The Second Son

Byleistr

[annarsonur]

Please forgive the lapse in replies - I was just accepted into my first choice of colleges and have been celebrating. 

Mark if I owe, or for a thread.

[annarsonur]

Valor Icon Hunt

[annarsonur]

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[annarsonur]

Jormungandr Icon Hunt

[annarsonur]

birdxsong replied to your post: “If I could change one thing, just one, I would not have loved those...”:

" You have brought me great joy, for what it is worth. "

That is but a fantasy of placation. I have done no right by you.

[annarsonur]

If I could change one thing, just one, I would not have loved those that I have loved.

For my care has wrought naught but pain, my affection naught but agony.

They would draw brighter breaths were it not for me.

[traumeriinarchive]

  (☾☆) — Her lips pursed into a wider smile at his words. She had always thought it was nature should be shared by all. It just seemed selfish for someone to keep something beautiful all to themselves. Despite her fondness for the flowers she chose to stand and greet the man properly. It would be rude not to especially when he was being so polite. She held out her delicate and pale hand to him before speaking with her soft yet inviting voice. ❝I’m Rosemary. You are?❞

[annarsonur]

As strange as the gesture was it served a telling purpose. Few realms embraced the quirk displayed before and him so few realms became the possibility of her context. Even as his grasp met with this fair creature's - palm enveloping the gentle offering as easily as if it had been that of a child - his mind danced round the ever dwindling mystery of her origin.

'Byleistr.'

[kveljastarchive]

:

"Why suffer for them? Why die for them? What have they done to merit this… blindness; this foolish illusion of loyalty?!”

Lies, all of it. There was no place for kin or loyalty, save it be to oneself. To have something done — to have it done right — necessitated a man to go about the task himself, delegate the points that would have gone about well under the hand of mediocrity, but nothing more. There was nothing more that could be trusted to fools, for fools were always the source of failure. Fools. Other people. 

And they were always the same. Preaching falsehoods. Protection. Compassion. Love. 

Not a word of it was ever real. Not a bit of that dribble had any meaning, for once it was all said and done, a man was left to fend for himself. 

"What have they done to blind you?"

[annarsonur]

How could one know they were blind when all their life they were told that the darkness was sight?

How could the man before him see the perversions of thought which guided his reason, which twisted his conviction to sick contortions, when all he had been granted was a womb of hatred? The beast before him, colored in rage and vengeance, he was not a product of desire. No soul would wish this fate upon themselves, no heart would beg for the ruin of loathing.

Could he hate that which was crafted of abuse? Could he damn that which was spurred by the callous manipulations of those that should have been the most sacred of trustees?

Strange, that these questions lingered in his mind during these undoubtedly last moments. Strange that he would waste the seconds best spent in reverent remembrance of home, of the gods housed within thundering mountains and roaring skies, in thrashing seas and gentle plains. Why could he not find the peace of his last reflection?

He was not blind. The thought flashed, disrupting the silent pursuit. Not blind, he had seen, he had felt in his very bones the visceral truths that ragged raged in his native home. He had heard the cries of orphaned babes, had known the pleas of widows wives.

'They have bought and paid for my love with their loss, with their agony.'

[victorybringer-archive-blog-blog]

  She got the impression he wasn’t speaking his true feelings. Sigyn ignored the spark of irritation that caused and simply nodded.

"We can only hope so, yes."

Briefly she thought of the rumors beginning to circulate throughout Asgard — then calmly pushed them aside. There was no place for them in this conversation, or in her mind at the moment.

"Though I confess a feeling that that’s not all you wish to say to me."

[annarsonur]

It was only logical that she was of heightened perception. Though his connection with his brother-king was strained by the perversions of fate, he had little doubt that none but the fiercest of women could draw his eye and hold his affection. There was no questioning this queen's strength just as there was no doubt of her intelligence.

In this moment, however, he could not help but wish for a moment of ignorance.

'Your gaze cuts cleanly, my Lady. That is an admirable trait, surely.'

