cedar ferr — 7m | fin.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

  CEDAR FERR 

eighteen
virgo sun
cartographer

“ it is not down on any map;
    true places never are. ”

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

The strike of a match, the hiss of a flame, and the room around him suddenly alights in a chiaroscuro of light and shadow, every corner of it filled with paper.

And once it would have smelled comforting to him. It would have been reminiscent of nights spent sketching his fingers calloused until the candlewicks burned dry, until the moon became sun again and Cedar got scolded for staying up late as he always does and always did.

But tonight the room is as cold as a mausoleum and he feels as though he’s about to be buried in it. He brings the trembling bead of light up, illuminates the room: the papers are not blank but sketched with dark lines, some curving and some adjacent, maps that glimmer with the promise of hidden knowledge, of coordinates and location.

Locations of importance, to be exact. Locations that, if found, Cedar knows would uncover the rebellion and those who work for it, those who have been paying him to draw these, those he has alleged himself with, those who … those who he would damn.

So many people he would damn.

Thud. He jolts back to the present, to the horrifying and gruesome present, and remembers that they’re drawing closer. They’ll catch him, that’s for sure, but he hopes it’s before he does it. He hopes, with all his heart, that it is well before he does it.

He looks down at the matchstick in his fingers. It’ll be quick. There’s already kindling for it, so the fire will catch swiftly.

Do it, Cedar.

He gasps down a lump in his throat.

Do it, do it, do it—

The flame drops. It falls on the maps already laid across the floor and singes the paper dark the moment it meets it, a kind of fiery ink blotting across the canvas, eating everything upon it.

But it’s too slow. He drops to his knees, “c’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” and fans the fire, begs it to catch, soon, soon, soon—

The doors of the paper factory burst open.

“Shit,” Cedar curses, tugs himself back onto his feet, and swerves around a shelf to make for the trapdoor, a moment that is disturbed by a bang of white light that he cries out at, eyes burning. He stumbles back, distorted, and that is when a rough hand seizes the nape of his neck, taut and vicelike, holding him in place. The smell of smoke chokes him but it isn’t enough. His art hasn’t burned. That’s it. He’s done it.

He’s damned them.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

L△LIA

[L△LIA]

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