#day2curse

A series of short Stories to heal the beast beneath the face of the high lord. Soon to be followed by an illustration.

Disclaimer : While I draw I like to think about what the story behind this drawing is. Sometimes the illustrations don’t pan out like I want them but the stories always help paint the  full picture. ps: day 1,2 and 3 drawing will drop tuesday (hopefully) @tamlinweek

Tamlin x Oc - Curse of a broken heart

He was a recurring ghost on my path, a shadow keeping beat with my stride. I had seen him before, folded into himself, nursing a private lament that tasted of old salt and rot. He sat like a wounded creature waiting for a mercy blow; a tragic sight for a man who had once loved so fiercely he wore blinders to the world, seeing only what he cherished and what he wished to keep close.

They say if you treat a soul like a beast, it will eventually grow the claws to match. Yet, he was no monster. He was a High Lord masquerading animal, or perhaps a High Lord terrified he was nothing more than another beast  fear within these words. It pulled at me, this strange, silent alchemy of how a male could fall from the grace of his people’s hearts into the cold dirt of their distruth.

I have begun to haunt the forest as often as he does, my basket heavy with the scent of warm freestyle bake bread. To an outsider, the scene is unremarkable. There is no Great Prophecy left to fulfill, no ancient curse to shatter, yet a persistent gloom chokes the Spring Court like hemlock; ask the villagers, and they wouldn’t dare deny it.  They dare not speak of it either.

Sometimes, I think we were better off when we were truly cursed. At least then, our High Lord was a sentinel, a dutiful watcher. Now, as I leave my bread behind and retreat into the trees, I realize he is still under a spell.

It is not a blight upon the soil or a plague upon the blood. It is a slow, debilitating erosion that my remedies cannot touch and my loaves cannot nourish. It is a curse that devours from the marrow outward, for it is not born of magic, but of a heart that simply stopped knowing how to beat for itself.

For as many times as I was reminded his heart had turned to stone, for each time I was told he could no longer feel love. I told myself;  even stones gave up, even stones washed off if the river was washed them enough, even stone broke when treated poorly,  even stone can be turned to glass and shattered with enough time.