🤝 + 21 (in a rush of adrenaline)
some could argue that there’s a certain level of COGNITIVE DISSONANCE to him. some could further argue that there’s a point of no return ———— this drive to fight and this motivation to battle and better himself can only be curbed by the deeper wish to help the innocent and protect those he loves so much. some could furthermore drag into light that the steadiness of him in battle is perhaps more terrifying than the total loss of control ( to which he would staunchly disagree, for good reason ) and if they were to peer into his mind and his innermost thoughts during these times ————
he doesn’t know when it began. when he began to hear her voice, carrying and high and light and clear as sunlight stretching over an early spring morning, radiant over the frost ridden grass. it’s rather silly, in the end. when her songs pop into his head at the strangest of times. in his sleep ( her song the cries of war and her voice a siren’s song bringing those to slaughter and to the killing floor and to their deaths by his hand / or his hand / or another’s hand ) and in battle and in the small spaces in between.
he doesn’t know when it began. he can’t begin to pinpoint when he started to hear her voice outside of hearing her and seeing her in those strange and random occurrences where he would simply stumble across her and there she would be : singing and dancing with her energy radiating and light sloughing off of her in layers upon layers upon layers.
does it begin with death? does it begin with disassociation? does it begin with the perils of mortality? or does it simply begin with her and how she lingers in his thoughts every now and then without so much as a by your leave on his part?
( it could well be curiosity, as well. the oddity of them and the strangeness of them and the stories that they tell and how he cannot begin to piece together what she’s trying to tell him, which may well be THE POINT, though he’s of a mind that a song is meant to tell a story and tell it wholly and fully, but. i digress. )
speaking and wondering and questioning in circles. shall we start again?
THERE’S HER VOICE AGAIN / the clarity of the early morning sun / as the final enemy falls at the other end of his blade. a flash and then a big boom ———— he’s gotten separated from the others again, dragged away from the thick of it to a smaller throng of enemies which had seen it fit to not quite ambush him, though the idea was certainly there. dispatching them had proven to be simple enough and, from the sounds of it, the rest had been felled by the rest.
the preternatural silence of a battlefield quelled lingers over his head and he gazes up at the sky which is steadily going orange above them as he wipes his blade on his trousers, caring little for the smear of gore that’s left behind. he breathes ————
a flash and then a big boom, suddenly the deed is done !!
and twists as there’s a movement behind him and, ah. it seems he hadn’t fully finished the job, or otherwise this one had been good at PLAYING DEAD before he could do another pass over the enemy to ensure that they were all well and truly dead and saw it fit to act now, in this moment of garishly false peace. felix’s blade lifts and he’s ready to behead this man in one fell swoop / before there’s a burst of wind and / he’s torn to shreds.
blood splatters and felix’s hair is caught up in the brief wind storm, whipping around his face as he watches as the foolish bastard is summarily and quickly killed and / he knows without seeing and knows without knowing who had conjured this magic. the impression that she leaves and the energy that she resonates and the peculiar uptick of her wind magic ———— he knows it near as well as he knows her voice, humming through his mind / and there she is !! rushing towards him from over the small hill, looking no worse for wear aside from her hair being tousled and her customary braid being slightly undone / and something like relief unravels in his chest.
❝ you’re alive !! ❞ exuberant and overflowing with light and the sheer intensity that she carries, she closes the distances between them rather quickly / he takes no more than three steps towards her before she’s all but crashed into him, her hands grasping at his elbows and her feet skidding along the ground and she is / a clear spring day, after all.
❝ yes, ❞ a rather lackluster response, truly, though he responds to her primarily because he feels compelled to and furthermore because THIS IS ANNETTE and the remnants of battle remain on her ( her axe hanging from her belt, now, secured and tucked away / blood splattered over her clothing and a smear over her cheek / a jagged rip in her sleeve that may or may not be hiding an injury beneath it ) and within her, the adrenaline that thrums through his veins practically diminished in comparison to HER.
❝ you almost wouldn’t have been, ❞ and here she sounds aggrieved, frowning up at him as she so customarily does / the difference between their interactions and her interactions with the vast majority of their classmates had once been BEMUSING TO HIM if nothing else ———— but he’s grown predominantly used to it, by now. to the exasperation that she treats him with far more often than not. ❝ i can’t believe you got distracted on the battlefield, after all the grief that you give everyone else about it. ❞
❝ i know, ❞ felix is able to own up to his mistakes, if nothing else, though he knows it’ll do little to nothing in alleviating any of annette’s frustration with him / alight as she is / glowing as she is / all but vibrating still with the aftermath of battle.
( how muted she had been, appearing at those crossroads. changed by time and changed by circumstance and changed ———— she had been overbright, still. but somehow dampened / as if a cloud had drifted over her in its meandering path / but she burned, still. and burn she did. and burn she does : light leaking from every last one of her pores. too saccharine? too over-sweet? his teeth ache in her presence yet he wants to be close to her, still ———— and what does that meant, precisely?
oh, he knows. he knows. do you? )
❝ i was foolish, though i had the situation under control, ❞ he had, to be entirely fair. killing that final straggler would have been as easy as breathing. ❝ the enemy was a minor threat. ❞
❝ felix, you ———— ❞ irritation makes itself further known in her tone and the twist of her mouth and her hands tighten on his elbows / a silent demand to accompany her verbal one, before he cuts her off swiftly.
❝ but thank you, ❞ speaking over annette is no easy thing to do, but he wishes to make himself infinitely clear. at all times and at any time / but especially with her. annette, who’s alight and glowing and leaking light and luminous in the face of the sun about to set. has she always been this way? even back then? ❝ if you hadn’t intervened, i likely would have sustained an injury. ❞
a pause, before she squeezes him briefly, fingers firm along his bones. ❝ you’re welcome. just ———— listen to yourself for once and keep a look out. ❞
❝ i will, ❞ her voice in his head as quieted itself / as if in deference to the reality / as if knowing that she’s all the better to listen to properly and fully and with his absolute attention. looking at her. gazing at her / the fall of her hair around her face / and the furrow of her brow / and the set of her mouth / the blood on her cheek.
he wants to wipe it away.
he doesn’t. for now. for now.
@srcellerie // my mind is an echo chamber for you , for you —— touch.
annaxmalina
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
2087
jbbartram-illu
yousharknotpass
