"I can’t even look at you."
Put one of these in my askbox to see how my Muse reacts.
Michael grinned, the look a little lopsided. He must have looked unhinged - and he was, to a point. With a soft chuckle, Michael yanked his sword out of the dead man’s body with a quick and neat slice, the diamond blade covered in blood just like Michael’s clothing, and just like Michael’s face. But he didn’t seem to mind it, didn’t even seem to notice it at all, really, as he focused instead on the Queen.
❝But you are.❞ He pointed out, raising an eyebrow and smirking. ❝You are looking at me.❞ With a snort, Michael rolled his shoulders, standing up a little straighter. ❝What’s wrong, Aylen? It’s just a kill. I’ve killed plenty of men before, you have, too. We all have. It’s nothing new.❞ And as if to emphasize his point, Michael drove his sword back into the body, ripping it straight down the already open middle and dragging it through muscle and flesh. ❝The fucker’s dead, he doesn’t give a shit. He can’t give a shit anymore, can you, buddy?❞ Michael crooned at the dead body, grinning, and bit back a snicker when there was no reply. ❝Yeah, no, I don’t think he minds. So why do you?❞
He didn’t get why Aylen couldn’t look at him.
Michael frowned down at the mutilated man, whose body was torn and decimated beyond repair and recognition. He stared down at the man and his wounds and he felt -
Michael felt nothing. He felt no remorse, no disgust, no emotion for what he did, no sympathy for the man that he had tortured without mercy, to death and back again until God had mercy on his soul in the form of Aylen’s head guard. The man had been screaming for several minutes, a blood curling, nightmare inducing sound that left several of the men surrounding Michael (and protecting Aylen) shaken and terrified.
They were terrified of Michael. Of “Mogar”. Of the once King turned traitor, the warrior turned animal, the man who acted more like a wild being than the righteous ruler from before. They were scared shitless of the Queen’s mad dog, and Michael glowered at them from underneath blood soaked curls. Cowards, he thought. Fucking pissing their breeches like babies. If they liked emptying their bowels so much, he would gladly help them. A sword through the gut and ripped upwards would do the job and help them empty their bladder once and for all with no worries for the future.
They all acted like he was some monster, for killing the man. Torturing him slowly and painfully, sure, but he still died in the end.
He didn’t get why Aylen couldn’t look at him.
It could have been worse. He could have killed the man with his bare hands, tore him apart with his fingers and didn’t stop until every part of him that wasn’t explicitly needed or fatally wounding was removed.
It wouldn’t be the first time Michael would have done it, after all.
But Michael looked up at Aylen, his hands clenching into fists before loosening their hold on his sword, and after a few seconds, Michael held his hands up, sword clattering to the ground. He still wore the glower, but there was no malevolence behind it.
He knew why Aylen couldn’t look at him.
Because all of that remorse, all of that disgust and betrayal and revulsion that Michael once would have felt himself but no longer did, Aylen held that in spades. For him.
She saw what he had become - not who. What. Everyone had. Michael, though he had been the only one present for the entire change (other than Ryan, but he was pushing daisies right now, and had been for a solid year), hadn’t noticed. He didn’t see the shift in who he was becoming until it was too late to turn back, and by then. Well, by then, Michael didn’t care anymore.
Aylen couldn’t look at him because Michael wasn’t the person she knew from before, and a year ago, Michael would have cared.
A year ago, Michael would have felt the same revulsion at seeing what he had become.
Because a year ago, Michael wouldn’t have betrayed Aylen.
And a year ago, Aylen would have been able to look at him.
(But most importantly, a year ago, Michael would have been able to look at him, himself.)
