All my life I’ve been searching for something
They should’ve seared at the edges of the incoming storm, but they were creatures made from death and rain, and surely felt no fear at the stroke of lightning or the finality of thunder (the youth was certain). They were crackling, blistering, scorching something finer, something greater, than any deluge, than any port, than any bestial machinations – born to warriors and poets, born to peacekeepers and Reapers, born to legions of decadence and grandeur. They’d be raised to defy. Sometimes, it was all he knew.
Erebos was the rubble of revolution, the tower threatening to topple over, to fall apart if one more stone plummeted to the ground, if one more inferno emblazoned his soul – but to look at her again, it was as if he’d been reanimated, revitalized, reincarnated, a blue phoenix rising from his malicious ashes. Amidst the downpour, where the sparks crackled against the skull resting along his withers, where the cascade threatened to drown them both in the wake of anarchy (and any other time he’d welcome it, he’d challenge it, he’d become enticed, enthralled by the notion of destruction), he smiled. It was piece of indulgence he hadn’t used in what felt like lifetimes – beautiful and brilliant and a piece of seraphic art, sculpted by artisans of immorality and intrigue, knowing where to highlight the warrior edges and the impish brushstrokes. It can’t be, he dreamed at first, because his life had gone in downward spirals and hellhole hinges, feasted upon in savage streams of insurrection and sedition, one event after another until he’d landed here and been made a fool again. But she was alive, whole, unchanged, and unaltered from the last time he’d seen her (waves of satin flowers and blossoms; his father’s pride and his mother’s rapture) – it was like glimpsing into a time piece, glass sheered to show the past before it unraveled, before it corrupted, before lives perished and things were destroyed. “Yes,” he uttered, choking down a threat of tears, because he was stronger than that, but the emotions were overwhelming, and he’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be happy, ecstatic, buoyant, a joyful puff of air instead of a constant, brooding, brewing overture.
He ignored the irreverence dampening his soul – and relished the moment for what it was, for what it could be, for the elation that had long since disappeared from his life – reaching forward, meeting her halfway, extending his muzzle until it reached hers and they shared the same space, the same time, the same segments. When this couldn’t contain the warrior, when he craved more, for he’d always been greedy, always been avaricious, wanting and wanting and wanting until the world reminded him to stop (then took), he curled his skull over her shoulder, over her withers, bringing her closer, towards his chest, towards his heart, hoping her presence would somehow mend and tie it back together. The once-boy was taller than her now, but he barely noticed, pressing towards her, smiling, grinning like a fool, like he’d been given life and light again. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he said, he whispered, he murmured into the storm, as if the realm would hear and soon take away his exhilaration, and all he had was this moment to fathom, to embrace, to enjoy it. The General grew a bit more hushed, pondering over the lengths it had taken for her to arrive here, and not in Helovia, not in the Basin, not in the wild, incandescent, savage world alive with ice and color; before he distorted it into a quiet, momentous whisper, refusing to let go (of her, of his curiosity, of the way things had to be; crimes and silliness, merriment and mischief). “Where have you been?”
(something never comes)
erebos
never leads to nothing—nothing satisfies
but I’m getting close
The Portal
