Aurum
Written for the Fractured Fairy Tales zine. (Still available until the end of March!)
Please take a look at the beautiful accompanying art by ryethe as well <3
Northern wind swipes across the land. It ripples the surface, moves pebbles both ice and stone, water waving oh so gently, as if the lake before him longs to be a sea.
To be moon-bound. It stings against the white of his skin, it guides away the warmth of his breath. Yet, he cannot retract his hands from the salt of the air, from the sight of the water. Hands, laid bare for hours upon his lap. Hands, brittle-nailed fingertips bitten blue. Hands, gifted by the Gods.
Blessed. Cursed. Forlorn, he smiles, no longer knowing which one to pick. Northern wind swipes across the land, ripples the water and moves both ice and stone-
Until he can’t feel its cold sting no more. “I…”
...
..
.
Sorrow finds him when he’s young. It catches him for but an instant, through a woman’s longing stare at a lonely daffodil, surrounded by nothing but the birth of spring. Its remnants in her eyes wilt away underneath a hopeful smile, soft, like the blossom-pink of her hair. “Life is so very fragile, my child.” Violet only blinks. Contemplates. Watches her walk away.
Stills-
The daffodil droops on its stalk.
As he grows, it encounters him more and more often.
In the lonely frown of a classmate, In the tears of a chaffed-open knee, In the words, spit like venom between adult’s mouths, In pain, disappointment, fury. He shrugs it off as easily as he drinks it in, the crippling feeling not as arduous before him as it feeds within others, finds that, in his youthful stubbornness, the light of a mere smile sometimes radiates stronger than any word, than any false promise. “Tomorrow, things will be the same as always,” he simply says, the curl on his lips tugging on those of his little brother’s, the shake in those big eyes dying down even as words coated in spit and fire continue to seep through the floor beneath.
It’s enough.
There comes a day when it isn’t. A day where the sun fails to blink through the carpet of clouds and not a single songbird’s melody reaches him. The coffin sinks into the earth before his feet. Small fingers wrapped around his own. Priest’s lips parting and speaking holy words of deliverance, salvation, of light… It’s an entirely different kind of sorrow, Fyodor thinks.
Soon enough, green turns to gold, once water-filled veins crumpling underneath the soles of his feet as autumn arrives to claim its toll. And he swears, with every new visit it brings, with every passing, every rip of a dying leaf from its shrivelled stem- the wind thugs at him, at something within him that bit more easily. At something, wanting to wrench loose. More and more and more- “How do people end up like that?” a voice besides him starts, followed by a curious hum birthed from yet another’s throat. The question isn’t meant for him in particular, but his eyes stray upon the figure across the street anyway, a sore image, huddled up in nothing but tattered cloth. “Who knows…” “Just be very unlucky, I guess?” Empty replies. Not that he expected much else from his classmates whom disengage from the topic as soon as the bus arrives, all racing straight to the back lest the best spots be taken… It drives off, leaving him rattled with all the possible answers he could come up with, the question still lingering in his mind as he wonders…
One day, will it be different?
One day, will it change? Fyodor stares into a city sorrow-built.
It stares right back into him.
And yet, one day, as time continues to tick forwards and seasons pass him by… One day, it makes way for something else. “Come here you little shit!” A sharp sound reverberates throughout the dense network of alleyways, metallic and far heavier than the voices mixed in with its echoes. “You’re just going to scare it off like this…” “Shut up.” Three kids, not much older than himself, stand near an old garbage container, one of them holding up something akin to an old walking stick that he’s sure doesn’t belong to them. A hiss comes from above their heads, a clawed paw reaching out to flick at the stick before a distressed cry follows. A warning. A plea. They don’t notice him until he speaks, until he’s there almost right next to them. “Preying upon those weaker than you…” They turn to him in surprise, almost staggering- as if they’d just seen a ghost. “How typical.” “The hell did you just say?” comes the stick-wielder’s dented response, a different kind of fury settling in his eyes than the one contained in his own. He doesn’t back off when the other, confident and broad, steps forwards, invades far too close, grabs him roughly by the hem of his coat.
Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak a single word. Doesn’t need to. “Dude…his pin…” another speaks up and the eyes before him consequentially flicker to the gleaming gold and silver on his chest, a token of his descendance. Ever so slightly, the grip on his coat falters.
