“If only fate sought to bring what belongs to me, sooner,” Zenos whispers to the Warrior, cradling them in his arms.
They burn him with how fragile they are like this; bones were broken and skin painted in the green and blue of bruises. The crown of life they still bear, head trembling from the weight of it. “You will not perish—not yet. We have not danced among the sundered heavens. Do you not understand? You cannot die.”
Not yet.
Only his hands can claim their life.
The Warrior’s breaths are in time with their stuttering heartbeat, eyes settled on the steel of the ceiling. Cool wind gathers in the hallways. It is always cold in Garlemald—cold as the beating organ that is Zenos’ heart, lodged betwixt rotting flesh.
“This is your fault,” the Warrior spits, hand leaving a mark on Zenos’ cheek, when armor makes contact with skin. “You could have let me in, with little fight from your—your Garleans. But no!”
Zenos snorts.
“I came for you, did I not?”
You and I are entwined, do you not see? You are my foe.
Zenos is quiet, his chests cease in its rise and fall. His approach slow, steps ending their song with each ringing. His longing is feral and ruinous. In itself, his desire is a beast that grows and grows, to be something larger than life.
Trigger warning for character death, suicide, and light gore.
@sea-wolf-coast-to-coast
The Warrior’s eyes are cold and grey as the sea when a storm consumes. Zenos’ gaze does not avert from them. He is lost among a labyrinth, walls as grey as the eyes of (his friend!) his enemy. He reaches for them, their blood on his hands.
The Warrior is dying, soon to be nothing.
The Warrior bleeds. Death’s cold hands grasp them too tightly.
Among the desolate wasteland of his heart, of nothingness; he feels the familiar trickle of discontent.
“You disappointed me,” he says, lips curled into a low snarl. Iron grinds against iron as he draws the dying Warrior into his arms. His tenderness false, as he cradled and rocked them to their splutters; to the dying beats of their hearts (he is going to die too. He feels the slowing of his own heartbeat, for with the Warrior’s little strength—they shoved a fragment of a blade, betwixt his armor and up).
The Warrior’s smile is wide, far too wide—their laughter weak—a hand lifting to caress his cheek. He leans into the touch. The tongues of tenderness, far too rare for the boy made of carnage and war.
“We go together,” they whisper betwixt shuddering breaths, before spitting in his face.
The words sink their teeth into his mind. He finds all he desires to say, dances on the tip of his tongue—unable to be obtained. Blood drips and drips. Time flies, sun saying it greeting to the world and banishing the dark blanket covering the sky. The Warrior’s skin grows ashen, as death kisses away life.
“I will find another,” he snorts, fingers curling around the Warrior’s hand—tearing the gentle touch away from his cheek. “This play has ended.”
The Warrior’s smile does not cease before it does when horror consumes; when crimson drips from Zenos’ katana. He is choking on his own gasps when his blade kisses his neck.
“My friend, my enemy. We go together,” his words are whispered and choked as he reaches for the fallen Warrior as moments blurs into eternity. He finds himself lost in the grey of their eyes, again. Nothingness is beautiful.
The Warrior dies alone, in a desolate wasteland of death. Zenos’ warm corpse beside them, still reaching and reaching for them—for eternity.
They meet in haunted lands, in the graves of magitek machinery and rotting corpses. The ghosts howling in the gathering storm; the blue skies fading into grey.
Zenos does not promise tenderness in the curve of his twisted (and cruel!) smile, when he reaches for the Warrior—blunt nails, are far too much like sharp claws when they brush against their cheek. He stands still, gaze soft as it could be for a creature made of fragile hunger and thriving conflict.
He is not kindness nor the blinding light, in its heroics.
These grounds are infertile, decorated only in life’s paint of red. The Warrior’s along with Zenos’ own crimson. They did not think he could bleed, but he does—and he does not grimace, choosing to instead revel in the crimson dripping betwixt clenched teeth, and from his bound wrists. Zenos finds a home in agony, in the blinding pain that consumes.
The monsters wreathed in children’s fairy tales did not bleed. The mage leading children by the hand to a cottage made of death; before devouring flesh and bone all—did not bleed. A man, free from the light of empathy, falling into a pit filled with creatures with sharp teeth—leads monsters with little blood spilled.
This is the Warrior’s fairy tale.
There will be no happy endings.
The monster will die and die again, only to yearn for so much more.
They know this song well as Zenos does.
This song, beautifully tragic and broken is embedded in Zenos’ veins, singing, and singing. It will never end for he yearns and yearns for more.
He draws back, beckoning to the Warrior; a bargain is struck, when the rope is brought to ruin. Something ancient howls in the marrow of his bones.
“Claim my heart, rip it from its cradle in my chest—victory will be yours for a time,” his voice is soft, hollow. “To flee is cowardice.”
He waits and waits, breath locked betwixt teeth.
He breathes finally when steel sings, when the Warrior marches towards their ruin.
trigger warning for gore, general violence, and implied character death.
@sea-wolf-coast-to-coast
His love has teeth and it is dark, without the light of tenderness.
The Warrior stands tall before him, iron embedded in their spine. They do not cower. Timidity does not lace their limbs and only might remain. The world is a heavy thing, that they carry. They are so, so alive. Zenos is a corpse of rotting flesh and bleached bones. His teeth are far too sharp. He might as well be dead, in the nothingness of his heart.
His nails are claws when they dig into the Warrior’s side.
He dances with the Warrior on shattered glass. They are a swirling storm of iron, scarlet and azure fabric. Crimson bleeds from both of their feet. The Warrior weeps and weeps. Their lips parted in gasps as their flesh is cut clean—they struggle to dance, dance and dance to his song of carnage. Zenos does not cry from the agony. The pain is a welcomed lover. He has not wept in such a long time (has he ever? As a child, sorrow did not consume. Only nothingness did).
All that is left is his hunger. His yearnings are all-consuming, fathomless as the sky—there is no end nor beginning. All that remains is his ardor. He is voracious, approaching carnage with only euphoria frolicking among his dead heart.
His teeth are sharp.
Zenos tugs the Warrior close, the steel of his katana singing. He feels their heart. It beats out of time, much like his.
“I feel sorry for you,” the Warrior hisses, betwixt clenched teeth. Scarlet bleeds from their parted, gasping lips. Their tears are not filled with the light of pity—but loathing. “What kind of life have you’ve known, to hunger and hunger for the throats of prey?”
Zenos smiles and smiles, lips stretched wide—exposing sharp teeth. Silence descends, moments crawl and crawl past. Time is a cruel mistress. They both bleed and bleed, and the crimson dripping is the sands of an hourglass. His abdomen bears a gaping hole. He does not know how he still stands, but he does. He refuses to fall.
So does the Warrior, when his blade sinks in-between their rib cage.
He silences their howling, teeth sinking into their throat. The taste of iron that fills his mouth, is not sweet.
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