so much once existed, before the moons were turned into debris and food for the great beyond to turn into rot.
and it was said that a long time ago, in the ages of arcadia's stormclad pavillions and the golden city's kin bleeding silver and carving their horns to glam and worship —within the first verdures, trayastrimsa was the holy seat of the tree of trees. palaces of white were once said to mingle with the leaves and vines, and the rivers would sing whenever the sun's warmth would caress its foamy currents. it would thrive, as rident as the very forest caressing its confines, underneath the wisdom and warmth of their oh so beloved heavenly guide.
songs would bring praise to the divine envoy and their guidance, their many eyes said to see every facet of life, death, time and space, and his mind would know every thought and every sin carved upon the land. they would claim the 'god' birthed by the great principles to be eternal and most beautiful, worship the lotuses left behind pathways of marble with each step, call upon their name when the end was nigh as if the angelic one too, wasn't but a victim of the supreme divine's caprice.
as if you too, like a toy that stopped working, wouldn't get pushed and thrown around until you either returned functioning as you should, or break and get tossed away.
pretending to function, however, would not belong in the all - eye's field of vision. it laid in that obscure part arrogation wouldn't ever spend a single second considering, because recovering from the aches left behind by betrayal and disarray and that singular loss of control had brought to them. it was taken for granted, as natural as the shadows left by the all - tree's branches. and that's where you've decided to sit and wait.
by the side of the first envoy of the silverbranch you would remain, giving her your loyalty, your hopes, your fragments of a memory scorched away by something more agonizing than a thousand holy nails and the desert sun brought to your heart by the little chanting of her little familiars whose heart was oh so pure as the very greengrass itself. underneath the branches of the great symbol carrying all memories and souls and power, you envisioned your own intricate chess match against the heavens that forsook you and the very kin they created and each move past and present and future within the board of black and white, knowing full well that one day —one day those chains growing shorter and tighter and heavier would find the right acid to melt them into nothingness. that one day the black and white would be met by the most wonderful, bloody shade of red.
( someone would come, full of flaming resentment —full of a hunger unspeakable and insatiable—, to lay waste of the great white rot. to make a spectacle of the divine's egotism and the indomitable human spirit. )
" i have long sacrificed my ability to roam free alongside the sway of lotus flowers within the currents. " you sacrificed your helpfulness in order to remain sane, in order not to fall apart more than you already had, in order to salvage what little memory had been left of the white palaces and crystalline rivers of old trayastrimsa. you've given so much to the goddess whose name laid in worship and mourning to people unable to move on like they were unable to think for themselves, desperately clinging to something you knew had to pass, because everything does, including genius and folly. the old branch is replaced by the new. the old order is met with scrutiny and spite and tugged in a war of who topples who first. life is cruel, and so is death. time cares little of what's left behind, and so space. and fate delights itself in hammering everything in the name of a judgment and rule that was established by them to begin with, convinced that in the space inbetween its lynchpins existence wouldn't still put up a fight against its predetermined path.
your kind had long fallen apart and all you could do watch as the ashes and blood would be further desecrated by the slumbering madness of a creator that cared just as little as anyone else —all you could do was to give your guidances veiledly, between aisles made of mahogany and scrolls and crammed little rooms filled to the brim with forbidden tomes, for you long knew those above long went sleeping and those below long started keening, and the four cardinals had lost control over the strings but not the chains.
" i am tied to this city. the chains have grown shorter and shorter with each passing turn of the season. " you know. he knows. and he knows that you know that he knows, a convoluted rondo of mutual understanding smelling like old ink on equally old paper, antiseptic and formaldehyde and something perhaps more deranged than blasphemy but also just as fascinating to witness. zandik hungers, staring at you with a starvation impossible for the mind of the mundane to truly comprehend, breathing onto you as if bringing himself to a sardonic mockery of a prayer. your hand remains soft against the sharp turn of his jaw and cheekbone. perhaps, indulging his voracity and goading it morsel after morsel was yet another way to express your spite against the very hand that made you and now could care less if it was their turn to be taken apart and fed to the very miasma they cultivated. " a pity, isn't it ? it's almost like i was condemned to slowly wither. "
