Fantasy 𝔱𝔬 𝔴𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔟𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔡 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔞 𝔤𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢

[oxicodone]

to wear blood like a glove

#clorox

© reveriee

 

[oxicodone]

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In a pearl-white sky lays a pearl-white sun; skins on a canvas unnatural to even the most perverse. Not one man can see this world for what it is, and not a single one sees him for who he is. He — the hunter — sits, gazes, hangs his crown back and looks to the whites of his world like an artist would an empty painting.

If there was a clock, it would strike twelve, with it: a question.

In response, the wind begins to sing, and the grass dances, and the world listens. So, he asks:

Where?

And the hunter hears his voice for the first time since... well, who knows since when? And his voice is slow, gentle, earthly and firm. Like a knight.

A knight...?

A bubble of laughter rolls forth. Then, another. And then he's laughing to the world. But he doesn't feel the rise of his chest, doesn't need to unwind the strings that tug on his smile for — there is none. And it isn't the same gentle tone of his question. It is the opposite. It is a deep shrill; the cackle of a witch. It's —

the hunter

© reveriee

 

[clorox]

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——"A WITCH??"

A hundred freight trains spit out a wail. "A WIIIIITTTCCHHHH!!!!!!???????"

"YOU... YOU WORM, YOU... THING, YOU..... YOU POSSESS NERVE — I AM NO WITCH AND YOU ARE NO KNIGHT."

From a hundred down to three, she vomits forth another scream: "YOUR BRAIN IS SPINDLED WITH TALES... SUCH IS COMMON OF YOUR KIND. FAIRY TALES, LITTLE STORIES FOR LITTLE MEN... LIKE YOU..." her last word is swallowed by a snake's hiss.

Divine detachment shapes her voice, and yet look as he may, the little knight will find no such divinity to behold. The grass shakes and tears open; perhaps a snake by his feet? The winds howl and grow restless; perhaps a ghost? Or is it a god in the sky?

Yes, she decides. She is "GOD. I AM YOUR GOD..."

the curse

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[oxicodone]

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The laugh, clearly not his own, settles into something wicked with rage. Settles is not enough to describe the snap of a transition, but the hunter forgoes surprise: feels his heart soak in ice and whips his covered head a little frantically. To his left, to his right, over his shoulder, back ahead. A question turned numerous settles on his tongue, too afraid to roll off it.

Has he lost his mind?

(He has.)

Would it be madness to react with a question?

(It would.)

Clouds continue to sail by. The quiet is almost worse than the voice.

Before the hunter realizes it, he is up on his feet, not knowing he'd been sitting in the comfort of a field rich with orchardgrass. Again, he tries to spy with his shielded eye, and...

Ah, hold on.

The hunter looks down at his hands slithering up towards him. Feels the slip of metal kiss against padded fingers, gloved with another metallic surface and a clinking chain. Down at his feet sit a pair of sabatons, and as his gaze slides further down (and up his body) he finds greaves, gauntlets and a shiny breastplate. In-between his pauldrons, he sees the clinking and cracking of chainmail.

Doesn't think it childish when, despite everything, his #1 retort goes like this:

"I am a knight."

the hunter

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[clorox]

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He's allowed a moment's reprieve to study his surroundings; to study himself, but this is of no help to either of them. He grows more confused and his words attest to such.

"YOU'RE NO KNIGHT, WORM."

This time, she's a symphony of one; her voice the weight of a countess and the cry of an animal. A discord still in search of itself. "UGH," she wails dissonantly. "IT SEEMS WE HAVE BOTH BECOME ESTRANGED FROM OUR TRUE SELVES."

"YOU MORE THAN I," she cuts before his rotted brain ventures too far.

"I SHALL RETURN TO MY OLD STATE ERE THE FALL OF NIGHT."

the curse

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[oxicodone]

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Feeling bold, he mulls over a question or five. Tips them over his tongue, feels the lick of each syllable that calls him mad for even thinking of speaking out. But confusion can only get him so far.

The trickle of the feeling molds the first: "what... what are you?" For it is clearly no God.

In the off-tone composition, he hears a she. "You're not God... a Goddess..."

Compared to her, he's heated honeydew metal, right before it adopts a shape. Whereas he is the before, she is the after. The oxidated result; shrapnel and rust. Jarring to listen to. Still, he promises to listen many hours if she knows more.

Again, he acts mad, speaks a second question: "why can I not see you?" Looks around for good measure. "Are you... in my head?"

Maybe he's been mad this entire time.

the hunter

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[clorox]

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A fork skids across a plate, "IT MATTERS LITTLE." — and that's her vow of a snap.

"WHEN THE SUN SETS, WHAT WILL YOUR QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN? OTHER THAN WASTED BREATHS?"

Cascading over him, true to her word, is darkness. In front of him towers a tree, and its skeletal branches reach over him as though under her hand. Hovering, yearning to swallow him. To do what she would.. if only she could. And the sun, poking from between the tree's claws, drifts down and behind a summit. Soon, if the shadows don't eat him, she will. And the thought...

"HAH," wrenches something new out of her: clipped, jittery howling, "AHA.. HAHA." It isn't loud, and yet it sounds like it should be.

Then, after a counted moment of four, the laughter fades into a wan attempt of a smile, "I PITY YOU," and he would hear this in her next words: "SO I WILL TELL YOU SO MUCH AS THIS:

I AM THE RESULT OF YOUR OWN UNDOING. I'M NOT SUMMONED BY NAME, BUT BY SIN."

the curse

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[oxicodone]

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Words coated in mockery rattle the world around him. When his helmeted crown angles to his left, to his right, he finds that the source of the voice booms from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

"Speak clearly," he finally challenges, but the challenge is produced with strings and bells. Woven with uncertainty; rung with unimportance.

"Stop with the riddles, and just..."

And just what? The sun quickly falls, and he suddenly wonders just how much he's willing to prove he isn't mad. He is, temporarily, and that isn't any reason to press further.

If his mind doesn't tire by sunrise, then the voice will.

Heavily clad arms circle around his person, rest by his sides; he pushes himself onto his first step, and he takes to the first direction he knows to. Like something awaits him on the other side of the mountaintop.

the hunter

© reveriee