Fic: Full Circle
Title: Full Circle
Notes: Written on by a spark of inspiration that comes only too rarely, this should clear up something which one has probably suspected for a long time. It may not make much sense, but I tried, yet my opinion remains unsure. Looking at the time, it can be assured that I am too tired to edit.
Summary: A short piece on Kael, just after Ashram’s defeat, where he finds himself alive, lost enough to stand amidst the mound of dead with a final chance to live and seize the impossible.
***
Defeat was not uncommon for him. It tasted no different from victory in the sense that there was still nothing there in that part of his chest that was neither hollow nor whole, his emotions teetering upon the thin axes of both extremes, as he stopped to witness, wonder, and almost believe. No despair or the elation of joy, no crushing sense of loss or the uplifting rush of euphoria, the silence that nothing was beating just another normality where he stood, still and present, a part played in a piece of history that belonged only to kings.
Men of faith with dreams of redemption had stormed the black towers, and a conquest of blue and gold sweeping away the purple plague as they hacked and pushed through to the end where triumph was with the roll of one handsome head and freedom with the snap of one hot transparent thread.
To them he was just another creature with black robes that should cease to exist, one not unlike the corpses that completed the red earth beneath them, a being who belonged with the lost who had signed away their loyalty in an act of unforgiveable blasphemy to a madman who had tried to defy the gods. He had been a pawn in too grand a design where the black pieces had fallen, the checkmate sliding at last into place with the brilliant shade of white.
He did not see that it was unfair, that even with the relentless souvenirs marked by soldiers upon his battered body that he was the only one allowed to rise again, spluttering and confused, dazed, lost, like a newborn thrust into a frightening world of lightning on a night too hot and too cruel, a boy drenched in too much blood, some of which belonged to him yet could not.
There was water in his eyes, tears which had crept in when he had not realised, illogical given that he had felt nothing, a miracle should the victors have known, the air thick and suspended with disbelief of those who had seen him rise like a symbol of madness that gave them purpose.
And it was returned to him only for a moment, a brief agonising moment like a gift from the gods who had deserted him, a breath that he had been promised but forever been out of reach. It was a memory that could have been his own, hidden in the lines, thoughts that had never before surfaced, and he imagined seeing familiarity, a distant world with the calling of home, colours painted with nostalgia, and then something which he still could not touch, but for that fleeting moment it was within his grasp.
He saw a face, precious with compassion and did not know why he found it so beautiful, only wondering where she was when the arrows descended from the sky.
***
Fin.
Notes: Written on by a spark of inspiration that comes only too rarely, this should clear up something which one has probably suspected for a long time. It may not make much sense, but I tried, yet my opinion remains unsure. Looking at the time, it can be assured that I am too tired to edit.
Summary: A short piece on Kael, just after Ashram’s defeat, where he finds himself alive, lost enough to stand amidst the mound of dead with a final chance to live and seize the impossible.
***
Defeat was not uncommon for him. It tasted no different from victory in the sense that there was still nothing there in that part of his chest that was neither hollow nor whole, his emotions teetering upon the thin axes of both extremes, as he stopped to witness, wonder, and almost believe. No despair or the elation of joy, no crushing sense of loss or the uplifting rush of euphoria, the silence that nothing was beating just another normality where he stood, still and present, a part played in a piece of history that belonged only to kings.
Men of faith with dreams of redemption had stormed the black towers, and a conquest of blue and gold sweeping away the purple plague as they hacked and pushed through to the end where triumph was with the roll of one handsome head and freedom with the snap of one hot transparent thread.
To them he was just another creature with black robes that should cease to exist, one not unlike the corpses that completed the red earth beneath them, a being who belonged with the lost who had signed away their loyalty in an act of unforgiveable blasphemy to a madman who had tried to defy the gods. He had been a pawn in too grand a design where the black pieces had fallen, the checkmate sliding at last into place with the brilliant shade of white.
He did not see that it was unfair, that even with the relentless souvenirs marked by soldiers upon his battered body that he was the only one allowed to rise again, spluttering and confused, dazed, lost, like a newborn thrust into a frightening world of lightning on a night too hot and too cruel, a boy drenched in too much blood, some of which belonged to him yet could not.
There was water in his eyes, tears which had crept in when he had not realised, illogical given that he had felt nothing, a miracle should the victors have known, the air thick and suspended with disbelief of those who had seen him rise like a symbol of madness that gave them purpose.
And it was returned to him only for a moment, a brief agonising moment like a gift from the gods who had deserted him, a breath that he had been promised but forever been out of reach. It was a memory that could have been his own, hidden in the lines, thoughts that had never before surfaced, and he imagined seeing familiarity, a distant world with the calling of home, colours painted with nostalgia, and then something which he still could not touch, but for that fleeting moment it was within his grasp.
He saw a face, precious with compassion and did not know why he found it so beautiful, only wondering where she was when the arrows descended from the sky.
***
Fin.