i am // a last
Oct 23, 2018 20:06:29 GMT -5
Post by анзие (Anz) on Oct 23, 2018 20:06:29 GMT -5
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A fire rises, but it is not set by Chance. The one that took her half to hell is hot - so hot that she still has vivid memories of feeling the skin of her face give way to flesh give way to muscle and bone and the pain of losing an entire half of her body. She recalls writhing, voice torn out by screaming like a hand had plunged down her throat and closed over all her words.
They hadn’t been able to fix her face, but it hadn’t mattered. Every pulse of her heart had been the scrape of sandpaper over her burns, and it meant more to her that the world could see every single agony. That knowledge softened the daily blows of pity; she could breathe with it.
They tell her it’s a miracle she survived. Had she any words at the time, she would have told them it was Chance that made it so.
The fire that rises is cold, burning pins and needles at her fingers. Shallow breaths she counts, letting the flames wash over the remaining half, the hazy flutter of blood-soaked lungs with every rise and fall of her chest pulsing pain through her shoulders and down her arms, to her stomach and down her thighs. She can barely feel her knees, let alone her toes, and soon she’ll forget what it means to have legs at all.
One, two, three she counts the breaths, watching the strange sky overhead swirl and bleed and become waves before blending away into a vortex of colors too intricate, too vivid to be real. The fire licks at the edges of her vision, black instead of orange-red, and she tries to wave it away. Not yet, but all she feels is a fading tingle of nerves on her fingers that makes her laugh makes her cough makes her head pound with blood she can’t afford to lose but doesn’t care to keep.
Hela dies.
At some point, she’d known: some authority above had decided against playing for her life. She’d known this in the way her limbs did not move and her mouth did not move and her eyes could only focus on a single point in the surrealistic distance, leaving only her mind active to wonder if the clouds in the distance were arches or sails expanded by an ocean gale.
If it mattered, she could not speak out - but it didn’t. The final pounds of her heart had been enough to remind her of a life made real, and it was knowledge enough to keep her eyes open and her breath going. She’d allowed Chance to take control of her life for so long that all worries of tomorrow had faded into nothing more than careless thought.
But her active mind wonders, and wonders, for this time the burning is not by Chance. Chance did not give her a second look today, and arrogance held her tongue against begging to know why twisted fate has taken its place.
Servant she was to Chance, and victim she becomes to Fate. She cannot rest: no sea-nymphs come for her body to wash her with rose and nectar, to weave flowers in her hair. No benevolent god draws her spirit from her body and redresses in a golden hall of heaven. No underworld queen summons Hela to her court and whispers that her choices have made her afterlife so.
She lingers, instead, in half-life upon the bed of cold flames watching the sun rise and sink and again. She wonders if anyone would mark her name upon the stone that commemorates her life; she wonders if her brothers would see her body and think her at peace at last.
She would watch her own funeral, but she is made of air and can do nothing.
The sun rises and sinks, spilling its colors over the land, and another day is gone.
She has forgotten how many days it has been since she'd been left here, even if the strange sun in the distance could be believed. Life must have gone on around her. A victor must have been crowned, laurels on their hair, death on their hands, and a false smile upon their face for all eternity.
A victor, and then two, and three.
Still the fire burns cold underneath her. Still twisted fate holds her fast, and still no river opens and no mountains cry - still she stays, watching the clouds become billows become cotton become snow.
Do not imagine her in two parts. Do not imagine that her innocence, burnt free by way of Chance, waits on the side of the river Styx watching every boat that glides towards the port. Do not imagine her innocence asleep with tears on her lashes in the cavernous dark where Charon brings the souls of the dead to eternal rest.
Do not imagine her innocence reaching out to every tribute who passes through. Do not imagine the whisper ("Did you see her? Is she coming?") pouring from her lips, a prayer for Hela's final rest. Do not imagine her disappointment when no one has heard of yet another girl who has died to the Games, unremarkable for her inability to stay alive.
Do not imagine her yet undying hope for an afterlife made whole, and do not imagine her held breath as she gazes out into the abyss, inches away from the flowing waters that would steal her away.
More suns have risen and sunk when a tug comes on Hela's chest. One moment she's trapped in some unknown hell; another her hand is taken and she is pulled through swirling colors and life and not-life upon a boat on rapids in darkness, the rocky way lit by a single lantern carried by an unspeaking figure at the boat's bow. Something ties itself into a bow in her chest, her breath catching just there.
She calls it anticipation, because she has not felt in years, but there is no other word to bring the feeling to life.
And then--
The waters have slowed, and the anticipation uncurls, and she feels, with her feet on dry ground and a sharp inhale of delight, at last--
Herself, made whole.
