'have you eaten anything today?'
mydei worry :(
dialogue prompts ; accepting . ( link )
[//: 108,646th attempt at breaching the scepter. . . . ]
how utterly frustrating this is . khaslana isn't sure if it's directed towards ' himself ' or the festivities around him . as each cycle turns, with each time another thwarted attempt, the closer this world is going to - so he thinks again.
if he entertains this thought any more he loses another foothold.
for someone with over one thousand and sixty flames of 'divinity' burning in his chest, ' phainon ' would question why the rampant flames within haven't set the entire place ablaze from that emotion resurfacing by itself. the sheer heat eroding away his body, fragile tissue and organ piece by piece, cycle by cycle in a slow rot. how long will this body hold this time?
he'll eventually need another shell. he'll have to keep passing it on. until he fulfills his promise to cyrene. until he fulfills the wishes of the chrysos heirs whose blood stains his hands long before he resets the world once more.
still. he still has such a feeling even now. frustration. it's...new. emotions tend to come and go like the tide, more often sinking into something he isn't sure how much he remembers expressing save for false masks that never look quite human anymore.
he wonders if that's even relevant for his journey; this endless road of which there is no end until dawn arrives. from the rare flicker of emotion beyond a bone-deep weariness.
no, something more ancient than that. as long as he keeps count of their lives ... as long as he keeps track of how long he tries down to the number itself . . . maybe he can remain sane for longer - stay himself. to not forget what he fights for. even if in the end, all he'll be is ash, and reason. emotion. memories. self. they'll all likely have either been forgotten in the fulfillment or blended into something khaslana won't even recognize anymore.
khaslana. it was once a name that his family and village had, as best he can recall, looked upon with great fondness. in his fading imagery, that white haired boy and voice within that never left remains innocent, pure, with that name in their hands. it shone so bright, full of dreams and brilliance like no other light in the world.
it's become such a filthy name now. neither name really belongs to him anymore, does it? but that pure name is tainted, and there is no west wind or tomorrow for him, to see it reclaimed unsullied.
and ... 'phainon the deliverer' is only a pretense. a nickname from the same bloodied tree, no different in meaning but sounding unlike the other enough to use not as a nickname among allies, but a facade among obstacles he still questions if he can change that about them or not.
he thinks this time, no, he's more than half certain at this point, that they're going to do the same things this time too.
should he even attempt to blend in? aglaea's threads are all over this meeting. he wonders what she senses with her threads about him - the first few cycles he recalls that for all her loss of self, her horror hadn't changed. and after all, he's not the one she's celebrating with. he's a stand in for the 'hero of okhema' . someone he once wanted to be, but never was meant to.
he doesn't bother recalling the other recollections, the hatred, the fear, the betrayals, the realizations, they all end too quickly by the fourty second cycle they're golden blood on his fingers. they're saturating him with unwanted heat and tears long dried out from which side, he isn't sure anymore.
he doesn't need to be anything but exist until it's finished, right ?
so he ponders his options. the destruction tries to tilt his will towards slipping further into its cruel calculations. whispers that he should just overpower them all as easily as he has before when reason did not work. tries to make him think instead of do or do without reason. right now, he still can reason with them.
even if it's in vain, khaslana still has that choice - and so do they, to predictably say 'no'. over and over and over again . . .
a long, quiet sigh that gives no change in the burning in his throat. the way it rattles in lungs he isn't sure are intact anymore after so long. it's irrelevant. he knows what's at stake, and managing his body is irrelevant. even pretenses are irrelevant, it whispers again, but khaslana simply lifts the goblet to his lips and doesn't even flinch at the pain that he can still feel going down into an empty stomach.
he hasn't eaten in hundreds of cycles. that's pointless too. maybe if he rearranges his plate -
' have you eaten anything today? '
memories resurface, albeit becoming more fragmented; like shards in his brain that don't fit as much as they should. feel as much as they should. save the owner of the voice; steady and so utterly stubborn as always. sometimes he wonders if at this point he doesn't resent that stubborness instead of admire it like he used to.
has the name changed for him since that day ?
' phainon ' idly sets his plate down, pieces arranged just enough to look as if some had been eaten. he's done this song and dance before. with them, with him. he'll do it again. as many times as it takes until there's a single sliver of sunlight. until that pale dawn breaks.
he hasn't called him 'mydei' in a while. if he has, khaslana is losing memory of it. even if he hadn't taken a step, the image of him alone would have eyes, despite their wishes, or perhaps at this point, resignation, shifting to his uncovered spine.
his tone carries little; deep, steady and unsettling in the way that a puzzle doesn't quite fit the theme of the entire piece it's placed in. how his lips tug into something that tries to mimic a smile but isn't quite right. how the fire in his eyes burns but does not give any light to that blue glance.
" ... " that's new. hesitation. does he still have that ? he wonders as his chest begins to ache, like a stab. as his memory echoes in static but clear enough still to remember that this stubborn, foolishly proud man in front of him wished him eternal victory. how frustratingly foolish and sure he's always been.
does he still admire that? or does it fill him with bitterness that he won't hand him what would spare his life and the world his loss? of khaslana his loss? of phainon his loss? but khaslana is not a name he was ever familiar with, and even now it holds a different meaning than aedes elysiae's affections and his people's words. of him.
khaslana the executioner has butchered the boy who made it bright. it doesn't belong to him. nothing has ever belonged to him. to all of them. save the choice they make against each cycle in this twisted vision of 'fate' he'll one day burn with his sword into pieces and pieces and piecesandpieces--- the rage is growing, the fire needs feeding. it burns because it has to, after all.
he sucks in an inaudible breath; in hopes of quieting and masking the ever consuming blaze that drowns all other remaining feelings save numbness. save memories that spark either something or almost nothing or an anguish that clouds a sanity beginning to teeter.
eyes raise to the kremnoan crown prince and see only a man hanging on dawnmaker's blade in a thousand different ways. no longer friend, not quite dearest of companions, most amicable of rivals, not quite anything, but still everything. just as the others are. they are blurring, they are everything, and they are remembered by their wishes in his hollow chest and he can't let the destruction take that from him too.
his grip on his goblet falters, just once, before deft, tainted hands curl around it once more and bring it to his lips. meeting his eyes and pretending he doesn't see a corpse standing in front of him instead. that the wine tastes like nothing.
'deliverer . . . i wish you eternal victory. '
" no, i'm not. " khaslana says blankly; quickly schooling his expression into something more human and believable.
a mimicry at best of what he had been once, when they'd debated over what truly was worth the weight of the world.
" apologies, mydeimos. it looks delicious, but i'm afraid i don't really have the appetite for it. the mistake of eating before coming. " he hasn't eaten since fire replaced his stomach.
something touches his lips in a tiny, worn smile. maybe it's all he can give at this point to the shadow of the mydei he once knew, whose name hasn't changed since he mentioned it three....yes, three cycles ago.. or he surely recalls. he tries. something barely human but echoing with sentiment to the friend and dear companion he had rarely ever been on the same road with - and likely, wouldn't again.
' in the next life, i shall once again block your path. '
" i'm not hungry, but please, don't let me keep you. help yourself." a brief gesture of his hand to the table before the 'deliverer' nods his head, and the 'executioner' prepares his exit. he speaks to a stranger with the voice of a ghost that isn't but is, and steps out of his way.
how long until even this name isn't the same?