from the sunlight that surrounds you [mutts v. Sunfell]

but fix your eyes on me

i guess i'm all you have

and i swear you'll see the dawn again

"Stop whining." Another command - but this one scrapes itself across my heart. Mom, storming away from the couch. Mom, dragging me out of bed. Mom, sitting across from me the day after Dad's funeral. Mom, always okay and I, never quite whole. Even before Dad died she made it clear I was more of my father's child and how disappointed she was with that. "We named you Steel so you would be strong," she would hiss with frustration, pulling the covers off of my curled up frame. "Not weak and pathetic."

I know she is stronger than I'll ever be, and I know she was embarrassed to see my cry, and I know she already mourned me and buried my body the day they called my name out on that stage - but she's still my Mom. I'm all she had left of Dad. Perhaps burying me now was easier than burying me later. Dad shook her to her core but she rose above the grief when I was buried alive by it. We were a thousand feet apart and I begged her to dig me up and she tried, at least, for a while. It's not that she couldn't reach me - it's that she gave up on me half way.

The look in Perdita's eyes the moment they found me crawling along the ground said that she'd given up on me too. Throwing a shovel, a sword, a crossbow aside. It's all the same. Now, as she scoffs and frowns and carries my weight with hers, she makes it known: I am a lost cause.

I know it's true. I know, I want to say. I'm sorry. I know. The same way my energy drains with the blood in my body Perdita's promise in me leaves and I watch it pool at her feet as she fires another arrow. The sight of two boots attached to her legs makes my chest ache with such jealousy it pulls me back down into the earth. Safe, dark, familiar.

Another canon in the distance pulls me up from underneath the soil and plants me back into the fight. "Surely both of you can handle the other one." Sarcasm drips from her lips like blood on the back of the muttation and before I have a chance to hurl my body towards Niko it lunges at him, scratching a deep scarlet wound across his legs.

"N-Niko wait!" I hobble, choking on panic and pain and desperate to prove myself useful in this state. "I can help!"

The metallic brown of my stump's bandages blooms new patches of red and despite its protests I clamber forward regardless, knowing damn well I can't keep up like this for much longer.

No more time for words, I speak with a grunt and a swing of my arm.

if we come back and we’re broken
unworthy and ashamed
give us something to believe in

and the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made
and the sign flashed out its warning
in the words that it was forming

Your brow furrows, but now isn't the time to stop and contemplate the implications of your latest realization. If Perdita's that much better off without you then it's hard to say why you're here to begin with. The only thing you can sort out before turning your sights back to the battle at hand is that this is a question better kept to yourself. Nothing good can come from pointing out how your presence does little except hold her back.

Attempting to once again position yourself between Steel and the heavily wounded lizard, you take a deep breath and swing your falcata once again. Maybe this time you can prove that you're not just here to be dead weight.

WIP until migraine

( C H O O S E Y O U R O W N A D V E N T U R E )



( You hit... )

—

( You miss... )

—

and the sign said, "the words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls and tenement halls"
and whispered in the sounds of silence

and the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made
and the sign flashed out its warning
in the words that it was forming

flee flee flee

and the sign said, "the words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls and tenement halls"
and whispered in the sounds of silence