And a place to rest her weary soul.
do i dare disturb the universe
i am hela
A fire rises, but it is not set by Chance. The one that took her half to hell is hot - so hot that she still has vivid memories of feeling the skin of her face give way to flesh give way to muscle and bone and the pain of losing an entire half of her body. She recalls writhing, voice torn out by screaming like a hand had plunged down her throat and closed over all her words.
They hadn’t been able to fix her face, but it hadn’t mattered. Every pulse of her heart had been the scrape of sandpaper over her burns, and it meant more to her that the world could see every single agony. That knowledge softened the daily blows of pity; she could breathe with it.
They tell her it’s a miracle she survived. Had she any words at the time, she would have told them it was Chance that made it so.
The fire that rises is cold, burning pins and needles at her fingers. Shallow breaths she counts, letting the flames wash over the remaining half, the hazy flutter of blood-soaked lungs with every rise and fall of her chest pulsing pain through her shoulders and down her arms, to her stomach and down her thighs. She can barely feel her knees, let alone her toes, and soon she’ll forget what it means to have legs at all.
One, two, three she counts the breaths, watching the strange sky overhead swirl and bleed and become waves before blending away into a vortex of colors too intricate, too vivid to be real. The fire licks at the edges of her vision, black instead of orange-red, and she tries to wave it away. Not yet, but all she feels is a fading tingle of nerves on her fingers that makes her laugh makes her cough makes her head pound with blood she can’t afford to lose but doesn’t care to keep.
Hela dies.
At some point, she’d known: some authority above had decided against playing for her life. She’d known this in the way her limbs did not move and her mouth did not move and her eyes could only focus on a single point in the surrealistic distance, leaving only her mind active to wonder if the clouds in the distance were arches or sails expanded by an ocean gale.
If it mattered, she could not speak out - but it didn’t. The final pounds of her heart had been enough to remind her of a life made real, and it was knowledge enough to keep her eyes open and her breath going. She’d allowed Chance to take control of her life for so long that all worries of tomorrow had faded into nothing more than careless thought.
But her active mind wonders, and wonders, for this time the burning is not by Chance. Chance did not give her a second look today, and arrogance held her tongue against begging to know why twisted fate has taken its place.
Servant she was to Chance, and victim she becomes to Fate. She cannot rest: no sea-nymphs come for her body to wash her with rose and nectar, to weave flowers in her hair. No benevolent god draws her spirit from her body and redresses in a golden hall of heaven. No underworld queen summons Hela to her court and whispers that her choices have made her afterlife so.
She lingers, instead, in half-life upon the bed of cold flames watching the sun rise and sink and again. She wonders if anyone would mark her name upon the stone that commemorates her life; she wonders if her brothers would see her body and think her at peace at last.
She would watch her own funeral, but she is made of air and can do nothing.
The sun rises and sinks, spilling its colors over the land, and another day is gone.
She has forgotten how many days it has been since she'd been left here, even if the strange sun in the distance could be believed. Life must have gone on around her. A victor must have been crowned, laurels on their hair, death on their hands, and a false smile upon their face for all eternity.
A victor, and then two, and three.
Still the fire burns cold underneath her. Still twisted fate holds her fast, and still no river opens and no mountains cry - still she stays, watching the clouds become billows become cotton become snow.
Do not imagine her in two parts. Do not imagine that her innocence, burnt free by way of Chance, waits on the side of the river Styx watching every boat that glides towards the port. Do not imagine her innocence asleep with tears on her lashes in the cavernous dark where Charon brings the souls of the dead to eternal rest.
Do not imagine her innocence reaching out to every tribute who passes through. Do not imagine the whisper ("Did you see her? Is she coming?") pouring from her lips, a prayer for Hela's final rest. Do not imagine her disappointment when no one has heard of yet another girl who has died to the Games, unremarkable for her inability to stay alive.
Do not imagine her yet undying hope for an afterlife made whole, and do not imagine her held breath as she gazes out into the abyss, inches away from the flowing waters that would steal her away.
More suns have risen and sunk when a tug comes on Hela's chest. One moment she's trapped in some unknown hell; another her hand is taken and she is pulled through swirling colors and life and not-life upon a boat on rapids in darkness, the rocky way lit by a single lantern carried by an unspeaking figure at the boat's bow. Something ties itself into a bow in her chest, her breath catching just there.
She calls it anticipation, because she has not felt in years, but there is no other word to bring the feeling to life.
And then--
The waters have slowed, and the anticipation uncurls, and she feels, with her feet on dry ground and a sharp inhale of delight, at last--
Herself, made whole.
And a place to rest her weary soul.
hela, no longer
from whose life comes unrest
with a handful of dust?
