Fabrications

[Kyung Yi]

@Graveside

He longed for the sea. Kyung had never seen it. To him it was nothing but a story. Something explained he couldn't really fathom. But he dreamed about it. Imagined that it was like him. Vast. Turbulent. Empty.

He longed for the sea. For deep depths. For endless nothing. To escape himself and reality. Really, he longed for death. But death was too good for him. He deserved to live. To suffer. To exist in a state that was incomplete and completely broken.

He longed for the sea. Feet shuffling down the ruts in roads. Wings flaring when carriages and wagons raced by. Trembling at the stamp of hoof beats on the road. He cursed. He spat. Sometimes he cried. No one tried to stop him, whatever he did. His Purple Dusk had never been mighty. His Tiger Eye was half that.

But he was still a warlord prince. And even if half of him was Eyrien. Winged. Bedraggled. He was still a warlord prince. Broken. Queenless. More dangerous than he had been when he had been sane, whole, and full of rage. Now he was nothing but injustice and grief with nothing to tame him. No one to shush him and demand better.

He had never hated her more than he did now that she was dead.

"Why?" He shouted in some roadside tavern. Fingers digging into shoulders hidden beneath a rough spun shirt. He shook the phantom in his hands. Eyes not seeing the person he gripped, but all the horror he'd swallowed down and filled himself up on.

"I said, why?!"

[Hae-Won Wuxian]

Her neighbor's horse grumbled under her weight, not used to carrying some one for this long. She had to travel for her latest commission, and with the Winds down, she had to travel by land. The days lost weighed on her. She couldn't even pay for a darker colored coach right now. Everything was gone and the Blood were nearly as useful as the landen now.

The horse tried to slow under her, moving from a brisk walk to something slower than even she could walk. She clucked her tongue softly and tapped the beast's shoulder to keep it up to speed. When it didn't respond she resorted to the stirrups, spurring to to keeping the same speed. Her neighbor had assured her that this beast could keep this speed for an entire day if need be, and that it was notoriously lazy with new riders. She couldn't blame it too much. Of she were a horse, she would probably act much worse than this.

Her day ended at a tavern just outside a village maybe a half day from where she was meant to go. They had a clean bed and decent alcohol for her, and decent hay in a small stable for her horse. She paid for the night with a few coins and added in an extra to ensure her mount was equally well cared for. The keeper was kind enough and invited her to enjoy dinner in their tavern below. She took the late afternoon as an opportunity to clean herself a bit and prepare to meet with her client tomorrow. She treated herself a bit, calling in some of her nicer soaps to enjoy herself while she could.

Afternoon bled into evening and the tavern below started to fill with locals. She slipped down and ordered a pint of the local beer from an overly happy waitress that she couldn't help but be pleasant with. The talk of the local village was enjoyable while she sat and drank her beer. It wasn't enough to make her even that tipsy but the buzz warmed her. The talk of a local birth also warmed her. It had been the first birth in so long and the new father was out celebrating with his friends.

She sat and listened to him celebrate with a small smile on her face, until the Warlord Prince entered. She could feel him as soon as he stepped inside, but one look at him both eased her fears and broke her heart. He was lost, and didn't truly see the now quiet tavern before him. He wandered in and killed the conversation throughout the entire tavern. But he didn't see a tavern, did he. He saw something else, and his growled words hurt her.

Her body stood before she even realized she wanted to respond. She didn't really, but these poor people couldn't possible deal with a Broken Warlord Prince. She couldn't either, but she was at least a Jeweled  Healer.

She stroke forward and fear pounded through her heart at his wings and his vacant expression. Her hand tightened gently around his forearm and her words came out in a soothing way, the same she used for patients gripped in fevered dreams and visions, "Shh, my lord, he's not at fault. Peace, please, you are safe. It's not your fault," She didn't know what might have been his fault, but it felt reasonable enough. She started to craft a Purple Dusk shield around the people closest to them, the first around the new father,, trying to protect them in case of a violent outburst. She felt confident in her ability to ride through a storm of anger unbroken, but any protection, not matter how meager it might be compared to his rank would at least help.

"Come back my lord, these men aren't what you see. You are safe, please, be at peace." She prayed in his ear, both hands how clasped around the hands gripping the poor stranger. She hoped that her desire for him to release the man, to keep from becoming violent. She'd seen enough bloody rooms in her lifetime to never want to seen anything as violent like that again.

[Kyung Yi]

There was a clatter and a squeal. Chair and table legs grating across the floor. Overturned mugs turning beer into frothy stains. It was there. They existed. Moment happening at the peripheral. It was not right. Nothing was right. It infringed. If only he could live it one more time. And this time get it right.

Over and over again until he got it right.

Someone grabbed his arm. The hand was small. The world shifted sideways. Like two pictures on thin paper laid over each other. Fabric layered on fabric. Was one reality? Or was it all a dream? Kyung wanted only to go to the sea. To be scourged in waves that grew taller than a man.

To live in a story and not in the hell his life had descended into. But this hell was his punishment. The Darkness was always punishing him. He struck with a wing, but the hand held on. It spoke to him. Small words from small fingers. Kyung squeezed and looked down.

A healer. He knew a healer. "Iseul?" He asked, but knew it was wrong. She did not look like him. And the Jewels were wrong, a probe battering at the hand reflexively. Healer. Purple Dusk. He'd worn a Purple Dusk once, like a talisman on his chest. Before. Before he'd shattered it trying to save what he hated.

Mother Night how he'd hated her, but she was his!

"Little fly," he warned, thumbs digging into the man he held. Toes skittered across the floor as the warlord tried to find purchase. "There will never be peace for Dhemlan." He told her. And never for him. He rattled the warlord's jaw one more time. Wings flaring with the violent shaking before he let go. Allowed the other male to collapse in a heap at his feet.

A heap that quickly fled. Coward that he was. That they all were. Frozen, watching. One lone healer against him. He. Kyung Yi. He had served as a guard to Nari Choe! He was power. Prowess. A warrior.

Worse still, a warlord prince.

"Do you vouch for them, then, little fly? That they didn't help?" Someone had done it. Kyung knew who. When he could remember. Which wasn't often. The moments so full of pain and failure. His sight blinded and filled with Nari's face and his grasping hands. Mother Night that bitch. Nari's Grey should have saved them all.