Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2013 17:21:17 GMT -5
'Cause I've swallowed my tongue
And I've sat on my secrets for years
My composure won't slip
And I've hidden each silent salty tear
Cascading rivulets of estival rain spattered his pelt and flares of sunlight orbited above him, an ethereal radiance echoing from every pore on his body. Summer wrapped itself around his frame and he was running through the tall grasses of a flowered meadow. Happiness swelled in his chest and peace thrived in his head. The meadow was saturated with vibrant pigments and the world seemed surreal and suspiciously dream-like, but at the same time, convincingly tangible.
A blinding white light burned into existence and faded into the easily recognizable image of his mother. It wasn't her as he had most recently encountered, broken and lifeless, but instead she was in the form she had taken while alive and well. He found that he, too, took on the form of his younger self. She beamed at him and in a confused reply he smiled absently back at her, still trying to piece together what reality he was in. Suddenly though, he found that he didn't care if what he was experiencing was real, and noticed that he didn't have any cares, at all...
His beloved mother cavorted by the wolf's side; both of their bodies delineated in arrays of out-of-place starlight before the constellations of their blurry constitutions cascaded away to reveal the golden radiance of youth and vitality. It was identical to an experience he had shared with her in what seemed like ages ago, but it was so very different now. So very unusual... Zephyros hadn't remembered his pelt being riddled with stars or the meadow to appear so lovely and fervent. What he did remember however, was the happiness he had felt then, and felt now. He knew nothing more than happiness in that moment, and currently felt nothing more than happiness to the point where the elation was so natural it had become numb.
Zeph seemed to absorb the ethereal beauty around him and allowed it to warm his heart. It was all nothing though. It was all fake. The ephemeral joy suddenly and violently fled from every cell of his body in the matter of a second and nothing seemed more "off" than the meadow. Its beauty began twisting, contorting into a hellish conflagration as the trees were scorched into black skeletons and the flowers wilted into the shape of death. Zephyros' haunted eyes immediately found his mother’s; their fear melding into a singular body.
His kin’s sharp gaze searched for understanding amidst the sheer terror that weighted the atmosphere and his joined in, but they found nothing other than the waves of fear that rolled over them; a shared emotion without an explanation. They breathed the feeling in and exhaled it; finding that the emotion had begun manifesting into a figure that resembled a wolf. The swarthy figure moved immediately towards her mother, the anonymous wolf’s crater eyes branded his very soul with their hollowness as its gaze seized him for a taunting moment before the figure raised its fore and slashed into his mother's body.
Shayde's form evaporated in an instant swirl of inky, curling smoke. His mother’s dematerialized darkness surged in a rippling wave through the clearing and settled over the expanse, and as her existence was no more, the light of the clearing was no more. A disembodied shriek pierced the air; seemingly without source until it dawned on him that the sound's origin was from his own jaws. Panic splintered his veins as he became conscious of a great rush of air accompanied by a flash of bright maroon. The glade metamorphosed into a hue of dirtied crimson and the curling ink gathered into a figure that slowly became more substantial as it drew near to his toppled frame.
His body was no longer that of his youth's, but was his present form, but he became the scared victim of a torment he had thought had left, sated with just his mother’s life. Zephyros became aware of the figure’s glinting smile followed by tainted eyes the color of dried blood. The hue was dull, but the gaze of the beast before him seared into him and nearly flattened the wolf with its intensity. Recognition punctured his terror and heightened it. The horrific memories, like a jolt of electricity, passed through him and left him gasping. He knew that face, although it was shrouded in shadow, he knew the expression it carried. It was the face of hatred, the face that, in its wake, left him grasping for control that was no longer present.
It was the face of his mother’s killer, although it was cloaked in anonymity. It was a recognition he couldn’t quite understand, as he didn’t know the identity of the murderer. The face that plagued his dreams for the past few weeks… The wolf’s large frame drew near, and a cackle resounded right by his ear. Zephyr watched as they recoiled their neck, preparing to strike, and he slammed his eyes shut. He was clueless as to what was going on, but he knew he was about to become a victim alongside his mother, and as his muscles tensed, he knew he wouldn’t allow it. Couldn't allow it. No. He wouldn't lose his life. Not when he had to avenge his mother’s life by taking theirs.
Suddenly, he became hyper-aware of his very heartbeat and quickened breathing, and everything made sense. This was but a reverie. He was dreaming. The bastard couldn't hurt him, because they only existed in the depths of his psyche. It was then that his nightmare had become a lucid dream, and control returned to him as its heat coursed through his nerves and clenched his muscles with purpose. A metallic flash of fangs entered his peripheral, and the clip of teeth clattering sounded as he propelled his body away from their jaws and into temporary solace. Regaining his footing in a swift movement, Zephyros careened into the shadow-figure in a burst of speed.
