The House of Gaunt
i.
It will end in tragedy, but you never listened to them, you never listened to them, you never listened to them.
ii.
To you, there is only glory's call, rhapsodic and clear, pure pure pure sing-song in your mind that twists and warps upon itself into knots that cannot be untied, pure pure pure the path of your existence paved in unmovable permanence. And you alone know that glory is total, penultimate, and everything means nothing unless glory, purity, yes, purity is curled in your fingers.
iii.
From your utopian haven you emerge into the maelstrom of mundane and common. They want to be you, but their attempts you will resist.
iv.
It speaks the deadly whisper, the whisper you obey.
v.
Something has gone askew. Planning was faulty. Pure pure pure your progeny are, but your blood weakens. Grope for answers, nothing replies. Is there an alternative? The thought does not even occur to you.
vi.
The prodigal storm spins with increasing velocity as matter collapses upon the center or spins out into dark endlessness. So slowly you shrink, shrinking, shrinking, slowly prestige erodes, eroding, eroding. You cling, though, cling ever more desperately, and you will cling forever even as you pass into misty shadows beyond life and beyond death.
vii.
Soft is the grass below your feet as you approach all that is left of your grand inheritance, hidden beneath the mossy trees and cobwebbed bushes, rough stones and swirl of smoke in the dusty morning. How diminished is the call but from the ruins it snakes into you, and when you open your mouth, it pours from you pure pure pure and you understand, understand it lives yet, lives still, lives forever.
viii.
It will end in tragedy, but you never listened to them, you never listened to them, you never listened to them.