Ceramic or Porcelain?
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He had lost control. That was what scared him the most. He had trained himself tediously, meticulously. Yet, here he was, seated, defeated, in his armchair, in front of the fire with his potion-stained hands strung deep in his hair. His face was a mask of pain, though not as much of a mask as he would have wished. His mask would have to be built again, the cracked pieces carefully swept up from the floor and glued into his elegant mosaic.
That would leave him with the lingering question – would the glue hold? Or was there a chance of the dam that was his emotions being burst again? He wondered, briefly, whether his walls would continue to fall apart and, every time they did, break easier, until the glue refused to stick – the pieces refused to give up their crowned place upon the floor.
He would become a broken man, then, if he lost his porcelain shield. His heart would be laid upon the stone, much like his mask, torn open and revealed – a slashed heart would make him less than a man. But he was required to be a man; he had to be a man. He had duties that only a man, strong and unyielding, could accomplish. They dirtied his hands and stained his clothes, but his mask remained unmarked and untouched, the grime sliding off to land in his lap. His clothes could be re-sewn, his hands hidden, but his mask was irreplaceable.
Made purely from his ever-lasting cynicism and paranoia, his mask was his vital, or fatal, mistake that made all of his scrambled honor shine. Broken, and his honor would fade from the foreground, smothered by the grime and slime forced upon him by his honorable deeds.
No. He would pick up his pieces, and cover his fidelity from the flailing knives surrounding him. He would continue to trudge through the slime, and the grunge, and cover his soiled clothes in caked misfire. He resolved himself, for resolution and determination was what he needed. They made the stickiest glue.
Picking his limp body up from his chair, he stared at the ceiling, and tugged in a big breath. In the firelight, he appeared broad-shouldered and strong, a boulder in a relentless river, waiting to be shattered by the next passing stone stuck fast in the water's manipulation.