Elktaur/Reader/Woman PT. 6
You awoke to laying on your couch, shaking and pale, stricken with sweat as a blanket was softly laid over you and some food that went and got cold sat on your coffee table while a note was gently folded and left behind next to it. Your body’s quakes and shakes weren’t helping the nerves, hoping it was all a dream and maybe it was just the kelptaur that warped your mind and maybe it was just Elktaur that came and saved you. Yet you knew, what with your sprained ankle and the dirty hoof prints on the ground on par with a set of human boot prints, he must have done something terrible. You slowly edge yourself off the couch, making sure that no one was home with you before you jumped off the couch and grabbed the note. You hesitated of course, you knew that if you unfolded it then it would lead to something you didn’t want to think about. You didn’t want to think that you had a part in making Elktaur tear himself apart after telling him to not do it, you knew you did all you could to convince him otherwise to solve his problem in a simple way. Not whatever this was! You quiver and shake, holding the paper close to you and feel the sting of tears collect around the rim of your eyes before standing up and began your long walk to his home, this situation was horrid to think about but- it brought to mind his question the last time you saw him. Would you love him as he is? A centaur? Your face flushed red from both frustration and at the mere thought of loving him like he proposed, you still loved the princess but you now cared for him. How would you even deal with that and then this? Your heart and mind ached for the answers while you trudged onward, letting your twisted ankle slink against the ground while you walked the path down the cobblestones, down the docks, down the town to the very outskirts and felt drowsiness cling tightly to you. Again, the scarce passerby and their eyes lingered wearily on you or ignored you like clockwork. It felt like a loop, to go through this again, and now you’d break it by finding Elktaur to confront and convince him not to split himself apart like he had done. You reached his front door soon enough, knuckles connecting on the door to knock yet it only creaked open and you felt unease thrum through your veins. The rutabagataur was nowhere to be seen and neither was the elktaur, meaning both were somewhere else, you grit your teeth while questioning whether it was right or wrong to go snooping around just to make sure nothing shady happened with the elktaur but you.. You pinch the bridge of your nose, “Elktaur? Are you home? I need to talk to you,” you called out, recalling how you brought shortbread sandwich cookies and excitedly showed them off to his rutabagataur, the little memories of being here were brought back to you. You had even spent the night, slept in the same bed as him after you both battled over the couch so the other could sleep on the bed. You stumble into his home, grimacing at the pain in your ankle but you continue on anyway without a fret for the injury. You were about to begin your search on what he could be hiding from you but the clutter of hooves and rustle of clothes alert you to the approaching elktaur who had likely just woke up. You suddenly dip into a hiding spot by the kitchen, overhearing and seeing him head toward the door and then the confused look around, “I thought… Oh, who am I kidding? She wouldn’t want to see me again.. Not after…” He bit his tongue, hitting his palm against his head before going to the door and closing it with a lock, “Pretending and preposterous,” he seethed, “And dumb.” Elktaur began to his workshop after slipping on a tawny brown cloak over his shoulders, not noticing you were inside yet to which gave you the chance to find out more than what he’d likely tell you. He began to sing, arms spread out as he ran his hands through his pretty locks of ebony hair, “How did I live? Was I kind enough and good enough?”
