Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2012 0:19:54 GMT -5
Silence. The absence of sound. A stillness to the air. A muteness of the world around him. Some sought nothing but this often too rare experience at the end of their day. He abhorred it, as the slaves hated the weighted chains binding their wrists and ankles, he found no greater offense to this life than silence. For it was in these times that they came for him. Clawing up from the blackest depths of his mind with snapping jaws and poisonous nails. Shattering the restraints that bound them as surely as a hammer would to glass. Tenacious in their bidding, voracious in their hunger for what remained of his control, savage, ruthless, and wicked they came.
No matter the strength in his arm, what weapon he clutched vainly in his grasp, what armor he bore upon his broad shoulders, one could not escape that which lurked within themselves. Had he been a pious man, he would have bent the knee and cast his pleas to the heavens. Seeking refuge in the comforting touch of those celestial figures not for the realm of man. Though, he, above all others, knew the dark truth.
There was no aid to be found hiding in those bright diamonds cast upon the obsidian blanket in the night sky. No scripture scribed by the hand of the divine to guide him. There was nothing. Those all knowing deities were nothing more than man's attempt at immortality. Their feeble attempt to personify that which they could never be. Loving, powerful, omnipotent, generous, wise, chaste. They were worse than tales told around the fires of men. For those tales, with the truth stretched to a point near breaking, still held some measure of truth.
ThhuuuUMMP![/b] In the dead air of the night the sound rung as loud as the bell tolling for mass. This was his salvation. This was his service. Spitting the cork from between his teeth, light green orbs watched as the cork rolled away, lost in the underbrush. He wouldn't need it again. Say one thing for Fenris, say he was devout. The bottle was set to his waiting lips, turning the end upwards in a mockery of a salute. Amber fire rolled past his teeth, over his tongue, as it seared the line down into his gut where it would roll and burn.
"....still alive..." A voice that sounded like stones grinding together issued roughly.
Yes, still alive. That voice chuckled in the space between his ears, mocking him with each word. This is the penalty of life. The penance that must be paid for still having a heart that beats, for having warm blood rush through your veins, for air still filling your lungs. The curse of life, fool, is remembrance.
In defiance he brought the bottle back to his mouth. So eager was he to silence that disembodied voice that the thick glass mouth crashed upon his lip, pinching it between teeth and bottle. The flesh parting to taint the alcohol with crimson droplets, the taste of blood in his mouth easily depicted over the rush of spirits. Growling at the pain, he refused to take the bottle away. He'd rather drown in his drink than surrender his cause.
As the last of that liquid fire swirled from the bottle into his mouth he let the thing simply fall. Bouncing on his thigh to roll away into the darkness, bloody spittle frothing at the edges of his lips as he took that first desperate breath. He had denied himself a fire this night, knowing that a chilly night was less of a struggle than the trouble a fire might have brought. It mattered not now, for the bottle was already beginning to take it's effects. His head felt light, heavy limbs moved easily as he leaned back further against the side of the wayward pine, the tips of his fingers and nose no longer felt cold, just pleasantly tingling. The sounds of his boots moving through the dried pine needles came to his ears muffled.
Reaching to the side, fingers no longer as dexterous as they had been, fumbled with the opening of his pack. Hands delving down into the depths as he sought the last bottle. Fumbling it only a few times before he wrestled it from the confines. Sighing as he brought the bottle up towards his mouth, teeth already cutting through the wax and digging into the cork. Fenris froze in place, one hand around the bottle, it's end in his mouth, spit pooling and dribbling down a stubble covered chin.
This was the gambit. Here was the riddle of drink. Too much and he would not be able to rouse himself should something less concerned with his well being than he was stumble upon him. Too little and those devilish dreams would again find him and torment him through his slumber.
Looking down at the dark swirling liquid, he realized.....the he didn't care.
Setting it to his lips and tipping it back he drank to oblivion.
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