Shimmer

Shimmer - Fuel


His singing was brought to a stop by a voice. A voice that he knew. Turning to see who it was that had approached him, he saw the same slate wolf from before. The beautiful female. This one would be the third that he'd seen. The third that he's been so close to he could touch. The Queen Temptress didn't count. She didn't count because that had been something totally different. That had been a slightly younger, and much much more foolish wolf. Just a show of how much he'd grown just how quickly. Her question shattered across his mind like glass, and at once he heard it from a hundred different directions in a hundred different voices. What was to far away? What was it? what was the word? That's just how far it was, so far he couldn't think of what it was.

This is what the Riddles in the Dark could do to a man. But there was a memory. A pleasant memory of this female, both wet from the rain outside. Sharing a meal in the caves that hid him from the rest of the world when he could no longer shoulder what was bearing down on him. This wasn't among the Riddles, not just yet. But there was always the fear of it happening. Fear. Such a damned thing. It was so hard to live life in fear of bad, but at this point what choice did he have.

Newol had nothing. Then, he'd had everything. Everything his heart had ever longed for. And he'd lost it all to someone that he'd once longed for. That served to cut the wound no deeper, but it was the serration that made the cut tear instead of cut clean. He had admired the Lady in Red for her tenacity, her beauty, her viciousness. She'd been a shining exemplar. A role model example of standing up and Taking what you wanted. What you believed in. But he hated her with a seething passion. For two reasons. One, she was a horrid devil demon monster conceived from the bleakest womb. Having all that power. All that determination, and to use it as for your own personal whim rather than to try and do something good with it. To try and make something respectable and enduring in the hearts of wolves. And secondly, despite all sense of sanity, the more potent reason why he hated her.

She Gave Up.

This was damning in his eyes. It was worst then anything that was or ever would be. To fight so hard to make something, be it good or bad, and then just drop it like you'd grown bored of it. No. It didn't work that way! It just didn't. Be it dark or light, to abandon what you worked so hard for, it was monstrous. Newol didn't want to fight. He didn't want to draw blood. He didn't want to die. But he believed, and if he had to he would do these things as best as he could with the full existent of his existence. And then there was The Viking Woman. She was just as fearless and determined and strong. But she was so attached to what she believed in it had torn anything that resembled a soul away from her. Of course, this was just his own personal observation. It could be different, and if one day he saw that it was, he'd be proudly wrong. But thus far, it wasn't so. This was one side of the field. A side where he'd seen a wisp of something he liked. But the wisp was drowned in an ocean of reasons why it was only another image of what could have been. These figures had the power at their paws in one way or another to save an ocean of souls. And they wouldn't. There was no way. It didn't exist. It didn't fit who they where.

And on the other side of the field where the faces. The millions and millions and millions of souls. Another ocean of what could have been and wasn't. Newol's adopted sister who had appeared just long enough to put him back on his feet then disappeared. She'd only reminded him have terrible fekking alone he really was. The russet faced woman who bore scars aswell. Then there had been Avalon. She'd appeared before him in what had been a moment of utter perfection and tempted him in much a different way. Rather than stoking his iron as the Queen had, she'd tempted his Soul. Only to disappear into the night. Another wisp of what might have been. Another Riddle. His birth mother. If she'd known oh so well that there had been nothing for the child and that to find something she'd have to abandon him and run for his dear life from the desert sands, then... Why? Why conceive him in the first place? Why create such disaster in the making? And finally... His second mother. The one who'd tied him to all this. He'd been a damned fool to pick up the last name Adravendi. It had made him weak! It had made him comfortable! He was no longer a Zaraidd. The family or royal blood who's right it was to more than any to act on a whim! For generations that had tried to improve the world around them so they deserved to declare weather or not to stay the course, or just burn the whole fuckin' thing to the ground with no remorse or sorrow so that someone could come along and rebuild something out of the ashes. Zaraidd's had done this song and dance for generations now and still stood like a pillar. Unbreakable. Able to drag through the worst sort of horror imaginable and not be broken, even to the bitter end. But he wasn't a Zaraidd. He'd been allowed a glimpse into that light of perfection, and it had stripped away his fortitude as he'd gone to embrace it. A mother's love. Belonging, being claimed. What good had it done him? he'd grown used to it and when he'd needed, she'd turned and fekking ran with her tail between her legs. Guess she preached on the principle of 'Do as I say, Not as I do.' No one over here was willing to stand and fight to the bitter end! There was no one on this side of the field he could depend on ether! It was all just different shades of the same Nothingness!!!

And he couldn't convince himself to believe any of it would ever change. He didn't have hope. There! That was the word he was looking for. Now that he had it he had a central point to focus the war waging behind his eyes. And with the finding of this word, he bit down, hard. He could no longer bear to meet the woman's eyes. What reason did he have to believe she's still be there later? Returning his face forward, he squeezed his eyes shut, the first wave of tears finally falling. He'd been in Alacritis for some time now, and sure he'd teared up a time or too, but he'd never cried. This would be the first time he'd cried, in a long time. They where the tears of someone who believed themself to be alone. Because he truly was alone. He was terribly alone. Honestly, what did he have? Who did he have anymore? His nose aimed down, lips pulling back in a painful snare. The scars across his maw scrunching together as he fought to suppress what ever this horrid and weak, pathetic creature he was right now. His chest throbbed he just wanted it to go away so bad. Why? Why did he have to be the good soul? Why couldn't he have been born with no soul like the only wolves who seemed to be successful at anything in this world? As the tears fell freely with his back turned to the slate woman, the Gorgeous slate woman that he believed would only be another Riddle of what could have been soon, he finally made the words stammer from his mouth behind barred teeth. "Hope... Hope's just so far beyond my paws." A knot formed in his throat as he tried to speak. It was hard to answer her and attempt to fight back this dreadful weak thing that he was at the same time. "I have nothing but bad memories here. Nothing but broken dreams and lost faces. I can't seemed to find something that will firmly tie me to this place. Something that will tether and keep me." His eyes opened as the breeze hit the brush, and wind crossed the sky. Tears still coming down, he raised his nose to see out of the opening in the branches up into the firy sky of the setting sun. His next words being more painful than the others, as they where an indication that even he was the very thing that he hated. "Some day even I'll be just that. Just another echo of something that was potential. And is no more."

It was a terrible thing, to have a soul. Even worse to try and use it. This world wasn't interested in people with souls. It had no use for them.