“Let’s just leave it man, it’s not worth it,” yet another calls. Fear, a spider that crawls over his voice. And despite his better judgment, the smirk edges unto his lips, high purely on control, for he knows the other has no choice but to let him go and leave things be. The price for messing with a noble is one nobody wants to pay, after all. So all he receives is a flinch, a somewhat coarse release of his coat bordering on a push, and a positively fuming glare pointed his way before the other turns and leaves, even dropping the stick in the process. He stands there as he watches them go, lips smoothing back into a thin line, adrenaline falling away in his veins… When he glances up at where the cat was before, his eyes find nothing but a wisp of stray furs. So he smiles, at nothing in particular, only to turn and leave. “Why did you help me, human?” It hits him out of thin air, rising, resonating around him, blowing wide his eyes, near-stumbling his feet- He stills.
There, the cat sits, black and fire-patched fur dancing upon brilliant white. “Why, like all the others, did you not just ignore it?” Once again, it speaks, yet its mouth does not move as the words wisp around him, swerving into him from all sides. Still, he dares to calm his jittered breath as those big eyes search his own.
Curious. Analysing. “Because it was wrong,” comes his answer, doubtless like falling rain.
A simple truth. The cat only blinks at him slowly, crescent moons thinning. “To show you my gratitude, I will grant you a gift.” Wielding a thousand voices, the words shatter through him and reality alike, every echo sucking away every colour, every shape, until there’s nothing left but him and the big, brilliant brown eyes peering up from below. “A gift?” It nods, slit pupils disappearing again for but a moment. “Upon the touch of your finger, you shall deliver this gift upon the Earth.” Dark eyes stare into him like he is a story, an open book. As if they can see his past, his present, everything that’s yet to come. “It can be anything you wish for.”
Anything… He breaks loose from the gaze before him, only to stare at the depth of the mists. In it, he sees the loving smiles of his family, the cheery grins of his classmates, the helplessness of an old man stumbling in the middle of the street, the starving gaze of the homeless, the layers of greed exchanged through blackened fingers… It all traces out to the same end. Unsmiling, he understands, lays his eyes to rest at the palms of his open hands as a voice whispers to him in the solitary of his mind.
One day, will it change? He knows what he needs to do. The violet in his eyes hardens as it meets the warm timbers before him once more, his words laced with certainty on his lips, right before the world fades to black. “I wish for-
…
..
.
Just for a moment, as he stirs from deep sleep, his brother’s wake-up call coming from beyond the door like any other morning as quick feet jumble down the stairs and into the kitchen for breakfast, Fyodor thinks it was all just a dream. It almost makes him want to laugh out loud, almost, right until the doves on his windowsill flutter off by the smallest twitch of his fingers.
They never do. And so, that very same evening, he awakens,
stretched-out fingertip hovering over the stilled body beneath, over nothing but a heap of flesh and bones that had simply ceased to function... Shuddering, his breath evaporates into the frost of stale air. His eyes, stuck to the sight before him, ever-quivering. There’s no mistaking that the man was a thief, he had witnessed it so first-hand, being quite the dusk-lurker himself. If only to observe, to validate humanity’s cruel nature. The man before him had no mercy, no regard for life as long as he could take whatever he wanted.
So why should he treat him any differently? The quiver in his eyes steadies, all doubt and remorse hardening into pure, rebirthed resolve. “I wish for the touch of death.” He smiles as he stares into the city before him, equally tied.
This is only the beginning.
He starts out small,
merely scavenging the maze of the underground like the inner walls of a house, mapping, observing, sniffing out sinner’s blood from the shadows. It doesn't take him that long however, to actually unravel his claws and strike- making no distinction between those renowned for their crimes and those pulling the puppet strings, hands coated just as red. He will paint them white. With every new moon, another target hits the floor. Yet by the time he’s made a name for himself his family is none the wiser of his nightly escapades. The dream-like effect sticks to him every morning, right until white-speckled wings flutter up and away from his windowsill and the housecat’s hiss reaches him from across the kitchen table as he calmly eats his breakfast. “So cranky lately,” his mother comments though doesn’t think anything more of it. She turns to him again about seeing a doctor for his hands. He only nods, knowing she won’t continue on the subject anyway as she prepares for another long day of work. His brother is not that easily sated, the lie Fyodor had coaxed up about accidentally burning his hands against the hot hearthstone of their fireplace all the more festering the worry in his voice. “Do they still hurt?” he asks, eyes bleeding with that innocence Fyodor himself can never attain again. He only nods, bandaged fingers curling into the cloth on his lap. “It’s going to for a long while...” It’s not exactly a lie, but that doesn’t lessen the sourness of its taste.