[annarsonur]

The harsh nature of his greeting was matched only by the brutal nature of their people’s histories. Though bounds of love and union had been formed to smooth the rift between worlds, Byleistr felt its fissure with each breath.

'Would it matter if it did?'

[marja-archive]

In all fairness, no conflict between two individuals - especially when one hardly outranked a servant - was likely to have particularly strong implications for the future relations of their races.

'No,' she replied with a sigh. 'Though I could go elsewhere should you so wish that.'

Taking into account that their people had always warred, Marja tried to assure herself that the other’s bitter words were not in actuality a personal attack.

[annarsonur]

He was taken aback, and not in the way for which he was prepared. The extension of basic consideration was an affront to the expectations of selfish cruelty that both experience and lore had led him to anticipate. That she would present a solution not solely crafted for her benefit was a feral surprise - one he feared played across his features with a weak transparency.

'No.'

He could no more trace the source of this denial than he could predict its implication. She had offered the very thing he most wanted - a freedom from the tyranny of her presence - and yet in offering she had reduced its appeal. She had inspired an abstract curiosity.  

[annarsonur]

A sigh at the question that was innocuous enough - one that should not have sparked his ire and yet somehow, much to his guilt, did.

'What a pointless question.'

[frysteld]

       A mirthless laugh escapes the elder’s lips, a gesture well practiced to hide his mixture of emotion. Still mild it was, for now, so no need for wasting energy in irritation.

       “My day was less troublesome than usual. I will listen if you feel the need to speak to me about your own. That is, if you’re not too irate.”

[annarsonur]

'As if you will hear the substance of my words.'

He knew naught from where this well of rage stemmed, knew naught why it was directed upon the one soul that would offer him kindness and council regardless of his offenses. Even as he stood an uncertain spectator he could not moderate the spewing poison.

'As if you would truly care.'

[kveljastarchive]

SCREAMING BECAUSE “BADASS KILLER BROTHERS” OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD ASDFGHJKL CAN THIS BE BLOODY HEADCANNON YES OKAY COOL OH MY GOOOOOOOD

[annarsonur]

We need to make them friends. I'm like grabbing them each by the scruff of the neck and banging them together until this is a reality

[annarsonur]

At this a smile quirked narrow lips that had yet to break into the song of approval that now painted his features. Her answer was one of substance, of truth. One that sent an assurance deeper than any he could have constructed of his own making. 'It would seem you grasp the scope of your burden.'

[victorybringer-archive-blog-blog]

Sigyn nodded briefly.

"Of course I do," she said. "I always grasp the scope of everything I do. I wouldn’t call it a burden, however," she said. "It’s simply… some aspects are troublesome, some are not."

[annarsonur]

If she would not name it a burden then perhaps she did not know the true weight of the crown now adorning a pale brow. His mind toyed with the notion of illustration - of personal and public example that bathed both his throne and that upon which she lingered.

'Then you will be a beloved Queen.'

He decided against such cruel realities. They could not be taught, only learned.

[youngestprinceofice-deactivated]

  Loki stared. Terrified. Why was Byleistr so unmoving? So frozen? The stillness sent his heart into a frantic beat and pace, even more so than before. The horror that should have consumed the other started to consume him, eyes widening as second thoughts started to creep in.

Speak. Say something. Anything. The princeling silently prayed, unable to voice such requests from the constriction of his throat around his emotions. A heartbeat slower in hearing his name, and feet would have found purchase on the ground once more before running away in shame.

His name was near a prayer in his ears. The only thing keeping him seated in his brother’s lap. The only thing halting the fear flowing through his veins.

'Do not push me away,' he whispered, the words more a begging than a prayer. 'Whatever you may do from this point on, I beg you do not push me away like you suggested at the other night….'

Words died away and silence befell the princeling once more, eyes searching the elder’s for any sign of the things running through his mind.

[annarsonur]

The raw plea in his words was agony. It was hell incarnate. The truth of his brother's pain flashed bright before him - twisted into inescapable evidence of his ruin. This tragedy of wills, it was his fault. It was his sin. He had poisoned the younger, he had laid his sanity to waste with a love that should never have been granted life. How could he have so violently betrayed the childish trust sweetly invested? How could he have so perverted familial bonds?

