#ashenthorn

I am the one who loved you

I am the one who stayed

I am the one and you walked away

The danger was rapidly approaching; there was no way it could be avoided. Not unless he did something. But it was too late. The decree had been made. The boy was to be burnt at the stake as a sacrifice. To whom or to what, he did not know. The villagers had bound him and locked him in a makeshift wooden teepee of sorts. There was no way of escape, at least not that he could see so far. It looked hopeless; there was no way he’d be able to get himself out of this situation. He was too proud to plead with these people– no, he would not. He had asked them once; he would not do so again. If it was written in fate for him to die this way, then so be it. 

I am the one who waited

The chief of the village stood at the front of the crowd, his piercing gaze searching for something, what exactly? The boy couldn’t tell; however, he had noticed something unusual and exceedingly peculiar: all of the villagers had eyes the colour of a chocolate labrador puppy, dark and mysterious; yet, their chief…

He had eyes the colour of ice– so blue they were almost silver, and they gleamed with a slight flare of gold flecked across their surface. They would go well with the boy’s own: light enough to match the slightly metallic silver of the forks his mother kept in their special cupboard back home, the ones he’d used to impale his food, mixed with a slight hint of pistachio green muddled in to spice it up. The chief was lanky, yet slightly muscular, with windswept hair the colour of the sand on a beach. He wore a brown tunic underneath chainmail armour, leather shoulder pauldrons, metal gauntlets, and mid-calf leather boots. He seemed to be the boy’s age, maybe a few moons older, for his face– peachy and adorned with freckles– was that of one who was in the bloom of youth. The way he carried himself, however, was that of a leader; one who’d experienced many fights in his short lifetime. Along the left side of his face was a scar, running from the tip of his eye to the beginning of his cheek. It made him look older than he really was.

And now you act like you just don’t give a damn

Had his eyes always been so cruel? The boy wondered: had he always been like this? Deep down beneath his seemingly kind interior, had he had an even deeper layer to him, one that was callous and sadistic? The chief’s eyes were cold, calculating, but when they landed on the boy, they flickered with an unspoken emotion, an apology maybe? As the villagers began to chant, the chief was silent. His mouth was still, eyes locked on the boy’s. Something flickered there—hesitation, perhaps. Or guilt. The boy didn’t know which would hurt more.

Like you never knew who I am

There was a quiet whisper, and the words spoken impinged the boy’s heart, sending it shattering into pieces. The chief moved slowly through the chanting crowd toward him, his movements cautioned and precise. When he finally reached the boy, his eyes narrowed, but there was a hint of emotion in them– regret. Recognition.

I am the one who knows you I am the one you fear

I am the one who’s always been here

In another world they’d been close. Friends– best friends, even. They’d spent their days frolicking together, whenever the chief could sneak away from his responsibilities, and whenever the boy could sneak away from the restrictions of his exceedingly strict family. 

I am the one who will heal you

But that was before. Before everything happened, before everything went so horribly wrong. 

I know you told her that I’m not worth a damn

The twisted strings of fate were cruel, inhumane, especially to those who yearned. These particular twisted strings of fate were immutable, especially for those with hearts foolish enough to ache when they shouldn’t. 

But I know you know who I am

The chief’s jaw clenched as he took the lit torch in his trembling hand, almost as if he was steeling himself for what he had to do. 

I am the one who held you

I am the one who cried

I am the one who watched while you died

The straw caught fire easily. The flames thirsted for blood as they licked their way up to the boy’s torso, showing no mercy as they engulfed his bottom half. He didn’t cry. This cruel practice of the villagers’ obsessive idolatry had led to his fate, if only because he was a tragic victim of this story, written amongst the stars since the day he was born. Not once did he consider the possibility of his fate changing had he whispered one last thing. But the mind doesn’t often think rationally moments before death, and so those words were left unsaid.

I am the one who loved you

The boy’s body was weakening, the flickers of fire crawling even further up his body. 

One of the villagers shouted something crude, something uncouth, and the chief grit his teeth, lashing out in a display that stunned both the villagers, and the boy. 

I tried pretending that I don’t give a damn

The emotions that had once been impalpable between the two former friends were now spilled out in front of everybody as the boy’s incapacitated body finally gave into the warm, fiery hands of fate.

But I know you know who I am

One last meeting of their eyes, icy blue meeting greenish silver, and the boy’s head dropped forward as he succumbed to the outstretched arms of Death, like an orison no deity ventured to answer.