stormborn // francisco + ambrosia

[gamemaker kelsier]

a m b r o s i a .

"All the years
I miss your warmth
Have you missed
my warmth?
On your island"

It feels as if he's been walking for days since leaving Thumb Rock for the second time. While it's been a safe haven for him, it's been lonely too. Ambrosia hasn't seen another person but for the dead ones up in the sky above his head at night. Brighter than starlight, smiling faces descend upon him, ghosts. He's not so certain that he minds, he's always had ghosts watching him. He simply stares up at them, wondering what his face will look like staring down at this Elysium Field. If this place is hell then he's happy. He's never had such peace.

As the sun goes down, he sees smoke billow into the sky from a point that still feels far in the distance. Golden light streaks across the grass and it looks so inviting. The wish to lay down comes weighted, a ball and chain around his ankle. He's walked far this day but he can go further still, he always can. The campfire belongs to an enemy, of that he is certain and it isn't that he wants blood, no, he just needs to hear another human voice other than his own. Even if it's to shout abuse- that's fine.

He leaves a long trail of fire behind him thanks to the axes before he realizes what he's done. It seems as if he has parted the sea of green as far as the eye can see and an arrow where he himself makes up the tip. "Ah," he says, scratching the back of his head with the dull end of the flaming axe in his grip, "That's some fucking bad luck."

His mouth betrays the beauty etched into his skin, fracturing his tattoos and turning his body into something else; a shattered piece of pottery stitched back together with liquid silver. He's a different boy than the one who left the Sheriff's office on that first day. A grin still comes easy but there's an oddness to his gait. He's been hit hard but as they found out back in Nine, they'd find out here that Ambrosia Sin Doesn't lie down and die.

Sounds from the bonfire hit him first, of tributes talking and laughing with each other, making revelry and good cheer. It's a place where he doesn't belong, he never has. So he doesn't go any closer. Ambrosia sits in the grass out of sight, the axes in his lap the only thing to signify his presence in the waning light.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

( childhood dreams
like movie  scenes
castles made of sheets
memories that stick with me
i hope they never leave )

The fire’s orange tendrils scream for the star-blown sky above but they never rise high enough to reach the vastness. Francis sits with his knees pulled close to his chest and counts the flying embers – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven – before the tedium settles into his bones completely. There’s a heavy sense of unease, resting in his guts and chewing at its walls, at this serenity they’re granted for the time being. After three days of bloodshed, he’s expected the same routine, the same violence and the same wounds. He’s began to feel some sort of twisted comfort in the repetition of it all and when that doesn’t occur, Francis is made even more restless, teeth gnawing on the stray ends of his nails.

He slept as a newborn would inside Nico’s arms yesterday, left cheek tucked into the crook of his neck and their fingers intertwined like a held promise for the whole of the quiet night.

     It is a serendipity – him and Nico,
     Nico and him, flowers and bones.

They are a creation of chance, a romance of four-leafed clovers, something random like a bolt of lightning. He never knew how perfectly their hands would fit each other, or how comfortable Nico’s chest is for his head. Nico Thorne is something out of the blue, a soft drizzle that has instantaneously grown into a storm. His eyes avert to where the other boy has wandered off to, scouting for the water in the tall grass, and narrow when they don't discover him. 

Unable to bear the tedium any longer, Francis rises to his two feet and pave a clumsy path of his own, wending past the glow of the bonfire, past the dark and dancing silhouettes, towards the soft darkness ahead. Places where the bonfire’s light kissed the grass birth long shadows that stretch on and on in front of him, like ribbons with no fixed length. The distances beyond the grass plains are astir with shadows, all dead seas of black.

In the midst of it, Francis spots a figurine, shipwrecked there. His instincts move his hands immediately to the knives hooked to his belt but when he narrows his eyes, he grasps the features of Ambrosia Sinn, sharpened by the night shadows.

“Ambrosia?” What illuminates the other enough for Francis to see him, are the fiery axes on his lap. The flames clinging onto the axes’ steel move and shimmer like all flames do, and Ambrosia is painted divinely with their light.

“Why aren’t you with the others?” The answer to his question, Francis realizes quickly, is Ambrosia Sinn himself; he’s learnt enough about the other from their short little run-in in the training center to know that the boy isn’t particularly fond of little soirees and stories around a campfire. Francis is honored to be an exception of some sort.

Taking a seat close to the other, he places the sunflower head he’s been toying with for a while on Ambrosia’s thigh, near the aflame axes.

     “I knew you were alive.”
     Francis admits and teases.
     “The clichés never die.”

Francisco Bloom has always held onto hope like a drowning man does to a piece of wood, hope for his friends, hope for dying flowers, hope for Nico Thorne. It's a shame he has no hope for himself. 

( endless nights and
dancing feet
hiding in the dark
i don't want to give it up
the light little heart )

Lyrics : Lxandra – Too Young To Grow Old