Hello and thank you for stopping by my fic, I hope you enjoy it. An extra thank you if you've read any of my previous ones and an extra, extra thank you with sprinkles if you've liked or reviewed them, you excellent example of human existence!
Thanks again,
Freckles
Salt in tears
And salt in wounds
And salt in the greyish sea
That one soul sailed
Away from another,
To hide behind the distance in between
…
They found a cooling bed,
An empty room,
And both at once they knew
They had suspected all along
What the missing one would do
…
But our Fugitive
All mired in salt,
Took away more than his own heart
He left behind an Empty Man
Who, when looking at those stark four walls,
Fell, resolutely, apart
…
The Empty Man dreamt
While awake
Of first meetings under forest light,
Of a figure,
Haloed by the misty dew,
All navy-gold against green behind
…
`Hero I have songs for you,
The Goddesses bid you learn them well',
Eyes were kept averted as
Long fingers pulled at slender strings,
Beauty caged in thorns and dust
Taught him how the forest sings
…
He sat, alone, hours after
Rimed with salty sweat,
The contents of his stomach there
Out of sight but not forgotten,
Brought up by the things he'd done
And how he had once been unrotten
…
He closed his eyes and conjured
A figure of navy-gold
Until the shaking of his hands
Became a shaking in his soul
…
Moths will find a flame
And a compass will find the pole,
They found each other fascinating
They found themselves not whole
…
They crept around each other
Never touching but never far,
One half cautious
The other frostbite cold,
With every glance they shared
Addiction fought control
…
The Fugitive stared out
Across the rippling greyish green,
He tried to bundle up the memories
And leave them out at sea
…
But, crawling,
from their darkened corner,
They wrapped him in the clammy heat
Of second meetings painted crimson,
Stained scarlet by his need
…
`Hero, listen well,
I've not time to teach you twice'
He bit his lip
Until he tasted blood
Schooled indifference tripping on the lie
…
He was given a duty, a path,
A service
He was under no illusions,
He could not hope for this
…
He did though
And saw all the things he wanted,
Reflected by shimmer heat,
But he wouldn't take what the Goddesses hadn't offered
He wouldn't let himself be weak
…
Into darker depths
And through fugue-ing heat,
Clutching at heatstroke images
Of navy-gold on green,
The Hero, once more,
Rendered his hands unclean
…
He ached after simple things
A bath, a bed
A rest,
Hands on his,
Sweat salted skin pressed chest to chest
…
He loathed lonely nights,
Wedged,
Miniscule between the earth and sky,
He hated the freezing hours
Sunless, and plagued by even colder scarlet eyes
…
He wanted,
Tripping,
Stumbling,
Falling into places he couldn't name,
He spun into galaxies of navy-gold
And found himself remade
…
Built all anew,
A fledging solar system
With a red giant for a sun,
But what good was this re-forging
Now that he is Empty
And his star burnt out and gone
…
He finds himself standing
In all the places it used to shine
But cannot shake them out of winter
Cannot bring them into light
…
There is little sleep
And fewer dreams
And those he has push him underneath,
Into syrup thick anguish
That trickles to his lungs and denies his right to breath
…
He does not remember well
What happened in between
Sliding beneath the lake
And rising from its surface
Mockingly serene
…
He was dragged, dripping,
Onto a shore,
His body bent and cruelly twisted
His heart had greyed
His soul was spent and he was altogether wasted
…
He shuddered as his lungs hacked up
A mix of hope and water,
Long fingers gently traced his back
`Stay with me, remember what you've fought for'
…
He purred into the touch
He knew that hand
He'd imagined how it would feel,
A little calloused,
Beautifully soft
But, most importantly, real
…
Rain spatter,
Sea spatter,
He can't escape the salt,
The Fugitive made crystalline
By memories
Of a body to exalt
…
He knows what made him do it
He knows it was the fear,
That the Hero gone, lost,
Was so very much more that he could bear
…
A shaking body
Under his shaking hand
A fist sliding into his hair,
He pulled them tighter
Blended them together
They drank each other's air
…
Lying beside him, asleep,
Was the shape of his whole world,
He felt the soft rise and fall
Of breathing next to him
Where his heart was neatly curled
…
He felt his soul soaring,
He'd found all the parts of him that were missing,
But he knows
The Goddesses never meant the Hero to be for him,
He cannot hope for this
This isn't how it goes
…
He cannot hope for this
This isn't how it goes
He isn't meant for this
His soul comes crashing low
…
He leaves behind salt wet patches
And collects his things to go,
Bundles up everything he ever wanted
This is how it goes
…
He wakes up cold
He won't open his eyes,
Doesn't have to to know he's alone,
He'd had everything he'd ever wanted
There's no point in not letting tears flow
…
Why try to forget?