Using their weight against them, the expedient wolf felled his adversary as they were toppled by their own surprise. His body trembled with rage at the crazed grin on the mystery-wolf’s face that never seemed to leave. A glorified smile flashed onto his own jaws as he readied his muscles to purge himself of the demon that had slaughtered his mother and lurked in his nightmares. A snarl erupted from him as his taut muscles released and his canines felt fur. Unexpectedly, the wolf’s pelt, and whole constitution disappeared from under him just as he was about to end the demon’s existence. Fury took hold of every nerve in his body, and muscles met dirt as he displaced the entity he had so longed to destroy.
A voice pierced the searing hopelessness he felt, and instantly quelled the fires of his impassioned heart as he was pulled out of the darkness of slumber. Eyes still full of sanguine fire came alive and were met with a starless night. They searched for the source of the voice, yet the view before them took longer to process, as his head was still occupied with figuring out whether the voice was real, or a part of his nightmare. He deduced that it must’ve been his own voice, his own furious snarl that had roused him. Zephyros felt pathetic for his vulnerability. He wished he had been killed in the dream, and that the dream could’ve been real. Remnants of hatred returned to his body with a passionate fire and flushed out the self-loathing in his mind as he remembered the details of the nightmare. The perpetrator had eluded justice even in his dreams.
He would find this wolf, and he would exact vengeance for taking away his mother, for taking away the remainder of his happiness. He had been so close to some form of catharsis, to liberating himself from the creature that lurked just behind his more prominent thoughts and nurtured his bitterness into the entity that it was. It was that same entity that he allowed into every attempted relationship he ever had in his short life; it destroyed any companions and ate his lonely, broken soul alive. He was still reeling from his mother’s death, still unsure if the nearly unrecognizable corpse had truly been her. It had been her though, he had seen her fallen body with his own eyes and scrutinized it for hours—endeavoring to find some feature that set his mother apart from the twisted, decaying figure before him.
Every feature matched, however—her diminutive but mighty frame, her lovely (though matted and bloodied) reddish-ochre fur… And as his supine form shifted to stare at his reflection in the pool of water he collapsed by, he saw his mother’s eyes in his own. It was something they shared; almost identical burgundy eyes, although his were a brighter scarlet in exact hue. Remembering her eyes the day he found her lying dead, he realized that they too had been the same. A creature of logic, even under the darkest of circumstances, he couldn’t deny that the body belonged to anyone else but his mother’s. Images of her laceration-adorned body and her frail, waning frame continued to play behind his tightly-shut eyelids.
Zephyros couldn’t get the images of her out of his head; they were so unlike the Shayde he had known, that it seemed almost impossible that the corpse could be hers. She was so full of life, so full of love for him and his siblings. She was strong and most of all dedicated and wildly impassioned. He shared his mother’s passion and amplified it. Zephyros was still reeling from her death, unable to accept that the light of his life had been extinguished and felled by a great darkness. His chest had never stopped heaving from the day he had learned of her end, he had never stopped reeling. Even now his breaths only ever came in short, panicked gasps and his legs quaked with effort to keep him standing. Hell, his heart quaked with effort just to keep beating and his mind had all but stopped functioning.
The juvenile hadn’t moved from the spot where she was slain from the moment he found out about her death. Zephyros refused any help or consolation, and hadn’t eaten or slept for days. There was nothing anyone could say to him that would provide him solace. There was no longer any solace, no happiness, nothing that gave him purpose… His mother was gone. She was slaughtered, and he wasn’t there to protect her. He had failed her. A pitiful whine trickled unwittingly from his dry, parted jaws and into the bitter, stale air. Zephyr had never experienced loss before this. He knew wolves weren’t supposed to experience this sort of loss, at this early in life… Ryker had, he knew, although the details were beyond his awareness.
His confused, troubled mind had no idea how to process Shayde’s death. He just wanted to breathe in her scent again and sleep beside his siblings—before he had begun thinking bitterly of them. Zephyros wanted more than anything to be innocent and naïve again; to not have become aware of the failings of the world even before his mother’s death and become bitter at such a young age. Zephyros was thrust into reality before he knew how to cope with it, and he was aware now more than ever how frightening and terrible being alive could be. His ribs had begun to appear just under the surface of his skin, although he had allowed himself to eat the day before. He had outright avoided sleep, as the young wolf had become terrified to fall asleep.
The first time exhaustion had eventually driven him into an uneasy sleep, two days after seeing his mother, his slumber had been filled with specters and nightmarish delusions. Every time since the nightmares returned; bloodied images of tragedy and violent ends. He lost count the amount of times he recounted her skeletal frame in his dreams, or watched the shadowy figure slay his mother and the rest of his pack. He had just woken from one of these dreams, after finally passing out from enervation. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t spend another goddamn day in this godforsaken place, where his mother had fallen.