A necessary evil.
Soon enough, rumours are circling through the halls of his school, the mysterious deaths striking the city a subject on nearly every tongue he passes, newspapers and magazines marked with his actions plied open to dozens of curious eyes. NO CRIMINAL IS SAFE- is what he catches by a glance and it almost makes him chuckle, if not for the truth of the media’s statement. The vile fear him while the virtuous praise him. But Fyodor knows that even with the support of the common folk, the law will not turn a blind eye to his methods… Gloved hands dig further into the warm confinement of wool as he feels something unfurl in in his bones, biding, like rosebuds awaiting spring. Another smirk edges itself upon his lips. It’s time to step up the game.
And as summer and ice rake through the land, inevitable and merciless, year after year after year- he is never far behind. Every step, calculated, careful, but not entirely absent of flaw. Sometimes, he still catches glimpses- Of horses’ wails, heavy hooves rampaging through both wood, steel and flesh as a carriage runs rampant throughout the streets, only because he was on the outer end of it.
Of the detective’s gun staring him down, long hair fluttering behind an idealistic mind reflecting his own, spouting at him how wrong, how disturbed his sense of justice is.
Of innocent blood spilled by his hands, as well as those he owns, of snapped puppet strings, of unforeseen slip-ups.
Of life, death and everything in between. “Brother, look!” The familiar call sucks him back into the present, effectively cutting still all thoughts. He looks up to see his little brother run excitedly to the fence bordering the forest road, to the pack of deer staring back at them from the center of the meadow.
Yet, they’ll never come closer. It’s almost as if with every layer of youth that melts away from his skin, the toxicity of what lies underneath festers, spreading death like it’s a disease instead of deliverance. “Come on,” he coaxes gently, smile slipping over his lips as smaller feet run up behind him again, passing him by just as quickly. He watches the other scavenge, bright grin stretched across his face as he points out whatever new he spies around the snow-carpeted path. It seems so unreal. Like he’s walking inside of a dream he’s not supposed to have. Eyes untracking, he thinks back to the city he had changed- the lives he had changed. Crime-rates dropped to the bottom, corruption signalised and dealt with, the right pawns shifted into the right places…
An example to the world. He takes a breath, the snow crunching underneath his feet a sound far too nostalgic. It hadn’t been easy at moments, to find the right pieces to play with, to buy, be it with simple greed or cold-blooded manipulation, just so he could focus on the big guns whilst they took care of the fodder. Adding log after log upon the funeral pyre, lighting up his path, that long black and white-tiled lane ahead of him. Yet… There’s so much more to come. Suddenly, feet are circling around him, impatient and curious. On pure instinct, his hands delve deeper into the thick pockets of his coat as he regards the mischievous smile on his brother’s face. “So…what did you get me for Christmas?” Inwardly, he gives a laugh, eyebrows raising up to the heavens. “Not much of a surprise if I tell you, is it?” The other scoffs, hopping off to the side of the road to stare at nothing in particular. “You never even drop a hint,” comes the complaint and he can’t do anything but chuckle this time, knowing it’s true, almost fails to catch himself from stopping to pet the other on the head, a habit so drilled into his bones from when they were younger- it catches him off guard. That feeling- that yearn for warmth. Instantly, he pushes it away, again, again, and again.
For thinking about it will earn him nothing... He simply walks on and soon, small feet follow again, never noticing the worried frown on the other’s face. Peering upward to a sky, grey and stacked to the brim, he tries to distract himself from his previous thoughts- turns back to the flutter of pages in his head, all the steps he still has to undertake, the obstacles he still has to overcome. A list, never-ending. A murder flutters through the white peaks of pine and violet wanders back to the small form up ahead, jumping up and down in the thick, unblemished snow, the grin now aimed at him just as bright but so, so much more warm.