Elktaur’s voice was soft and smooth, questioning whether this life he lived was good enough and whether it was even worth living this life anymore. This life of a centaur who would never be seen as anything but, a stupid centaur with terrible human and stench. You feel your heart break as he sang, approaching one of his work benches and seeing him circle a desk where his sawed off horns lay made you tense yet again, “Did I love enough?” He let his fingers trace the base and then the branched out antlers with an unspeakable emotion? “Did I ever look up and see the moon and the stars and the sky?” His eyes then looked back to something completely shroud in a blanket, turning his body toward it and gripped his arms with his head dipped down, “Oh, why have I been sleeping? They say we are asleep until we fall in love,” slowly his hand climbed up to his chest and squeezed his half buttoned vest with a scoff. “We are children of dust and ashes but when we fall in love we wake up and we are a god and angels weep,” he shook and quaked, bending to grab the blanket and drank in the sight of his machine and the Rift Key stuck in it, you remember the pieces as what Princess described to you once when you asked about what she and him were doing outside, you felt your throat dry upon realizing what this meant. He really did pull himself apart and now he put himself back together? But for what? “But if I die here tonight, I die in my sleep,” he growled out, slamming his fist against the wall in frustration and irritation, the other hand ran through his thick hair while shaking his head furiously; “All of my life I spent searching the words of poets and saints and prophets and kings!” He turned on his hind legs, hoisting the machine onto a platform to wheel it out, “Now at the end all I know that I've learned is that all that I know is I don't know a thing!” He practically yelled out, knowing no one else was around because it was finally the time to finish the job and ensure that he’d do this for you. “So easy to close off, place the blame outside!” His arm thrusted out, waving off the consequences he knew would happen if he went on with this decision, “Hiding in my room at night, so terrified! All the things I could've been,” he approached the rippling green gate of the Rift and you silently followed him out with a limp in your step. You wanted to stop him but the words died in your throat as his aggression grew, “But I never had the nerve! Life and love, I don't deserve!” You swore, despite standing behind him, that tears fell from his eyes as his hooves heavily thumped against the cobblestone and felt nothing short of pity for him, “So alright! Alright! I've had my time, close my eyes!” He got to the rift gate, gripping the handle in vice grip with a choked out sob, he was ready for this life to end to bring about a new one that would live happier so he could be at peace, “Let the death bells chime! Bury me in burgundy, I just don't care!” He let go of the handle, backing up enough with fear and yet he knew, Elktaur thought he knew what he had to do, you jumped out now thinking it was time for you to make your appearance known. You called out to him, “Elktaur! Wait!” You exclaim in shock and pity, seeing him turn back to see you was like hellfire burning through you. He was pitiful, tears and that look of hopelessness, “Nothing's left, I looked everywhere!” He lowered his head before looking back to the Rift, “Is this how I die? Was there ever any other way my life could be?” He sang softly as he approached the machine and the Rift gate, beginning to take those final steps to become the split being his mind already decided to be, “Is this how I die? Such a slough of feelings inside of me..”
You manage to catch up to him, catching his hand in yours to pull him back, “But then why are you screaming? Why are you shaking?” He only proves your point more by his body shaking violently, looking back at you to abandon the machine and cling to you without recollection of your injury, whether it was an illusion or reality he longed to have your comfort in a moment like this, “Oh god, was there something that I missed?” His body outweighs yours, causing you both to fall to the floor with his arms protecting the back of your head so you don’t feel much of the tumble down. His body is on top of you, front legs bent all the way for him to bend down and hind legs bent but held his lower body up to not squish you against him. He had you close to him, wanting nothing more than to kiss you like this and ask why you couldn’t just take the human half of him because he did it for you. He tore himself apart for you, so why did you have too… Why did you have to ask for him? He crafted the perfect human for you, General, who was meant to be your husband or at least someone you could take seriously. Someone who could take care of you and you rejected him, “Did I squander my divinity?” Splotches of tears met your cheek, dripping down to the side of your face, you let your arms circle around his shoulders and felt the need to reassure him again, “Happiness was within you the whole time.” You rub his arm, the same arm he’d grab whenever feeling nervous, awkward, or insecure, you knew how he felt and now you couldn’t let him go knowing what he would try. You didn’t even care about how you laid flat against the uncomfortable cobblestone with Elktaur just above you and crying. He was breaking down in your arms and kept trying to tell you, “I’m not worth it, I’m not worth enough to be held in your arms, I don’t even deserve you… I’m just a centaur.” He gently pulled his arms out from behind your head, sitting up and he reminded you of the painting you had made by the lake. Yet, he was kneeling in front of you and his arms hung heavy by his side while tears streaked down his face in bulbous clumps, littering against the ground and his hand that tried to wipe them away. The pretty starlight that outlined his body, the sparks of stars and the glow of the Rift made him glow in a way you didn’t see until now. His eyes widened, looking down at you again, “But- but how did you know how to find me? I made sure that no one was around when I came here..” His voice cracked, feeling the rush of emotion that surged through him, the elktaur didn’t want you here to see him like this. He was in such agonizing pain and you to be here only made him feel ruined. He knew you would pass word of the elktaur that tore himself apart to become human and for what? For a moment you wondered the reason yourself, he had done this when all he could’ve done was just accept that you only saw him as a friend but now- now you knew you saw him and the princess as more than just ‘friends’. You reached out your hand to his cheek, watching him tilt his head to press a kiss to the palm of your hand before leaning away to look at you. He didn’t fully pull away or treat himself lesser than, he just stared at you in a way that he never got the time too what with avoiding you and always running away from you. He bowed his head, letting you see the stumps where his antlers had since regrown, then he stood up on his four legs while approaching his machine causing you to stand up and try to pull him back from it. He took the Rift Key from the machine, letting you see it by raising it up, “With this key, the Rift is now secure,” he squeezed it tighter in his hand, beginning to cross into the Rift with a newfound determination to become someone you would love. “Yet, what difference—“ you call out, scrambling to your feet in surprise and trying to reach out and snap him out of these delusions. He looked over his shoulder to you,
“If I cannot be with you?”