Bursting to his shaky feet, he snarled as his vision whorled and blackness nearly overtook him. Fighting through the vertigo, he took off in a sprint towards the edge of the territory, dodging crippled trees and leaping over debris without ever really being present in his body. Zephyros needed to get away. The recently abandoned island of Ina’Mos came into view as a blurred shape from across the black waters that marked the border of Descai’s territory. Without a rational thought he leapt into the freezing waves, which didn’t manage to shock the numbness from him. Zephyr sliced his legs through each current and worked his muscles until his whole body felt as if it had been set on fire. He barely noticed however as his sights set on the island ahead of him. Anger and passion propelled him forward, rage fuelling every stroke of his appendages through the waves.
As he neared, he allowed his body to relax so the tide could carry him to the shore. The canine had to outrun his ire; he had to find a way to escape the emotions he was feeling. Floating on the surface of the ocean, he could almost grasp some sense of serenity as the sky stretched out above him in a sweeping cloak now encrusted with glittering starlight. He felt as if he had gone outside of himself, and had begun to grow drunk on the sensation as the night spun around him until his frame was rejected from the waves and tossed onto the sand. He just laid there for a moment, allowing the languor to take him once more before he righted himself and regained his footing. The passion had been quelled, and he sunk back into his restless depression.
Stealing away into the darkness, he navigated the unknown terrain with a notable carelessness that marked all of his movements as of late. He almost prayed that something would attack him in the night and claim his life. Zephyros couldn’t dishonor for the rest of his family, the rest of his pack, by ending his own life but if something took it, he would not object in his current state of mind. Eventually the tropical forest opened up and the mouth of a cavern yawned before his eyes, revealing nothing within except for a vast indiscernible swarthiness. Almost enjoying the thought that something could be waiting in the shadows for him, he took languid strides into the dark oblivion and relied on his scent to guide him further into the darkness.
Soon enough his eyes began to adjust to the lack of light and subtle delineations of stalagmites and stalactites opened up before him. The shrill, eerie cries of bats echoed on high, and unknown scuttles of creatures became apparent to his senses. The cavern was dimly lit with a bluish tint that washed over his russet pelt and picked up the glimmer of condensation that highlighted each strange formation of rock and the walls that surrounded him. It was fretfully cold in certain parts of the cave, and almost unbearably searing in others—conditions that seemed to have no in-between. The wolf turned into side-passage after side passage until he knew he was thoroughly lost but too miserable to care.
He seemed to have been wandering aimlessly through the cavern for what seemed like hours, and his cracked, aching paw pads and burning muscles begged for relief. As he rounded the corner of another of the cave’s offshoots, the darkness scattered and revealed a dancing blue light on the cave’s walls. It cavorted mysteriously and grew brighter the further along he followed it down the corridor. Curiosity broke through his apathy, and he increased his pace the tunnel narrowed significantly until his ribs brushed the sides of the cave and he was caressed by the indigo color, which had begun changing to a pallid green. Suddenly the choked space opened up into a great expanse and an aquifer splayed out before his awestruck gaze. Reflections of the water cavorted on the cave walls and he was bathed in the luminous sea foam green hue.
The underground spring roared with life, with passion as the depthless, stagnant pool lapped against boulders and rock formations. Its tendrils ran like veins into different passages which he assumed were the source of the island’s fresh water. The cavern was luminous and a sight to behold and the sediment that composed the cave’s walls shone with a silvery color that glimmered with the dampness of the cave. His surroundings were mystical in nature and seemed almost like a hallowed ground. The water was clear and if he didn’t know better, its reflection would’ve made it seem shallow, although he knew the pool had to have a depth he could not fathom.
A ledge far above the pool entered his vision, and he leapt seamlessly from boulder to boulder to reach the face of the cave which the ledge protruded from. He began to scale the treacherous but fairly straight path to the ledge, without the carefulness he usually exercised at such precarious heights. If he weren’t so agile, perhaps this carelessness would have cost him his life, but Zephyros hardly cared for it anymore anyways. A single, fluid motion allowed him to leap powerfully from each overhang until finally he reached the highest shelf of rock with exasperated respirations. His eyes were about to greedily drink in the sight of the green-lit aquifer when a flash of movement in his peripheries captured his attention.
I've dug in trenches and put up walls
I whisper I love you each night as they sleep
But no one hears me when I speak
I won't go till they tell me to leave
~~~~
words;; 3,047 words, not including the lyric excerpts on the top and bottom of the post from Table For One by Passenger.
tagged;; @zaida
musical inspiration(s);; Who knows o.o
muse;; Alrightish?
notes;; Kinda loaded this with filler, sorry >.< I hope I didn't powerplay too much in the last sentence, I thought it might help if you had something to go off of. I don't know how Zaida would happen to end up at the aquifer as well, but maybe she could have seen him wash up on shore and follow him? I'm not really sure if that's her style or not.
by the way: how are we going to end this thread? Are they going to set up a meeting place? Or is it just gonna keep being chance meetings, or what? I'm just curious so I know how to direct Zayzay. If they are going to set up meetings, she's gotta get a move on. If not, she can only partially reveal herself. (Of course she won't fully reveal herself either way, but you know what I mean)