’s attention.
Epel reaches out to the two pairs of mechanical wings lying on the floor. He doesn’t know what exactly they mean to Rook, only that they mean blue skies and a life that doesn’t enclose him in the same space as the creature they call the Minotaur.
Epel does not understand, but he can appreciate.
Two pairs of pathetic metal wings welded together with wax that Rook had been lucky to salvage. He'd worked under the light of a burning candle, sleep foregone by the excitement that he might receive salvation from his God.
May his God protect him. May Vil grant him flight, and with it, freedom.
Rook feels like a caged bird in the Labyrinth. He wants nothing more than to escape this gilded cage, to be able to feel his God’s embrace in the light. (Maybe Vil would grant him true flight. Maybe he could trill and chirp and sing songs of his complete and utter devotion to Vil when he reaches a shrine of his)
(A feral animal claws in his ribcage. It wants to be sustained by ambrosia.)
And so both he and Epel start moving, hastened by fear that they will be discovered before they take flight. They fasten the wax-lined wings, the colour of the copper reminding Rook of sacred, heavenly ambrosia and Vil’s blood in metallic sheens. The wings are gaudy, less than presentable as a clumped-up mess of metallic feathers and wax.
Rook had ached to make them more elegant, to be able to enhance both the quality and the charm of the wax-lined wings so that when (if) him and Epel make it out of his hellhole, he may even be able to dedicate the wings to Vil, in one of the God’s temples, in the hopes that he would finally be recognised. The people would call him: “The man whose flight was blessed by perfection himself”, and he would bow his head and spread more stories of his complete and utter devotion to Vil.
The wings fit Epel perfectly, the leather harness not digging into his skin as it does with Rook’s own. He fidgets a little with the leather before settling down again. Epel almost looks like a baby bird, his fledgling wings raised as if ready for flight, eyes wide and eager, smirk lopsided as he regards his mentor with nothing but rapt attention. Utter devotion to his God shown by his yearning for freedom, all for acceptance in the form of skin turned golden by sunlight.
He imagines sun-kissed skin. Light on his face, flickering through foliage. The hands of his God reaching his face, his neck; touching but never harming. Warm? Perhaps, but never enough to scald. Hands in Rook’s hair crowning him, turning him into an immortalised statue to be regarded as nothing less than his.
(He has a brief vision of melting wax and a pain that digs deep into his bones.)
When he spreads his wings with Epel at his side, Rook feels nothing less than complete and utter devotion. Vil will get them out. Vil will grant them safe passage.
They will be free, and they will be happy.
Flight is addictive. The skies bring Rook the same burst of joy he feels when sunlight hits his skin, a giddy smile splitting his face. It’s almost as if it’s injected into his veins, flowing to his very core. Epel mirrors him on his right, cheering as his own wings hand bestow childlike joy unto him on a decorated platter.
For a while, there’s nothing but them, happiness, and the sun.
Rook shifts his gaze for a mere second and is captivated by the glare of the sun. It’s bright, the touch on his skin no longer as soft as it had been under foliage and covers. He accepts the burning sensation readily, for it is a gift from his God, a mark branding him as one of Vil’s. The touch is fierce and loving, and Rook aches to feel more of it. He is the candle, the wick, and Vil is the flame readily consuming him. Rook is entirely conscious of what his love spells out for his fate.
(He would claw his heart out of his chest without hesitation and watch as Vil eats it like a pomegranate.)
(The sun is beautiful, isn’t he?)
Rook flies closer to the sun. He aches for more of the feeling. For the burn. The pain doesn’t matter, not when it’s Vil. He yearns for the manifestation of his desires to consume him whole, for Vil to reciprocate and give him more than what he gives unto others.
(He sees the same vision of burning wax. A candle akin to his own figure, coppery blood dripping like wax. He is not a God. He does not bleed ichor.)
If the pain is what he must brave to reach Olympus, to be with Vil, he will gladly take it. His skin feels hot. He is ignited by something completely alien.
It is not passion.
(Maybe Epel is calling him. It’s fine. He understands.)
The sun consumes him whole. He sees nothing but the endless light that is Vil; it has to be Vil. Nothing else would make him feel this whole. No one could bring entire civilisations to rise and ruin like his Roi du Poison. (his?)
Rook gazes longingly at Vil. Defeat and relief from this world at last, at the hands of Vil himself. He is honoured to be one of Vil’s chosen.
Perhaps he’ll be a tragedy to others. (Epel, part of him muses. He’s still watching. What about Epel?) A tragedy; a man who flew too close to the sun. Rook sees no tragedy or devastation in what he is doing. This is a tale of devotion. He will not live and die a life of tragedy.
He gazes at the sun. His eyes burn from the confrontation, his body aching and burning, and perhaps his wings are melting. A few drops of hot wax land on his skin, and he embraces the sensation with ferocity. He still can’t take his eyes off his God. He’s blessed. Vil kisses his skin with a ferocious intensity, light scalding and painful and yet Rook is so utterly accepting of that because it’s Vil, it’s Vil, and it’s Vil again.
Vil is merciful. He does not slow as he devours Rook. Every part of him is shown to Rook, who admires as he burns.
(A guttural yearning tears itself from his now empty ribcage.)
The light of the sun digs into his skin like a knife. Rook thinks he can name all the organs Vil has kissed.
(He thinks he can taste a bit of blood in his mouth. Something's flowing down his cracked skin, burnt dry. It's coloured like ambrosia, the rosy-red nectar dripping. Vil has blessed him with this. This tastes of devotion. He hungers for more.)
Rook doesn’t mind as Vil undoes him entirely, stripping him of the wings he had worked so hard to create. Vil reduces him to nothing but his purest form. There is nothing stopping Vil’s gaze on him, nothing blocking his piercing gaze. He prays Vil will be with him until the end.
Rook falls as the sun sets. Vil is with him. He’s the first thing Rook sees when he wakes up, and now he will be the last thing in his sight. Vil captivates him. The pain isn’t real. This is salvation. This is ambrosia-sweet freedom, light that Rook is wholly undeserving of.
The burn has him by the scruff of his neck. He does not resist.
Vil is with him until he plunges beneath the waves. I almost touched him. Rook thinks. A grazing of his fingertips, wings pointed skywards before he eventually falls. He can only hope that Vil thinks of him as worth saving, that he’ll be worthwhile.
Rook feels like he is melting.
He clasps his hands together in faux prayer. A last sentiment; for Epel to be free.
He sinks, alongside the remnants of his devotion. He sinks into a dream of salvation.
In the end, all that remains of him is devotion and Epel.