#that trope of spiraling and frenzied madness when you cast off everyone now that you “need them no longer” :)

[rafent]

kiss meme: a kiss shared while holding your dying lover . specialest little minion.

( does a kiss count if you ate another guy? )

fogado heaves a long sigh, feeling deeply the air leaving his punctured lungs. he is not long for this deathly world, it seems.

the penultimate battle, where two factions clash. it is similar in the violent sword-swingings he and rafal have bore witness to over their time, but it is unique in that it is the 'us-versus-them' that the two had been plotting since the beginning. all of the poison in his knife, the stroking of matted abominations' fur, the wrist-flicks and the singing bowstrings amounted to this very battle,

and here he has failed for the first second third and final time. he knows there is no coming back.

the times he has died he has done it with a smile on his face, knowing that his indispensability meant a swift revival ( if not accompanied with an hour-long lecture about not being annoying and doing his damn job. or somethin ). his back could hit the ground in circus fanfare, arms spread wide to welcome the sweep of unconsciousness, because it was obvious he would be back to see another day.

but today he can see that would not be possible. it was the finality he expected... but his death is not exciting.

no, he does not like this death. not one bit, because he knows it is the end of him as he knows it. fogado is a sore loser and he only wants to win the games he plays. if he loses, he swipes off the board and demands a rematch.

now he cannot do that. he is frustrated by this.

so he turns his head to the only person he knows anymore. not to the one who felled him, nor to his brothers who fall like he does. no, none of those less-than-things matter to him. the ground, the trees, the sky, the air; all fading, all meaningless.

his eyes land on the only one that matters. fogado's arms stretch out, calling out for his master. for rafal.

" ahh... i can't... " he groans, the hole in his lungs stealing his ability to talk. " raffy... rafal, please... take me... "

Rafal to hold Fogado, pronged tail to lover's twisted embrace, clutching him like the raptorial claws of the mantid would its prey. Because what was love if not willingness to die, head eaten and head taken? What was love if not the borders of mortal convention transcended in the most abominable and thrilling way?

In the name of that 'love', due for expiration Fogado was. No longer useful, no longer able, no longer pivotal to the final chapter of nightmares as Rafal fulfilled his utmost dreams. The Fell Heir emerged anew from his weakness, white and pure as an angel on the husks of seven bracelets, all-consuming as the world serpent. With his rise to ascension came the fall of his compunction, those needless upsets like bonds and morals all cast off like withered scales. Necessary never, he would argue falsely of those he'd turned Corrupted. Kept on hand only so long as they were useful, and freely discarded now that they were not. Recycled, now, into another bid for strength.

"Can't?" Can't? Impossibility in the face of godhood? Rafal's very laughter shook the earth, rustled his neonate wings and the foundations of the sunken Somniel as he brought their faces together. Human centered scornfully, affectionately in the eye of the serpent. "Truly on your last legs, dear Fogado. But never mind. This was always to be your fate, not that your failing body would end eventually, but that your strength would be my strength. All of you, all of mine."

Recycled now into another bid for strength, simultaneously granted one last mercy, one first gift. That these wretched and reanimated puppets denied death should meet their final ends it would be by Him, not by anyone else; he who was their god. Love, that god then showered in the singleness of his attention, mind trained nowhere else but on Fogado, even in the battle of divine proportions, against divine army. Mercy, Rafal readied in the cavernous yawn of his mouth, countless knives unveiled to salvage flesh and bone and energy.

—madness, Rafal revealed, in the drunken nature of the beast engorged on power. the heartbeats of his exhilaration unseen. Jaws closed around his mortally wounded Corrupted who begged with arms oustretched, snapped shut like the slam of doors, the scissor snip of threads to his fate. Master to Fogado, and lover too; in his consumption and absorption, in his kiss of death once and final. In the unity of two that would never be undone.

All of you, all of mine.