HOLY, HOLY, HOLY.

THOSE THAT LOOKED UPON HER FACE WERE OVERCOME WITH THE MEANING OF THE STARS. // penned by oceana.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠.

❛ You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast. ❜

❛ You are going to break your promise. ❜

❛ I understand. ❜

❛ And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you. ❜

❛ Oh, I will be cruel to you. ❜

❛ It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. ❜

❛ But you understand, don’t you? ❜

❛ I am a demanding creature. ❜

❛ I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. ❜

❛ For you alone I will be weak. ❜

❛ I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. ❜

❛ In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold. ❜

❛ I have looked for your face in the patterns of the ice. ❜

❛ I moved the earth and the water for you. ❜

❛ Because my magic is as strong as an arm. ❜

❛ Magic does that. It wastes you away. ❜

❛ Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all. ❜

❛ You will always run away with her. ❜

❛ You will always lose her. ❜

❛ You will always be a fool. ❜

❛ War is not for winning. ❜

❛ But her heart was so cold that she could hold ice in her mouth and it would never melt. ❜

❛ You look like a winter night. ❜

❛ But if you must be clever, then be clever. ❜

❛ Be brave. ❜

❛ Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight. ❜

❛ She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat. ❜

❛ How I adore you. ❜

❛ Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me. ❜

❛ Oh, quit that. ❜

❛ In his own country, death can be kind. ❜

❛ Bad luck relies on absolutely perfect timing. ❜

❛ Someone ought to write a novel about me. ❜

❛ I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. ❜

❛ What is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists? ❜

❛ After love, no one is what they were before. ❜

❛ In the space of one heartbeat to another I loved you and I was lost to you. ❜

❛ No one is now what they were before the war. There’s just no getting any of it back. ❜

❛ How long your hair has grown. You could strangle a man in it. ❜

❛ I have survived, but I have not been spared. ❜

❛ After all, when all else is gone, you may still have bitterness in abundance. ❜

❛ I’ve a devil of a habit for being right. ❜

❛ Everyone is a criminal! ❜

❛ Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught. ❜

❛ Forests have secrets. ❜

❛ We are better at this than you are. ❜

❛ We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts. ❜

❛ It’s not so bad, my darling. ❜

❛ I look at you and it is like my throat being cut. ❜

❛ Do you think I am a fool? ❜

❛ Did you never think, even once, that I loved lipstick and rouge for more than their color alone? ❜

❛ I still want to kiss you. ❜

❛ I hate it here. ❜

❛ He’ll burn you down like wax if you let him. ❜

❛ Did I not come to you on my knees with a kingdom in my hand? ❜

❛ I am not a little girl anymore, dazzled by your magic. It is my magic, now, too. ❜

❛ My heart is being cut in two. I cannot bear it. ❜

HANDS RAISED SLOWLY RAISED, BLUE & GOLD;; lips parted, tugging down, down, down. eyes like strange jewels looked over nerevar, not even shocked about having a spear pointed at his person. he would not fight him. not when all he wanted was truth & finality.

long fingers went behind his head untwisting the binds that did up his mask. slowly, he pulled apart the ebon binds with shaky hands. it came off with a hitch, golden on gold catching the metal mask, a momento of a self ruined past.

IF THIS REVELATION MEANT HIS DEMISE, SO BE IT!!

with that self-destructive thought, he took off the cold mask, unveiling a tired, dual toned, familiar face. yet he lacked his jewels & mirth. it was raw, real, too real. something known yet changed just enough to no longer be wholly the same.

he almost wanted to laugh at the sick irony that was fate & encounting nerevar. yet a part of him wasn’t even shocked anymore. no, he felt in his bones that this reunion was, nay, destined? there was no word in the common tongue for how this felt & for some reason that made it all the more colder.

“never thought we’d meet again, nerevar.”

HE HUNG ON EVERY MOVEMENT, ON EVERY WORD. even if he wanted to look away, he couldn’t– his eyes stung in protest against the toxic, ashen air as he stared unblinking, but he wouldn’t miss a second of this moment. as unpleasant as it felt. even as he held out his arm, red-orange aura emanating from his hand, it felt as if it took all his might just to keep it still.

the gesture was ironic, not that he would realize it. for the spear was one vane often wielded themselves. a gift by the one nerevar now pointed it towards.

gilded eyes widened beneath his own mask, shock creeping into what little of his visage was visible. what denial he felt dissipated, snuffed out like a pitiful flame.  what hit him then was a myriad of emotions—- sheer, unbridled rage, quickly and violently followed by utter grief and sorrow and betrayal, worst of all.  every emotion he felt the day of his destined death at the hands of the Three rose like bile in his throat.  in that moment,   HE FELT EVERYTHING AGAIN.

HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID? SO BLIND? HOW COULD YOU BE SO WEAK, SO WEAK AS TO LET THEM DO THAT TO YOU? TO LET HIM DO THAT TO YOU? HOW COULD YOU EVER FORGIVE HIM, IN THIS LIFE OR THE NEXT?

he rose his golden hand, grasping the all to familiar spear. Pointing it even more towards him, as if ready for the end. and he smiled at that.

this everythingness flooded his soul, the wickednessof past regrets. there was no escaping his sins, nothing would make what he did right. a beacon of wretchedness rotted his core, turning that frown into a strange feral grin. the most emotion hed shown in years. was this how a once god broke? he dare pity himself almost as much as he pitied nerevar. no great cities, no miracles, nothing, would undo the fact that he killed him to get to where he stood. and it wasnt even an eternity for his death. only a temporary glory.