How was it that, even now, in the heat of realizations horrible and tremendous in their scope, that he did not care? Could not bring himself to care. Reason bellowed its outrage, begging intervention in any form, a kind world, a harsh hand. Anything to end the course that had been set by the elder's musings. Responsibility screamed its denial, damning the selfish impulses that had resulted in this - a dilemma to end love.

And yet those voices were weak - they were mere murmurs before the tempest of emotion. The startled guilt that had ragged ebbed still, relics upon the shore of his mind. They had been cast from prominence by waves of unadulterated joy - a feeling so feral it had not yet been realized. Its flavor colored each frantic thought, abstract and raw. As breaths passed, as the prince's pleas aired, its taste began to settle upon a frozen tongue.

'I cannot see you gone from me.

I will not.'

[kveljastarchive]

A step closer, putting each within the other’s reach, the grin fading from sight as he moved, brushing his fingers against his brother’s jaw. Another frightening similarity, features that could surely cut through glass. Unfortunate, really, the whole ordeal. 

"Such a pity. I offer you peace which — coming from a man of my nature — is a sight far less often seen than genuine kindness or affection. And yet you push me away." A sigh. Expression placid, the gesture that would have been one of comfort turned to a swift backhand across the face.  "Foolish boy. I so dearly wanted to keep you. Company. Entertainment. Brilliant conversation. For I find myself quite enamored with that mind of yours. But should you seek death, to die at the hands of a bastard with the filth — the scourge of the Nine — that you call kin, I can only oblige.”

[annarsonur]

He bore the blow without cry, for it was a twin of those that had laid his cheeks raw as a child. Funny, how an action so individual could be passed by the mere connection of blood. This man, whatever he may be, was surely his father's son in fists if nothing else.

Death had never been an abstract thing, it had never been a phantom to loathe or fear. It was a reality, it was a constant companion in the life guided by a blade's will. He had long ago embraced it as inescapable just as he had long ago accepted that his end would come in violence - that his blood would soak the earth that had gifted his breaths meaning. That was the one deviation - the one stray from the eventuality he had accepted. He would not die upon the hearth of his beloved world, would not be granted the peace of familiarity.

'Kill me, if you wish. That is surely a kinder fate than to be naught but an outlet for your wayward attentions. I would sooner see my breaths fade, my pulse stutter to an end, than to witness my wills bent to your own, brother.'

[kveljastarchive]

"Bred by them, perhaps, but not raised. Certainly never loved nor wanted. And by a definition which my hand has crafted, I denounce them as my kin in any regard.” A smirk, noting the perhaps imagined glint in the other’s hardening gaze. “Yet, in one way or another, I find you far more intriguing. Not the least bit the cold, mindless barbarian that I have had the displeasure of meeting on prior occasion. You have a wit about you, and that I can offer my appreciation and, perhaps, respect.”

[annarsonur]

Respect.

Never had he born witness to such comedy. As if this cretonne - a fool not in intelligence but in emotion - could ever truly grasp the essence of his person. For the constructs of his every thought, his every action, they were based in the people that this killer had demeaned. That he had murdered. If he had naught but loathing for the Jotnar then he would find no common ground with the warrior he sought to respect.

'I would not have your respect, bastard. Why would I want the attentions of one that would see their own blood burn?'

[traumeriinarchive]

  (☾☆) — The entity turned on her pink heals when she noticed that the flowers weren’t her only company. Amber eyes regarded him with the same love and kindness that was given to the patch of tulips. ❝Are these flowers yours?❞ She asked curiously while tilting her head to the side. 

[annarsonur]

A brighter thing than he had imagined, she seemed to sing the joys of life that were inherent in this spring grove. It was as if the energy that had been dormant these long winters - the life that was expressed in the blooms dancing round - was channeled directly to her gaze. It was a stunning thing to behold, one that stole his reason for a lingering moment.

'They are as much mine as they are yours, lady.'