Phainon remembering you in those sunny days of peaceful skies. Remembering you and your dreams, your realizations. And remembering you in your very last moments.
Warnings: Blood, death, body mutilation, stabbing, fires, violence
They say peaceful days are like breezes, carrying the scent of wheat fields across the land.
Thats what you smelled like to him. Those peaceful days of lying in the sun, laughing and rolling around in the fields. He could hear the chime of your voice, every sweet word that fell from your lips. Your chest rising and falling from gasping breaths of mirth. The joy on your face lighting the land.
Khaslana remembers you dearly. You held a special place in his broken, barren heart. He remembers the sound of your lips forming his name, your eyes boring into his as if you could see his soul. Some days it felt like you could, taking him apart piece by piece and putting them in the palm of your hands to show him.
He remembers the days he spent by your side, swinging wooden swords against each other, grunting and screaming loudly to see who could win against the other. You would overpower him most days. Other days, he would pin you down and tug at your cheeks. You swatted at him, always, and kicked him before he could do anything else.
“I want a rematch!” You would demand on the days you would loose. Brows furrowed with irritation, clearly not satisfied with the outcome.
“Ha! I knew you couldn’t beat me!” You would say on the days you would win. A haughty expression on your face paired with a gleeful gum-filled smile.
He remembers your smile. How proud you would be of yourself during your playful spars.
He remembers those days when the sun would beam behind you, bathing you in its golden light.
You looked like a bright gleaming star in those days, dazzling so vividly he would be blinded. Blinded by your shine, blue eyes shifting to a yellow hue and then back once more.
He remembers the days he’d find you sitting quietly on the dock, gazing over at the horizon and the ship that was barely visible in the distance. You would always stare at it, as if longing to be on those wooden floorboards and sail the seas far beyond.
“One day,” you had told him when he sat beside you, kicking at the water and wetting his sandals, “I’ll sail those waters. I’ll see what’s beyond this place.” You sounded so convinced, so determined, he couldn’t help but believe you.
Yet he dared to ask, “Why?”
You didn’t face him. Didn’t even blink from that ship that never seemed to move. “There has to be more out there, in the distance. If I had a ship, I could see it for myself. What’s beyond.”
At the time, he never even had the thought to leave. He thought himself as the protector of his home, defending it with his life. Yet, he could not fathom that you’d want to leave this peaceful place. Where wheat fields drifted in the breeze and the sun descended down onto the tranquil land.
Yet he knew that you had desire for more than this place. It was much too small for a soul like yours, the one that yearned to leave, to travel, to see far and wide beyond what this place had.
He remembers growing up with you, sparring with you when the laugher died down little by little. Walking with you when the gleam in your eye sharpened from childish, naive fantasies into something unflinching.
He remembers your ever furrowed brows when you tried to leave, merchants and traders saying it was too dangerous. You questioned them, wondering what could ever block you from leaving. They gave you the same answer, over and over again.
“The world is a gargantuan sandbox game, you know,” They would say. Every one of them, word for word, “Within a lifetime of one person, they can only involve themselves in one trillionth of this known universe.”
And it would never satisfy you.
He remembers sitting back at those same docks when you were children, now older, stronger, more aware of the world around them.
He remembers you telling him with narrowed eyes at that familiar ship, “It never moves from its place. It stays there. Waiting. No gusts to push it forward, no anchor to keep it there.” You would always shake your head, “My father says I’m imagining it, but I know.”
You knew something that he never considered before. He had never dared to think about it before. The ship that never moved from its place in the sea. Who would be manning such a thing? Who would be traveling so far?
He remembers you noticing those little things. Day by day, when neither of you could go to certain areas. When your town seemed to be smaller than you remember. When trees would be placed in such a way that you could never see past them. When the path would disappear from what you could see, yet it was much to close for a path to end.
When the doors would refuse to open, rooms locked much too tightly for anyone to get in. When the water would seem to retreat away, and people from the town would warn you not to jump in.
He remembers your wary face. He remembers talking with the small fairies, chatting and laughing about mundane topics and dreams.
But you would talk about the world beyond. Always. Beyond what this town could hold.
Because you knew, deep down, that something was wrong.
Yet, he remembers the black tide flooding in like a tsunami. When the black and red crystals covered everything, destroyed everything in its path. He remembers the screams, the fighting, the shouts and the blood.
He remembers when his father stood before the monsters, broken sword in hand, standing in front of him with the stance of a warrior. Even in his last moments, his father had made sure to protect him. Yet he could turn, hear his mother’s deathly, bloodcurdling screams as she was torn. Flesh from muscle, muscle from bone, bone from skeleton until she was nothing more than a mangled, bloody mess.
He remembers escaping with tears, coming across the hunter clutching his son close, the two lifeless on the ground. He remembers hearing children’s screeches of terror as the school burned, as a beam fell onto one of the beloved teachers, crushing her spine, leaving her immobile until the licks of the flame consumed her body.
He remembers the people running and screaming for help, for some divine being to save them. He remembers monsters tearing through ligaments and bones as if they were nothing more than melted butter. He remembers creatures multiplying from limbs and bloodied, unrecognizable bodies.
And he remembers you, his beloved, as you fought against those dastardly corrupted creatures with all your might. When you fought and fought as if you had another day.
He remembers his shaking hands as you glanced to him with those eyes. Those eyes that seemed to flash back to simpler days in simpler times.
“I want to find that beyond.” You would say.
There were no other words, he remembers as a creatures torn teeth through your flesh. Through your legs so you were unable to run, through your spine so you could not move, through your arm so you could not fight, and through your head so you could not think.
It was not a fast death, he remembers because he saw your eyes. Those eyes that cried blood and a stubborn determination as you lied in a pile on the ground. Those eyes that met his and seemed to say, “Fight. Keep fighting. Do not let those flames burn out. Do not snuff them, do not kneel. Fight. Burn like the sun that is set to die.”
You did not say that, not when your jaw hung against your ear, torn and cracked. But he heard you all the same.
So, he remembers lifting his sword to cut down every creature in his path.
He remembers promising you to find that great beyond.
He remembers steeling himself to be the ever burning sun that would one day never see the dawn.
And he remembers that he would never again smell those peaceful days like wheat fields in the ever dazzling sun.
But he would feel it on those nights in the city, when it is quiet, and he would look up at the stars and see you twinkling brightly. As you would do so forever. Twinkling as that burning sun had, the light still shining even with its inevitable death.
Finally, you can see the beyond.
A/N: WTF HOW TF DID I WRITE THIS WHAT guys don’t ask me what just possessed me cause I don’t even know bro how did I do this