CAVERNOUS CHEST FILLED UP LIKE A FLOOD;; ancient feelings, semi-familiar lusts poured out like molten gold. warm & psuedo-divine. carelessly, he gave into the sea in his soul, longingly like being devoured. eaten away piece by bitter tasting piece. this wasnt vane, and yet…

gently, he reached out, his touch like an embrace. warm, calloused, ink-lined digits extended, almost touching, yet not quite. then he pulled away, quick, embarrassment flushed upon his features.

“i apologize, indoril. I got carried away.” // @oneremains​

HE NEEDN’T MAKE CONTACT FOR NEREVAR TO FEEL IT.  there was an electricity between them now more than ever– a tension so palpable one could cut it with a blade.  he would be ashamed to admit he almost flinched away ; touch just no longer suited him.  where once he would have been the first to offer a friendly hand, now he only recoiled away.

and he did just that, angled his body away as both arms reached across one another to hold at each opposite forearm, folding them against his chest. his eyes were half lidded, looking to the ground rather than vehk’s face. sooner willing to gaze at the dirt than his eyes.

swallowing the heartbeat in his throat, he felt something part. a revelation somewhere in the fields between thought & feeling. vane was gone, and nerevar lost. he shouldve been part of a cruel endless past, something to grieve not touch. Yet here he was. And here vehk stands.

THIS GOLD MASK HIDES MANY THINGS;; identity being only one of many things worthy of being veiled. dual toned & sharp, his eyes scanned the figure who resembled his beloved. feet light like a does, skimpered, cloth & ink coated, after them.

a tense, push & pull feeling spread across his chest & it wasnt just the heat. akin to a hungry viper, he eyed this being he believed to be vaneyyn as though he might devour him with his gaze. the scent of blood came from his battered feet after walking for weeks unending. anything to get them back. he would ruin himself to bring them back to him.

When the path met its end, he knew he finally won this little chase. a sigh, soft, tranquil, fled from burning lungs. but when he heard that voice, it was vaguely like regret.

It was a wholly familiar sound but in ways most unfamiliar. like part one & part another. Then it hit him. Why that voice hurt him so, but dare he confront him so. Before he could think, however, those words escaped him.

“IT CANNOT BE…!!”

AT LAST, HE WAS FACE TO FACE WITH HIS SHADOW--- only to find a similarly golden mask staring back at him, mirroring his own.  for a moment, the warlord hesitated, resisting the urge to take a step backwards on confusion. confusion that only multiplied tenfold as the figure gasped aloud. 

IN A VOICE SO FAMILIAR.

it didn’t register, not at first. that voice. recognition started as a physical ache in his chest, blooming from the wound embedded within his sternum; spread throughout his ribs and down his spine. the snarl that had been hidden beneath his own mask all but vanished in the shock, lips tugging downwards as the realization dawned upon him.

not just any stranger.

SO SAID THE WARRIOR POET--- IT CANNOT BE.

the tremor in his hands he didn’t even notice until they clenched into fists so tight his knuckles ached from the pressure. he directed the pain elsewhere, and quickly gestured one hand upwards, grabbing the indoril-crafted spear from his back with a telekinetic flourish.

long fingers went behind his head untwisting the binds that did up his mask. slowly, he pulled apart the ebon binds with shaky hands. it came off with a hitch, golden on gold catching the metal mask, a momento of a self ruined past.

IF THIS REVELATION MEANT HIS DEMISE, SO BE IT!!

with that self-destructive thought, he took off the cold mask, unveiling a tired, dual toned, familiar face. yet he lacked his jewels & mirth. it was raw, real, too real. something known yet changed just enough to no longer be wholly the same.

he almost wanted to laugh at the sick irony that was fate & encounting nerevar. yet a part of him wasn't even shocked anymore. no, he felt in his bones that this reunion was, nay, destined? there was no word in the common tongue for how this felt & for some reason that made it all the more colder.

AT THE PEAK OF ASH MOUNTAIN, THE WIND WHIPPED VIOLENTLY AROUND HIM.  the air was heavy with soot,  hot and oppressive —– but comforting, in its own way.  he remembers coming here eons ago, the landscape only vaguely familiar to him now, but the heat of the lava flows around him brought ease to the anxiety that simmered beneath the surface of his skin.

not that he would ever admit it.  not that he would ever admit sleeping was more and more difficult these days.  not that he would admit it was hard to grasp the reality of his reality even now, months later —- LIFE FROM DEATH. no longer a simple reincarnation. 

perhaps that anxiety was what let him notice his second shadow.  tailing him across morrowind itself.  it hadn’t gone unnoticed– as careful as this stranger was.  fleet-footed and graceful.  until now, there’d hadn’t been a moment where they’d been alone– at least not when there was such short distance between them.

BECAUSE HERE WAS A DEAD END. 

the silhouette of an indoril-armor clad figure stood against the rocky slopes and streams of lava, cape lashing in the wind. they stood facing this stranger, this stranger that had followed him across very continents. 

a tense, push & pull feeling spread across his chest & it wasnt just the heat. akin to a hungry viper, he eyed this being he believed to be vaneyyn as though he might devour him with his gaze. the scent of blood came from his battered feet after walking for weeks unending. anything to get them back. he would ruin himself to bring them back to him.

When the path met its end, he knew he finally won this little chase. a sigh, soft, tranquil, fled from burning lungs. but when he heard that voice, it was vaguely like regret.

It was a wholly familiar sound but in ways most unfamiliar. like part one & part another. Then it hit him. Why that voice hurt him so, but dare he confront him so. Before he could think, however, those words escaped him.