Golden. And it’s a terrible ache- to think about the times when they would huddle up on the couch by the fire for sleep to take them, where thumb-fights and forehead-poked goodbyes were all just a normality, of touch. I cannot stay here, he thinks, the repeated thought coated in worry, in sorrow, in fear- There’s a sound, birthed from his next step, far from the simple crunch of snow and the gentle jitter of laughter up ahead. He never even noticed they strayed off the path. Eyes wide and heart stilled, he stares at the crackle of ice underneath his foot. And then, everything is but a blur. First comes a shout, a name drifting over the stretch of a frozen lake, echo overcome by the deafening shift, the break that follows. Hands, shooting out of their illusionary restraints, reaching, grasping, feeling.
A thousand knives shoving into his skin.
Relief is a wave, far different from the bitter sting of ice, yet it rips through flesh and bone all the same, for he’s got him, he’s got him, he’s got him, he’s got him, he’s- The feeling is strange, overbearing, right there between the crease of a glove and thick, woollen cloth. -gone. Small fingers, clasped around his naked wrist. “Life is so very fragile, my child.” That day, the light dims in his heart.
That day, the reaper disappears from the city.
Never to return.
…
..
.
Northern wind swipes across the land, ripples the surface, moves pebbles both ice and stone, water waving oh so gently-
But his hands, his hands are all he sees. “Would you like me to take it away?” Its words whisper into him, whiskers like shards of pure white. Divine. Merciful. “Without reason, without a light, how will you move forwards?”
Light, his mind mimics, a concept too far too grasp. Right until the moment he’d lost it. Right until he had sniffed it out with his own two hands. “I…” “It’s interesting, isn’t it?” The voice comes unbidden and for once, Fyodor leaves the shock on his face unveiled in its wake. “How it spreads death so easily, denying any form of life…” He only stares at the man. At the loose, black sleeves dangling in the wind. At the white cloth wrapped thinly around skin. At an empty eye, peering into an equally empty lake.
At salt and water. “Death…” his lips repeat thoughtlessly, gaze once more turning to the waves before him. Maybe… “Is that not why you’re here?” The man is staring at him now too, the words flowing from his mouth holding more certainty than actual wonder. Like he’s an open book.
And then, silence.
The slither of wind over salt-dried stone.
Darkness staring into darkness. It holds him down as the question repeats itself in his mind, beats back and forth against glass walls. His head an empty cathedral. His hands open heavens. “Maybe…” Fyodor’s lips part, violet breaks away from pitch black. “It is because I’m not that different from this place.” Because just like the salt quenches the life from the lake, his hands suck away any and all they dare to touch… He thinks back to the day he wished for this, to the day he moulded his future in a mere second, the path he’s walking down framed at all edges, like a painting not yet ready, but soon to be. What colour would the ridges be… “Hm,” the man hums, stepping closer before gingerly sitting down next to him, the large, salt-stricken rock no doubt going to stain the black of his coat. “Perhaps, we are alike then.” It was the strangest thing, for he doesn’t know this man at all, and yet, within those dark pools drinking him in, he meets something he never expected to find in his entire life.
Understanding.
Still…
“No.” Fyodor just says, nothing but sorrow in his voice.
“You are nothing like me.”
You cannot be. A scoff then, and Fyodor can’t really hide his surprise at the smile the other shoots him like there’s no truth to it at all.
Disarming. “Maybe not,” the other speaks, all carefree, unconvinced- It sends him dizzy, makes him fail to notice that curious gaze stray downwards. Unyielding, the words of a God invade his mind once more, echoing in his head like mixed prayers. A wire waiting to snap. Jittering on and on and on like a symphony composed of a thousand songbirds that fly to and fro, to and fro, to and fro-
And then his lungs forget how to draw in air,
his eyes darting down to the hand covering his own.
Touching him.
No, the thought is instant, a knife at both his mind and throat.
No, no, no, no- “But you can’t hurt me.” The words shatter him, gently, like the gaze pointed down at his hands. Warm. Breathing. Alive.
“For I am…”
The man looks at him and Fyodor drinks in his sorrow like gold in the flame of fire.
“No longer human.”
Light.
Northern wind swipes across the land, ripples the water, moves both ice and stone…
But Fyodor only smiles as it sears passed his cheeks.
I think I’ve found it.