Elktaur sighed before allowing his body to submerge into the Rift and the plane between realms. You didn’t hesitate to follow through the Rift to stop him, “But there’s more power here than even I know!” You yelled, feeling a slight sickness overcome you from the Rift gate already in the fritz, trying to grab his arm but he shrugged you off urgently, “And surely there must be!” Elktaur forced the key back into the machine to cipher it’s magic and use it to split him, “To use this magic to turn myself into someone you can see!” He looked back to you, gesturing to you with his arm swinging out and that soft look in his eyes that only made you cringe at how he was so desperate to be yours but not as he was. He blamed ‘not being able to cope as being just a friend’ on his centaur body, he thought if he was a human you would love him. Upon seeing you didn’t make another move toward him, you were petrified snd unable to coherently think because of the absurdity of the situation, “Draw out the beast,” he pulled down the hood of his cloak, arms wrapped around himself before slowly flipping a few switches and heard the whirring of the machine with sparks of green lighting up the air and caused the plane in the Rift to become somewhat unstable. “Part of me,” he stepped around to the front of the machine, arms stretched out and felt queasy to rip himself apart again. “Let it find a way of its own!” His eyes squeezed shut, preparing himself for the burn of his body of fission. He was going to become perfect for you, one way or another.
“My body can no longer be its home!”
Seeing a beam of green launch at him, you immediately threw yourself to the machine- diverting the charge to the emptiness of the Rift, flipping the switches opposite to turn it off and heaved out a heavy pant. You wouldn’t let him, nope- no way. You lurch to a stand, wincing at putting weight on your ankle, you could see the betrayed and yet shocked look in his eyes. Elktaur had muttered your name, slowly backing away from you, “Why? Why would you do that?! It was going to give the human half that I can’t give!” He shouted, hitting his thumb against his chest with a shake of his head and couldn’t begin to describe how selfishly stupid your attempt to save him was. “I said I would rather you as you are than you being human! I care about you, you idiot! Why is it so hard for you to understand that?!” You retorted loudly, “Even as you are, you are the other half I have been searching for,” he became tense, stricken with the guilt of his actions because of how he made you feel. You must have felt responsible for his stupidity, you probably were tired of dealing with him and his self-sabotaging fantasies of being ‘human’ without considering the damages it would cause you and everyone else. How would he even explain his disappearance? Elktaur was a pillar of the community that created and managed the Rift, if he suddenly disappeared there would be chaos. His lips curled to a frown, arms crossing against his chest to hold himself and felt broken over doing this when he was positive you weren’t there to see or listening to you. The elktaur looked down while you berated him, “You’re my moon, my stars, my darling and you are dear to me! I know, I said I see you as only a friend but,” he looked back up to see your hands reaching out to take his hands and leave the machine behind in thought and a literal sense, “I find that I contradicted myself.”
His poor little heart fluttered, “But, I’m not.. I’m not a human, our relationship would be taboo,” of course he’d consider that over all else, he didn’t want you to be ridiculed for being with him. Yet, what you said next made him recoil- “Yes well, I think being with the princess as well will make people second guess saying anything to you or about you.” The sparks of hope in his eyes died out, of course the only way a human would be with him is if they were with another human too, he wasn’t good enough. He was never going to be good enough, you were toying with him and his heart at these ridiculous notions. Noticing his apprehension, you still aimed to reassure him, “I love both of you, you’re still important to me..” He sighed, turning his head away and then his body from you, the elktaur didn’t take well to your idea, “Just be with her, I know you’re only trying to say this because you have some sort of savior complex, well guess what?” His voice lowered, approaching his machine to lift it back up onto the wheeled platform, “I’m giving you the freedom to pick her instead.” With that, he just left you there.
