[prompt] undermine all our belief in eternal justice and all the trust we have been taught to place
It's the weight of that armour that he knows first; where he stands (where he lazes, like the lion that he claimed to his brother to be) at the gates of Chyrellos he breathes through his own blood and watches the city still closed to him with impassive gaze. The scent of burning flesh is a sense-memory when nothing is yet burning, and the city walls are silent where he remembers streaming humanity out every available exit while he waited, patiently, for the women and children to flee.
(No one ever left him that wasn't driven from his side.)
He stands and waits.
His lungs never clear but it never matters; like falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and never hitting the ground, just falling, tumbling, twisting, turning. He smells steel and death and can't distinguish between his own and those he caused - as though there's a distinction needs to be drawn, as though his own fate weren't his own fault, as though he didn't make a choice and wallow in it, every day.
It seems I've disappointed you.
Not so much as you've disappointed yourself, I think.
Punishment, Sephrenia? Don't you think I've been punished enough already?
It's not in my nature to punish people, Martel. Nature gives neither rewards nor punishment - only consequences.
All right, then. I accept the consequences.
When he falls to his knees is driven to his knees drives himself to his knees, it's a woman's hand on his shoulder, on his face, holding his head, not Sephrenia; he wakes alone, reminds himself where she is, breathes out (he can feel it burning in his chest and behind his eyes and Ewar attends his students 'til his mind is quiet).
prompt: what did you dream last night? [265]
word count: 247 [discounting canon quote]