(perceiving memory as the tree of life had before the transfer of its hurt, curled as tightly as he had been asleep beneath the soil, he feels his consciousness begin to leak from the integument of his shard. he knows with an instinctive terror that allowing the miasma to penetrate further into his shard would fundamentally change him, corrupt his soul in an ego death reversal that would strip him of his ambitions and supplant the tree's own. he would become nothing to his dead world and everything to kenos, a part of it, no longer grieving and yearning but left vacant and loveless at the end of the universe.
eyes roll open to the dark underbelly of a network of roots that now feel like kin, and a shaking hand grasps for a buried stone. exhausted, it's almost impossible to lift, so instead, it is kept inside of a palm to be weighed. this is the heavy promise of true death. shattering this shard will release its soul is the mad thought that precedes the hard flex of an arm that's needed to raise it, for that is how it is in mundus; a gem containing trapped essence will free that essence when used or destroyed.
but voryn hears bells, which distracts him from his task.
the haunting tolls distort into voices that make voryn gasp, remembering all at once where he is and what has happened to him. the agony, still present but rendered tolerable by his will, has subsided enough that he's able to hear men speaking in low tones all around him. less time must have passed for his body than his mind, disoriented by his new perceptions and by silco and ocelot being unrecognizable and foreign to him in his slow state of recovery. their fight is given so little thought for now that the only way he reacts is to drop his arm from where it holds the stone vertically above his chest to his belly.
it's minutes into an escalation in aggressionโno longer caused by the miasma as it's filled his soul and bloomed painfully within himโthat voryn's fatigue finally abates enough for him to move.)
no subject
eyes roll open to the dark underbelly of a network of roots that now feel like kin, and a shaking hand grasps for a buried stone. exhausted, it's almost impossible to lift, so instead, it is kept inside of a palm to be weighed. this is the heavy promise of true death. shattering this shard will release its soul is the mad thought that precedes the hard flex of an arm that's needed to raise it, for that is how it is in mundus; a gem containing trapped essence will free that essence when used or destroyed.
but voryn hears bells, which distracts him from his task.
the haunting tolls distort into voices that make voryn gasp, remembering all at once where he is and what has happened to him. the agony, still present but rendered tolerable by his will, has subsided enough that he's able to hear men speaking in low tones all around him. less time must have passed for his body than his mind, disoriented by his new perceptions and by silco and ocelot being unrecognizable and foreign to him in his slow state of recovery. their fight is given so little thought for now that the only way he reacts is to drop his arm from where it holds the stone vertically above his chest to his belly.
it's minutes into an escalation in aggressionโno longer caused by the miasma as it's filled his soul and bloomed painfully within himโthat voryn's fatigue finally abates enough for him to move.)