Mozenrath rose with a gasp, casting the tangled sheets from him.
As he panted, chest rising and falling with each breath that burned in his
lungs, he fell back against the bed frame after taking in the heavy glow of
his bedroom, burdened by the thick influence of the dark red curtains
closing the balcony off and its light.
Morning.
A dream.
"Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay"
He held his face in his hands, calming his humming- bird like heartbeat,
quelling the rising nausea, wiling the darkness of his eyelids to soothe
away the fleeting images that stuck to his cupped hands like sand.
"Damn", he half whispered.
He stood; letting the sheets slide off him noiselessly he made his way to
the veranda, refusing to make eye contact with the shadows that hissed as
they were banished by the sunlight.
"There's always one reason
To feel not good enough"
He let the surprisingly damp air of the morning draft hit him without care
as he griped the railing of the escarpment, peering down onto the swirling
ridges of ebony sand, flecked with dew that left if delightfully murky.
Mozenrath ran a shaking hand through his hair, willing the dampness behind
his lids that fluttered to stay closed away.
He cursed once more, leaving the horizon to its business as he turned back
inside, passing the bed that betrayed his sleep.
"And it's hard at the end of the day"
He let his hand trail the walls as he walked, a phantom of his formal self
as he picked at old wounds, reliving them to the point of drawing blood.
He can hear the Citadel pulse with life.
Old life.
Every whisper in the breeze was a stale and dead memory.
Nothing was real.
Everything haunted.
And that's just the way he liked it.
"I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release'
But as his hand traced the smooth wood of his kitchen cabinets, and he
glanced at the bare shelves balefully.
One more night of feeling.
"Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty"
He let out a strangled sob that broke the still of first life, cracking as
he slid to the floor, banging his head uselessly on the boards behind him as
the sound was asphyxiated before it was spent.
Even feeling grief was beyond his reach.
But lord, he thought as he let the tears roll pointlessly off his face, he
wanted to feel.
To feel……..
Nothing
"And weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight"
There had to be a way to escape the pressure of so much, so many pretty
corpses of memories.
He got up purposefully.
"In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here"
He sighed contentedly as the steady drip drip drug him from his grievances.
Drip
Drip
Ahhmal's face swam into view as the grimace of momentary pain faded away to
the cold whisp of release. It was refreshing, not contorted into his dying
expression, or clouded by such ill surprise; he was smiling.
Yeah,
It was almost like feeling.
"From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear"
Xerxes swam up to his master sitting almost casually on his throne, and drew
back a displeased frown, exposing his pearl fangs as he swam about his
master, fussing, until he saw his face.
It was full.
It was not void, not starving, not dead but living.
He sighed and curled at the sorcerer's feet.
The throne room was deep within the bowels of the Citadel, and the ceiling
blatantly safeguarded its occupants from sunlight, sealing them within the
dankness of its dark embrace.
Mozenrath jolted, an arrow of fear cutting deep as reality threatened to
yank him out of his affectionate fantasies, but was content as the only
reverberations was a warm trickle that slid down his arm.
"You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie"
He knew, somewhere deep within the steel defenses of his contentment, that
he'd have to come back eventually.
He'd have to rise and live as shallowly as he always did to survive, running
on cruise control, living without living. Everything was tedious and each
act and smokescreen he put on a chore.
But he had done this for many years.
It was his tactic to continued existence, hovering over death and cheating
life of a corpse that walks.
That's life.
"You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there"
But for now he'd pretend like he could always stay like this, finally in
control of his own life, finally pulling his own strings and having the
power to loosen the reigns.
Allah, the freedom was intoxicating.
His head fell back, ignoring the alarms that were going off in his head,
and, if only for a moment, felt a familiar pair of arms circle him in a
ghosted embrace.
Ahhmal.
"So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back"
Aladdin rubbed his temples to cease the irritating ting and strains.
Didn't any ever just take "nothing" as an answer anymore?
It was bad enough to be tackled at the city's gates by a hysterical princess
and dangerously affectionate Genie, plus an irate Rasoul who grumbled about
the needless waste of a search party.
But to fend himself through a mercilessly barrage of questions was a real
test of patience.
He finally was squeezed dry that he was at the Citadel.
If he thought that would quell the storm of questions, he was dead wrong.
The palace exploded, Genie babbling about avenging his little buddy, Jasmine
checking for wounds, Sultan prattling on about a retaliation force.
He just said he'd rather not talk right now; he wanted to lie down.
Detaching a well meaning yet surprisingly annoying loyal posse from his
side, he lay down,
And immediately was swamped with everything he absorbed about his nemesis.
For a long time he sat there, letting everything saturate his mind, his
perspective and was more silent and considering in that time than for a long
time.
At last, he rose suddenly as a jolt, and idea, bolted him.
He requested from his big blue friend a word in private, and now, he was
flying to the Land of Black Sands, the bottle he received clutched tightly
in his sweating palm.
"And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lie
That you make up for all that you lack"
Aladdin swallowed back the impossibly large lump in his throat.
Why was doing something for Mozenrath hard?
Was he really that cold to the sorcerer?
Was he no better?
No worse?
He never really thought of a motive for his continued involvement in
Mozenrath's affairs.
Curiosity wasn't enough, no; it had evolved past that now.
An obligation sounded likely.
He shook the nagging thoughts away, however, as he approached the looming
black fortressed of the Citadel, groaning and moaning mamlucks littering the
bleak scenery below.
"It don't make no difference
Escaping one last time"
He felt it, as soon as he got past those doors and felt the first slap of
the Citadel draft, something was wrong.
Very wrong.
"It's easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
This glorious sadness that brings me to my knees"
He shuddered, wrapping his arms about himself, and looked up in a paranoid
way as he stepped past the threshold.
"Mozenrath?"
Nothing.
He took the oddly familiar steps to the throne room, and spotted the dark
fondling of a sorcerer in his throne.
"Mozenrath?"
Something whizzed past him, muttering, always muttering.
Mozenrath didn't lift his chin, nor meet his gaze, and as Aladdin saw why, a
half scream, a half gasp wrenched itself out of his throat.
"In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear"
"Mozenrath! What the hell?!?"
There was note of panic as Aladdin sat down in front of the feared-dead
young lord of the Black Sand Realm, and fully digested the scene before him
as he ripped away shreds of the cloak he wore into strips.
Splayed and seemingly incoherent, Mozenrath bled through numerous slashes on
his wrists, the object of infliction lying carelessly on the thrones arm,
the culprit of several ghosted, old scars.
Self inflicted.
Aladdin willed away the queasiness as he wrapped the makeshift bandages
around Mozenrath's exposed wrists, the scarlet seeping through the indigo
material.
"You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie"
Mozenrath stirred, if only for that brief interlude from a blood
loss-induced sleep, to startle Aladdin as he lifted his head groggily,
staring down with mild surprise at Aladdin.
He laughed, a dry, hollow, dead sound.
"You look like him, you know that?"
Aladdin shuddered at the absolute surrender in his nemesis's voice, almost
relieved as Mozenrath succumbed to darkness once more.
Finishing his dressings and bandaging, Aladdin stood, hands on hips in a
nervous habit and considered for moment, before bending again and gathering
Mozenrath in his arms, taken aback at the lack of weight, whistling for
Carpet.
"You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there"
Aladdin cursed half heartedly as he set the sorcerer down on the floating
rug.
"Dammit Mozenrath, why did you have to go all human on me?"
"You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here"
Dean