#do u remember the 2k words of buildup to wylltia sex. this is that

[asharaks]

horizon gone godless

post-bhaal part one of three 800 words blood/gore cw

You die.

You wake.

You remember.

In a pool of blood (fathoms deep, an ancestral memory made flesh) you open your eyes, and for the first time in your ruinedruptured memory, you are—

—quiet.

At peace.

Empty.

Your first thought is

(absence)

Where?

(nightsinger is this your hand)

And then: how?

Blood surrounds you: soaks your hair your skin your hands. It seeps sticky into your mouth and clings to your armour, and as you sit up it cascades from you in glistening strings.

You are

(alone)

you are

(lost)

you are

alive.

You open your mouth, tasting gore, and you say

(Father)

help me

(forgive me)

someone tell me

what have I done

(what have I become)

and the voice that speaks before you can is familiar (all of it so familiar) and comforting and feels

(faithless, godless)

like

(Father)

something old something missing something lost in the rubble of your skull.

Your sister(sisterniece how many times removed how many times your own) lies on her back. The butler (vile, wretched, and it isn't your Father that makes you want to show teeth at the sight of the ruined corpse) lies opened beside her, a family portrait missing only one.

On your knees.

On your knees in the blood you wait, you listen (you pray):

(FatherFatherFather)

He talks, your newfather your notfather your notgod, and his words are kind but

all the powers of life and death

(blood in my veins notmine notHis not this)

you can't hear them over the emptiness in your head, the chasm between you. Nothing left but a tadpole nest and a silence that threatens to swallow you whole.

(Father I’m sorry)

Boots splash in the blood: hands touch your cheek, and come away stained. Your skin, metal and flesh, dyed crimson. The warmth doesn’t reach far enough down, down to where you

(pleasepleaseplease)

drown, the light above ever out of reach, but still those hands

(take it back take it back take it back)

hold you close, hold you still. Voices echo, in the cavern of stone and blood that is your chest (this temple, a sense memory, your body turned outwards), calling for you. Begging you to return.

Tiavyn—

(Father)

—can you hear me—

(can you hear me)

—please?

(please)

When you turn, mismatched eyes stare into yours. Scarred hands warm and wet and sticky on your cheeks, tipping your head like he can rattle you back to yourself. He's on his knees in the blood

(in your blood

in your Father's blood)

just like you, just like (all of you). Your tongue is heavy, corpse-swollen half-rotted in your mouth. Words squirm from your grasp, slick and bloodstained, your jaw locked-shut-muzzled. Your lips (split) (bleed) pull back, emptiness eating you from inside out, and for the first time in over a century—

—silence falls.

You slump, let him (himhimhim, Father forgive me I love him and it hurts) take your weight, brace himself (knees slipping in the blood) against you, your weight, your armour, the sin and sinew of you. His hands spread over your shoulders; tilt your head, lean into him, his skin, his warmth, his

name His name His name

breath hot against your cheek.

And still, your newgod (newFather neverFather) talks

(who hath challenged a god)

(I never wanted)

(and liveth to tell of it)

(I never wanted)

and still, the hands on you are gentle

(can you hear me, love)

and still, the emptiness inside consumes you.

Turn your heavy head and meet his eyes. See the way he looks at you, holds you tight like he lost you, like he loves you.

Try to remember his name, drag your filthy bloodstained claws through the ruin of your memory, through two deaths and countless almosts, and come up empty.

All you know is that his hands are warm on your skin, and you are so so cold. All you know is that he looks at you with pride and concern, and you warrant neither. All you know is—

“It was peaceful,”

your tongue fumbling the words, your hands shaking, and you look up at the God who stands over you and you saypleadpray:

“I just want to rest.”

And, merciless as any other, your new God looks down on you (your lover's hands tighten on you) and he says: “There is no true rest for those like thee,

faithless”

(faithless)

(searing through you

faithless godless nothing nothing nothing)

and his next words are almost lost, a hand reached down into the dark where you

drown.

“But when victory is won I swear I shall find thee a home,” and the hands on your neck are warm and careful and the emptiness in your skull eases, and out of the dark and the fog and the bloodbloodblood you close your hands on a name and a feeling.