from the angsty list “One day, your name won’t burn a hole in my chest anymore.”
This has been sitting since March because I actually don't write angst NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS. I just reblogged that for my whump-friends 😅 But that line goes so hard i had a few different ideas.
This is not canon but a huge what-if where ... what if Rook just got stuck living forever and suffering for it because of all their shenanigans.
Kind of love that.
The Time After
How long had it been? Years, surely. Decades even. The statue was worn, long since care had fallen to the wayside. They had a vague memory of such statues being put up. They all looked heroic, bigger than they should have been. Many still stood in the bigger cities where they were maintained as well as any other public installation. The ones like what was ahead of them now were left to crumble along the Imperial Highway, too far for a routine cleaning.
The Imperium didn't necessarily enjoy that an Elf played the Hero, a foreign entity at that. That left the statues outside of the city to be more accessible, pleasing to the general masses. A helmet covered any distinguising figures. Some small notes might have suggested their identity, but to the average passerby, it was the same as any mage.
There were many ways they expected their story to end. They could have been lost to the Fade, or the many battles that followed at home. They would have preferred to die in a blaze of glory, or fade away from memory completely to live alone with their new family in the Dales.
They did not expect the deals they cut along the way to extend their life, bit by bit. Though, extend might have been generous. They were alive, of course. They thought and breathed and moved in the world around them. Still, their memories faded with time while their body didn't.
They had suffered, a burning vein running just beneath their skin of what could only be described as raw magic. It kept them alive while they watched everyone close to them grow and die. Every time they tapped into it, they lost a bit more of themself. They could barely remember what they lost.
The statues helped with that, in a way. If anything, they would remember what they were called, even if they didn't know who they were anymore. The statue itself could have been anyone.
It could have been anyone.
Crumbling on the statue's etched plaque was the last memory they could hold onto. Sometimes, it would make them hate. Or cry. Or taste the bittersweet memory. Whatever it was, it would still make them feel something.
One day, your name won’t burn a hole in my chest anymore.
They reached out to touch the name a rustle signaled that there would soon be others. In a pop of air and a flutter of feathers, they made haste, leaving the name be for another day.
ROOK.