He will not, he will cling to it,
They happened
He felt it
He worshipped it
And, even Empty, he will sing of it
…
He carried on
Green outside but grey within,
He had a duty to uphold,
But he knows himself
He is stronger now
For having felt the fire before the cold
…
He will wait
He will dissolve the hanging clouds
He will chase away the dark
He will do what he needs to set them free,
Make them duty-less
To let their lives finally start
…
His anger is fever bright
Not at himself
Not at the body he craves to have beside him,
At the world
At its sickness
At all the things it has denied him
…
A well, a graveyard
A meeting,
One doesn't look the other cannot look away,
There are tundras between them,
Ice cold fear
And frostbite neither one can stand to brave
…
They have gone full circle
Looping around to where they began,
Exquisitely estranged,
At cross purposes now more than ever
Hoping, wanting, hurting
But helplessly constrained
…
Horror bright
Horror many
Horror soul seepingly deep,
Out of darkness
Into darkness
Every inch of him will weep
…
He watched his Hero crawl
And felt his insides crawl with him,
He was sick of himself
Sick of how much he wanted to give in
…
He was sick of how much
He wanted to be happy
But his happiness was never part of the plan,
They had told him
Since he was boy
He was a thing to be used and no more than that
…
The Empty Man casts his eyes
Out across the tumbling water
Tastes salt mist on his tongue,
If he must choose between
Life in light and life in shade
He will go searching for his sun
…
One more dance
One more brush with the ache
One more wash of all their feelings,
One more cavern
One more meeting
…
The sand weighs him down
The exhaustion even more,
Is it ending?
It is ending
He wishes he could remember what it was for
…
Between his duty
And his wanting
He doesn't know who he is,
He finds he can't remember
Anything of what he was
Before all of this
…
All he knows now
Is that he reflects his sun
Even though it refuses to shine,
He finds himself a waning moon
Barely alight
Diffuse and ill-defined
…
Mechanical and thoughtless,
He no longer finds himself revolted
When he cuts down things that were alive,
He wonders if along the way
Some parts of him have burnt away
And died
…
Just as The Fugitive is absent now
He was absent once before,
Banned and barred
From The Ending
Resigned to watching from afar
…
When he took his place
As a footnote
And watched the main cast take their bows,
He realized he was weightless
He had no purpose now
…
He was a thread
All used up
Inside the weft and weave
Of the Goddesses' greater plan,
There was nothing left
The insides of him whispered 'leave'
…
And so he did,
And so he did
And left behind
The only one
Who could have eased his soul,
Who could have settled his mind
…
Salt in tears
And salt in wounds
And salt in the greyish sea
That one soul sailed
Towards the other,
To remove the distance in between
Because we all needed a fic via the medium of narrative poem right? Honestly, I just wanted to see if I could and the result wasn't abjectly terrible so I figured I'd share it. Thank you for sticking with me through roughly 1500 words of questionable rhymes and an awkward, ever-changing meter, you deserve both a medal and a cookie.
Freckles