61. [It's a dream! An AU dream!]
Tonight the world is dark, and quiet, and you're walking through a hall for a thousand years. At the end of the hall, there's a glow - tiny and flickering, like candlelight spilling from a doorway. Everywhere around you there's that soft, sickening sound of chewing, and you're running toward it - you're running toward it, but the hallway is so long, and so dark, and you're--
Flash.
You're in the doorway, and there's blood on your face, blood on your feet, on your hands. The splash of blood from the corpses in front of you - from your sister's body when he tore into her. Does he know you're here? His name is bubbling up inside your throat, like the way the tears are welling up in your eyes, blurring the screen, and you hear yourself say Papa? and your voice is soft and trembling. That's when he stops, his clawed hands all covered in red. He turns, his sharp teeth all covered in red, too. And his eyes, they're gold like candlelight.
Your heart thumps hard, loud, in your ears and he's laughing. You reach for the axe.
(Everything is red.)
Flash.
Today the world is grey and the loud, and you're surrounded by broken buildings, broken rock. In front of you, there's a shadow the size of a little girl, and she's unraveling. Every time she moves, there's pieces of you falling away, and behind you the worn-down path is strewn with pebbles and wreckage and blood. His blood. And you remember that time only a little while away from here, when you watched him make it dance, and it was strange, and beautiful, and you knew something had changed.
Something is changing today, too.
(Can't save him. You can't save him. Even though you were made this way - made to be strong, stronger than anyone, made to be a living blade.
(You can't save him. You can only fail, like you've failed before, and wasn't he the one who talked you down from the ledge that last time, when all that energy rushed around you and you almost fell into the abyss?
(You should save him. The way he saved you, but you can't. You can't. Maybe you can't protect anything, because you were never made to be a shield.)
Flash.
What is that song? You remember it... a little. Home again, home again, to this barren world you used to love, and the people you used to protect. Your heart, it beats harder at the spires of the city you'll never see the inside of. And to the West, you feel that power seeping like a sickness through your bones - that creature and her man. And to the South, that energy, malevolent and unmoving, chilling your bones. And to the North... (oh. What is that chill? Don't think about it. Look away.)
And to the East...
You reach into your chest, and you pull out your mask. You are alone, today (somewhere inside, maybe you always have been), and you will be alone... maybe a day. Maybe forever. But you see a path, and it stretches like miles, and you know where to go.
You feel the years pile on your shoulders as you walk, crushing stones to dust with every step.
Flash.
You're in the doorway, and there's blood on your face, blood on your feet, on your hands. The splash of blood from the corpses in front of you - from your sister's body when he tore into her. Does he know you're here? His name is bubbling up inside your throat, like the way the tears are welling up in your eyes, blurring the screen, and you hear yourself say Papa? and your voice is soft and trembling. That's when he stops, his clawed hands all covered in red. He turns, his sharp teeth all covered in red, too. And his eyes, they're gold like candlelight.
Your heart thumps hard, loud, in your ears and he's laughing. You reach for the axe.
(Everything is red.)
Flash.
Today the world is grey and the loud, and you're surrounded by broken buildings, broken rock. In front of you, there's a shadow the size of a little girl, and she's unraveling. Every time she moves, there's pieces of you falling away, and behind you the worn-down path is strewn with pebbles and wreckage and blood. His blood. And you remember that time only a little while away from here, when you watched him make it dance, and it was strange, and beautiful, and you knew something had changed.
Something is changing today, too.
(Can't save him. You can't save him. Even though you were made this way - made to be strong, stronger than anyone, made to be a living blade.
(You can't save him. You can only fail, like you've failed before, and wasn't he the one who talked you down from the ledge that last time, when all that energy rushed around you and you almost fell into the abyss?
(You should save him. The way he saved you, but you can't. You can't. Maybe you can't protect anything, because you were never made to be a shield.)
Flash.
What is that song? You remember it... a little. Home again, home again, to this barren world you used to love, and the people you used to protect. Your heart, it beats harder at the spires of the city you'll never see the inside of. And to the West, you feel that power seeping like a sickness through your bones - that creature and her man. And to the South, that energy, malevolent and unmoving, chilling your bones. And to the North... (oh. What is that chill? Don't think about it. Look away.)
And to the East...
You reach into your chest, and you pull out your mask. You are alone, today (somewhere inside, maybe you always have been), and you will be alone... maybe a day. Maybe forever. But you see a path, and it stretches like miles, and you know where to go.
You feel the years pile on your shoulders as you walk, crushing stones to dust with every step.